Greeting Image of the Month
From Mary Buzuma
"The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place.”
Thanks for the Memories
As we approach the 2015 state convention in Kalamazoo, the end of my second consecutive term as chair draws near, I wish thank everyone who has helped to keep the ball of liberty rolling in a positive direction. I do not plan to run for a third consecutive term. It's been a good run, I feel, and umder my encouragement we held several special brainstorming gatherings on how to be an even more effective organization. Thus a good knowledge base has been established as a foundation for future success.
In the previous April newsletter I was premature in asking you to join me in welcoming our new Webmaster and soon-to-be newsletter editor, Mr. Jonathan Osment from the Wayne County affiliate, as the LEC in its April meeting rescinded that designation—which of course would only have been officially in effect for five weeks, anyway, until the convention proper when the new leadership decides who will fill the Webmaster role. Fortunately, Brian Wright, the outgoing Webmaster consented to resume his duties and stay active until the convention—with Jonathan's gracious assistance. I thank both Brian and Jonathan for their fine efforts.
Jason Brandenburg is leading the Kalamazoo-area Libertarians in hosting this year's state convention, complete with a pub crawl in world renowned craft beer town and t-shirt design contest. Check out the article below and let's see everyone there. The convention page is here: http://michiganlp.org/?page_id=4013
In Liberty,
Mary
We have an exciting convention for LPMers and guests this year, in the original home of Gibson guitars and major player in founding the modern American craft beer movement: Kalamazoo. In fact, Friday night (5/8) we will host a pub crawl! [For $20 you get a snazzy LPM t-shirt, august company, and transportation to downtown and back to the hotel... which is the Holiday Inn West.] Convention speakers are:
This is the 'in between' convention year, with officers and bylaws/platform up for reconfiguration. Please don't miss what promises to be an auspicious and fertile event... one for the books. We're trying to keep costs down in these trying times on the threshold of 'rEvolution.' So come one, come all. Details here.
By Leonard Schwartz, LPM Political Director
Libertarians' greatest success is in nonpartisan elections. There are 92 LP members currently serving in nonpartisan elected positions; four in Michigan.
Nearly all Michigan cities have nonpartisan elections this November. Here is how to get on the ballot:
1. Contact your city clerk to learn (a) the deadline for submitting candidate paperwork and (b) the number of valid signatures you need. Also ask if you can get on the ballot by paying a filing fee instead of petitioning and whether the fee is refundable. Your city clerk will provide petition forms and an "Affidavit of Identity."
2. Unless you will pay a filing fee, gather signatures from city residents.
First ask friends to sign. Some might also help get signatures. Next petition door-to-door in your neighborhood. Petition only in daylight. Saturday and Sunday afternoons are best. Because some persons aren't registered to vote at the address they put on the petition, get at least 20% more signatures than you need. [Read full column here.]
The initial incident occurred July 30, 2014, on the afternoon of a candidates' forum on the Northwest campus of Wayne County Community College District. Scotty, a professor at WCCCD and at that time a candidate for Detroit city clerk, was taking photos of his incumbent opponent's (Janice Winfrey's) questionably placed signage and handing out campaign literature.
Campus popos did not like the effrontery and proceeded to body slam and confine him w/o water for three hours in handcuffs in a closet... causing long-term injury to his right hand. Per US Third World protocols, Scotty was charged with trespassing (at his own school). Judge Roberta Archer ruled against him on March 11.
An appeal has been filed, a robust fundraiser is now in effect. Please donate what you can. Sentencing held June 11 if the appeal should fail.
Scotty notes of trial to Webmaster: http://michiganlp.org/?p=4025
From news release, media article by Pete Hendrickson, Tim O'Brien, respectively
On July 25th of last year Doreen Hendrickson was convicted of criminal contempt of court for which she was just sentenced on April 9th to a term of 18 months in a federal prison. Given 60 days to report, her attorneys are frantically working on an appeal while friends and family mount a campaign to get the Michigan governor and/or attorney general to intervene in defense of one of our fellow citizens against this blatantly unconstitutional attack by the federal government. [Incidentally, the court added a requirement that Mrs. Hendrickson must sign her name to the government dictated testimony, attesting that it is her own, within 30 days or report for immediate imprisonment.]
The feds certainly seem determined to get this woman to officially and publicly recant. It’s like the witch trials during the Inquisition where confession was thought to bring the accused some measure of cleansing redemption. Those were certainly the good old days for prosecutors — no need to twist the law into grotesque contortions when you can just twist the victim’s body on the rack. Click here or on the image above to access the Gofundme fundraiser for Doreen.
From her attorney: “This case is unprecedented. Mrs. Hendrickson is appealing, and we are confident that the Sixth Circuit will do the right thing and see this trial and conviction as unsupportable in a free society,” said her attorney, Mark Cedrone of Philadelphia. Fearing, however, that she will be made to suffer this penalty even while waiting for her appeal to be heard, Mrs. Hendrickson has asked Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette to stand in vindication of her Constitutionally-secured rights between her and the federal officials.
