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Hour 1 -- Freedom's Phoenix Headline News

Hour 2 -- Scott Horton (Scott Horton Radio) on various foreign policy/civil liberty issues, summary of Iowa Caucus and looking forward to New Hampshire, Rand Paul, etc...

Hour 3 -- Carla Gericke (President of the Free State Project) on the FSP's goal of 20,000 signers has been met

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February 5th, 2016

Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock

on LRN.FM / Monday - Friday

9 a.m. - Noon (EST)

Studio Line: 602-264-2800 

 

Hour 1

2016-02-05 Hour 1 Freedom's Phoenix Headline News from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.

Ernest Hancock

Freedom's Phoenix Headline News

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Rand Paul in Retrospect

 

Pragmatism in pursuit of power is no virtue

by Justin Raimondo, February 05, 2016

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We are being treated to many – all too many – prognoses of Rand Paul's presidential campaign and its untimely demise: Bonnie Kristian over at Rare.us blames the rise of ISIS, the latest foreign bogeyman to scare our laptop bombardiers into hiding under their beds: Nick Gillespie blames Donald Trump, the all-purpose piñata of the moment, but otherwise Rand did just fine. Perhaps the most thoughtful of all is Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative, who sees the problem but comes up with the wrong solution.

But we'll get to all that in a moment.

I try not to repeat myself, but when dealing with Sen. Rand Paul it seems unavoidable. Indeed, in order to diagnose the disease that ate away at the heart of what could have been the most successful libertarian – and staunchly anti-interventionist campaign – ever, I have only to quote myself, writing way back in July:

"[T]he Rand Paul that we were all hoping for – someone who would stand up to the War Party and refute their propaganda – is no more, if he ever existed in the first place. Instead of refuting the lies he's joining in the telling of them – and in doing so, he's crossed the Rubicon as far as libertarians and all those who oppose war with Iran are concerned.

"What makes a sad situation far worse is that Sen. Paul's turn toward the neocons hasn't helped him one bit: instead, it's hurt him. In the past few months his support, once in the double digits, has been cut in half. The latest PPP poll has him down to a mere 4 percent. This dramatic drop coincides precisely with his efforts to appease people who are never going to support him. His campaign's effort to 'broaden the base' has in reality marked a turning away from the base of supporters who were brought into politics and the GOP by his father. Not a very smart strategy, but then again the know-it-all 'professionals' running the campaign think they're being 'realistic.' And yet: what good is a self-described pragmatism that turns out to be not very pragmatic?"

I said essentially the same thing even earlier, all the while encouraging Sen. Paul when he was right: but you get the idea.

Sen. Paul began to believe the hype he had generated in the mainstream media, back when he was polling double digits and was effectively the frontrunner. His goose was cooked when President Obama echoed all that "most interesting politician in Washington" hyperbole – it went right to his head. He began to believe that the movement his father had created and so carefully nurtured would follow him anywhere, and that his goal was to straddle the fence between libertarianism and "movement" conservatism. But as Dan McCarthy points out so effectively, there already was a Ted Cruz, who is a much cannier politician than Rand, and all thepilgrimages to Israel and all the meetings with Bill Kristol would never get the neocons off his back. Instead of taking them on, he capitulated to them – and in this election year, weakness is a vote-killer.

CLICK HERE for rest of article

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Rand Paul Demise: Botched Campaign or Apathy on Freedom?

Written by Jim Bovard
Date: 02-04-2016
 

Rand Paul announced that he is suspending his presidential campaign this morning.  How much of the demise of the Rand Paul's effort was due to poor campaign tactics vs. voters not giving a damn about freedom?

In Iowa, Rand's campaign targeted student voters.  But as David Weigel of the Washington Post noted, that tactic fizzled badly. Drew Ivers, Ron Paul's 2012 Iowa chief, told the Post: "His decision to move to the middle… sent us a real signal about the application of his ideology. He muddled on his message, tried to get the left, and I told him it would backfire. … I just saw someone trying to do too much and be too many things to too many people." A Buzzfeed analysis quoted "source close to the campaign" on Steve Grubbs, the campaign's chief Iowa strategist:  "It seemed like he was more concerned with t-shirts than getting out the vote or the caucuses." The Atlantic's Molly Ball noted that she gave up writing a profile of Rand Paul's campaign early on "in part because of the frustration of dealing with Paul's disastrous communications staff."

I was surprised how Rand framed the drug war – as if his primary concern was disproportionate arrests and jailings of minorities.  Feds don't have a right to bust any marijuana smoker.  That could have been a much more compelling message.  Also, with the heroin overdose epidemic in NH, simple words of truth could have resonated strongly there.

