STOP Indiana's professional sports bailout!

You probably already saw this on Advance Indiana, but in case you didn't...thank Gary Welsh!

If You Want To Contact Senators . . .

Sen. Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) may be planning to shove a backroom-negotiated tax plan into his Senate Appropriations Committee this week, which he chairs, to take millions of your tax dollars and give them to the Marion County Capital Improvement Board. The CIB, in turn, will give away the money to the billionaire Irsays and Simons. It's probably a waste of time to contact Kenley because he knows more than us and doesn't need our advice. There are other committee members you may want to contact; however, I will caution that you typically don't get appointed to the Appropriations Committee unless you tow the leadership line on these kinds of issues. Note that Indianapolis' Pat Miller and Teresa Lubbers, both of whom are on the Commitee, were asked to commit to opposing a CIB bailout during last year's election and both declined to do so. You can bet the Senate leadership has assured the Simons and Irsays they'll get what they want. Don't be fooled by the fancy footwork Kenley will put on for the public to make you believe the Simons and Irsays are actually sharing in any of the costs. You'll pay. You always pay. And you will always pay as long as people like Sen. Kenley are making the decision. Other members include:

Sen. Gary Dillon (R-Pierceton)
Sen. Phil Boots (R-Crawfordsville)
Sen. Brandt Hershman (R-Monticello)
Sen. Teresa Lubbers (R-Indianapolis)
Sen. Pat Miller (R-Indianapolis)
Sen. Ryan Mishler (R-Bremen)
Sen. Thomas Wyss (R-Ft. Wayne)
Sen. John Broden (D-South Bend)
Sen. Lindel Hume (D-Princeton)
Sen. Earline Rogers (D-Gary)
Sen. Karen Tallian (D-Portage)

Beck Exposes and Reams Connecticut Attorney General; using AIG bonus issue for political gain

THIS IS GOOD!

Indiana cities need Fair Tax volunteers for Indiana Tea Party

Subject: FairTax and the Tea Parties
InFairTax.org needs volunteers for the various Tea Parties across the state.

Apr. 11th at Goshen
Apr 15th at Lafayette, Indianapolis, Bloomington
Apr 18th Ft. Wayne

Please respond if you want to help.fairtaxindiana@gmail.com
765-346-5029

Patriot Paul writes to WFYI regarding Jim Shella & Indiana Week in Review

Yellow Journalism from the Shella Show
Much as been blogged in the aftermath of the Indianapolis 'Revolt at theStatehouse' Rally held on March 25th. As several heads of Taxpayerdelegations from various portions of Indiana gave their troubledexperiences with their local government that doesn't seem to beresponsive to them, Jim Shella, political reporter for channel Wish-TVarrived with microphone for interviews. The channel 8 film clipinterview that played Wednesday evening followed by Friday's airing'Indiana Week in Review' with the same clip and remarks by Shella weresome of the worst yellow broadcast journalism I can remember.

Billed as a politically non partisan speaker event, there werenevertheless tables of information by various groups and politicalparties intent on proselytizing converts to their respective parties, including the Republican Libertarian Caucus, Libertarian Party, and the Campaign for Liberty group.

Mr. Shella seized upon this floor area for quick interviews, later edited and aired to show those unflatteringtable representatives' halted and impromptu comments as the meat of hisbroadcast, rather than the subject matter of multiple speakers who eachspoke of grievances with their government. Missing the overarchingtheme of accountability and transparency in government well documentedin advance, Mr. Shella violated fundamental values of objectivereporting through focus of what can be only described as majoring in theminor, tantamount to criticizing tribes of Indians while ignoring news of a Boston Tea Party in progress.

Admittedly, there is bias in all of us. We all see through coloredglasses. But this exceeded elementary reporting 101 with commentarythat demeaned citizens who spoke and who attended. The basics of who,what, when, where, and why were trashed in favor of discrediting thoseon the floor who had other agendas. With a broad brush, he and most ofhis panelists piled on and treated the story as a rally that went bad.

Further, the Friday program was saturated in an elite smugness that was suffocating. I'll not watch this tabloid again. WISH-TV and IndianaWeek in Review's backers should be ashamed of being represented this way.

Paul Wheeler
Marion County

Open letter to WFYI regarding Jim Shella and Indiana Week in Review

Greetings,
I attended the Revolt At The State House that Jim Shella discussed on Indiana Week in Review. His comments did not reflect the reality of the event. Shella colored it as a failure to the other pundits on the panel. It was sickening to watch the other pundits, who did not attend the event, to agree with him as if his decree is the reality of what happened.

The reality is that Shella spends a lot of time with legislators and lobbyists who color HIS opinion. We were there to talk about the myriad of ways that legislators and lobbyists work against the common person.

And I always thought I could count on Channel 20 to be there as a voice of the common person. Shella said the taxpayers were unfocused, yet a college newspaper reporter (who took the time to read the media release and interviewed speakers and organizers) was able to understand the event's focus.

See Purdue Calument newspaper: http://www.pucchronicle.com/home/

Unlike the college newpaper journalist, Shella neglected to interview a single speaker or event organizer. I know because I was one of the organizers. Yes, the event covered a lot of topics but that is because there are many taxpayer groups around the state that are being walked over by their local representatives on different issues. The point of the event was to pull all the voices in one room wrapped around the common theme of lack of transparency in government.

Shella was overheard by numerous people calling the taxpayers names such as "nutcase" and "whackjob". This is hardly appropriate behavior for a news professional.

I watch public television often. I like the programming. I was planning to will my Meridian Kessler home to public television upon my death because I don't have children and I want to make sure something good is done with my estate.

As long as Jim Shella is on Channel 20, I refuse to ever give a penny to public television.

Indy Star, WISH TV Channel 8 helping Pacers steal more of your money

Last week Ruth Holloday, a former Gannett newspaper columnist, broke the story that the Pacers sent 60 of Indy's elite on a junket to Cancun, at a time when the Pacers' are begging Indiana's legislators for $15 million. The junket included Indy Star and WISH TV employees. Keep in mind that the legislators involved in finding state funding are also getting hefty campaign contributions from the Simons and Pacers.

After WISH TV did a smear job on the the REVOLT AT THE STATE HOUSE rally last Wednesday, where three practicing Indianapolis based attorneys called out the theft of taxpayer dollars by sports billionaires in a well attended public rally, I called the the station's news director.

WISH TV news director Kevin Finch became agitated and yelled at me on the phone when I told him of Ruth Holloday's column exposing the fact that WISH TV employees went on the Cancun junket. He was so enraged, that he called Ruth immediately after he hung up the phone with me.

At the Revolt At the State House rally, several people told me they overheard WISH TV reporter Jim Shella laughing it up with morning talk show host Abdul, and ridiculed taxpayers at the rally. Shella called the taxpayers names at the rally. (In defense of Abdul, at least he calls himself an arms dealer who deals to both sides because he profits from war, while Shella and WISH TV call what they do journalism).

Today Abdul accused someone associated with our revolt of sending an intimidating email to him, yet he refused to produce the email and emailed only an IP address to me. An IP address not attached to an email means nothing.

Abdul, it is not a legitimate accusation without an email. I wouldn't consider anyone in the arms dealing business to be so trustworthy that they don't need proof when they make an accusation.

And quite frankly, we must be getting to you guys for Indy Star, WISH TV, and Abdul to be going to all this trouble to try to make us look bad.

Meanwhile some taxpayers started boycotting a WISH TV sponsor, who I noticed today is not showing up on the front page of the station's website today. Could Abdul's sponsors be far behind? Abdul's show is likely far more vulnerable than WISH TV 8 because his audience is so much smaller and the loss of a big sponsor or a campaign to call all the show's local sponsors could potentially hurt Entercom's wallet pretty badly.

All of this nastiness could be avoided if the media did its job.

Hackers shut out national tea party site

HFFT gave Laura and Richard Behney, the organizers of the Indianapolis Tea Party on 4/15 access to the controls on the IndianaTeaParty.com blog because the national tea party sites have been hacked. It sounds like Richard is fit to be tied right now. That the national sites are getting hacked is a good sign they are on the right side of things.

