I’ve moved on down the road for a spell
June 22nd, 2009 by Steve
As I’m now writing about local, state and national issues over at Examiner.com, I’m not keeping up with this site at the time. Feel free to follow me at the Examiner here or if you really wish to keep up-to-date, follow me on Twitter here.
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Don’t read this unless you are a libertarian blogger
May 24th, 2009 by Steve
If you are a libertarian blogger, show a little libertarian selfishness by clicking here.
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It’s time for one last tweet to Free the Hops
May 21st, 2009 by Steve
Details here.
UPDATE: Governor Riley just signed the Free the Hops Bill.
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Libertarian libations in Birmingham
May 15th, 2009 by Steve
Cross-posted at Birmingham Libertarian Examiner
What do you get when you mix alcohol with the politics of freedom? An argument can be made that we owe our Republic not only to a lot of bright and brave people, but also to a lot of booze.
In order to bring out freedom fighter in all of us, as well as to provide some networking opportunities and just plain fun, we’ve now opened the Birmingham branch of Liberty on the Rocks.
The first Birmingham event will be held this Tuesday at the J.Clyde. Here are the pertinent details:
Our first event will be Tuesday the 19th at 7pm at J. Clyde’s on Cobb Lane! Please invite as many folks as you can to get the Birmingham Chapter of LOTR off to a good start and to make our very special guests, the Motorhome Diaries crew of Jason [Talley], Pete [Eyre] and Adam [Mueller] feel right at home here in Bama.
For those not following the Motorhome Diaries, here’s an overview of their recent encounter with the police in Mississippi. I’m sure that hearing Jason and Pete describe their experiences will prove quite interesting.
While I’m sure there will be many toasts to Free the Hops and the entire Motorhomes Diaries crew on Tuesday night, I rather doubt folks will be tipping back their glasses to salute State Senator Hank Erwin. To be sure, the only salute Erwin is likely to receive will be a one-fingered one.
America is in trouble and it’s time to invoke the spirit of the Green Dragon. See you at the J. Clyde on Tuesday.
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Free the Hops and me, on WAFF TV
May 9th, 2009 by Steve
Text/video link here.
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Free nekkid pics by clicking here
May 2nd, 2009 by Steve
For a complete video guide to the bizarre antics of Alabama’s political ruling elite, click here. OK, if that wasn’t enough to get you to click the link, perhaps you’ll do it because I get paid around a penny per click. If you’re still here, let me try one more angle: By clicking here, you’ll also be able to learn about a Georgia gubernatorial candidate who likes having sex with mules.
If none of these approaches work, I’ll go ahead and fib to you by letting you know about the pics of nekkid chicks you can see by clicking this link.
In case I forgot to ask, please click here.
BTW, I just threw this picture in just so you’ll know how healthy you’ll feel after clicking this link.
Oh, yeah. I forgot. Click here. I double dare you!
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Go ask Alice, when she’s 238,857 miles tall
May 2nd, 2009 by Steve
“The Other McCain” has launched National Offend a Feminist Week.
As a southerner, I should nominate myself because I’m clearly guilty of and show no remorse for offenses such as opening doors for women, escorting a woman from the outside side of the sidewalk, constant engagement in casual flirtation, offering my Metro seat to the gentler sex, tossing about some sexual snark (to their credit, libertarian/conservative hotties like Shana and Suzanna both agree that snark is sexy), making direct eye contact with female eyes — as well as other body parts, having my had my hand recently kissed by a Georgia babe (McCain can attest to this one; his hand was kissed as well), use of terms ranging from “babe” to “sweetheart” to “ma’am”, etc.
My friend TWC beat me to the punch, though. He threw that first punch by posting this cartoon on his website back in Feburary:
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Exposing Alabama’s asshats
May 1st, 2009 by Steve
The noun asshat isn’t in my normal vocabulary, but I’ve been writing about Alabama State Senator Hank Erwin all day and I can’t find a better term to describe him. Erwin is trying to impose his set of morals upon the citizens of Alabama by filibustering the Free the Hops legislation. I called him out on it at a national conservative site, suggesting that people like him are why Republicans can’t seem to win elections these days.
