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LIBERTARIAN PARTY FREE MARKET CAUCUS VISION, MISSION, STRATEGY, AND INITIAL AGENDA

in Activism/Free Market/Information/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
LIBERTARIAN PARTY FREE MARKET CAUCUS VISION, MISSION, STRATEGY, AND INITIAL AGENDA

Link to the Facebook group ‘LP Free Market Caucus’ (LPFMC):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LPFreeMarketCaucus/

Link to the accompanying Facebook group ‘Free Market Action – Individual Rights’:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeMarketAction/

Ready to rock and roll in the free market? Welcome! Here’s the plan. Our group will be laser-focused on the three following types of free market projects:

1. Build a better product or service that will provide real benefits to people and improve their lives today or in the future

2. Provide a free market networking service to connect people with projects

3. Collaborate on free market advocacy, education, and outreach projects

Before we spell out the immediate caucus agenda, here are a few comments on our vision, mission, and strategy:

We are not about building an empire. We recognize that our efforts will have political impact, hence our connection to the Libertarian Party as a caucus. Our goal is to support the free market by fostering projects regardless of whether the projects are directly or indirectly associated with our caucus or spun off and totally independent.

We are all self-funded individual volunteers focused on projects that may have political impact, but we leave the politics to those so inclined. Since all projects will be self-funded internally and/or externally, we will have no caucus membership fee.

Our project focus extends to the infrastructure of the caucus. All infrastructure efforts will involve projects. Leadership by example will suffice to keep the caucus running smoothly. If you are looking for a title or someone to tell you what to do, you have come to the wrong place.

Infrastructure project example: Setting up a networking caucus infrastructure service will be a project unto itself and self-funded through internal and/or external fund-raising as necessary. If networking is your forte, volunteer and negotiate with other like-minded volunteers on how to run and accomplish the mission of the networking project.

We encourage the same approach to all projects, internal, external, or independent. However, how projects are run is entirely up to those who have volunteered for the projects.

Now, let’s get down to our immediate agenda. We expect to hold our first project brainstorming session(s) within the next two or three weeks.

We will provide facilitators and moderator for the first iteration of session(s). We anticipate the brainstorming sessions will range from 60 to 90 minutes. Come prepared so we can make effective use of the time. Handout material is not required but may facilitate the process.

We are working on an initial topic list and brainstorming session format. We will have fun learning as we go. Please come with your own topics and brainstorming format suggestions. Most important, come with an idea of what problem or project you personally want to address immediately. Let us know what project is burning a hole in your pocket.

The general session strategy is to brainstorm a list of projects, poll attendees for project priorities. poll attendees on which project they want to work on, provide networking suggestions, and help schedule follow-up project-specific meetings for those who volunteer for specific projects.

The first task is to schedule what days of the week or dates and times work for you for our initial caucus-centered brainstorming sessions. Please reply with your suggestions. We anticipate this will require several sessions each iteration that will lead to several repeating caucus-centered session cycles. This means we will be looking for volunteers for session and project facilitators and moderators.

How does this sound to you?

Please provide your preferred dates and times for the initial caucus-centered project brainstorming sessions.

Let’s do it!

Thoughts?

D.Pratt Tseramed, June 26, 2020
David.Demarest@R2FF.org
402-493-0873

IN THE WAKE OF THE COVID-19 MELTDOWN, WHAT CAN THE LP LEARN FROM CONVENTIONGATE?

in Activism/Free Market/Information/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
IN THE WAKE OF THE COVID-19 MELTDOWN, WHAT CAN THE LP LEARN FROM CONVENTIONGATE?

Quote from my post in ‘LNC – Business Discuss’ [with minor wordsmithing for clarity] in response to comments by Marc Montoni (LPRC 3rd iteration Co-founder ) and others regarding the chart showing LP committee staffing and appointment details/responsibilities posted by Nicholas Sarwark, LP Chair.

Three points:

1. Chair model:

Regardless of the strengths or shortcomings of strong or weak chair models, both models exist in an elective top-down political structure with all its democratic blessings and cronyism-prone faults. Hmmm. Top-down institutional authoritarian structure has not worked well for our tyranny of the majority government in the long run. Perhaps we need to look beyond the chair model and examine the underlying structure to determine faults and solutions.

2. Stepping back from emotions:

Many of us had the unfortunate opportunity to watch all of the LNC meetings, practice sessions, and the virtual convention. I believe the LNC meetings and the virtual convention were recorded. Personally, I am certainly glad that the more vocal LNC members and the rampaging, er, wise and professional majority of delegates stepped back from their emotions and made well considered thoughtful decisions (facetiously speaking).