Here's a description of what we know about the hackers:

The coalition responsible for the February 27 and April 15 Tea Parties has been under an orchestrated, coordinated distributed denial of service (ddos) attack since Friday, March 27. Efforts to thwart the attack continue.

The attacks prevent the public from reaching the organization’s main site and prevent administrators and volunteers from updating information on the site.

While the attacking IP addresses indicate locations in Russia, China, and other European and Asian locations, the attack is most likely being conducted by a United States citizen or political group opposed to the Tea Party concepts of smaller government, lower taxes, strict adherence to the rule of Constitutional law, and fiscal responsibility.

The major coalition partners–Top Conservatives on Twitter, Don’t Go Movement, and Smart Girl Politics–are working to establish a permanent solution.

This attack is an example of the criminal lenghts our opponents will stoop to. This attack appears to have been timed to blunt the effects of Sean Hannity’s commitment to the movement, which he announced on his Fox News Channel program on Friday, March 27.

The organizers are compiling information required to file a formal criminal complain with the FBI. In recent years, the FBI has improved its ability to invstigate and prosecute denial of service attacks.

FEMA creating mass graves in America?

Alex Jones says Indiana is included.

Disturbing?

Obama personally invited him to meet in the White House "to discuss the disturbing nature of the videos."

As of today Bob Basso's WE THE PEOPLE video has 1.3 million hits!

Curious to hear what Obama does to him in the principal's office for exercising his free speech and rousing America to honor its roots.

WorldNetDaily.com will have the story.

Outrage and truth expressed on WISH TV Channel 8 blog against Jim Shella

As of today, there are 55 comments blogged on the WISH TV web blog concerning the hit piece Jim Shella did on protesters at the state house. This is likely more comments than the station has seen. The comments are overwhelmingly supportive of the protestors and organizers of the event, yet Shella continued to spew his distortions on this week's Indiana Week in Review.

This is not a war of left vs. right. It is liberty vs. tyranny. The media and political insiders work over time to keep us divided. An unidentified "man with a badge" wrote the following lengthy comments at risk of losing his job. Everyone should read it.

MAN WITH A BADGE WRITES:
"I would like to be charitable here, and address many of the excellent points made by Mr. Kirk (kudos!)- along with extra kudos for the videos he selected. But my patience is short and therefore so must my comments.

I've seen hack jobs like what Mr. Shella has done. Either he is a journalistic prostitute or he is a lackey doing what his masters have told him to do. The people have eschewed the mainstream media for the internet and truly independent media because the mainstream only shows one side of the story, and now the media corporations are teaming up with other special interests to control the content available on the internet "Internet 2", so REAL news can't leak out. Have to keep the sheep-le ignorant of what's going on, so they can be better managed (controlled).

FYI: I work in law enforcement. I started as a cadet for a major university here in Indiana, worked my way up and out - to another agency. When I first started my public safety career, Three major events occurred; the Ruby Ridge, Idaho siege of the Weaver family - the Waco massacre in Texas, and the Oklahoma City Bombing. While I know for a fact that there are honest people working in the mainstream media, the simple fact is that what most people know about all three events is severely WRONG. Weaver was not a wild-eyed white supremacist, David Koresh was not a baby-raping drug doping gun runner, and Timothy McVeigh was not the mastermind (or right-hand man) in that plot. The news was slanted on purpose, to hide the truth. Suffice it to say, nobody trusts the mainstream media because they have demonstrated their un-trustworthiness on occasions far more numerous. Oh, and forget everything the media told ever told you about militia groups, as long as I'm in a 90's flashback mode. McVeigh was not a member of the Michigan Militia, even the FBI said so. That was made up from whole cloth by the media and by certain politicians.

Now there's another group that the people are very angry with. The politicians queue up the patriotic soundtrack and break out the Red, White & Blue when they want your votes, but they sneer on the US and state constitutions every other time of the year. They ignore it outright at the federal level and in Indiana they honor it more in the breach than in the observance. Even Mitch Daniels, who unlawfully sold the toll-road for a 99 year term, in violation of existing state law and court precedent. Then he obtained political cover from the Indiana supreme Court, when they violated their office by denying litigants against the toll road sale their access to the Court, thus violating Section 12 of the Indiana Bill of Rights (Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution).

But it gets worse. I used to work for the Ind. Board of Elections.... Since the advent of mechanically tabulated elections (punch-cards) and touch-screen machines in particular, nearly all of our elections above the local level have been compromised. I don't blame the people who voted, or the people who didn't vote. I blame the people who count the vote. I blame the people who had the authority to expose this, and to change it, but who didn't.

I blame the corrupt judges who let two-legged predators go free to prey on our children and our elderly, on the weak and the defenseless, all the while denying justice to the falsely accused. I remember the story of one man, who upon being falsely accused and knowing that he could not afford the sort of attorney that would get him free, and knowing that he was being prosecuted for his political views, simply wrote a final love letter to his wife, his lifelong sweetie, took his pistol and ate a bullet.

The freedom lovers of America are not far behind. Recently, the Missouri State Police issued a counter-terrorism report that declared Libertarians, Ron Paul Republicans, Constitution Party members, and other law-abiding citizens (grouped broadly by beliefs such as gun rights activism, tax honesty, money reform, and property rights) to all be terrorists. By this stain, everyone at the rally last Wednesday would have been subjected to Homeland Security scrutiny...

This is why we have a Bill of Rights, but when the people see the Bill of Rights negated as it continues to be, even with Bush out of office... that's the reason why the ammo shelves at local gun shops, Wal-Mart, Dicks, Cabela's, and elsewhere are all empty. Among the general public and even among SOME law enforcement, the quiet discussion is not whether there will be a 2nd American Revolution, but WHEN... and I do mean a 2-way firing range!

So I understand the anger expressed by many, including some of those who have vented their frustration here. But it has been headed this way for a long time; and that's why the federal government even before 9-11 aimed the nation's surveillance/enforcement apparatus not against foreign threats but against its own people. Patriot Acts 1, 2 & 3 as well as National ID, Posse Comitatus, Habeas Corpus, and other laws are for YOU. HR1955/S.1959(Patriot Act 4) was aimed at YOU. And if you and especially your children don't start goosestepping to the GIVE Act(HR1388)- which is mandatory universal national service - then according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, in comments he made last fall, anyone that doesn't get on the bus to go to boot camp... will have to "get on the train"... to a different kind of camp. Read HR 645, a bill to establish "relocation centers" on closed military bases.

Now this last part is going to be a bit controversial for some, but not for too many if everyone is buying ammo for the reasons articulated by some of the previous post's here. If there is a thread that is running through ALL of the grievances behind the "Revolt at the Statehouse", it is the feckless desire by so many in positions of trust - whether politicians, media, judges, bureaucrats, police or others - to deprive the average citizen of justice and most of all, peaceful avenues of redress.

John F. Kennedy said when you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable. That is largely why the feds are already quietly building an 80,000 troop force under NORTHCOM to deploy domestically for the purpose of suppressing the liberty movement that has been underway now. The media cannot contain the truth because of the Internet, that is why the Pentagon has declared the 'net to be an "enemy weapons system". Remember, freedom-lovers are the enemy (according to the discredited MIAC Report), and the weapon is INFORMATION. HR 645 was written with freedom-lovers in mind.

Chances are, this missive of mine may be deleted soon, and in any event that is why my post here is anonymized... the authorities can ill afford a pro-liberty cop on the beat, upholding the constitution above the orders of superiors - orders that are illegal because the Constitution is the SUPREME law of the land! They would fire me if they knew me, for speaking my mind.

As Mr. Kirk pointed out in a previous post, Obama ordered video blogger Bob Basso to report to the White House to discuss what Obama called "the disturbing nature of the video". This man said nothing controversial, he just spoke emphatically on a number of current but important issues. The sad fact is, the federal government thinks what this man said represents a threat to national security, and are willing to summon him to make an accounting for what he has uttered. http://www.infowars.com/popular-anti-stimulus...

This may not be the end of free speech in America, but if the substance of Obama's talk with this man goes the way I think it will, this may permanently mark the chilling of political speech on the Internet and of dissentful speech in particular.

Some observers in the Special Forces community have noted that the crucial time for a "hot", or shooting, revolution is not when there is a knock on your door but as early as when the authorities move to suppress free speech.

