We continue with a coverage of turn-of-the-millennium Libertarian Politics, as taken from my book Funding Liberty (Third Millennium Press 3mpub.com, 2003). Do those events matter? We seem to be recycling the same not-necessarily-bad ideas with some of the same good Libertarians running things. Did Project Archimedes succeed? In one word: No. The National Party never reached 50,000 members, let alone…
Posts published in “Graft”
We continue with a coverage of turn-of-the-millennium Libertarian Politics, as taken from my book Funding Liberty (Third Millennium Press 3mpub.com, 2003). Chapter Nine Project Archimedes The ancient philosopher Archimedes is said to have written ‘give me a long enough lever, and a place to rest it, and I shall move the world’. Archimedes is sometimes also associated with the law…
The severance clause covering voluntary resignations directly financed the Browne Campaign’s efforts. Willis received a salary from the LNC for a half-year, and was able to work nearly full time for the Browne Campaign without the Browne Campaign needing to pay him for his efforts. The Browne juggernaut that defeated Gorman and Hornberger was thus paid for, in significant part,…
We now reach an amazing contract, and cheers to the employee who managed to get the deal described below for himself. The LNC uncritically swallowed the most astonishing feature of the supposed contract. I refer to the severance clause. It is not unknown for employment agreements to include a severance clause, under which the employer pays the employee a penalty…
Direct Financial Support for the Browne Nominating Campaign Payments by the National Committee to Perry Willis continued after Willis resigned as National Director. National Party gadfly Jacob Hornberger raised the issue, writing in one of his regular critiques of the Party: “When Willis resigned from the national LP to go to work for the Browne campaign, he cut a deal…
The extent to which LP News was to serve the interests of the National Committee’s staff and their friends, rather than the interest of the Party and its elected governing body, was revealed four years later. An article about the Willis Invoice and its aftermath was to appear in LP News. The October 2001 issue of Liberty magazine, based on…
Rather than trying to defend his record, in early 2000 Bergland announced that he would not seek re-election to the National Committee. [Editor: During this period, I ran repeatedly for National Chair. Each time, the Chair chose not to run for re-election. Supporters of the faction running the party played whack-a-mole to keep the National Committee in their hands.] Chapter…
It has been said that some people run for office in order To Do while others run for office in order To Be. Some people want the responsibilities of a job because having the job helps them reach their real objectives. Other people want the title of a job because the title makes them feel important. Bergland made clear he…
These claims are conclusively rejected by the Minutes of the December 12-13, 1998 LNC Meeting, held at the George Washington Inn in Washington, D.C. The Minutes are entirely explicit in showing that Project Archimedes was a project of the LNC. To quote from the very long Minutes: “National Treasurer Mark Tuniewicz said that he had referred Brick Mill Studios to…