I also called him out on two (1, 2) libertarian sites, where I provided his home telephone number to folks who might be mad enough to call and leave a piece of their minds on the issue.
Last, but certainly not least, I wrote a column at the Birmingham Examiner exposing a whole bunch of Alabama asshats. The article details (with great video and graphics) asshattery from folks like Alabama State Senator Charles Bishop, State Senator Lowell Barron, State Representative Gerald Allen, State Representative Alvin Holmes, Alabama Attorney General Troy King, political columnist Bob Ingram, former Montgomery minister Gary Aldridge, 2006 Attorney General candidate Larry Darby and Alabama State Senator Hank Erwin. The article also covers Georgia gubernatorial candidate Neal Horsley, who readily admits to having had sex with a mule.
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A New Civil Rights Problem in Montgomery
April 26th, 2009 by Steve
Editorial note: I’ve never posted a “guest entry” here before, but in this case, the cause is certainly worth it.
BY DAVID BEITO
What is happening in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement? Jimmy McCall would like to know. ”It was more my dream house,” he laments, “and the city tore it down….It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.” In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Today, McCall is waging a lonely battle against the same city government for another civil right: the freedom to build a home on his own land.
Although McCall’s ambitions are modest, he is exceptionally determined. For years, he has scraped together a living by salvaging rare materials from historic homes and then selling them to private builders. Sometimes months went by before he had a client. Finally, he had put aside enough to purchase two aces in Montgomery and started to build. He did the work himself using materials accumulated in his business including a supply of sturdy and extremely rare longleaf pine.
McCall only earns enough money to build in incremental stages but eventually his dream home took shape. According to a news story by Benjamin Solomon, the structure had a “the high slanted ceilings, the exposed beams of dark, antique wood. It looks like a charming, spacious home in the making.” But from the outset the city showed unremitting hostility. He has almost lost count of the roadblocks it threw up including a citation for keeping the necessary building materials on his own land during the construction process. More seriously, he was charged under the state blight law, which allows a municipality to designate a building as a “public nuisance” and then demolish it. Critics have accurately called this “eminent domain through the back door” and warn that opportunities for abuse are almost limitless. In contrast to the standard eminent domain process, for example, property owners do not have any right to compensation, even in theory.
The reaction of Montgomery’s city fathers seemed strange to McCall. Wasn’t he trying to fight blight by building a new home? McCall suspects that wealthy developers were trying to get their hands on the property: a rare two-acre parcel on a major thoroughfare. Unlike countless others in similar straits, McCall fought back and hired an experienced local lawyer. In the middle of last year, he negotiated a court-enforced agreement which gave him eighteen months to complete the home. Only a month after the agreement took effect, the city demolished the structure. Local bureaucrats, obviously in a hurry to tear it down, did not even give him notice. The bulldozers came in the same day as the court order that authorized them. McCall appealed to the same judge who had allowed the demolition. Stating that she had been misled, she ordered the city to pay compensation. Montgomery has appealed and at this writing McCall has not received a cent. McCall thinks that the city intends to drag it out until his money runs out. “I’ve got a lot of fight left in me and all I want is justice,” he states.
McCall’s story of eminent domain through the back door is depressingly familiar to Jim Peera. For almost five years, he has fought a pitched battle with City Hall over his plan to renovate a strategic parcel of 121 apartments in the heart of the Rosa Parks Community, and rent them to low-income senior citizens. Montgomery has a multi-million dollar development plan for his eight-acre site and is using “blight” to condemn and demolish it. Peera has withstood multiple setbacks on his investment including unfounded criminal charges by the city and mysterious fires on his solid block structures. He has repeatedly tried to sell to or partner with the city for a much needed affordable housing development, but it has rebuffed him. ”They’re used to forcing black folks to give their properties up via imposing hefty demolition liens, as opposed to buying land at fair market value” he says. Most recently, the city tried to further devalue Peera’s property by reducing the density from “multifamily” to single family, thus making it impossible to provide affordable low-income housing. Although Peera won in two courts, local bureaucrats, much like they are doing with McCall, meet his legal victories with appeals and other delays.