Those who attack freedom-lovers as enemies of the state are likely themselves enemies of liberty. That is why the enemies of liberty have spent so much time and effort attacking the credibility and the legitimacy of militias. No militia group ever committed an act of terrorism in America, and no militia group ever burned down a church or shot a mother in the head while holding a baby. No legitimate militia group has ever advocated breaking the law or advocated overthrowing our form of government. The powers that be are scared of them because they teach community, self-reliance, teamwork, citizenship, preparedness, and a lot more. If society collapsed tomorrow, the militia would be the one group outside the government that could provide for themselves (and their families) and still be able to respond anywhere, anytime, to help people.

Don't take anyone's word for it. Check 'em out for yourself. <url deleted so HFFT does not become law enforcement target, see original comment> because the mainstream media won't give you the truth. Don't judge till you see what they're about.

If worse comes to pass, they may turn out to be your best ally. Remember Katrina. Don't Forget Waco. And consider, the bailout was designed by the people who used to work for the companies getting bailed out now. Have a nice day.

Jim Shella can't get enough of taxpayer bullying

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It's time everyone who is against our lawmakers push for a statewide bailout for billionaire professional sports team owners to take action. Read this please.

Democrat leaning blog, IPOPA, raises ire against CIB Colts Pacers bailout

I've only got a minute to post right now, but read this over at Indy's Painfully Objective Political Analysis. They are pointing out how everyone is going to get socked for bailing out the Colts and the Pacers.

Popular national GLBT blog run by local blogger under hacker attack

This came through facebook. Bilerico is dark. Here's the explanation from the site's director, Bil Browning.

Friends:
I wanted to give folks a quick heads up on what's happened to the Bilerico Project and our affiliated sites. All of our sites are currently dark - they've been taken offline by a massive hacker attack.

We've been fighting off these Eastern European hackers for over a year now; they're the same crowd that took down popular feminist political blog Shakespeare's Sister a year and a half ago. They're professionals and they're nasty.

Earlier this week, they managed to take us down for about 9 hours overnight but we were able to regain control. They severely compromised the server though, so we had to get a new server up and running quickly. Yesterday, we got the new server racked up and were planning on making all of the switch overs (we also host quite a few Indiana LGBT organizations' websites), but the hackers managed to crack through our defenses again yesterday afternoon.

This time they firebombed the place; our old server is toast. Unfortunately, none of the data was transferred before they regained control. We have backups and are trying to get the site back up ASAP, but we're still suffering from the lag required to set up a new server from scratch, retrieve as much data as possible from the old server, install all of our attendant software like Movable Type, and then port over the Bilerico database and double check to make sure it all works again since our site was so customized.

I have no idea when the site will be back up and running. We're hopeful that we can have it all finished by Friday night, but there's no guarantee. The hackers caused massive damage, but co-owner and tech guru Jerame Davis is working feverishly to fix everything.

Until then, if you need to reach me please use bilerico(at)gmail.com.

Thanks for your patience as we sort through this giant mess. I'll keep folks updated.

Thanks for your support,
Bil Browning

Channel 8 and Jim Shella under fire for hit piece on taxpayers!

Jim Shella sure must love the taste and feel of lobbyist boot across his tongue, for he's getting a lot of heat for the bootlicking he offered them on Wednesday. Shella ran what is being described as a "hit piece on taxpayers" on the 6pm news and he's not backing down from his claim that his story is fair. He says the report is fair even though he offered no mention of the issues discussed by speakers or interviewed either attorney Paul Ogden or me as the event's only organizers.

Paul Ogden spent a day composing his thoughts and wrote directly to Channel 8 news Anchor Eric Halvorson today.

Chris Spangle, former producer of Abdul's morning show and no political or media novice, also spoke out against Shella's unneccessary attack on taxpayers.

Yesterday I telephoned Kevin Finch, Channel 8 news director and the guy ultimately reponsible for everything that goes on the air. He emphatically backed Shella stating that he had no problem with the story and that it was completely fair reporting.

He even went so far as to inform me that the term "fair and balanced" is not a journalistic standard. (It is a term used by FoxNews). He could not tell me what the credo or the standard for Channel 8 is. Evidently they don't have one or know what it is.

Kevin Finch also told me that that the event was organized by The Libertarians. I asked which Libertarians and he could offer me no proof other than it is what they "heard".

Is the reporting of rumor or hearsay a journalistic standard at Channel 8?

By the middle to the end of the 10 minute phone call Channel 8's news director was yelling at me. He was both AGGRESSIVE and overly defensive at the same time.

As soon as I got off the phone with him, he called Ruth Holloday because I referenced the fact that she reported Channel 8 employees accepted a junket to an all inclusive boozy getaway at a resort in Cancun. from Herb Simon. It was also reported the guests on this trip received jewelry and gifts, even though Herb Simon the owner of the Pacers, says he's broke and needs a $15 million bailout by the taxpayers for his sports franchise. The piece Ruth wrote is called "Pacers at the trough".

Finch denies news employees were on the junket. The proof he offered is that he approves vacation time. Everyone wants the names of the Channel 8 employees that took that junket.

Yesterday afternoon one of the email lists I read began suggesting that Channel 8's advertisers be targeted for a boycott. They will likely pick on Marsh Supermarket since Marsh supports both the Pacers and WISH TV 8. Marsh Supermarkets is featured prominently on the front page of WISH TV's website. I sell advertising and I feel for the account exec who handles the Marsh account if these groups decide to take action and Marsh cancels.

These citizens are on the same email lists that caused Missouri to issue a public apology this week for its state police targeting Constitution defenders as "terrorists".

Thanks to Ned, the state house set up guy

A lot of people probably don't pay much attention to Ned, but without him, our event would not have been so nice! You see, Ned does the set up. We met with him a few days before and he was great at helping us to see the best way to set up.

When I needed more tables he quickly got them for me. He never complained and was just happy to help.

A lot of people don't know it, but the state house gives people space for free. You get chairs, platforms, sound, microphones and podium set up to your specs!

I had no idea until Ogden arranged the event that the equipment was free and there was no charge for the set up.

I also bet Ned doesn't get nearly the thanks he deserves for taking such good care of The People.

Thanks Ned. I could not have done my job without you and you made things really easy for me.

Jim Shella could take pointers on serious journalistic standards from Indiana's regional newspapers

Here is fair and balanced reporting from Evansville Courier Journal:
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/mar/25/protesters-revolt-at-statehouse/

And more fair and balanced look at state issues from the Post Tribune:
http://www.post-trib.com/news/elections/1496175,ga-rally.article

Here is a political hit job by a paid hack:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/wish/TKSJ86SHVDA5U4O78

Ogden On Revolt

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There is nothing else to say.

For now.

.

I smell fear.

Revolt At The State House
3.25.2009

Tonight political reporter Jim Shella sold out what little journalistic standard he had left leaving no doubt exactly what he is. Not a single speaker, including three practicing attorneys, or key event insiders, made the cut for his coverage.

Instead, like a school yard bully, he relentlessly picked on a woman who took a day away from her family and newborn infant to volunteer to staff a table.

Conversely, the early report on Channel 8 (before Shella editing room trickery) is fair and balanced. The early report seems to now be scrubbed from the Internet.

They don't do that unless they fear.

Media coverage for Revolt At The State House event

Paul Ogden was interviewed today by Channel 13 and Channel 8 which will likely run spots tonight. He's also going to be on WIBC FM 93.1 at 4:45 pm on the Steve Simpson show.

Still have not heard from the Indy Star, but we have heard from smaller papers around the state. We expect full media coverage tomorrow for the Revolt!

If you are planning to come please arrive by 11 am so that you have time to park your car and go through security check.

