AZ: Giffords Targeted by Extremist Elements of Republican and Democratic Parties

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was among those shot in the Tucson massacre earlier today, has been targeted by extremist elements within both the Republican and Democratic parties over the course of the last two years.  Giffords was on Sarah Palin's infamous "hit list" and a "bulls eye" was placed on her district by Markos Moulitsas, who put her name on a "target list" of Democrats who "sold out the Constitution."  It is not surprising to learn that Giffords is known as "a moderate with an independent streak." 

OH: Mistrial Declared in Case of Former Constitution Party Candidate

From WHIO radio news:

There is a mistrial in the sex case against former U.S. Senate candidate Eric Deaton. The New Lebanon man was on trial on charges of having unlawful sexual contact with a minor. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict during deliberations Thursday. . . .

OH: Trial Begins for Former Constitution Party Senate Candidate Accused of Sex with Minor

From the Dayton Daily News:

Eric W. Deaton, the former third-party candidate for U.S. Senate, admits having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl, but is adamant that no sex occurred before the girl’s 16th birthday, his attorney said Monday, Jan. 3. . . .

Deaton, 43, of New Lebanon is charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The indictment alleges that, between March 2006 and March 2007, he engaged in sexual conduct with a girl who was between the ages of 13 and 15. . . .

Deaton, the Constitution Party candidate for Sen. George Voinovich’s seat, received more than 61,000 votes in the Nov. 2 election . . .

US Pirate Party: Another Resignation? Faultlines Apparent in Response to Operation:Payback (Update)

The US Pirate Party appears to be in disarray following the resignation of at least one and perhaps two of the party's officers.  As noted here yesterday, the party's legal officer, Andrew Norton, resigned Monday in protest of the leadership's failure to confront Operations Officer Jay Emerson over a controversial immigration proposal that he had allegedly floated online.  That proposal was picked up and excerpted at TPID, but it has since been deleted from the website where it was originally published.  There is word that another officer has now resigned over the matter, but this has not been confirmed, as the Pirate Party's website is "temporarily unavailable" and inquiries for comment went unanswered as of this writing.  (Update: A post at the USPP's Facebook page links to yesterday's post here at TPID, and confirms that two officers have in fact resigned, without any further comment.) 

If this seems an overreaction to a single dispute over a blog post that has been deleted, it is worth considering that the immigration proposal controversy may have become a proxy for a simmering antagonism over Operation Payback.  In recent weeks, tensions have been building within the Pirate Party over the appropriate response to the Anonymous "Operation:Payback" campaign of DDoS attacks which began in September and appear to have ended on November 5th.  From Wikipedia:

Operation Payback is an ongoing, coordinated group of attacks on internet piracy opponents by internet activists. It started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites, piracy proponents decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents in return. It snowballed from there into a wave of attacks on several major anti-piracy groups. Operation Payback is affiliated with Anonymous.

Encyclopedia Dramatica relays the initial "resolution" announcing the operation:

Anonymous is sick and tired of these corporations seeking to control the internet in their pursuit of profit. Anonymous cannot sit by and do nothing while these organizations stifle the spread of ideas and attack those who wish to exercise their rights to share with others. Anonymous will not just watch while others are attacked. Their servers have been shut down and they will remain so for as long as there is no true freedom of information and data.

Following retaliation against the original target, the operation expanded to include the websites of the MPAA, the RIAA and even Gene Simmons, among others.  In mid-November the US and UK Pirate Parties released an open letter to Operation:Payback calling for a cease-fire and urging activists to "seek out a legal method to express your frustration and disquiet with the copyright industry, and their perversions of copyright law for personal gain." 

In a post at Politics & 2P, then-Legal Officer of the US Pirate Party, Andrew Norton, stated that he was the "main architect behind the letter" and laid out his reasons for opposing the attacks.  The discussion that ensued in the comments section of an article at Torrent Freak relaying the letter gives one a good sense of the internal debate concerning Operation:Payback – is it merely vandalism, is it principled civil disobedience? – and exposes the fault lines over the issue within the US Pirate Party, as one "Jay Emerson" clearly states his opposition to Norton's position on the matter, writing that he is "in full support of e-activism."

Given this state of affairs, and the fact that the US Pirate Party website is down, is it unreasonable to wonder whether Anonymous has set its sights on the USPP?

AL: Constitution Party Calls for Resignation of Rep. for Conflict of Interest in Oil Spill Contracting Scheme

From the Press Register:

The Constitution Party of Alabama is calling for the resignation of state Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, after it was revealed his company received $639,000 in contract work in response to the BP PLC oil spill. John Holland, the upstart party’s Gulf Coast coordinator for Alabama, suggested Tuesday that the senator was not responsibly representing Baldwin County. “These allegations along with apparent retaliation against county employees who raised questions about the dealings, in the views of the Constitution Party, make Sen. Pittman unfit to represent the citizens of his district,” Holland said in a news release.