Obviously, observations about who exhibited emotional behavior are subjective. However, my stomach is not up to watching the embarrassing replays. Once was enough. The evidence I saw was pretty clear and reminiscent of the stripper disruption during the 2016 LP national convention in Orlando. The same evidence was witnessed by many if not most of the delegates. They may want to watch the recordings again to refresh their memories.

3. Role of emotions:

Emotions are a critical part of our makeup. Emotions, appropriately used, are an effective early warning system to alert the brain about incoming information that may require engaging the brain and our self-aware rational capacity to perform objective analysis and design and implement solutions to address, mitigate, or build on the objective conclusions. Despite occasional emergency snap decisions that can be prepared for in advance, substituting emotions for the rational brain process rarely works well.

Emotions also play a critical feedback role to celebrate successes of our rational brain processes and actions. Unfortunately, ConventionGate provides little opportunity for celebration but presents ample opportunities to learn from mistakes. We shall see on the latter. The future of the LP may depend on it.

Summary:

Personally, I think the chair model and bylaws/RONR debates are the least of our problems. Obviously, Covid-19 was a significant contributor to our ConventionGate debacle. The LP had and may still have an opportunity to lead by example in comparison to our duopoly political neighbors during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are stuck with our top-down elective structure for the time being. Are we capable of rising above our structural faults? ConventionGate was not a good start. How will we conclude this ugly LP chapter? Time will tell.

My personal emotional and objective reactions to ConventionGate:

My, how politics brings out the best in us. Well, that’s not very honest, is it? Let me rephrase. My, how top-down emotionally driven politics brings out the worst in us [insert “upchuck”].

My objective and emotional response concerns include how potential LP candidates and members will react to this sorry spectacle.

Of even more concern to me is the reaction of existing members. Some may react by excluding or expelling various factions they disagree with using a skewed non-hybrid second sitting in a fit of un-Libertarian-like opportunism or spite. Others may give up the ghost of liberty in this current snapshot of the LP and move on to more freedom friendly homes focused on our free market home turf.

My gosh, how did the words “Liberty”, “Freedom”, and “Free Market” creep into this political discussion?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeMarketAction/

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2999904110089338&set=a.2011194558960303&type=3&eid=ARCDMhaA4lU6Rl3IPme5NojcQJlyyy5O2Tx1pkqpB1NnJ3xRLffBjnG5pe9p_IXT6TtPGkwZWpoMduZc

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, June 11, 2020
David.Demarest@R2FF.org, 402-493-0873

HOW CAN YOU MAXIMIZE YOUR POLITICAL CAMPAIGN AND PROJECT DONATION BANG FOR THE BUCK?

in Activism/Information/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
HOW CAN YOU MAXIMIZE YOUR POLITICAL CAMPAIGN AND PROJECT DONATION BANG FOR THE BUCK?

Political donors are notoriously naive. They get so giddy about the political process, their favorite candidates, and political agenda projects that they forget about due diligence precautions inherent in the free market. They leave the door wide open for bad actors.

Let’s stop and think about what attracts bad actors. Money and power that translates into money. The biggest pots of money are in the free market. True, the free market does attract some bad actors.

Free markets however, are primarily merit-based. Bad actors find it more difficult to avoid having to embrace the free market requirement that nothing gets produced without effort. They might actually have to work hard and earn their way, exactly what they are trying to avoid.

Where can bad actors go where they don’t have to earn their way. Bingo, You got it. Politics. True, the pots of money in politics are not as big as those in the free market. However, political money, primarily in campaigns and political agenda projects, is donor based. Donations are harder to track and easier to cook the books on.

Free market ventures must meet generally accepted accounting practices and their long range survival depends on how profitable they are. In the case of non-profits, their success is nevertheless measurable and their ability to attract talent depends on the salaries they can offer.

Not so with politics. The profit is getting elected, influencing policy, or sending a message. The modus operandi of bad actors in the political arena is to recruit candidates, initiate donor-attractive projects, or insert themselves into campaigns or projects based on alleged management, marketing, or fund-raising skills, particularly the latter. The next step is to offer or insist on control of the campaign or project finances.

Once intrenched in a campaign or project, how can bad actors attain their goal of enriching themselves at the expense of the endeavor at hand? Inflated performance fees, misrepresented performance, siphoning off donations, cooking the books, sloppy reporting with no or friendly audits, just for openers.

The big prizes for bad actors, however, are the funds left over when the campaign or project is completed. The telltale sign of the opportunity for malfeasance is money left over and and vague or non-existing policies on how to distribute the spoils. Sound familiar? A campaign or project that is sincerely intended to achieve the stated goal will typically use all funds available to ensure victory or achieve success.