Missouri Law Enforcement issues formal apology to patriots Dr. Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and Pastor Chuck Baldwin

March 23, 2009
Rep. Ron Paul
203 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Mr. Bob Barr
900 Circle 75 Parkway, Suite 1280
Atlanta, Georgia 30339

Mr. Chuck Baldwin
6800 Mobile Highway
Pensacola, Florida 32526

Dear Rep. Paul, Mr. Barr and Mr. Baldwin:

As head of the state agency responsible for oversight of the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), I want to respond to your letter of March 20, 2009, regarding a report by the MIAC on the militia movement. Portions of that report may be easily construed by readers as offensive to supporters of certain political candidates or to those candidates themselves. I regret that those components were ultimately included in the final report issued by the MIAC.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety places the utmost value on the safety and well-being of Missouri’s law enforcement officers –a value I am certain we share with you and your supporters. Officers of the law do the most dangerous job of anyone in our society and regularly put themselves in the path of great danger, bodily harm and death in order to protect innocent citizens. As such, it is our regular practice to provide as much information as we can to law enforcement agencies and their officers so they are fully cognizant of any situational hazard which they may encounter.

Unfortunately, in the course of preparing this report, some regrettable information was included in the report on militia groups in Missouri. While the intent of the report was only to identify certain traits that are sometimes shared by members of militia organizations, this report is too easily misinterpreted as suggesting that militia members may be identified by no other indicator than support for a particular candidate or political organization. That is an undesired and unwarranted outcome. Upon review and reflection, it is the judgment of the Department of Public Safety that the report should have made no reference to supporters of Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin or of any other third-party political organization or candidate.

In recognition of the mistaken inclusion of this information by the MIAC in its February 20, 2009, report on the militia movement, I have ordered that the offending report be edited so as to excise all reference to Ron Paul, Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin and to any third-party political organizations. Additionally, you may rest assured that the report is not posted on any website maintained by the State of Missouri.

The Missouri Department of Public Safety regrets any inconvenience or issues caused inadvertently by the unnecessary inclusion of certain components by MIAC in its militia report.

Respectfully,
John M.Britt
Director

RSVP for lunch after the Revolt At The State House

Just one day until Revolt At The State House which runs from 11:30 am to 1pm.

If you have not yet RSVP'd for lunch, please join us. It will give you an opportunity to talk and network with tax activists around the state.

Luncheon Cost: $16 per person
Time: 2pm
Santorini Greek Kitchen
1417 E. Prospect St
Indianapolis, IN 46203
mapquest driving directions from the Revolt event

RSVP with Jeanette Sawi, (owner) by phone or email, please
Only 150 reservations available
317-917-1116
317-917-1117
317-917-1118 fax
jmwarholak@aol.com

MEDIA RELEASE: Please send it to anyone you know in the media

For Immediate Release Contact: Paul K. Ogden

March 23, 2009 (317) 531-6127 (cell)

(317) 631-0172 (work)

www.revoltatthestatehouse.com

MEDIA ADVISORY

--Citizen Leaders Pay Call to Legislators; Demand Reforms--

Indianapolis – Attorney Paul K. Ogden, 47, today announced finalized plans regarding the taxpayer rally dubbed the “Revolt at the Statehouse” to be held on Wednesday, March 25, 2009, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the North Atrium.

The focus of the “Revolt” is the anger the average citizen has with government at all levels which has been captured by big money interests and does not listen to ordinary citizens.

Ogden cited the populist uprising in the country, which is noted on the cover of Newsweek that hits the newsstands today, as one of the reasons for the rally. “You are seeing a populist rage sweeping the country like you have not seen in decades. People are angry as they see their hard-earned money being taken to give out to failing companies, like AIG and others. In Indianapolis, leadership of both the Republican and Democratic Parties is deeply involved in a corporate welfare culture that silences even the most well-meaning party members who dare speak out for the interests of the taxpayers.”

Gary Welsh, author of the blog “Advance Indiana,” has tirelessly reported about the proposed Pacer bailout, the overly generous Colts-Lucas Oil Stadium deal as well as other issues related to the Capital Improvement Board and other local issues. Welsh notes, “The CIB is filled with members who have serious conflicts of interest, not the least of which is the President of the Board, who represents the Simons who own the Pacers. The individuals on the CIB clearly do not have the best interests of the people of Indianapolis in mind when they decide they need to give another $15 million of our tax money to billionaire sports owners.”

Melyssa Donaghy who runs the blog Hoosiers for Fair Taxation noted that people are fed up with the back door deals and lack of transparency in how government operates. “The Revolt will include a call for ethics reform, including more transparency. People need to know what is going on in their government,” Donaghy said. “The conflicts of interest many of these politicians have need to be exposed and ended. We should not have our elected officials using their positions to make themselves and their friends richer at the expense of taxpayers.”

The speakers will include Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians. Titles of some of the speeches include: “Increasing Debt: Mortgaging Our Children’s Future,” “The Colts, Pacers and the Capital Improvement Board,” “Run over by the Speedway Redevelopment Commission,” “Lobbying and Ethics Reform,” “Transparency and Accountability in Government,” “Pay to Play Politics, Indiana Style,” and “Fun and Games in Evansville.” A speaker list is included below.

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REVOLT AT THE STATEHOUSE SPEAKERS

(Wednesday, March 25, 2009; 11:30 to 1 p.m.)

"Increasing Debt: Mortgaging our Children’s Future"

– Lisa Kelly, former Libertarian Candidate for Lt. Governor

"The Colts, Pacers and the Capital Improvement Board"

– Gary Welsh, Attorney at Law and Publisher of Advance Indiana blog

“Government Grants & Public Corruption”

– Rev. Solomon, Author and Community Activist

"Run Over By the Speedway Redevelopment Commission"

- JoEllen Dotlich, SPEED

"Pay to Play Politics, Indiana Style"

– Mark Small, Attorney at Law and Author

"Transparency and Accountability in Government"

– Diana Vice, Lafayette-area Housewife and political activist; Publisher of Welcome to My Tea Party blog

"Lobbying and Ethics Reform"

– Julia Vaughn, Policy Director of Common Cause/Indiana

Topic TBA

--Jim Premeske, Team Hammond Taxpayers

"Fun and Games in Evansville"

– Frankie Neidhammer, President Vanderburgh County Taxpayers Association

"How to Get Involved & Make a Difference"

– Melyssa Donaghy, political activist and publisher of Hoosiers for Fair Taxation blog

"A Call to Action"

– Paul Ogden, Attorney at Law, and publisher of Ogden on Politics blog.

HFFT launches INDIANA TEA PARTY website

We decided to help out the national tea party effort and launched the official Indiana Tea Party site which will link all state wide tea parties and cross promote any other events that advocate for Liberty!

If you want to volunteer or know of an event we can help promote, please email inteaparty@gmail.com

www.IndianaTeaParty.com

Bookmark it!

April 15th Indiana Tea Party Activists...please read this message

The host of Revolt At The State House and editor of LibertyFile.com, Sean Shepard, wrote to us about his concern that the national tea party movement is a deceptive arm within the Republican Party purposely activated to herd well meaning newbie activists straight into a web of deception in order to use these individuals to further consolidate power within the Republican party.

The Republican Party is not accountable to the fact that it is equally responsible for bringing forth the financial crisis in America. Don't believe me? Then consider who signed the first bailout bill. Hint: It wasn't President Obama. We hope the tea party activists don't fall for the glitz of the mainstream media they are using to entrap you, and instead contact and join arms with any of the below mentioned groups who know the issues, can help you grow, and will welcome you into their ranks and our widely growing coalition of liberty activists.
--Melyssa for HFFT


Sean Shepard writes:
Where were all of these "conservatives" when it came time to oppose the massive spending of the Bush Administration, the failure to address social security, the invasion of a weak foreign country, the stunning increase in Medicaid/Medicare benefits, failure to pass the FairTax, or even (less helpful to the economy), the Flat Tax? Was there even one year when the Federal Budget stayed the same or was less than the previous year? There were six years there to do all kinds of good things, but all we got was bigger government and more debt.

Republicans get religion when they aren't in power then, once in, they are just as big government and big spending as anyone else. Does anyone REALLY believe that Bush (or McCain) would not be employing Keynesian influenced economic solutions also? As has been often noted the past few years, at least with the Democrats you get "truth in advertising."

It is exciting to see all of these tea party protests and to see a new group spring up to support the effort. I think the argument is that we didn't need another new group fragmenting people and competing for resources, there were already existing groups.

The Republican Liberty Caucus exists for libertarian Republicans who still hope to someday restore the party to something it maybe once was when Goldwater was around.

The Libertarian Party is there for people who finally realize that voting for what you believe in is more important than supporting the 'club' that continues to let them down.