US Pirate Party Legal Officer Resigns

You might recall this post from last week, reporting that member(s) of the US Pirate Party had considered helping international students in the US maintain their work visas.  A controversy over this individual's proposal, among other things, has apparently led the party's legal officer to resign in protest.  Andrew Norton explains his reasons for quitting his post with the party at Politics & 2P:

The main issue has been the flagrant, and repeated violations of the party Constitution, by one officer, Jay Emerson. In a period of one week, between 9 and 12 violations of the constitution were committed over three separate, documented instances, by this officer. Each of these violations has a penalty specified – 'may be removed from office with cause'. . . . 

On thursday November 18th, a 'news' article was posted [see update at end] (the disclaimer that '*Note: This is not officially proposed by the USPP, was added November 27th'), saying that the USPP was going to start employing people from overseas, because those people were having problems getting their student visa's supported . . .  Anybody with a high school education or better knows what this is called. “Immigration visa Fraud”. . . . It's about 8 different violations of the party constitution, and can even lead to the party being shut down.

The party leadership's non-responsiveness to Norton's concerns is among the primary reasons for his resignation.  Read the whole thing.  On a different note, see also Norton's recent article, "Breaking the 2-Party Two-Step."

NJ Independent: Founding Fathers "Rolling Over in their Graves" at Democrat's Arrogance and Hubris

From the Courier Post Online:

U.S. Rep. John Adler on Tuesday sought to minimize the import of third-party candidates while he was bookended by two long-shot hopefuls for the 3rd Congressional District seat. . . . "I don't think third-party candidates, with all due respect to these gentlemen," Adler said "and that other fellow are ever particularly relevant in elections in New Jersey." . . . "We have a tradition of voting Democrat or Republican so I think it's unfortunately sort of a distraction from the real choices that voters from this district have to make," Adler continued. . . .

"When Congressman Adler suggested there's no place for third-party candidates . . .," Donahue began . . . ". . . I saw the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves," Donahue continued. "I'm extremely disappointed by the arrogance and hubris by the congressman to make such a statement. Our Founding Fathers wanted citizen candidates in House of Representatives."  

Boston Herald Headlines "Tim Cahill Camp Shocker": Shocking Innuendo or Shocking Ignorance?

An article entitled "Tim Cahill Camp Shocker" in the Boston Herald reports that a top strategist has resigned from the Cahill campaign:

Treasurer Tim Cahill’s floundering gubernatorial bid suffered another huge blow last night when his top strategist quit, saying the independent candidate’s reluctance to attack his rivals has cost him the election and now is hurting Republican Charlie Baker’s chances.

“We have to deal with reality as it is and not the way it ought to be,” said John Weaver, a national GOP powerbroker. “I would prefer Tim Cahill be the next governor. That’s not going to happen.”

Many will recall that it became uncouth to refer to tea party activists as "tea baggers" once the definition of the latter slang term became more widely known. But what about "shocker"? 

AZ: Greens Seek to Remove Republican Party Plants from Green Ballot

From KSWT:

 The Arizona Green Party will ask a judge on Thursday to remove 11 of the party's nominees from the November ballot. The party calls the nominees "sham candidates" and says they were placed on the ballot "to mislead voters and rig the election process."

CO: Litigious Republican Party Activists Seek to Purge Tancredo from Ballot

From the Denver Channel:

Tom Tancredo will take the stand in Denver court Monday to fight for his right to appear on the November ballot as the American Constitution Party's candidate for governor.Two Republican activists, Marian Olsen and Joseph Harrington, filed a lawsuit Tuesday saying longtime Republican Tancredo's July 27 certification as a third-party candidate for governor violated state law and the American Constitution Party's bylaws and rules.

DC: Media Greenout Continues

From On the Wilder Side:

I am used to my local paper, Newsday, having a Greenout in its reporting on politics. I am not talking about the usual Greenout where they pretend there are no other candidates than the corporate Democratic/Republican candidate.  I am talking about where they report on another similarly situated candidate and give short shrift to the Green Party candidate.  . . . Now it’s the AP‘s turn.  I am a little shocked that a national press syndicate would be so blatant.   In an AP article on the DC Shadow Representative election, the AP refused to even give the Green Party [notice the AP won't even capitalize Green Party] candidate a name much less give her an equal paragraph to the Republican candidate.

