‘Star Trek’ Stars Soar into Hollywood

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Bea Arthur’s TV Daughter Remembers the ‘Golden Girl’

Adrienne Barbeau comes only to ET to talk to Mary Hart about the death of her TV mom, Beatrice Arthur.

For six seasons (1972-1978), Bea and Adrienne played one of TV’s most popular mother and daughters on the controversial Norman Lear series, "Maude," but they were far more than co-stars.

"I loved her dearly and I think she loved me," Adrienne tells Mary.

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Deb Milbrath, Freelance – PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES

TITLE: PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
KEYWORDS: flu, Biden,administration,media,Obama,public health

PUBLICATION DATE: Fri, 01 May 2009

Mexico gets brighter picture of flu spread (Reuters)

Reuters – Mexico started to get a better picture of its outbreak of a dangerous new flu strain on Friday, widening testing as a conveniently timed long holiday gave people a chance to ride out the epidemic at home.
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Rahm Wants It: Emanuel Tightens Grip On Treasury Department

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 20, Timothy Geithner took control of the Treasury Department, directing the government’s response to the financial crisis.

Within three weeks, the White House tightened its grip, alarmed by the poor reaction to Mr. Geithner’s performance during the rollout of his rescue plan, government officials say. Since then, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been so involved in the workings of the Treasury that “Rahm wants it” has become an unofficial mantra among some at the Treasury, according to government officials.

More on Rahm Emanuel

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Thief steals 2 wheels from California AG’s car (AP)

AP – Even California’s top law enforcement official isn’t immune to petty crime.
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White House Correspondents Dinner Gossip Dished By Web Site

What will Washington do now that the 100-days hoopla is over?

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Australia orders probe into mouse plague (AFP)

AFP – Australia ordered an investigation into a nursing home where elderly and bed-ridden residents were gnawed by a swarming plague of mice.
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How could they be so dumb? Must have been a committee

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

“A committee is a group of individuals who, by themselves, can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.”

- Fred Allen, American comedian

I confess to disappointment that the Reason interviewer, David Weigel, did not choose to ask on what issues Bob Barr agrees with the Libertarian Party, either its minimal government faction or its anarchists. Except for not liking the War in Iraq and disapproving of the Patriot Act he voted for this was not clear from that interview. Perhaps someone could send him a checklist and he can let us know where he does agree.

There are several things that need to be said, among these are issues that make you an ideological Libertarian, the issue of the Constitution, the Libertarian Party as a political vehicle and why Republicans are now kicking the wheels, and the impropriety of a National Chairman and National Executive Director covertly acting in ways that are clearly outside their sphere of operation.
 
That is a lot for one short article but I will make it brief.

The Libertarian Party is a political vehicle originated to move Americans towards recognition of our individual rights and personal autonomy. Drug legalization is not controversial within the LP. This does not mean just medical marijuana; it means either decriminalization or legalization of ALL drugs. Some few members are not there yet. They are tolerated because of the learning curve but that has changed over the last several years with the public sentiment for drug legalization picking up, many Americans now understand that incarceration for drugs creates a stream of income for government through asset forfeiture and through the prisons themselves. I was, for many years, a member of a rather conservative Republican group, the National Federation of Republican Women. Within that organization there is also a bell curve on this subject. Barr is less libertarian on drug legalization than most of the Republican Women I know.

The State never had a right to mandate anything about marriage and certainly should not be asserting a right to extend that role today. If you take the concept of inherent rights seriously then the State should never have made ANY laws relating to personal relations.

There are two arguments relating to this. First, the separation of the State from religion. Most marriages take place within the church of those marrying and many churches actually provide a medium for helping those involved maintain their unions; see True Marriage and Free the American 44 Million: Privatize Marriage, on Rockwell.com on this issue. Safranek, the law Catholic law professor and father of seven, also supports gay marriage as consistent with the approach. The State should not be involved. Involvement of the State in marriage costs every American family around $400.00 a year.

Second, Marriage is a contract between two or more individuals. It is no more appropriate for the State to regulate marriage than it is for it to regulate any other partnership agreements. Barr is on the fascist end of the spectrum on each of these issues.