The Campaign For Liberty exists to promote smaller government, lower taxes, sound financial systems and Constitutional government ideals.

The Democratic Freedom Caucus is the Dems variant of the RLC.

We have all kinds of great organizations like The Mises Institute, Downsize D.C., Americans for Fair Taxation, The Peter G. Peterson Foundation and others.

I'm a bit offended by the note above suggesting that all of these great activists, including great people like Andy Horning who have warned about this stuff for years, should be reaching out to the new "tea party" folks. Should they not be contacting all of these others and saying, "Hey, we're finally on board."

Most of the reports I hear is that the tea party organization seems to be a bit insular and closed off, BUT, I have no first hand knowledge of this. Again, why doesn't anyone in any of these other organizations know who these people are?

Like I've said before, we need all the help we can get but we do need to be guarded against factions with common cause competing against each other. Everyone needs to lay aside their ego and their partisanship and realize that only by uniting efforts can effective change be brought about.

At the same time, there are people in Indiana that have put A LOT of time and effort into promoting the right things, often at great personal expense and detriment. People like Andy Horning (popular former LP candidate and pro-liberty activist), Ron Heilman (past State Director of Americans for Fair Taxation), Mark Rutherford (past long-time Chair of the Libertarian Party of Indiana), Melyssa Donaghy (Hoosiers for Fair Taxation, Indiana Voters League), Melissa Lineberry (Campaign for Liberty) and more recently Charlie Kochenash (current Indiana RLC head) should not be suddenly shoved aside or stepped over just because others all of the sudden woke up, many of them likely to go back to sleep once they get "their (party) guy" in the White House again.

Huckabee launches "Save Elkhart" effort

ELKHART -- He ran a state. He ran for president. Now, Mike Huckabee wants to help save Elkhart. The host of Fox News Channel's "Huckabee" is taking his show on the road, stopping here on Saturday. The one-hour program will be titled "Save This Town: Live in Elkhart, Ind."

Huckabee, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, has hosted the Fox News show since September. Typically filmed in New York, the program will be here, Fox staff said, to highlight the city's economic troubles -- and how to fix them.

Though Huckabee's visit will highlight Elkhart's unemployment rate -- now nearing 20 percent -- residents said the visit will bring the area a helpful publicity boost.

Huckabee's guest list includes Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore, Elkhart County Council President John Letherman and Evergreen RV President Doug Lantz. He'll also exchange his house band for a group of Elkhart musicians.

The details:

What: Fox News Channel's "Huckabee," hosted by former presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee

Where: Outside the RV/MH Hall of Fame, 21565 Executive Parkway, Elkhart

When: Taping from 2:30 to 4 p.m., Saturday. Show airs at 8 and 11 p.m., Saturday and Sunday

How to see it: The show is open to the general public. Gates will close at 2:30 p.m., but Fox staff recommend arriving around 12:30 p.m.

Indiana's New Tea Activists REVOLT Against National Republicorps!

Activists with HFFT confirmed in the last two weeks that the national tea party movement is definitely a top down organization with plenty of collusion from mainstream media slime greasing the way. It is quite apparent that the Republicorp plan is to hi-jack an army of awakening professional class activists into their machine.

On Facebook and in emails, I pointed out to operatives in the national tea party web that a true grass roots organization is bottom up, not top down, and that the model into which they were being herded is a grass roots fraud.

Richard Behney, "We Surround Them" co-organizer of a recent 500 person event in Fishers with his wife Laura, recently called the snakes out for what they are in the open email below, brilliantly copied to everyone on their Meetup.com and Facebook pages.

And to think we were worried the Indiana Defenders of Liberty Tea Party Activists were getting snookered!

Breaking just minutes ago, The Daily Paul dished up the background on the former Glamor Shots executive, Michael Leahy who plans to use the power of canned cream corn to harness national media as the sword to defend our Liberty.

The Behneys of Fishers have smarts and kahunas and I love it!

--Melyssa for HFFT
See also: Bloggers charge that "anti-stimulus' tea parties are coporate front
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March 20, 2009
Subject: A canned food drive ~ ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME??!

Mr. Michael Patrick Leahy,

Hi all ~ We were involved in a conference call last night with the National Tea Party Leaders and all of the Tea Party Coordinators and Organizers across the country (about 80 volunteers). The leader, Michael Leahy, announced that he wanted to include in all Tea Parties a food drive....for all Tea Partiers to bring a non-perishable food items to their individual Tea Parties to attract mainstream media attention. Well, this didn't sit well with a number of the callers, including Richard and myself. So....Richard sent a letter today to ALL of the Leaders, Organizers and Coordinators of the National Tea Party to voice the concern in diluting this event into just another food drive. Here is the content of that letter:

Mr. Michael Patrick Leahy -

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Did I understand you to say that you want us to include a food drive with the Tea Party event to appeal to the mainstream media…to give them something positive to report?

ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME!

“Sucking up” to the media is not going to provide creditability, certainly not in any positive manner, as to who we and for what reason we are gathering…no matter what “friendly”, “sensitive” olive branch that is offered. Certainly not a can of green beans! I am willing to offer one of my children as sacrificial collateral to the fact that the people who are and will be involved in the Tea Party events have individually given more in charity to their communities the past year than Barack Hussein Obama has given in his life time. I am not spending my time and monies, putting my job in jeopardy, and not giving my children enough attention simply for another CANNED FOOD DRIVE. The Tea Parties are about getting THIS government out of our homes, businesses, and lives…the Tea Parties are about FREEDOM!

The unifying message of these Tea Parties is/should be loud and clear:

CONGRESS, REPEAL THE STIMULUS PACKAGES NOW AND
UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA OR
WE WILL REPLACE EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS STARTING IN 2010.

Obama’s socialist administration, cabinet, and congressional comrades have us face down in the dirt, twisting our arms behind our backs…while working up their “toadies” in mob pitch…AND, blaming us for fighting back. A CAN OF GREEN BEANS IS NOT GOING MAKE THE BULLY LIKE YOU! Ask Prime Minister Chamberlain. Bullies (and congressional moderates and cowards) understand fear…we DO NOT need to advocate physical fear (yet), our fathers before us ALREADY PAID THE PRICE WITH THEIR BLOOD…but, they will certainly feel the “fear” of thousands of Americans standing up for freedom and gathering, demanding our representatives run our country’s business by the laws established by the Constitution of the United States – NOW – or they will be replaced starting in 2010 until ALL of them are out of elected government.

Now, if we want media attention, let’s take a lesson from the original Tea Partiers. The original men dressed up like Native Indians not to disguise their identities…everyone knew who they were. They dressed up like Indians to emphasize the “radical” point that they (Americans) were NOT going to be treated like “heathens” any longer by the English crown (government). You desire media attention? Titillate the main stream media by leaking that our Tea Parties are going to have an “anti-slavery” message…cameras WILL show up. Picture men, women, and children in chains (black face?) with banners and signs declaring “WE WILL NOT BE ENSLAVED BY THIS GOVERNMENT!” – “LET THE AMERICAN PEOPLE GO!” – “FREE US FROM THE WHIPS OF PELOSI AND REID!”

Oh, I could go on…but, to wrap up. The time is NOW. Our current events DEMAND (as they did at the American founding) that we answer the question: Are we subjects of this government, or are we a free people? A canned food drive DOES NOT express any urgency or resolve one way or the other. If you want to collect food…do it through your church or local organizations. If you believe you are FREE, and want to remain that way, come to a Tea Party event and be seen and heard.

We need STRONG leadership with a RESOLVE to protect and preserve freedom. Not the same tired tactics and suck-ups from the past…which have given up our freedoms won for us with blood from our founders. If I see or hear one more Republican politician – for instance, fellow Hoosier congressmen Mike Pence or Newt Gingrich – speak in a calm, civil tone…sucking up to “President Obama” and then adding how he disagrees with whatever policy, procedural process, or political happening of the day, like it’s business as usual, I am going to come unglued. I want to see my representatives being dragged from their prospective wells of congress, kicking and screaming, fighting for FREEDOM.

