... and the lady waits only long enough to face down her spineless enemies before resigning from the Libertarian National Committee .

For details, reported via Twitter and video, you can go here and here . This is not to be confused with reportage--it is editorializing pure and simple. Mules sometimes die of hunger, I am told, when stuck equidistant between two piles of food, unable to make a decision for lack of brains. This is not the problem with the Libertarian National Committee. You see, the LNC found itself stuck equidistant between two piles of shit: pursuing the witch trial of Angela Keaton, or mustering the gumption to tell Stewart Flood and company where to stick it. Predictably, the LNC did neither. It followed the time-honored tradition of Democrat and Republican Statists when faced with the need to show leadership and make a decision. So the LNC appointed a committee. Angela appears now to be safe from her attackers, but the Libertarian movement is in deep peril. And in appropriate honor of the occasion:

... I will do this in stilted, legalistic prose, for the benefit of Dan Lynch, M Carling, and anyone else who didn't get it the first time. My original post-- M Carling plays word games at Last Free Voice --was an obvious failed attempt to point out that the recourse to hair-splitting, rule parsing, and divination through entrails is the symptom and not the problem . Recourse by Bill Redpath, Stewart Flood, et al to registered parliamentarians in pursuit of their removal of Angela Keaton from the Libertarian National Committee has far less to do with Angela's actions than who she is, and who she represents within the Libertarian movement. Moreover, the charges themselves and the so-called evidence provided are indicative to virtually any objective observer as a trumped up body of un-Libertarian half-truths and irrelevancies that anyone--perhaps even a registered parliamentarian or a social conservative hell bent on acquiring his own political party--can discern. But just in c...

Damn that Angela Keaton, anyway! Not only has she gotten the LNC's panties in a twist, and led to a suspension notice that (among other things) suggests on one count that she be thrown out for being impolite on a telephone call to which there was no third witness.... Not only has the possibility of having to face down a self-admitted cougar in a halter top gotten them so hot and bothered that they apparently went out and consulted Registered Parliamentarians to insure that they could boot her off the committee for just about any old cause they dreamed up.... But no, over on Last Free Voice you can kibbitz as the LP's own Registered Parliamentarian and head honcho of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee [which, strangely enough, never seems to donate to Libertarian congressional candidates], M Carling split hairs in divination style for the amusement of the povertarian masses. You can almost feel like Archie Goodwin, entering the sanctum sanctorum of Nero Wolfe ...

... they actually vote for this Orwellian discipline of Angela Keaton . Read it and find inside the repudiation of virtually everything the Libertarian Party purports to stand for. This is not actually about Angela. This is about the ongoing bastardization of the Libertarian Party into a Republican "Lite" alternative. Bob Barr, Russ Verney, Richard Viguerie, Bill Redpath, Bob Sullentrop and others plan nothing less than purchase personal power and electoral success through the sell-out of Libertarian stances on personal freedom in order to placate social conservatives who think they are Libertarians because they hate taxes. It's not about Angela--I'll say it again. It's about you, and whether you will be sheep or stand up for what you purport to believe in.

Suppose there were a Libertarian National Committee so fearful of its own membership that it couldn't take criticism, satire, and even disdain from its own members? Suppose there were a Libertarian National Committee so enamored with clouds of secrecy that to reveal the nature of its deliberations or the foibles of the participants represented original sin? Suppose there were a Libertarian National Committee so politically correct and devoid of character that its membership hid behind speech codes modeled on those created by the Federal government to suppress political thought. Suppose there were a Libertarian National Committee so gutless that it had to ask for permission from the grandson of Robert (as in Robert's Rules of Order) for permission to exorcise the witch queen who looked down her nose at them in a naughty T-shirt. Suppose there were a Libertarian National Committee so hypocritical that it would support a presidential nominee whose PAC donated money to the politica...

Everybody in Libertarian circles has been taking notice of the announcement in the Libertarian National Committee agenda for the upcoming San Diego meeting that the LNC intends to take 30 minutes for the discipline of Angela Keaton . For those who don't remember (or never gave a rat's butt), Angela got in hot water for supposedly live-blogging about hush-hush discussions in an LNC Executive Session, and (oh yes!) for giving web-based expression to a few passing, whimsical--perhaps even satirical--sexual fantasies about the hired help. This brings to mind two responses too rational for the libido-challenged, freedom-loving Bob Barr supporters of the LNC: 1) Nobody--not the Republicans, the Democrats, the Greens, the Socialists, or even Robert Milnes--really gives a damn about your secrets. 2) It's a lot more harmless fun reading Angela's musings about cougar conquests than it is thinking about what licensed parliamentarian M Carling and the Libertarian National Congress...