GA: Online Nazi Community Demonstrates Longtime Support for Republican Gubernatorial Candidate

From a post at Poli-Tea on an ongoing flap between Republican and Libertarian activists in Georgia:

Though it does not follow from [the Libertarian] Bittner's comment that "Nathan Deal and everyone associated with the Georgia Republican Party are white supremacist Naizs because they’re against illegal immigration," as the Republican pundit alleges, in the present context it is worth noting that white supremacists and Nazis do support Republican gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal because he is against illegal immigration. If, as I've documented before, the Communist Party and Communist Party front groups support the Democrats, does not a "fair and balanced" assessment of the major parties demand investigation of Nazi support for Republicans? A search of the web forum Stormfront demonstrates longtime support for Republican Nathan Deal in the white supremacist and Nazi community . . .

Read the whole thing.

AZ: Republicans Allegedly Seeking to Hijack Green Party Primary

From Ballot Access News:

This year, the ballot-qualified Arizona Green Party, which is required under state law to nominate by primary, has in influx of candidates who are apparently not bona fide Greens, and who have refused to meet with Green Party activists and leaders.  There is evidence that political consultants who are associated with Republicans recruited these candidates.  See this blog post.

PA: Fascist Democrats Expunge Green Candidate for US Senate from Ballot

According to the AP and the Times Leader, Green Party candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania, Mel Packer, has withdrawn from the race.  Packer had "only" about 20,000 petition signatures and needed over 1900 valid signatures to stay in the race.  Packer said he had neither the "time nor the money" to fight the petition challenges filed by fascist Democrat Mel Packer.  A coalition of third party groups had earlier asked Democrats and Republicans to refrain from frivolous petition challenges.  True to form, Democrats and Republicans refused to oblige their fellow citizens. 

PA-7: Independent Responds to Smears, Denounces Defamatory Tactics of Democrats and Republicans

From 3rd Party Independent Pulse, a press release from Jim Schneller and independent candidate in PA-7:

    Jim Schneller, candidate for U.S. Representative for the 7th district of Pennsylvania, returns comment on a recent flurry of reports and accusations that the Lentz campaign, or the Democrat Party, have assisted the Schneller campaign by collecting signatures. “Reading these articles has been an exercise in stomaching a half-baked accusation dressed up like a scandal, and is as tiresome as watching two mice pushing a pancake around a plate.”

    The practice of bald accusations and muck raking is an ongoing objection of the Jim Schneller for Congress campaign to current two-party election practices in our nation, where human interest replaces gathering of fact, and independent candidacies are discouraged by way of manipulative herding of the populace back and forth, election to election, while candidates with integrity succumb to overestrictiveness, and often wither.  Open debate between candidates ought to occur at a frequency of weeks, rather than months, so the public could judge character and wisdom, rather than become attuned to theatrics and meaningless “sport.”

CT: John Mertens Backs Opposition to "Affiliate and Participate," Sec. of State's Major Party Propaganda Campaign and Recruitment Drive

John Mertens, an independent candidate for US Senate in Connecticut, has said he strongly supports the growing opposition to "affiliate and participate," the major party propaganda campaign and recruitment drive launched by Sec. of the State Susan Bysiewicz early last month. Since Daniel Reale, an independent-libertarian candidate for Congress in CT-2, lodged a formal complaint against Bysiewicz's propaganda drive, the Green Party candidate in the same race and the Free and Equal Foundation have come out in support of his efforts. See this post for background and source-links. Contacted for comment via email, Mertens wrote:

As a third-party activist for many years, Chair of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, and independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut in 2010, I strongly support Dan Reale's efforts to oppose the Secretary of the State's use of tax payers' dollars to promote partisanship. I've contacted Dan and offered my assistance.

PA-15: Towne Campaign Cuts Ties with Controversial Band, Calls on "Republocrats" to Stop Playing Games

From the Jake Towne campaign:

Following an interview with Bobby Gunther Walsh to “do my homework,” personal remarks made by Poker Face band members in the Forum section of their website were reviewed and found to be extremely disturbing, specifically remarks about the Holocaust. These remarks were confirmed with the band and the campaign and band mutually agreed to disassociate and cancel the band’s appearance at this Friday’s Freedom Concert, which will take place at 7 pm this Friday in Northampton.

I condemn the holocaust and the deaths of ~6 million Jews as well as other groups such as Russians POWs, political prisoners and gypsies who died as well. In my travels abroad, I’ve walked through Nazi concentration camps, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the Nanjing Massacre Museum in China and places all over Asia where the Japanese committed WW2 atrocities, and these experiences has affected me deeply.
. . .

the chief “issue” Callahan and Dent are discussing in the papers is whether Callahan’s brother-in-law received favorable treatment during a 2007 car crash. I call upon these Republocrat career politicians to stop playing their “politics-as-usual” games and make themselves available to the public to debate and focus on the crucial issues like the deficit, unemployment and the costly nation-building wars abroad.

