Rachel Maddow and Nullification...

Rachel Maddow Show fails to apologize for blatant and damaging error in its own transcript!

If you have caught any of my posts about Rand Paul in the past, you'd know that I am by no means writing to advance his candidacy:   I am skeptical of his libertarian bonafides on a host of issues.

That said, distortions and smears are not acceptable, whether they happen to be directed at our ideological confreres or foes. As The Nation's Chris Hedges pointed out while guest-hosting on Rachel Maddow's show Friday, The New York Times had misinterpreted the transcript of her notorious interview with Rand Paul and reported a big falsehood. However, as the Daily Paul reported, several other news sources reported this falsehood because of an error in the Maddow Show's own written transcript, not merely a bad interpretation of it. Her program's failure to apologize in the four days since the interview -- in the face of irrefutable and politically damaging error -- demonstrates at the very most, a lack of integrity, and at the very least, a lack of accountability.

Don't let Maddow and Co. pass the buck to the New York Times and present this damaging error as an isolated incident. We in the grassroots need to be the ones holding this intolerant advocate of tolerance accountable. Contact the Rachel Maddow Show (rachel@msnbc.com) and ask politely but unequivocally for an apology.

(Thanks to Daily Paul for their reporting on this important issue of media accountability.)

"Civil, Rights, Action!" Responding to Liberal Attacks on Libertarianism

A member of the New York City Campaign For Liberty published a response to an article that appeared on the Huffington Post a few days ago. I felt like it was worth publishing here for all the kiddos to read to help better defend themselves as you all are no doubt being asked constantly about the Civil Rights Act as it pertains to libertarianism.

Before you read his response, I felt like this quote by Fredrick Douglass basically sums up his entire argument:

"In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! ... And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... your interference is doing him positive injury."

In May, Obama proposed indefinite preventative detention. What happened?

Rachel Maddow is obviously not great on everything, but in this video she gives a sweet monologue the "indefinite preventive detention" Obama proposed in May.  What exactly does this detention mean in practice?  Maddow explains it well, but here's another example of how it could work:

Imagine you are picked up off the street for daring to write something provocative in your blog.  Perhaps you vaguely threaten to relocate to Afghanistan and work with a humanitarian aid organization there.  Unkown to you the humanitarian aid organization might possibly be associated with the Afghan resistence.  Perhaps the head of the aid organization is the third cousin twice removed of a suspected warlord causing our march for empire trouble on the border.  Based on that alone you could be kept in a cell forever.  After all, letting you out of that cell might mean you really would do what you threatened and we can't have that.

This all happened in May.  Old news, right?  Yeah, it is.  But it's not something we should forget about, especially when it's so difficult to find more recent updates on the situation.  Here, for instance, is a blog post from a few days ago, but other than that, recent news on this situation seems to be nearly nonexistent. 

But maybe I'm missing something -- thus this blog post.  Does anyone know what's up?  I assume the proposal went through, but given the upcoming deadline (this Friday) for the closing of Guantanamo, I'm wondering exactly what happened.  Leave a comment if you've seen news I missed.