Governor Snyder and AG Schuette have not yet responded to Mrs. Hendrickson's request.
Please take action to defend and fund Doreen Hendrickson's freedom. The constitutional violations--First and Fourth and Fifth amendments (if a judge can order you to commit perjury, it can order you to commit murder)--are unprecedented and if allowed to stand mean the judiciary is, by official judicial action, a lawless mob. Contact information: Pete Hendrickson newsman@losthorizons.com Questions concerning the ongoing federal proceedings should be directed to Mrs. Hendrickson's counsel at mec@cedrone-mancano.com.
Last December, state lawmakers passed ten laws, each ending by saying they take effect if and only if voters pass an eleventh: the May 5 proposal to amend the Michigan Constitution to make legal a sales tax increase and other changes in the package. These laws range from new gas taxes and vehicle registration fees to new rules for bidding on road projects, earmarks for certain education funds, and funding for numerous additional projects. The complex package is the length of a novel, with far-reaching effects, but voters on May 5th will decide whether all of it, or none, will go into effect.
It's impossible to reduce the massive proposal to only a few words, but this flyer at michigantaxpayers.com covers the biggest and most significant changes made by the proposal. The LEC Libertarian Party of Michigan has issued a resolution opposing Proposal 1. Please go to the polls on Tuesday, May 5, and vote NO. Although, public polling has shown the the proposal is failing, success against such an outrageous extraction is a matter of getting all those who oppose it to the voting booth. Proponents of Proposal 1 want you to be complacent and not show up. Instead show up and crush this proposal in record fashion, and its defeat can be a cultural game changer like Prop 13 in California in 1978.
Take a stroll down memory lane with this excerpt from one of the longest-running state Libertarian newsletters. Click on this link for the full online version of this newsletter.
Former editor and LPM archivist Greg Stempfle has compiled the entire body of available Michigan Libertarian newsletters up on this page of the LPM Website (most if not all of the newsletters have been transferred over to the new site if you have a particular issue you're interested in and it doesn't show up on the page, please contact Webmaster@michiganlp.org).
Addressed mainly to those who have been here close to the beginning, and supported or shepherded at one time or another the LPM thru hard and hopeful times. Also to any of the newer LPMers and politically astute who know what it takes to keep the trains running on time, as well as to be caring and humane, even occasionally funloving in the process. Basically to all who appreciate good conscientious, cause-oriented work. You know who you are. And I've been proud to put in the seat time and modest intelligence to make the Website and this newsletter at least reasonably effective for you for the past six years.
The convention in Kalamazoo this year is going to be a turning point in many ways. For one thing I'm riding off into the sunset for good (insofar as the Website and newsletter operations are concerned) and will not be taking any official role in the party hierarchy... and probably I shall not be running for political office. I have written a book, Leaving the Sandbox, which addresses grand strategy for the LP/LPM, and a followon book, Satyagraha Liberty (I'm confident will be complete by Independence Day this year). For another thing, you will be making the key decision on who will run the state apparatus.
My breakout talk at the convention is going to be a broad brush presentation of the key ideas—both covering grand strategy and practical activity for l/Libertarians "in an era of wanton US federal crimes and terror"—from these books. I do see a need for fundamental transformation at a core level of 'the Party' if we are to be a) relevant and b) responsive to the people's urgent needs for life and liberty. Liberty people must, to quote Buckminster Fuller, 'cease fighting the existing reality, rather build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.' Whether that new model is something 'the LP' is currently constitutionally able to embrace (be comfortable with in a useful role) and can ride to success is an open question.
In any case, I shall be embarked on building this new model in practical reality... with a lot of help from my friends... and all the Good Neighbor Libertarians, many in the LP 'existing reality,' who are devoted to success in bringing real liberty to real people where we live, even those who don't know Murray Rothbard, Lysander Spooner, or Albert Jay Nock.
[Like the effortless power of Gravity Golf, there's a bit of a trick to it... but anyone can figure it out if they truly are prepared to let go of a few key inner barriers and compulsions.] Contact me if you wish; I'll certainly be around and happy to chat. Yes, I'm riding off into the sunset, but I expect many will be riding in my direction. So this is so long, not good bye for the several. Best regards to all.
The Michigan Libertarian is published/posted on the first of each month. Send calendar events and news/articles to e-newsletter@michiganlp.org by the 25th of the prior month. The Michigan Libertarian is one of the longest-running Libertarian newsletters in the country, debuting in 1973 shortly after the founding of the Libertarian Party of Michigan. The "new" Michigan Libertarian (a predominantly online version) debuted on August 1, 2009 and replaced the weekly LPMOnline and the printed-and-mailed ML. We will post the newsletter on the Website and deliver via email on the first of every month. A printed version of the new Michigan Libertarian will be sent free to anyone who signs up, which you may do at the LPM web site www.michiganlp.org (or www.mi.lp.org).
LPM members who need a hard copy may request one be mailed to them by contacting Newsletter URL (Webpage address for this issue of the ML):
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