See also the Morning Call and PA2010.

Free and Equal Statement on the Connecticut Sec. of State Major Party Propaganda Campaign and Recruitment Drive

Free and Equal as issued a statement on CT Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz's "affiliate and participate," major party propaganda campaign and recruitment drive:

Dan Reale lodged a formal complaint against Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz with the Office of State Ethics, the State Elections Enforcement Commission and the Federal Election Commission. . . . Dan Reale is a Libertarian currently petitioning to be on the ballot for U.S. House in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District. Dan was a recent guest on our Free and Equal radio show and that interview can be heard at our website.

The “Affiliate and Participate” campaign includes TV and radio commercials with Susan Bysiewicz urging unaffiliated voters to join the Republican or Democratic Party and vote in their primary. . . .

“Bysiewicz is clearly asking independents and voters in other alternative political parties to join the Republican or Democratic Parties,” said Christina Tobin, CEO and founder of Free and Equal Elections Foundation. “Joining one of the two power parties is only one way voters can affiliate and participate in our election process. Bysiewicz is blatantly failing to educate voters about all of their options by concentrating her message to urge people join the two political parties she mentions.” . . .

“Bysiewicz is using her office to solely promote membership in the Republican and Democratic Parties with this public campaign and I believe that is wrong. Why isn’t she running TV commercials asking voters to participate in candidate selection by signing petitions for Green, Libertarian, Independent, Working Families or Connecticut for Lieberman party candidates?

A Libertarian Take on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"

From the LP blog:

Recently, there has been uproar over plans to build an Islamic cultural center blocks away from Ground Zero in New York City. While the city council and Mayor Bloomberg are in favor of this project, conservative leaders such as Sarah Palin and other media pundits criticize its location by stating it's “ too raw, too real.”

Many of the same people who are attempting to block this project also hold great reverence for the Founding Fathers. However, the Founding Fathers undertook great risks to secure religious tolerance for our country, something they were not granted in Britain.

This entire debate rests on two founding principles: religious freedom and property rights.

PA-15: Is Charlie Dent an Anti-Government Extremist?

As noted here yesterday, in Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district, incumbent Republican Charlie Dent has begun grasping at straws to keep independent Jake Towne out of any and all debates at all costs. From Poli-Tea:

Over the weekend, Dent announced that he would not take part in any forum that included Towne, and demanded that his Democratic rival do the same, on the grounds that one of the numerous bands slated to play at a Towne campaign event celebrating their successful ballot access petition drive has been deemed "extremist" by the Anti-Defamation League. . . . Simply put, the Dent campaign alleges that Towne is an anti-Semite, a bigot and an anarchist based on a loose association with a popular local rock band [i.e. Poker Face] that has made controversial statements.

Imagine that, a rock band with controversial views. Ironically, as the post goes on to point out, Dent is a strong supporter of Arizona's new anti-immigration law; the Anti-Defamation League has denounced this law as "misguided, bigoted, biased . . . and un-American." According to his own logic, one might justifiably wonder to what extent Dent should be considered a misguided, bigoted, un-American racist. But is Dent also an anti-government extremist? His relations to the local music scene might prove revelatory in this regard. On his official website, Dent celebrates the Bethlehem, PA, Musikfest, calling it part of the area’s “cultural richness” and “America’s Music Festival”:

Historic Bethlehem is a culturally rich area of Northampton County . . . Musikfest, dubbed America’s Music Festival, is a 10-day event each August, which showcases music from every genre imaginable.

This year, Musikfest is being headlined by Sublime with Rome and special guests The Dirty Heads and The Movement. One of The Dirty Heads' well-known tunes is entitled “Lay Me Down.” It is a love song about a couple who kill a local sheriff while on the run from the police. From the song's second verse:

They wouldn't stop running till They found a paradise/ But the sheriff finally found them with his eyes seeing red./ So the lovers had to shoot him down And fill em full of lead/ They were finally free To find a place to lay their head.

Is this the sort of culture that Dent endorses when he praises Bethlehem's Musikfest as part of the area's "cultural richness"? In lauding Musikfest as "America's Music Festival," does Dent endorse the killing of police? Is Dent an anti-government extremist? According to the logic of the Dent campaign, we may well have to answer all of these questions in the affirmative. I wonder what's on Dent's iPod. Is he willing to stand by every statement ever made by all the individuals in his favorite bands?

Of course, only the most intellectually and morally bankrupt individuals would denounce someone for controversial statements allegedly made by someone else. But that seems to be the Dent campaign's mode of operation at the present moment. And it reeks of desperation.