You can go back and forth over the Sarah Barracuda resume and her handling by the press, but it's clear that John McCain scored a twofer with her nomination: 1) Throwing the Obama camp into dissarray; and 2) Eliminating the serious threat that Bob Barr would draw off sufficient conservatives to bulk up the Libertarian vote and perhaps cost McCain a battleground state or two. Here's the evidence: In Georgia , Bob Barr's June/July high of 6-8% is now down to the 2-3% range. Meanwhile, Libertarian Senatorial candidate Allen Buckley is moving up to 4%. In New Hampshire , Bob Barr's 7-11% in July has dwindled to 2% in September (with Nader eclipsing him at 4%), while Libertarian Senatorial candidate Ken Blevens is also moving up to 3%. In Arizona , where Bob Barr had polled as high as 7% in June he's now down to 1%. In Ohio , where some polls had Bob Barr as high as 6-7% in June, he is now struggling to hold 1%. Why is this happening? Barr's entire campaign stra...

Well, it makes as much sense as the last LNC meeting or Bob Barr choosing to use September 11 to praise the Bush administration. Somewhere (over at Libertarian Republican , if you must know), Eric Dondero is chortling over this, asserting that Barr's endorsement of Dubya's reaction to 9/11 is evidence that the LP has finally gone mainstream . Simultaneously, Barr campaign mangler Russ ["Where the hell did Angela Keaton put all Ross Perot's old charts"] Verney can be found quoted over at Last Free Voice extolling Barr's incredible leadership, which amounts [if you actually read the post] to Verney congratulating Barr for showing leadership by following his campaign mangler's orders. You can also read comments there from the new petition circulating to remove Bob Barr as the LP Presidential candidate. Who'd have thunk that Angela Keaton had the time to do all that after she finished being a sexual predator at the LNC?

Or, at least, Ron Paul's peeps were mean to Bob Barr's peeps, when all Barr ever wanted to do was have Dr. No on his ticket as VP. Robert Kraus, acting Executive Director of the Libertarian Party, has had Andrew Davis post a long missive excoriating the Ron Paul folks for treating the Barr campaign poorly : I have been hearing a lot from many LP Members about concerns over Bob Barr not attending Ron Paul's press conference. However, before you form an opinion, perhaps you may want to consider the facts and not rely on blogs for your news. Of course, Kraus is posting this (get ready for it) . . . on a blog. Kraus then proceeds on his litany of abuses suffered at the hands of the Ron Paul movement, which basically boils down [read it yourself] to: Wah. Wah. Mean old Dr. Paul wouldn't accept the Libertarian nomination. Wah. Wah. Mean old Dr. Paul wouldn't endorse us. Wah. Wah. Mean old Dr. Paul only wants to promote his book. This is then followed by a very int...

Exactly why Ron Paul, who scored over a million votes in the GOP primary season, should agree to play second fiddle to Bob Barr--who has yet to raise a dollar for each person who voted for Paul--is unclear to me. But you can read the actual letter here . Let me get this straight: Angela Keaton supposedly live-blogs about the charges against her in Executive Session of the LNC and she must be branded, tortured, and expelled. Bob Barr illegally attempts to replace his legally nominated VP candidate (who admittedly is a homophobic, racist nut) in favor of a man who is not a member of his own political party, and we're supposed to rally behind him? I sense the genius of that great parliamentarian M Carling behind this masterpiece of strategy.

While it is fun to speculate which mommy issues M Carling might be laboring under or what went so wrong in Aaron Starr’s potty training, this is about whether we are part of the libertarian movement or merely an adjunct to the GOP death machine. Announcing that I work for Antiwar is like Jolie and Pitt announcing they are fucking. Both pretentious and obvious. New staff piece of ass, Casey. Dark, young and easy prey for a cougar like myself. Donny Ferguson is here as well. I felt him up once when I was drunk. Reform Caucus people are so uptight. The Admiral keeps staying hello. Must be the dress. Tomorrow, BTP tank top and thong…no I’ll be wearing pants. Funny, I always thought the Libertarian movement was about less government and more personal freedom, not the rule-mongering and petty jackassery occurring at the LNC, where people like to pretend their making decisions about a party that controls millions of votes and billions of dollars. Just goes to show you how wrong you can be. Ne...