In football terms, Rand started his prez campaign on the 40-yard line – he was doing great in the polls in 2014. He ended it by punting from his own end zone. There will likely be some excellent post-mortem analyses of his campaign in the next few days.

According to the Washington Post's Chris Cizzilla, "Rand Paul probably lost the 2016 presidential race on Aug. 19, 2014. That was the day James Foley was beheaded." But Ron Paul's 2008 prez campaign thrived in a far more difficult foreign policy atmosphere than Rand Paul faced in 2016. Warmongers redefined American politics after the rise of ISIS – in part because of the lack of pushback from folks like Rand Paul.

On the other hand, it is unclear how many Americans still give a damn about freedom.  If folks are more enthused about carpet bombing foreigners than leashing Leviathan, any pro-freedom candidate will have a hard row to hoe. There is plenty of evidence of appalling apathy on freedom in this nation.

Rand Paul had quite a few excellent riffs in the debates. Especially on foreign policy, his comments were far sounder & saner than many of his Republican competitors.  He was too honest to advocate carpet bombing to solve anything.

Rand Paul has done heroic work in the Senate on drone killings, NSA spying, the Federal Reserve, and other issues. I  hope he is reelected and continues to do yeoman work defending liberty in the Senate. His best days may be ahead of him.  

UPDATE: Rand was doing worse in NH polls than I assumed – only 2.8%, according to a Daily Beast piece. Lordie, NH should have been his natural turf – esp. with theFree State Project activists there. I am mystified how he could poll so badly there but I can better understand why he threw in the towel before what might have been a debacle result.

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Statement from Ammon Bundy Feb 4 2016

Written by Ammon Bundy
Date: 02-04-2016
Subject: Revolutions, Rebellions & Uprisings

Dear Friends,

Hundreds of people were freely coming into the refuge to get education on their rights.  Many group presentations were given each day.  On Saturday, the 24th, ten ranchers from Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona nullified their grazing contracts with the BLM and U.S. Forest Service.  On Saturday, the 24th, grand jury administrators from Nebraska and Florida were forming a grand jury to review the abuses in the Hammond case.  Tuesday, the 27th, the day LaVoy was killed, we began releasing documents exposing criminal acts by the government.  The evening of the 27th, a meeting was scheduled with Grant County residents to give a presentation with those at the refuge.  To give their presentation to hundreds of people in the county, including the county Sheriff.

The FBI attacked those who were to give the presentation on the way to this peaceful meeting, leaving hundreds at the meeting with no speakers.  On Wednesday, the 28th, a follow up meeting was scheduled with Harney County residents with those at the refuge to finalize actions to claim back lands that were taken by the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and United States Forest Service.  This included plans to take action to begin logging again in Harney County and to restore the thriving economy once known to the Harney County residents.  On Thursday evening, the 29th, a meeting was scheduled with Malheur County residents with those at the refuge to give a presentation on the constitution as it pertained to federal limits to land ownership inside the states. This meeting was to occur in Ontario, Oregon.  Hundreds were expected to attend.  The sheriff's Department also accepted the invitation and was scheduled to attend.

On Friday afternoon, the 30th, residents surrounding Jordan Valley, Oregon, had scheduled a seminar with those at the refuge to come out and inform them of how they can protect themselves from a national monument that is to be signed in by President Obama this year, 2016.  This monument is twice the size of Yellowstone, takes up a third of the county's land mass, and will put over 250 ranchers out of business as they know it.  Ranchers from Malheur county were scheduled to nullify their contracts with the U.S. Forest Service.

In the following weeks, meetings were scheduled in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and the State of Washington.  Multiple Skype meetings were also set up throughout the Western U.S.  All these meetings were to discuss how they would stand against the unconstitutional land control by the federal government.  Those at the refuge collected over 50 testimonies of ranchers who lost their family property to the U.S. Government in Harney and surrounding counties.  Hundreds of government documents were compiled by those at the refuge.  Many of the documents exposed abusive actions by federal government officials, Judge Grasty, Harney County Sheriff's Department and direct abuses to the Hammond family.

Escalation of force from the FBI, OSP, and the Sheriff's Department incrementally increased as the education from the refuge expanded.  Government officials knew that if they did not take forceful preemptive action to stop the expanding influence of the refuge, many would begin to stand for land rights as protected by the United States Constitution.  Make no mistake about it: those that were educating at the refuge and are now suffering in jail at this time are political prisoners.