Mr. Leahy, resolve right now to run these events with strength, non-apologetically and with the intent to WIN BACK our freedom. Not to gain mainstream media recognition or acceptance by offering such STUPID and weak attempts to say “Hey, we’re nice guys, see all the cans of green beans we collected?”… or get the hell out of the way.

Oh! And don’t tell me “It’s too expensive and difficult to plan a tea party event for Washington D.C.” ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME?, again! I’LL PLAN IT, ORGANIZE IT, AND FIND A WAY TO PAY FOR IT! Anyone have the COURAGE to join me?

Now is the time to act. Our very FREEDOMS depend on it. Brother, we must be heard!

My name is RICHARD JOHN BEHNEY, the Indianapolis Tea Party organizer; along with my wife, Laura. I believe in Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. I PLEDGE MY LIFE, FORTUNE, AND SACRED HONOR to uphold and defend, against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC, the Constitution of the United States of America!

Anything less is just radio talk show “chatter”. Canned food drive…ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME?!

FREEDOM,
Richard Behney

Rokita to Be on Dateline Tonight

Rokita to Be on Dateline Tonight
Indiana’s version of Bernie Madoff will be a topic of discussion tonight on NBC’s Dateline. The story of Marcus Shrenker is interesting because he tried to fake his death, messed that up as miserably as he did his clients finances and then claimed he was innocent. He assetts have since been frozen.

With all this talk going on of swindler financiers, and with one of the more high profile ones coming from Indiana, our own Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, will be featured on Dateline tonight at 10:00.

Hat tip: Josh Gillespie and Hoosier Access

Topics & Speakers: Revolt At The State House

We promised that Revolt At State House would shock you with our experts knowledge of corporate welfare, greed, immorality, cronyism, and lack of transparency within Indiana government. The immorality of our state and local governments will be called out in public by local experts in the very house where The People's business is done. Here is the menu for March 25th. We're saving seats in front for the politicians.

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"Increasing Debt: Mortgaging our Children’s Future"
Lisa Kelly, former Libertarian candidate for Lt. Governor

"The Colts, Pacers and the Capital Improvement Board"
Gary Welsh, Attorney at Law and Publisher of Advance Indiana Blog

“Government Grants & Public Corruption”
Rev. Solomon, local political activist

"Run Over By the Speedway Redevelopment Commission"
JoEllen Dotlich, SPEED

"Pay to Play Politics" (humorous interlude)
Mark Small, Author and Attorney at Law

"Transparency and Accountability in Government"
Diana Vice, Lafayette-area housewife and publisher of Welcome to My Tea Party

"Lobbying and Ethics Reform"
Julia Vaughn, Common Cause

Topic TBA
Jim Premeske, Team Hammond Taxpayers Group

"Fun and Games in Evansville"
Frankie Neidhammer, President Vanderburgh County Taxpayers

"Conflicts of Interest in Government"
Chris Hiatt, Delaware County Taxpayer Association

"How to Get Involved & Make a Difference"
Melyssa Donaghy, publisher of Hoosiers for Fair Taxation Blog

"A Call to Action"
Paul Ogden, Attorney at Law, and publisher of Ogden on Politics Blog

FORT WAYNE, INDIANA "TEA PARTY" APRIL 18th

From patriots in Ft. Wayne!!

We are organizing a “Tea Party” type protest here in Ft. Wayne, and would like to ask you help in getting the word out about this event.

This event will be held on April 18, 2009 downtown at the Court House Square along the sidewalks. The time would be 11:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M.

There is a lot of discomfort out there with the government spending, and the direction in which our current President is taking us. The “Tea Party” would give our citizens a change to let their dissention be heard. There will be a few speakers and an organized peaceful protest.

If you know of people that would have an interest in this type of event please forward this email to them. There will be more information soon. Also please spread the word to eveyone that you know about this event so that we can have a good turnout.

You can RSVP to me or on resistnet.com for the Indiana 3rd Congressional District, but an RSVP is not required, everyone is welcome. Bring a bus load and let your voice be heard! Parking is free on Saturdays at most places downtown.

http://fortwayneright.wordpress.com/

Abdul to cover REVOLT AT THE STATE HOUSE Thursday morning @ 8am

Our friendly arms dealer, Abdul from the WXNT AM 1430 morning show, asked the Revolt emcee, Sean Shepard, to come to the studio tomorrow morning at 8am to discuss the Revolt At The State House.

Be sure to listen to Abdul's show tomorrow. Abdul is concerned that the Revolt is too broad in its scope and is not centralized on one theme. That's the point. Government corruption is so broad that it does not give us the luxury of focusing on just one point.

The theme of the Revolt is Transparency. With transparency, and the ENFORCEMENT of transparency, many of our problems would disappear. But you know those cockroaches running our government don't like the light of day.

Rich States, Poor States

I'm not an economic analyst, but I can read. Indiana fell 47th out of 50 on economic performance. We were 17th out of 50 on economic outlook.

Here's the findings: Rich States Poor States

Lunch with state wide activists after Revolt At The State House

I arranged a buffet for 150 at Santorini Greek Kitchen in Fountain Square after the Revolt At The State House on March 25th. The cost per person is $16 and includes everything from appetizer, to beverages, to dessert.

Please RSVP right away to lunch with us because there is only 150 reservations available. The networking with state wide activists will be a fantastic opportunity for all of us.

Lunch details: Click Here

Thursday is Mayor's Night Out in Broad Ripple

Mayor's Night Out in Washington Township is TOMORROW night, Thurs., 6pm-7pm at Broad Ripple High School.

The Revolution: A Manifesto

order here

In The Revolution, Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul has exposed the core truths behind everything threatening America, from the real reasons behind the collapse of the dollar and the looming financial crisis, to terrorism and the loss of our precious civil liberties. In this book, Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask.

Despite a media blackout, this septuagenarian physician-turned-congressman sparked a movement that has attracted a legion of young, dedicated, enthusiastic supporters... a phenomenon that has amazed veteran political observers and made more than one political rival envious. Candidates across America are already running as "Ron Paul Republicans."

"Dr. Paul cured my apathy," says a popular campaign sign. The Revolution may cure yours as well.

Communists and Socialists are Safe: Liberty Conservatives are 21st Century Government Targets

It is important to the powers behind the curtain that America be divided and that fear be used as a tool of control, for they can conquer American only when she is divided. Every American, regardless of being conservative or liberal, must stand up against this political profiling of peaceful Americans as terrorists. This is no more moral than the 1950's witch hunts of so-called Communists.

(The Campaign for Liberty will have a table at Revolt At The State House)


From Campaign For Liberty: Peaceful Dissents & Government Witch Hunts
As most readers of this are probably aware, the Campaign for Liberty has been singled out, along with a few other political groups, in a leaked Missouri state government report, "The Modern Militia Movement." The document tells state officials to be on the lookout for violent extremists while conflating them with pretty much anyone who criticizes the government. Perhaps most troubling, the information apparently comes from the Department of Homeland Security, meaning that similar documents could be circulating in states other than Missouri.

The brush with which this report paints critics of the federal government is so absurdly broad that it should not have to be taken seriously. The report lumps together violent white supremacists with the diverse and broad coalition behind Ron Paul, a man who has called racism "simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals." People who favor peace and cooperation among nations are thrown together with belligerent nationalists. Militants who saw George W. Bush as their savior and loved the war on terror are associated with those of us who saw Bush's reign as a long period of attacks on social peace, international harmony and freedom. We who criticize the Federal Reserve, fiat money, and inflation -- many of whom were inspired by great Jewish economists like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard -- are conflated with peddlers of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Promoters of social harmony and cooperation are branded as antisocial promoters of conflict. The wide net cast catches both domestic terrorists and anyone who happens to favor constitutional government, oppose international bureaucracies, question the IRS, CIA, FBI or United Nations, subscribe to libertarian politics or oppose the military draft.

This should all be too ridiculous to address, but police carrying out nationally directed profiling have not been known to be the most nuanced in their investigations. So there is some legitimate concern for freedom activists of all stripes.

The report's categorization of so many different types of people as potential threats to domestic peace takes on a distinct flavor in these Obama years, targeting tens of millions of conservative-leaning Americans who wish to peacefully live their lives in freedom -- people who take their Second Amendment rights seriously, people who oppose the staggering growth of government in modern times, people who do not fit into a politically correct mold of good citizenship. It is thus a dangerous report, but it is not anything qualitatively new in the history of the American Republic. Sometimes the fear-mongering was simply stupid and counterproductive; but many times it meant severe attacks on the civil liberties of peaceful Americans.