It is conceivable that an efficiently run campaign or project could end up with surplus funds. The ethical approach would be to escrow surplus funds for a future campaign or follow-on project and do so with crystal clear well-documented and publicly reported transparency.

Here is a dose of reality for political donors. When a campaign or agenda project has run its course, political donors, unlike free market investors, predictably move on to the next exciting political drama and lose interest in how the campaign or project finances were wrapped up.

It is easier in politics for bad actors to split the leftovers, leave a trail of unpaid bills, head for the hills with their ill-gotten gains, hole up until they run out of money, and then set the trap for their next political campaign or project financial victim.

How could you as a donor smoke out bad actors short of testing for psychopathic behavior?

  • Do your due diligence as if it was a free market endeavor
  • Get involved in the cause, campaign, or project you believe in
  • Insist on a commitment to financial transparency
  • Insist on published lists of board, staff, and credential profiles
  • Insist on a financial prospectus
  • Insist on a business plan
  • Insist on frequent financial reports reviewed by an independent auditor
  • Insist on profit retention and distribution policies
  • Guard the campaign wallet like it was your own

Political donors are to be congratulated on their enthusiastic largess. However, the challenges and responsibilities for donors are more than just taking advantage of an opportunity to avoid getting their fingers dirty.

A wise donor actively participates in the endeavor they are supporting. They ensure that their donation dollars are wisely used and do not fall into the hands of bad actors. They hold the beneficiaries of their philanthropy accountable.

Click the following link for a related meme and story:


D. Pratt Tseramed, June 3, 2020
David.Demarest@R2FF.org, 402-493-0873

Vaccine Conspiracy – Fact Or Fiction – Smoke But Is There A Fire? If True, Consequences For Mankind?

in Activism/Information/News/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Vaccine Conspiracy - Fact Or Fiction - Smoke But Is There A Fire? If True, Consequences For Mankind?

I am not a fan of conspiracy theories. Occam’s Razor favors simple models. However, the pieces are starting to fit together. A lot of smoke but is there a fire?

Is Dr. Anthony Fauci “the Bernie Madoff of Science”, as alleged in this 26-minute video? How about Robert Redfield of the CDC?

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D5wHzrYtV5lw%26feature%3Dshare%26fbclid%3DIwAR0VBLo-fNkNHo8w1UVISVe0f2o-K9Y-ZLR6NUxo09OenErdY6xXMZ_9TAI&h=AT306QU3XEiq223g5OrAKt-rNLy40B1NI-ogJdZwje73EnVu1Nfa_Bf-jkWFanjCL30aI5HPz6TNBddzF83726m9di1hvAHPU56TNDVNzR8feS7IfUb_Q1pqugIdfZahLPw9VLzNz8XFflukOcUbsk1-0pKIkgLs2fWwIg

If you clicked on the link above you received the following message: “This video has been removed for violating YouTubes’s Community Guideline”. This should give you a clue as to the length that the perpetrators and their government cronies are willing to go to to cover up their crimes.

Folks, this is serious stuff that government is flexing their cover-up muscles on. You can add YouTube and Facebook to the list of bad guys in the meme above. However, their complicity prompts me to insert the rogue’s gallery meme at the following link. If Facebook invalidates this link, I will forward it to you upon request:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2948430375236712&set=a.2011194558960303&type=3&eid=ARCHhZBsinxiDyPGHUncjKdnATdW2q5HBVri-yy42DGvMLYx7hFLmeM3N47MaUa5jMiuR3JqtGJNEwvu

The meme at the link above does not mention any names of persons, just organizational acronyms with no obscenity, and just normal head shots of a sordid assortment of strange bedfellows in the pandemic vaccine arena. I should add YouTube and Facebook to the meme but they are just indirect government social media lapdogs not otherwise associated with the pandemic vaccine controversy.

Where does Bill Gates fit into this picture with his vaccine, vaccine tracking, and depopulation agenda in alliance with Dr. Fauci, FDA, CDC, and the discredited World Health Organization who are obviously in bed with the Chinese Communists.

Hmmm. Dr. Fauci is on the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates has contributed large sums to the FDA and CDC. Why?

This is scary stuff. If true, Fauci, Redfield, and government agency criminal behavior have caused tragic health consequences that make the Mafia and drug cartels look like choir boys.

Talk about being desensitized to moral issues! If a fraction of this video is true, it should be prosecutable criminal behavior on the scale of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Can we trust Congress to ferret out the truth before pandemics and FDA/CDC ‘Death by Regulation” destroy our health, our economy, and our way of life? We shall see.