Those at the refuge never pointed a gun and never pulled a trigger to kill.  They chose to educate, giving others the freedom to choose.  The government promoted fear and forceful tactics to control and stop this education.  And ultimately, they used force by the barrel of the gun.

Please watch the video below.

Sincerely,

Ammon Bundy, 2/4/16

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7U0ssZBU4w

Link: To contribute to Ammon's defense: https://www.fundedjustice.com/en/projects/28054-Ammon-Bundy---Legal-Defense-Fund

Ammon Bundy Statement Feb 4 2016:

Hour 2

Hour 2 -- Scott Horton (Scott Horton Radio) on various foreign policy/civil liberty issues, summary of Iowa Caucus and looking forward to New Hampshire, Rand Paul, etc...

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Hour 2

2016-02-05 Hour 2 Scott Horton from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.

Scott Horton (ScottHorton.Org)

 

Scott comes on the show to talk about various foreign policy/civil liberty issues, summary of Iowa Caucus and looking forward to New Hampshire, Rand Paul, etc...

==========================

Scott's previous interviews on the Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock Radio Show:

https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Guest-Page.htm?No=00040

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TOPICS AND REFERENCES...

Hour 3

Hour 3 -- Carla Gericke (President of the Free State Project) on the FSP's goal of 20,000 signers has been met

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Hour 3

2016-02-05 Hour 3 Carla Gericke from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.

Carla Gericke 

President of the Free State Project

Webpage: FreeStateProject.Org

VIDEO: Free State Project Officially Announces 20,000 Signers – 100% Reached

Nearly one hundred liberty-loving early movers were in attendance for the press conference this morning held by the Free State Project at the Radisson in Manchester. FSP founder Jason Sorens spoke on the creation of the FSP and why the first 5,000 participants chose New Hampshire as the destination. Jason said,

"The free state project is working because it gives people hope"

 
That's definitely true for me. When I moved here as an early mover for the FSP in 2006 I was pretty angry about the government. I felt very lonely in Florida, with little more than a handful of libertarians in the area. Now there are more liberty-minded people living at my intersection in Keene than there were in the entire city where I'm from.

With over 1,600 having moved across NH from all around the globe as early movers, (the official FSP move begins today) and having a major impact, it's clear that there is hope for liberty here in the Shire. I'm not angry anymore and haven't been for many years. I expect other libertarians who feel isolated or cornered where they live will have a similar transition when they are surrounded by people who actually care about liberty and are willing to do something about it. It's quite encouraging to be here. Here's the full video of the press conference:

After Jason Sorens' speech, FSP president Carla Gericke got up to address the crowd and journalists in the room, officially announcing that the FSP has reached its goal of 20,000 liberty-minded folks signing and promising to move to New Hampshire within five years of today, Feb 3rd, 2016. It's now been dubbed "Porcupine Day", and happens right after Groundhog Day. (The porcupine is the mascot of the FSP.) Once here, the FSP movers are to put forth the maximum practical effort to achieve liberty in our lifetime. Carla explained to the audience what it took to get the project to completion, including a sustained, expensive ad campaign on Facebook, for which much credit was given to Vince Perfetto who is well known in the NH liberty community as the producer of the excellent documentary, "101 Reasons Liberty Lives in New Hampshire".

All the speakers touched on various successes of early movers, especially within the political system.  It's clear that the FSP's early movers have had more political successes in a decade than the libertarian party has ever had, nationwide, in forty years.

FSP Reaches 100% of its Goal of 20,000 Signers!

To the surprise of some in the crowd, Carla did announce that the FSP would continue to accept signers, as their goal now is to ensure 20,000 libertarians make the move here.  She promised that more on the future of the Free State Project as an organization will be announced at the upcoming convention thrown yearly by the FSP, "Liberty Forum", happening 2/18-2/21 (also held at the Radisson in Manchester) .

The speakers answered several questions from the audience, including on the common objections to the FSP from libertarians considering a move.  Of course, one of the most popular being that, "it's cold in NH".  Ultimately, the panel of speakers, which included Porcfest organizer Matt Philips, agreed that the cold temperatures keep away the fairweather activists and the talkers.  We get the best activists here in NH as a result of this natural filtering process.  Plus, the weather also keeps out statists, though it was pointed out that it was in the 50s today in February, historically the coldest of all twelve months in NH.

With nearly 10% here for the FSP already (1600+ movers plus nearly 300 FSPers who were here at the time of the vote), it's clear to anyone paying attention that New Hampshire is the best destination for libertarians and voluntarists who are willing to get active rather than just complain. Start making your plans to move – the fun's just getting started. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest from across the Shire!