During the American Revolution, peaceful colonial skeptics of the war had their property confiscated. President John Adams targeted the Jeffersonians with the unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. During the War on 1812, Louis Louaillier, a Louisiana journalist, was jailed by General Andrew Jackson merely for protesting martial law -- and then the judge who issued him a habeas corpus writ was also jailed. Many critics during the Civil War were jailed without due process simply for expressing their opposition to Abraham Lincoln's power grabs. Critics of Reconstruction were also thrown in prison for their opinions.

With the advent of the national leviathan and technological modernity, oppression of peaceful dissenters hit new heights. Much of this was rooted in the Red Scare. Those thought to be socialist sympathizers were harassed. Labor agitators were brutalized, hundreds of thousands of Americans ended up on government lists, and hundreds of suspected communists were deported to Bolshevik Russia.

The whole time, government used fear of activist violence to chip away the freedom of all Americans. Labor organizers were hardly all angels. Many violently lashed out at scabs and their activism sometimes degenerated into riots and crimes against the innocent. Communist ideology is certainly one of the more dangerous belief systems. Yet the government lumped all these people together, effectively criminalizing free speech, opinions and associations, and persecuting people simply for disagreeing with the establishment view.

War hysteria brought on the worst abuses. During World War I, those who were German, spoke German, taught German or patronized German art and music were targeted by lynch mobs and government crackdowns. Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, critics of the war, conscription, the American flag, Constitution or U.S. military were thrown in prison. Woodrow Wilson put Eugene Debs, his socialist presidential opponent, in prison for giving a speech that correctly said the draft was a form of compulsory service illegal under the Constitution. Apparently, either being too pro-Constitution or too anti-Constitution was enough to find oneself in a cage.

Criticism of American allies, including Britain, could also land one in jail. Robert Goldstein was sentenced to prison for making a patriotic movie, The Spirit of '76, which was about the American Revolution and appropriately portrayed the British as the antagonists. After the war, abuses continued. In the late 1920s, the Bureau of Investigation, today called the FBI, spied on Albert Einstein.

Franklin Roosevelt spied on his political opponents, including Republican presidential candidate Wendell Wilkie, and had lists compiled of both rightwing opponents of his New Deal regime and leftwing radicals. The government was poised to round them all up. This did not end up happening, although FDR did force more than 100,000 peaceful Americans of Japanese descent into internment camps, depriving them of their liberty and property in the name of a war for freedom.

As the Cold War commenced, government monitoring and persecution of peaceful dissenters resumed. Many Americans mostly remember Senator Joe McCarthy, who focused on officials in power above him, but far worse abuses occurred against peaceful and powerless Americans. The Hollywood blacklist is the most well known example.

But the government witch hunts and agitation got worse than even this. The FBI infiltrated both rightwing critics of Civil Rights legislation and leftwing activists. In 1956 the agency launched COINTELPRO (Counter Intellgience Program). The purpose, according to one internal document, was to "track, expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities" of certain activist groups. In one San Diego operation, COINTELPRO used forged letters to incite violence between the Black Panthers and its rival, the United Slaves. The FBI celebrated the "shootings, beatings, and a high degree of unrest," and gloated in a memo, "Although no specific counterintelligence action can be credited with contributing to this overall situation, it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributable to this program." This was revealed in the famous U.S. Senate Church Committee reports in 1976. Far from making us safer, the government, looking for trouble, was proudly provoking civil unrest.

Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the FBI spied on radicals, Civil Rights advocates, opponents of mandatory busing, and opponents of the Vietnam War. Victims of this surveillance included Martin Luther King and John Lennon -- not exactly serious threats to national security.

After the Cold War, the emphasis was shifted toward rightwing extremists. Under the first Bush administration, Randy Weaver, a white separatist, was goaded into breaking the law by informants. This entrapment resulted in federal raids that killed Weaver's son and wife. Early in the Clinton administration, from February to April 1993, federal hysteria directed at the separatist Branch Davidian group outside Waco, Texas -- this group distinctively not white separatist (nearly half of the Davidians were people of color) -- culminated in a military operation on American soil that cost the lives of about 80 American civilians, about a fourth of them children, and four federal officials. Much of what was said about the group was propaganda to save the face of the administration and exempt it from blame for this unspeakable and completely avoidable tragedy.

Many Americans, including conservatives jealous of their rights to live as free people, began criticizing the government for going way too far in its national police powers. Much of the dissent was chilled when the mass murder of innocents at Oklahoma City unfolded on April 19, 1995, precisely two years after the Waco siege ended.

Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh was implicated in the Oklahoma City atrocity, but the government and the liberal establishment pinned blame on an entire subculture, and even on mainstream conservatives. Rush Limbaugh was blamed for voicing anti-government opinions that supposedly contributed to domestic terrorism. For the rest of the 1990s, the rightwing was demonized, lumped together with the militia movement, and the threat of both were wildly exaggerated, even as the Clinton government used the IRS and other means to intimidate its peaceful critics. Prolife groups were harassed through RICO statutes. Gunowners were accused of being unpatriotic and un-American, and any talk of U.S. tyranny was seen as suspect.

With George W. Bush and the war on terror, the face of the targeted group changed, but the basic pattern continued. Muslims and Arabs were suspected as enemies of America, and hundreds were rounded up without due process. Bush thundered that "you are either with us or with the terrorists." In December, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft lashed out at Americans concerned about civil liberties:

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this. Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil."

Thus were peaceful critics of the war on terror targeted. Iraq war protesters were spied on and assaulted by police. In October 2003, the FBI oversaw surveillance of protesters, infiltrated their groups, monitored their "training grounds" and kept an eye out for "protest activity and potentially illegal acts," as one formal memo put it. One FBI official was quoted in the New York Times saying, "it's obvious that there are individuals capable of violence at these events. We know that they are anarchists." It was a throwback to the Red Scare.

In the summer of 2005, the FBI admitted to collecting thousands of documents on non-violent activists, the ACLU, Greenpeace, and antiwar organizations. By using "National Security Letters," the government could force citizens to relinquish personal and financial information while forbidding them from informing anyone, including their lawyer. By 2005, about 30,000 such letters were issued annually. The FBI spied on the Catholic Worker Movement, noting its "semi-communistic ideology."

The same year, NBC News obtained a secret 400-page Pentagon document that tracked such "extremists" as anti-war Quakers in Florida, whose meeting was officially described as a "suspicious incident" and a "threat." All the while, peaceful activists were denied their right to travel by being inexplicably put on federal No-Fly lists.

Now the flavor of government has changed from the Republican leviathan of George W. Bush to the Democratic leviathan of Barack Hussein Obama. A different group is vulnerable to being marginalized -- in many ways a revitalization of the Clinton era atmosphere, although now with the post-9/11 concern about peace activists and all the surveillance powers inaugurated by Bush still in place.

But the general substance behind government fear-mongering and witch-hunts, and the attempts to chill dissent and silence peaceful political critics, have continued and have a long history. For the last century especially, we have seen the government lump together violent and in many cases unsavory agitators on both the left and right with Americans who simply question unlimited government, nationalist police powers and disastrous foreign wars. While there are indeed some violent and crazed elements on the fringes of the right and left -- while there are likewise some extremist characters and frightening viewpoints in the mainstream of American politics, too -- the result of such government persecution of dissenters is always to marginalize everyday citizens with unpopular views, conflate thoughtful and principled criticism of the government with agitation for social unrest and violence, and jeopardize the civil liberties of all Americans.

When the target is leftists, antiwar activists, or "un-American" radicals, statist conservatives have tended to look the other way. When the target is cultural conservatives, gunowners and American patriots who love the Constitution, it is statist liberals who tend to downplay the danger.

In truth, all such fear-mongering, when capitalized upon by unchecked national police powers in an atmosphere of hysteria, poses a severe threat to American liberty, and must be taken very seriously by any culture that respects freedom and the very foundations of civilization. The right to peacefully dissent and oppose government deprivations of life, liberty and property, is an inalienable right as fundamental as any other.

