Jake Porter has submitted an amicus to the Libertarian Party Judicial Committee, on the removal of Caryn Ann Harlos. Unlike most JC submissions, this document does not argue fine points of the Libertarian Party’s bylaws. Instead, it collects the facts that could lead a reasonable man to conclude that the removal was part of a corrupt scheme by the LP National Chair, her cohorts, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s PACs to influence the Presidential election against the Libertarian Party’s Presidential candidate, and not incidentally to transfer three-quarter of a million dollars into non-profits apparently controlled by LP National Chair McArdle.
The amicus is 36 pages, but it’s not dense type.
You’ve seen the meme:
The LNC isn’t raising any money. How terrible they are.
The LNC is raising lot’s of money. That’s not what we mean. They’re still terrible.
Moving goal posts and wishing to hamper the LP’s activities by relegating them to a small list of approved activities is not appropriate.
Tbe LNC would be in much worse shape financially now if not for the Joint Fundraising Committee with RFK Jr.
My personal preference is that the party pull itself up by its boitstraps and raise money by actually inspiring people with a libertarian message.
Note that the LNC reached its peak for the number of dues paying membership and fundraisng, esoecially when adjusted for inflation, during Harry Browne’s 2nd presidential run, and Browne ran under even more difficult circumstances competition wise than did Chade Oliver, yet he got about .4% of the vote, which is about the same percentage as Chase Oliver got (Chase got more raw votes, but US population has increased since then).
Bring back Perry Willis?
The problem is that this does not work. Oliver/tem Maat raised less than 20% of the money that Jorgensen/Cohen did, without adjusting for inflation. Bootstraps will not work.
Is this how politicians get rich from being a politician. Just shuffle money around till it ends up into a non-profit with only one contact?
Is it legal or some form of embezzlement?
Non-profits have to disclose their financial records to the public.
It is certainly one way. A lot of what they are doing. Looks more like how the mob runs things.
From the documents that Dr. Phillies has started publishing, it certainly looks like mises spent a lot of time documenting how their organization is supposed to work.
In a political organization, excessive documentation is useful in attracting “worker bees“ that will get low and mid-level jobs done. They believe they are in one organization, based on the documentation, not realizing the true purpose of the organization. They have structure and a path, improving the likelihood that the organization will grow rapidly. This reeks of the “N” word from 90 years ago or so in Germany. They had structure, with a huge emphasis on public display, including uniforms, slogans and salutes.
I would not expect we would ever see hard documentation related to the real purpose of mises. But who knows what George has. I am extremely curious to see what is published next.
A response was posted to the LNC list by Adrian Malagon.
https://groups.google.com/g/lnc-public/c/ZKUkB1qDsJQ
Andy, thank you for the news. There is a considerable exchange on several LNC lists. When matters calm down we will report on this LNC extended event.
I find it interesting that they are so concerned about their members complaining about potential conflicts of interest not being reported.
And their chair stating that connection to an organization is not a conflict of interest because she reported it and at tye time said it wasn’t one is meaningless. Even if it had been reported, that does not mean it is not a real conflict of interest.
The key is that members report potential conflicts of interest. This is somewhat similar to the bank robber who gets stopped for running a red light. When he is being interviewed, he says oh well I was driving home from three jobs we did in another city and I also ran somebody over on the way. But that doesn’t matter and isn’t related to the speeding ticket. It isn’t a conflict of interest.
What the chair says about it not being a conflict became meaningless once money started moving around and disappearing.
I would certainly agree that they had to cover the expenses. And my guess is that the payouts to friends and relatives would’ve been to “work“ the event. It may eventually turn out the people were paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars an hour.
Just a guess. But at this point, A lot of these expenditures may still be hidden.
This is a common Mises Caucus tactic, LPCO donated $1,500 to my campaign but Erin Kong flipped shit on me when I didn’t immediatley give $600 to her friend who was a photographer because I could do it cheaper myself. I have a feeling many of the MC came into this wanting to drain the LP coffers into their own pockets.
Probably some portion of this covered rally expenses. The relevant questions are 1) how much was paid to herself or friends & family for salaries or consulting? 2) how much was spent on herself or friends & family for travel, hotels, food? and 3) how much was left unspent after the rally was over?
Could she legally pay herself, or her boyfriends, or Malagon, etc., tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees or salaries?
Is that legal?
If so, corrupt beyond words.
Especially after she was the driving force in the LNC-RFK joint fundraising operation and that source of the money was RFK.
She could certainly get away with tens of thousands of dollars if it was spread over a short period of time.
Remember, she successfully used the same technique with her “significant other” using party funds. It was spread over time, but it was a significant amount of money and fundraising a membership went down. So was the person worth it? Absolutely not.