Peera, who had to flee from his native East Africa after Idi Amin expelled its Asian population, does not easily intimidate and is extremely determined to fight property abuse in Alabama. He is trying to mobilize other Montgomery property owners who face the same plight. Through the state’s freedom of information act, he has obtained the names of over several hundred individuals, mostly from minority neighborhoods, who have had their homes summarily demolished under the blight law. The former owners have related to him a litany of arbitrary mistreatment but most were too poor or lacked the necessary information to fight back against the city. ”What this City Hall is doing is criminal towards blacks and property owners, and it must be stopped” says Peera.
Peera has appealed to the State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights and hopes that others will join him. On April 29, Alabamians who believe that their property rights have been violated under eminent domain, either through the back door or the front door, can tell their stories to the Committee at a public forum from 9:00 to 5:00 at Whitely Conference Hall on the Montgomery campus of Troy University.
David T. Beito is chair of the Alabama State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and professor of history at the University of Alabama. He also blogs at Liberty and Power.
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My first article as the “Birmingham Libertarian Examiner”
April 24th, 2009 by Steve
I just published by first article as the “Birmingham Libertarian Examiner.” In this one, I’ve called for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to be fired and replaced with Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano.
I’ll be writing about local, state and national issues from a libertarian perspective at the Examiner. If you have any suggestions for topics or content, please feel free to leave me a message.
In the meantime, here’s the link to my first article.
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“Stephen Gordon Tea-Bags Rachel Maddow”
April 15th, 2009 by Steve
Robert Stacy McCain came up with the headline, not me.
Here’s the video. Enjoy!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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National Tea Party Tax Day Promotional YouTube
April 5th, 2009 by Steve
From the newly formed Alabama Republican Liberty Caucus.
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Alabama Bested by West Virginia Twice in One Day
March 4th, 2009 by Steve
Alabama shares another dubious distinction with West Virginia: pork. From Politico:
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government spending watchdog, has released its breakdown of the biggest earmarkers.
Not surprisingly, former Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) tops the list.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Finance Committee and the Senate’s highest-profile critic of the bank bailouts, snagged the No. 2 spot, representing one of the nation’s poorest states — and a state where even the smallest tax hikes have to be submitted to a public vote. Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, a senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee’s transportation and housing subcommittee, was the third-largest recipient of earmarks.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brought home around $26.6 million — only about half the bacon delivered to Kentucky by Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
How come it’s okay for Republicans to criticize Democrats for earmarks, but they refuse to hold their own to the same standards?
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Worse Than Alabama?
March 4th, 2009 by Steve
What could be worse than a state which outlaws the sale of sex toys or premium beers? How about outlawing Barbie Dolls?
It seems they’ve solved crime and excessive government spending, fixed all of the roads, and eliminated poverty and lack of education in West Virginia, as they now have time for this gem:
But if one West Virginia lawmaker has his way, Barbie could be banned in the Mountain State.
“I just hate the image that we give to our kids that if you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful and you don’t have to be smart,” said Del. Jeff Eldridge of Lincoln County, W. Va.
Eldridge proposed a bill to ban sales of Mattel’s blond bombshell and others like her because it puts to much emphasis on physical beauty but he’s finding it hard to get people to sign on.
“I knew a lot of people were going to joke about it and make fun of me,” said Eldridge. “I couldn’t get anybody to sign on the bill with me and I said I’m still going to introduce it.”
I’d call it a joke, except for the fact that actual people actually voted for the nitwit proposing this legislation.
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Voting on Content of Character or Color of Skin?
February 9th, 2009 by Steve
Over at NPR, Ken Rudin’s headline reads “Artur Davis Runs For Ala. Gov., Hopes To Break Race Barrier.”
I’ll not be voting for Congressman Davis, but I never base my political choices on race. Here’s a real reason to never vote for Artur Davis for any office. Ever.
Both of Alabama’s U.S. senators and all but Rep. Artur Davis among its seven House members oppose the House stimulus plan.
Instead of voting for someone based on his or her race, isn’t it preferable to cast your vote based on the issues?
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