The right to question the government, even from a mistaken point of view, is at the heart of America's proud heritage. When America relinquishes this understanding, it comes to adopt the features of the supposed enemy. In the name of rooting out Communists, America became just a bit more communistic. In an effort to keep an eye on violent extremists, the government resorts to violence and extremism. All the labor agitators, Muslim sympathizers and militia groups put together can never threaten American freedom and security as much as an unleashed police state in a climate of fear.

So it is that much more important to speak up; to tell the truth; to defend the freedoms of all people to speak, live in peace, pursue happiness in a world of liberty, so long as they do not commit aggression against their fellow man. For defending this vision of a free and peaceful world, for sticking up for the rights of others no matter who they are or what they believe, we at the Campaign for Liberty and those of like mind have been wrongly targeted by an overbearing government. But we who love liberty have the right ideas and the passion to stand by our principles. In the end, the national police, state governments, Homeland Security and all the SWAT Teams and spying powers in the world cannot defeat a idea that is true and whose time has come. And it is this idea -- this idea at root of Ron Paul's Love Revolution -- the dream of peace and freedom for all Americans -- that truly frightens those who favor the total state, intimidation and fear directed abroad and toward peaceful dissent at home. It is the idea of liberty, not militias or terrorists, that most threatens the establishment, even as it offers nothing but hope and promise for the American people and the people of the world.

Missouri State Police target Christian Liberty activists as "domestic terrorists"

I've watched reports of this story for the last week in order to verify this story is indeed true. Yesterday, The Campaign For Liberty activists began calling the Missouri Department of Tourism to announce that they won't travel to Missouri because they don't care to be labeled as "terrorists" by their state police. Below is an article by Pastor Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. He explains the ugly story that patriots with or without weapons are now being labeled as "domestic terrorists", by the state police of Missouri.

Here's another article in Reason: "Look Out! He's got a Bob Barr button!"
-Melyssa for HFFT

"MISSOURI STATE POLICE THINK YOU AND I ARE TERRORISTS"
by Chuck Baldwin
March 17th, 2009
Thanks to a concerned Missouri state policeman, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host stated that he was alerted last week to a secret Missouri state police report that categorized supporters of Congressman Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and myself as "'militia' influenced terrorists." The report, he said, "instructs the Missouri police to be on the lookout for supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties."

Ignoring the threat of Muslim terrorists, the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report focuses on the so-called "militia movement" and "conflates it with supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, the so-called patriot movement and other political activist organizations opposed to the North American Union and the New World Order."

This report is not original, of course. During the Clinton administration, a Phoenix Federal Bureau of Investigation and Joint Terrorism Task Force explicitly designated "defenders" of the Constitution as "right-wing extremists." However, the MIAC report significantly expands on earlier documents and is the first known document to actually name names.

According to the MIAC, opposition to world government, NAFTA, federalization of the states, and restrictive gun laws are a potential threat to the police. The MIAC report also refers to Aaron Russo's film, "America: Freedom to Fascism."

The story exposing the MIAC report states, "The MIAC report is particularly pernicious because it indoctrinates Missouri law enforcement in the belief that people who oppose confiscatory taxation, believe in the well-documented existence of a New World Order and world government (a Google search of this phrase will pull up numerous references made by scores of establishment political leaders), and are opposed to the obvious expansion of the federal government at the expense of the states as violent extremists who are gunning for the police. It specifically targets supporters of mainstream political candidates and encourages police officers to consider them dangerous terrorists."

See the report here:

The Columbia Daily Tribune also carried the story last Saturday. It quoted Missouri resident Tim Neal of Miller County. "When Neal read the report, he couldn't help but think it described him. A military veteran and a delegate to the 2008 Missouri Republican state convention, he didn't appreciate being lumped in with groups like the Neo-Nazis.

"'I was going down the list and thinking, "Check, that's me,"' he said. 'I'm a Ron Paul supporter, check. I talk about the North American union, check. I've got the "America: Freedom to Fascism" video loaned out to somebody right now. So that means I'm a domestic terrorist? Because I've got a video about the Federal Reserve?'"

The Tribune's report also acknowledges, "The [MIAC] report's most controversial passage states that militia 'most commonly associate with third-party political groups' and support presidential candidates such as Ron Paul, former Constitutional [sic] Party candidate Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate last year."

The Tribune report also said, "Neal, who has a Ron Paul bumper sticker on his car, said the next time he is pulled over by a police officer, he won't know whether it's because he was speeding or because of his political views."

See the Columbia Tribune report here:

I realize that there are people who will dismiss this kind of story as insignificant. They shouldn't. This is very serious and should be treated as such. Anyone who knows anything at all about history knows that before a state or national government can persecute--and commit acts of violence against--a group of people, they must first marginalize the group from society's mainstream and categorize it as dangerous.

Rome did exactly that to Christians, as did Mao's China; Hitler's Germany did the same thing to Jews; Stalin's Russia did the same thing to political dissenters, etc. That a State police agency in America would actually infer that people who supported Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or myself in a political campaign are somehow indistinguishable from violence-prone "militias" is beyond insulting: it is a smear campaign, and might should even be regarded as a hate crime!

Beyond that, the MIAC report paints with a very broad brush. In addition to supporting Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or myself, a review of the report reveals that opposition to any of the following risks someone being classified as a potential "domestic terrorist":

The New World Order
The United Nations
Gun Control
The violation of Posse Comitatus
The Federal Reserve
The Income Tax
The Ammunition Accountability Act
A possible Constitutional Convention (Con Con)
The North American Union
Universal Service Program
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Abortion on demand
Illegal Immigration

Again, if you oppose any of the above, or if you supported Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or myself, you risk being labeled a "domestic terrorist," according to the MIAC.

Do you not see how dangerous this kind of slanderous labeling can become? It could affect your flight status when you try to board an airline. It could affect your application for sensitive jobs. It could affect your adjudication before a court or judge. It could make you a target for aggressive law enforcement strategies. It could affect your being able to obtain a passport. It could affect one's ability to purchase a firearm or receive a State concealed weapon permit.

This is very serious business! We are not talking about private opinions. We are talking about law enforcement agencies. And remember, most law enforcement agencies share these types of reports; therefore, how many other state police agencies have similar reports floating around? Probably several. Plus, how do we know that this report was not influenced by federal police agencies? We don't.

Rest assured, I do not plan to take this lying down. As one who is personally named in the above report, I demand a public retraction and apology from the MIAC and Missouri State Police. I can tell you that my family is extremely distraught that their husband, father, and grandfather would be labeled in such a manner. I am also not ruling out legal action. In addition, I am discussing an appropriate response with Ron Paul and Bob Barr. I will keep readers posted as to what comes of these discussions (as I am at liberty to do so, of course).

In the meantime, I encourage everyone who believes in the freedom of speech and who believes that the MIAC report is an egregious miscarriage of justice to contact the appropriate Missouri police officials. Here is the contact information:

Email address: Brandon.middleton@mshp.dps.mo.gov

Missouri Information Analysis Center
Division of Drugs & Crime Control
P. O. Box 568
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0568
Phone: 573-751-6422
Toll Free: 866-362-6422
Fax: 573-751-9950

And lest one thinks that none of this concerns him or her, I would like to remind you of the lament of Martin Niemoeller back in the days of Hitler's Germany. Niemoeller was a decorated U-Boat Captain and pastor of great distinction. An avid anti-communist, Niemoeller at first supported Hitler's rise to power and was hesitant to oppose the violations of civil rights against various groups he personally found distasteful. It did not take long, however, before Niemoeller realized that when laws protecting the rights of all were removed from some, no one was safe--including him. Unfortunately, he learned his lesson too late, as he, too, was persecuted and imprisoned by Hitler's State Police. Here is what Niemoeller said about his indifference:

"They came first for the communists, and I did not speak up-
because I was not a communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up -
because I was not a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew;
And then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak up."

So, those of you who think you have nothing to fear because you did not vote for Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or me, or because you do not live in the State of Missouri need to think again. As I have repeatedly said, we either have freedom for all, or we have freedom for none. Truly, secret police reports such as the one above threaten the liberties of us all.

So, will you speak up now or wait until they come for you and no one is left to speak up?