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See what conclusions you come to. If you are as concerned as I am about how this video relates to the Covid-19 pandemic, feel free to share this video. In the midst of a severe pandemic, how promptly we handle this alleged threat literally represents life or death for hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, May 8, 2020

David.Demarest@R2FF.org, 402-493-0873

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Postscript:

The subsequent “Plandemic” debunking post strikes me as authorities scrambling to sanitize their reputations with cover-up spin-doctoring.

I have noticed 4 kinds of responses to the conspiracy and debunking posts:

1. True believers who are prone to falling for every conspiracy theory – on the fringe

2. True believers who are prone to falling for anything that authorities say – truly dangerous

3. Those who could care less or can’t be bothered – understandable but ignorance is bliss can be just as dangerous

4. Rational skeptics who intuitively consider the big picture and take time for due diligence to fill in gaps

I believe that understanding the big picture requires evaluation of both actions and motives (Ludwig von Mises, Praxeology – study of human action and decision-making, the broader definition of Economics).

Thoughts?

NEBREXIT, Secession-lite Movement To Establish Nebraska As A Legal Nullification Sanctuary From Big Brother

in Activism/Information/News/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
NEBR*EXIT secession-lite Nebraska legal nullification sanctuary to get Big Brother's attention.

Building on the success of BREXIT, Britain’s secession from the European Union, today a new movement is born in the ‘colonies’.

Welcome to NEBREXIT (pronounced Nee*BREXIT), or NEBR*EXIT (Nebraska Exit) to make the nomenclature more explicit.

Link to the brand-spanking new NebrExit Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/LocalizeNebraska

There is nothing like the threat of secession to get the attention of Big Brother.

The first step is to float the idea of creating a secession-lite legal sanctuary in the state of Nebraska where we decide which federal regulations we will honor and which we will nullify, similar to jury nullification.

Will this lead to a sovereign free state of Nebraska? Hard to say, but the more important issue is the need to reverse the accelerating growth trend of Big Brother.

Despite heroic efforts of freedom seekers in Nebraska and elsewhere, we are still hurtling out of control in the wrong direction toward mud-hut Socialism, poverty, misery and conformity.

A fresh localization effort is needed to point the needle back toward freedom.

Let’s think outside the box on how to leverage an NEBREXIT movement to put us back on the roads to freedom, nothing more, nothing less, for all people IN OUR LIFETIMES.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, April 23, 2020

$128 Million U.S. Celebrity Fundraiser for World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Headed By Communist Tedros Adhanom WHO (Pun Intended) Is In Bed With Chinese Communists

in Activism/Free Market/Information/Media/News/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
Do you still admire and trust U.S. Celebrities after $128 million fundraiser for World Health Organization (W.H.O.) in bed with Chinese Communists?

Are you shocked by $128 million celebrity fundraiser for World Health Organization (W.H.O.) openly in bed with Chinese Communists while Covid-19 deaths continue to mount as a result of W.H.O. and Chinese Communist lack of transparency and disinformation?

If you are considering using economic and social ostracism to counter advocacy of Chinese Communist agenda by celebrities and other WHO apologists like Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci, see some of the contact names below.

Quote from Axios website:

https://www.axios.com/one-world-together-at-home-coronavirus-lady-gaga-91872b2e-0a41-44ca-a4a0-617d5dfae3c6.html

“The star-studded Lady Gaga-curated fundraising event “One World: Together at Home” raised $127.9 million for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO and $72.8 million for local and regional responders, organizer Global Citizen said in a statement early Sunday.

Saturday’s online event honoring and celebrating those on the front lines of the fight against the novel coronavirus was broadcast worldwide and billed as the biggest concert since the 1985’s Live Aid, watched by 1.9 billion people.

Former first ladies Laura Bush and Michelle Obama were among more than 70 artists and celebrities to take part from their homes.

The event was broadcast live on TV from 8 p.m. ET and most leading streaming services, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, Twitter, Apple and Amazon Prime Video.

Other big names included Taylor Swift, Elton John, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Celine Dion and The Rolling Stones. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon were hosting the virtual event.”

Google Search:

“Global Citizen is a movement of engaged citizens who are using their collective voice to end extreme poverty by 2030. Through our mix of content and events, grassroots organizing, and our action platform, we are building a movement to end poverty.”

My question: Is the Global Citizen agenda to end poverty or make poverty much worse via smoke and mirrors advocacy for the W.H.O. and Chinese Communist agenda?

This event raised $128 million for WHO’s Chinese Communist advocacy and $73 for “local and regional responders”.

I leave it to your judgement as to what is really going on and the obvious threat to our economy, principles, and freedoms.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, April 20, 2020

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