Bob Barr tells his story on Bloomberg

Bob Barr tells his story. What happened to the Republican Party after the Republican Revolution of 1994? Barr argues in this interview on Bloomberg that it died 4 years later in a meeting with Newt Gingrich right before the 1998 election. However, in his book The Meaning of Is (2004) I learned that things changed much earlier than that. It happened with Newt's cave (p. 223) on the Clinton 1995 budget, where Barr reports that Gingrich meant to discipline Republicans who did not do a 180 with him, with Gingrich that is.

Barr continues, explaining that he stayed in the Republican Party after 1998 because he saw hope yet for reform from within the party. This hope disappeared for him when (1) he heard Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez say that habeas corpus was no longer important and (2) President Bush repeatedly say that he would spy on American citizens within this country without court orders because he was commander-in-chief, even though there's a law that says he can't.

I must say that personally these were exactly the two things I saw in the Bush administration that deeply alarmed me. I remember turning to a friend of mine, while watching Kafka's play Amerika at the Jeune Lune Theatre and saying that Bush needed to be impeached if he didn't back off. That was early 2006. Since then I have changed my mind. Now I support impeaching Cheney instead, after learning more, particularly from Frontline. I continue to be deeply alarmed, and the Democrats are no succor.








Responding to the dull argument in the third video, I say it's not campaign finance that's at the root of the two-party state, it's the form of election. We Americans can address the problem without curtailing political speech, by moving to a form of election that's truly general.

Minnesota Caucus

Here's how Minnesota elects delegates to the National Convention 2008



It all starts at your neighborhood caucus

Tuesday, February 8
7:00 pm

Be there, aloha!

Caucus location for our neighborhood:

Minnehaha Academy North Campus
3100 West River Pkwy
Minneapolis MN 55406

map

You're invited to attend our weekly Minnehaha Meetup to network with other neighbors and prepare for the caucus, every Tuesday until the caucus.


I met a stranger...

I met a stranger at the Caribou Coffee on Minnehaha Parkway and Cedar today.

The stranger had seen the book I was reading, The Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose. He came over and asked me how I liked the book. I told him it was great. It even features an ex-girlfriend of mine in chapter 6, who fought the good fight as an "enterprising" reporter for the New York Times, uncovering the identity of a librarian caught in the crosshairs of a National Security Letter that forbade him from even telling his own family about his situation.

Well, after much discussion I lamented how both parties had participated in the loss of civil liberties, before the Patriot Act. For example, another Princeton classmate of mine, who's a law professor, told me about how President Clinton had prepared the way for the loss of Habeas Corpus with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 he signed into law. The stranger seemed resigned to despair. Nothing to do but accept the inevitable.... What can anyone do? On that note, the stranger left. (Hopefully, what I told him about my support for Ron Paul will sink in.)

There is a way out.

Don't be a stranger.

Attend your caucus.

Attend the meetup.