Regarding the Constitution, there is a perfectly good party that focuses on the Constitution and ensuring it is followed according to their interpretation. Some of those people even accept that Blacks and women are included in the concept of having inherent rights. Generally, Constitutionalists of that stripe are very Conservative and accept a role for government in meddling in the lives of individuals. That is why we have a Libertarian Party. Libertarians are supposed to be consistent, pro-inherent rights even when the Founders did not go all the way, for instance on the issue of slavery. There was a time in our past then we automatically had discussion meetings that allowed those joining to understand what it meant to be a Libertarian. Since then, some people having lacked this essential discourse, have been allowed to fall into the misapprehension that the word Libertarian is equivalent to “Dodgers” or some other sports team. Someone should tell him this is not the case.

Bob Barr, and many Republicans, are doubtlessly confronting the fact that their own political party is, shall we say, “existence-challenged?” The Republicans used to stand for small government, individual freedom, low taxation and local control. That perception was popular with Americans. He is probably unhappy that being a Republican today makes you about as popular as Typhoid Mary at a banquet. So he and other Republicans, having milked to death the rhetorical capital and general popularity of the Republican Party (a party most of us abandoned because of such atrocities as Nixon’s Wage and Price Controls) are looking around for a shiny new political vehicle, cheap and easy.

In several instances Barr says that both he and the Libertarian Party support ‘Freedom and Liberty.’ Reading the article made me wonder that images flit through his mind when he says that since most Libertarians do not think, as Barr seems to, that “liberties are governed.” Liberties are NOT governed by anyone but the individuals involved, that is what makes them liberties in the original, Constitutional and Declaration of Independence sense. Barr seems to focus his sense of unity with the LP in the opposition the LP has to the War in Iraq and the related scandals by Administration figures. These are significant issues, but not the issues that brought the LP into existence in 1971. Our reasons were to bring Americans together to realize the vision of freedom, not position for political clout by holding on to power and control.

Both Murray Rothbard and David Nolan saw right-left coalition as a natural political development, an extension of the Nolan Chart. In fact, today, many Progressives identify themselves as Left Libertarians, and they understand what that means far better than Barr understands what it means to be a Libertarian.

Perhaps instead of joining the Libertarian Party, which seems such a bad fit for him, Barr should instead try to retake the Republican Party. The LP was in existence before the Iraq war started and its ideological focus is not in opposing the war but in changing the concept of government.

I wonder if Barr ever read the platform. Maybe Shane Cory or Bill Redpath should have asked this, since they were so eager to have him join.

That brings us to the last issues. The LP, being about individual freedom, is supposed to be about local control. This dichotomy in approach, rarely spoken out loud, has been at the core of every real conflict in the last 35 years. Local control is a natural corollary of our inherent rights. Who knows better than those doing it?

Local people decide because they know best what will work for them – or most need the drubbing reality will bring. Instead we learn that Bill Redpath and Shane Cory, in their wisdom and political expertise, decided that the dumb members could not possibly make an intelligent choice on this. They took upon themselves to set policy for the Party as a whole, encouraging a Republican to come on board without having ensured he knew what our stands are. In so doing they said, “any media is good,” and that Regions and members have no reliance on transparency, honesty, and simple courtesy.

Their justification was the barrage of publicity the LP would accrue in the mainstream. I question whether publicity of such is an advantage but it is undeniable that no tumult, as they envisioned, occurred; so on top of everything else their competence and political savvy is now in question.

And I still wonder if this was really Redpath’s idea. I suspect he got the idea from someone else in the DC area. Inquiring minds want to know.

Originally published in Liberty For All December 20, 2006.

 
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster is the author of GREED: The NeoConning of America and A Tour of Old Yosemite. The former is a novel about the lives of the NeoCons with a strong autobiographical component. The latter is a non-fiction book about her father and grandfather. Melinda is an associate editor for Liberty For All and can be reached at the.melinda@yahoo.com.

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Obama Vows Swift Overhaul As Chrysler Enters Bankruptcy

Chrysler, the nation’s third-largest automaker, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, with President Obama promising that court relief would give the company a “new lease on life.”

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