Meeting comes to order.
Public comment: Mark Hinkle, Former national chair. Lobbying Congress inactive. Didn’t rent it when inactive for two years. Price has allegedly declined from $850,000 to $650,000. Unbelievable. Please keep the David F Nolan Building.
Fishman: I rise to address the building issue. The LNC cannot profit from the building; against the law. Money in the building fund must stay there. Money raised for the building was specifically raised for that purpose.
Seebeck: Please reappoint the bylaws and platform committees and put the past reports before the convention.
Convention Oversight Committee update (Ford): Working on discounts at hotels and restaurants. Proposes to have platform and bylaws lead off the convention. We will focus heavily on the business sessions as the main priority. Some discussion of moving the Presidential convention to earlier in the cycle. Decision is up to the convention. Hotel looks good. Theme contest is under way. 2028 sites being researched.
Q Harlos: Teller team being assembled. Manual for credentials committee being prepared. Plans for tour of 2026 site?
Audit Committee meeting weekly. 2024 audit under way. Same firm as last year. Freedom Calls and some other vendors will be tested. May report expected.
CoC policy manual update. Harlos moves to amend policy manual so CoC recommends date, LNC chooses site and date. Change so LNC approves all speakers, not just keynote speakers. Require bidding only for contracts over $3000.
Malagon wants to limit LNC approval to keynote speakers, not all speakers. Wants other matters postponed.
Yeniscavitch: Did you ask the National Director? What about expenditures that are not written contracts.
Harlos: Vendors for convention do not appear to be an EPCC matter.
Malagon wants motion voted down and reconsidered in the next LNC meeting.
Ford speaks in favor of motion. McGee moves to postpone to the May meeting. Advance to roll call vote. Vote is 2-10 against.
Advance to roll call vote on the main motion. Vote is 8-4. Motion passes with the required 2/3.
Yeniscavitch: Kennedy Fund is in closeout mode. LNC got about $373,000. LNC will receive $11-14K this coming week and that will be it. Donation to the account is limited to $41,300 per donor. Account will cover accounting expenses of the LNC. When all expenses paid the account will be closed. We hold the account, but the Kennedy share of the fund is directed by Team Kennedy. Some moneys had to go back and forth to some states until the state groups became FEC filers but this is not NOW [TYPO NOT CAUGHT] being cleared up.
Kennedy Victory Fund closes up this Wednesday.
Redpath reports. Futurewards I will send the financial data to both lists. For March and through April 6.
For March, Revenues were just short of $70,000, $45,500 of general income, $24,000 of Kennedy. Expenses were just under $50,000. Unrestricted cash now $204,000. Accounts payable and debts is $58,000. There is about $40,000 perhaps owed to ZOHO, and being checked.
Yeniscavitch: Credit cards down to $58,000.
Thompson: What is the credit card interest? 14 or 16% on the two cards.
Q on spending cash on hand to discharge. Chair opposes using 25% of our liquidity overnight, until we sell the building.
Malagon: We can’t afford to pay off the credit card debt until the building is sold, because the runway of funds from the Kennedy funds are not there.
Harlos: How did the credit card get so high? Someone ordered for minimum payments on credit card payments.
Chair: $25K of Michigan lawsuit escrow recovered after January settlement.
Yeniscavitch: We have a lot of recurring expenses on credit cards. We are now paying minimum plus current charges. Hoped that first quarter income and Kennedy would be much better. March was better in terms of matching general revenue and expenses; loss was about $4000. Need to see what else we can cut. Perhaps board can raise money.
Thompson: Pay off credit card; we still have expenses credit card cannot cover.
Chair: We are in a holding pattern. Income and expenses still a moving target.
Claim that McArdle and the Treasurer made the minimum payment decision.
Nekhaila we are shrinking. I worked with Hannah and staff to cut everything we can. LNC raised most money for consultant. Report will be made before the May meeting. We have cut labor more. Mr. Heise’s last day is today. We have to grow and have to fundraise. Worked with Jim Babka who did Operation Archimedes. We have never made fundraising and membership growth a priority. We will be implementing Archimedes 2.0 and doing fundraising. He is also working with Perry Willis, who did copy for the project, and with Steve Dasbach. We want to get many more recurring donors, etc. Trying to figure out who to target and how.
We will start with Florida data, registered Libertarians, because the data is available.
We need to grow. If we are not growing, we need to die. Wants board to do Give or Get. Chair has some phone fundraisers, he mentions Larry Sharpe. We do not know what our income will be from one month to the next.
Sound recovered. The investigatory committee is advancing.
Chair moves $16,000 for roof repairs. Neighbors offered $650,000 for building, then wanted $150,000 in repairs and such not. Roofing and drywall quotes came in. We employed a listing agent. Thinks we can net $750,000 after repairs. We have FEC opinion request out. At this moment we have no staff in the DC area. A year or year and a half ago, the building became vacant. We have some equipment in there that we might be able to sell. There were were arguments for the building. We spent $2K a year on a press pass that was never used. Building is a liability. Roofers report say it was a 10 year warranty, which has expired. Drywall repair may be about $6,000. DC is a bit odd at the moment. We want to get as much money out of it as possible. Hopefully roof will be more like $10,000.
Chadderdon: Drywall work may uncover additional costs. How much? May be some other issues in the ductwork. Chadderdon urges full assessment on repairs before starting repairs. Harlos: Need to stop the water intrusion as soon as possible or damage will get worse.
Vote is 9-5. Motion passes.
Bylaws motion: Ask members of last Bylaws committee if they would like to return, then fill any vacancies. Malagon: says that Harlos, Moulton, and Seebeck should not be on any LNC committee, because they were involved in recent JC and litigation Malagon then moved to call the question. Vote was 8-4-2. Motion to call question with 2/3. Motion failed. Vote not announced so far as I could tell.
Question as to how many Tennessee Presidential votes were made. Bylaws amendment proposed as to who should decide how many votes there are. Malagon immediately speaks against. Harlos says the LNC should make the decision. Vote was 10-4. Motion passes.
Malagon moves to adjourn. Hinkle wants to speak – public comment. Malagon objects. Hinkle has spoken before. vote is 4-7-2. Adjournment rejected.
Harlos moves for ten minutes of public comment. Malagon opposes.Thompson says we are trying to regain public trust. Malagon says that Hinkle should not be allowed to speak again, because he spoke in the public comment at the start of the meeting. Malagon wants Jacobs’ opinion. Jacobs and Brown say the motion is in order. Not clear if there was a vote total reported. Malagon says Jacobs should speak first. Jacobs says he yields for Hinkle. Hinkle discusses fundraising.
The Jesus Caucus has done exactly what I would have done if my job were to infiltrate and wreck the LP in order to save the Republican War On Everything from modification. To be fair, I have seen Democratic infiltrators pose as candidates–to the horror of ordinary voters–but never with this sort of military precision. Our votes AND funding are fast converging on zero and negative numbers ever since the Anschluss.
Heise no longer employed at LP, apparently.
According to Aaron Harris.
According to him, McArdle and Hesie are “the two most effective leaders in its (LP) history”.
Harris wants to replace all non Mises LNC members with Mises.
Harris is delusional.
Again, Mises ran the car into the ditch, the car is still in the ditch, and they want the keys back.
With McArdle and Heise finally exiled by the sheer economic consequences of their machinations, a great weight has been lifted. Hopefully the Nekhaila/Darr team, representing the best of both Mises and CLC, can now get the ship back on track.
I think this is a sincere and valiant effort by Chairman Nekhaila to bail out a sinking ship and get it back on course. I remember the original Project Archimedes campaign and was disappointed when the LP closed it down after its success. Best wishes for the future.
I found mention of that Project Archimedes on Lpedia but no text or paper. If anything to do with physics of parabolic woks I’d like to see it. “The Politics of Prohibition” reveals the prohis were assailed, attacked with violence, infiltrated–blamed by the losing looters for THEIR having alienated voters. This Jesus Caucus, like the T party, is another such stalking horse. The prohis ran candidates, published a terse platform, and decided outcomes of looter party “elections” until the Constitution was amended to ban beer and give gals the vote. If the LP restores the original short platform–or at least the women’s right to birth control, the steamroller ought to work with the same 2% average vote–largely because the LP had better planks.
Project Archimedes is discussed at length in my book “Funding Liberty” available from Third Millennium or on Amazon.
Angela was right, the takeover truly was a disaster.
The adults appear to have the keys back, but the car may never get out of the ditch.
RIP LP
I made my pitch in public comments. It’s about getting that prior work heard and not creating a backlog. It’s not about me; it never was–it’s always been about building a functioning party for the members to produce the political changes we desire. But the MC is upset that I’m not their yes-man puppet. But then again, I never claimed to be, either. I just get the job done right, factions be damned.
Getting the Bylaws and Platform reconstituted so that the prior reports can be heard respects the prior committees, their work, and the Delegates. Plus, it makes the next committees’ work that much simpler. Whether the LNC understands that remains to be seen. But the reality is that the LNC voted down a simple solution to nip in the bud what could become a long-term problem. Lack of vision? Unknown.
That being said, the rabid flea that is Malagon can’t get past the fact that there are people who don’t agree with his bipolar narcissistic attitude, and he takes it personally, which makes him unfit for the office he’s in–an office he’s only in because of a Devil’s Bargain. He bitches and moans about litigation (which had nothing to do with either Dr. Moulton or myself) and JC rulings (which I made BY THE BOOK, which I ran on and got elected on), and has an understanding of the Bylaws and Platform that are miniscule at best. I doubt he has even read those reports. The committees busted major ass to work them out, which indicates that Malagon has no respect for the committees or the Delegates, either. That needs to be kept in mind in Grand Rapids.
I would also point out that the only reason Malagon is anything resembling party leadership, and McArdle before him, was because of my efforts in 2010 to push LPCA to get and keep their ballot access by membership levels in the wake of Top Two making keeping that ballot access by statewide race vote totals impossible. I was one of the ones leading the charge fighting tooth and nail against Top Two, even though we lost. The LPCA at the time heard the call and got it done, and have worked steadily to keep it since. That’s not because of Malagon, but in spite of him.
There seems to be an ongoing issue with forgetting party history.
“If we are not growing, we need to die”
Fitting statement by someone clearly unfit to serve.
It is obvious that they do not want public trust. There is no reason for someone who speaks in public comment before the meeting to not speak after. In fact, there is precedent from decades past when someone might speak in public comment on an issue and then comment on what the board did about it.
They do not appear to be listening to reason as far as the building is concerned. And asking the FEC probably won’t get them anywhere. I would bet money that the FEC will refer them to the IRS. And in their current situation, that will only bring light on the illegal situation regarding the Kennedy [sic] Victory Fund.
That’s not what I said, I said if we aren’t growing we are dying.
That’s also what I remember. “If we aren’t growing, we are dying.”
I was quoting from what was written in the article above. Dr. Phillies probably just needed more caffeine while taking notes. 🙂
But as a former member of your party, who watches occasionally from the sidelines, it does not change my opinion that this LNC continues to be ineffective and rudderless (if you want to use the Titanic metaphor).
If your party had 1000 good volunteers at the national level, or even 100, the issue of members serving on multiple committees would likely never come up.
But the bylaws committee is wasted work if their many hours of time spent between conventions is ignored and thrown out. I have never served on a national bylaws committee, but I spent a considerable amount of time over the years at the state level. It is a thankless job, no matter what you do. If you have highly qualified people willing to do the work, you should let them.
I don’t know Mr. Seebeck as well as I know Dr. Moulton. But if he is half as ethical, you should have no concerns. And you certainly should have no concerns about Dr. Moulton.
If you want to be the leader, then lead. That is the only way you can possibly turn your ship around and start growing the party again. The members have to trust the national leadership. Right now, they have very little reason to.
You have time to fix this, but not much.