Independent Political Report is in receipt of a missive sent by a prominent state chair to the LNC Chair and the LNC. The missive was forwarded to us by a highly reliable source. We have been asked to protect our sources, and have done so. Our source provides us with:
Sent to all LNC Officers and Regional Representatives:
Madam Chair, you are the ultimate responsibility on this board. If you are going to go after others for what they’re doing, and especially for criticizing you, you’d better be above reproach.
The truth is, the Region 1 rep has shared his feedback with you in phone call, private message, in private group chat, and on the confidential list for months now, and been ignored and dismissed. As have I, a state chair.
The truth is, you “put up with” a whole lot of bad behavior behind closed doors from several people on this board, because you are scared and you want to get re-elected, or you’re afraid they’ll move no confidence in you, or you just “need their votes” on something. All of this you have admitted yourself.
The truth is, you have told Miguel multiple times that you want him to go to bat for you, and when he does, you throw him under the bus or leave him swinging in the wind.
Let’s talk about acting professionally.
Madam Chair, when are you going to disclose publicly that you hired your own domestic partner, putting the Party’s money in your pocket? Can no one else see how completely inappropriate this conflict of interest is for this position? Everybody lost their shit when Nick Sarwark tried to get paid by the party. If you want this to be above board, then be open about it and get buy-in with the LNC, and even recuse yourself. Don’t do it quietly and hope no one will notice! This is strange behavior, and it’s even stranger that no one else seems to have an issue with it.
Madam Chair, in March you bragged to me multiple times, over text and in person, about how you screamed and cursed at Mr. Troxell, “ARE YOU TRYING TO FUCK ME?!” because he was insubordinate to Ms. Huston. You boasted, “I am a scary boss,” and claimed that your tactic worked. It clearly didn’t. Is this the kind of management you think will improve staff morale?
Madam Chair, you told me May 25, “got an awesome HR package and it’s gonna smack down a lot of the EPCC overreach,” after complaining to me and others for months about the EPCC and Dustin and Steven. Now apparently you’re thick as thieves with them? What happened?
Madam Chair, I have watched you denigrate people loyal to you when they aren’t around, dismissing their concerns for some reason or another: mental instability, “too emotional.” You were quick to turn on me too and throw insults, when I dared to give you feedback that was not praise. It is extremely concerning to see how this Chair treats her friends and supporters when they dissent or cease to be useful to her. Who will be next under the bus?
Let’s talk about confidentiality.
No less than five different LNC members have told me confidential information: about staff issues, about the EPCC, about the LNC. Madam Chair, with whom would you like me to start next? Many members of this board misuse confidentiality to gossip and lobby and make vague accusations about others, and then point fingers at Miguel for telling his state chairs (who are supposed to counsel him) what’s going on. How can members and state chairs give informed feedback about your job performance, if you do shady shit in secret? You are no better than the government.
I was told after this takeover, things would be transformed. That the new crop of leaders would not play petty power games. But that is exactly what is happening, and those of you who are not actively doing it are standing by and letting it happen.
At this point, I have zero compunctions about going public with every single thing that every liar and backstabber on this board has ever told me. Not over what some of you are trying to do to Miguel – [REDACTED FOR ANONYMITY] – but because you all have squandered our time and effort. You all know you have not delivered on your promises, and it’s easy to see through the attempts to blame staff.
The members deserve to know that you have failed us, and none of you deserve their trust or their votes.
Tully and Rick,
The event headlined speakers who were openly pro aggressor in a foreign war. Do you think Ron Paul would side with that? Do you side with that? How does being pro aggressor in a foreign war relate to being pro life?
Hi Tully. While meme-ing in some way might appeal to some younger folks, you overloook and probably overestimate the value of edgelording and shit-posting. This is particularly when it appears to be the current party leadership’s entire communications strategy.
Steve M, Ron Paul has worked with leftists to oppose needless foreign wars before. Lew Rockwell’s site has at times crossed from opposing US intervention in Iraq to publishing articles defending Saddam Hussein from charges of using chemical weapons, invading neighbors, being a repressive dictator, etc. Murray Rothbard did similar things during the Vietnam war, allying with Marxist sects which actually supported the Vietcong side to protest the war.
Ryan: fair point, and unfortunately it seems you are correct about them not being ready for prime time.
Jim: Rothbard changed his opinion of abortion near the end of his life. Ron Paul is polite, but his young followers quite often are not.
Thomas: we disagree. Hoppe clearly has an ideology. Memeing is a communication method that appeals to a younger, attention deficit audience. If your quarrel is with communicating in a way that works for young people, say that. If it’s that you disagree with Hoppe, say that. Presenting views he would agree with in a way that appeals to people who are mostly younger than you isn’t the same as having no ideology.
Rick: we agree.
I think Rick and Ryan made the best points out of those.
Rick – the Ron Paul message is less clearly antiwar than it was in the past.
In late February, 2022, as Putin was ordering Russian State military forces into Ukraine, Daniel McAdams indicated on Antiwar.com that he looked forward to a quick victory for Russian forces in the “Special Military Operation.”
Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of The Ron Paul Institute, and he was making this statement in a conversation with Ron Paul, who did not express disagreement with him.
Supporting one side in a war is not the same thing as opposing war. The Ron Paul Institute, and Antiwar.com have maintained a one-sided stand, attacking Ukraine for corruption and supposed tolerance of Nazis, while ignoring the police state operations in Russia by the Putin regime, and the war crimes in Ukraine committed by Russian forces.
Russian missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine have included Lviv, birthplace of Ludwig von Mises. https://calibertarianreport.com/2022/03/18/birthplace-of-ludwig-von-mises-under-attack/
Opposing war is an important libertarian principle. But wars are started by aggressors, and Russia is clearly the Aggressor in Ukraine. At Antiwar.com and The Ron Paul Institute, they repeat Russian propaganda points about NATO promoting a Ukraine threat against Russia. The evidence is not conclusive on this. Even if it were clear that NATO and Ukraine were posing a threat of future aggression, attacking first is itself
aggression, unless you accept the Bush-Cheney doctrine of “Preemptive War” as a defenseive move.
When I did volunteer research for Antiwar.com for eight years between 2002 and 2010, opposing the doctrine of Preemptive War was a major focus. Now it is accepted, if Russia does it.
This is in keeping with Dr Rothbard’s view, never clearly stated in libertarian journals, that Russia is an ally of those who oppose American Imperialism. It is quite at odds with the view of Ludwig von Mises, who was very clear in his opposition to Russian Statism and aggression.
A Ron Paul message would be to stay out of wars. He would be against the US government giving money and weapons to Ukraine. That’s the libertarian position.
The Mises PAC isn’t ideologically based on anything. Hoppe-bot shit-meming isn’t an ideology.
The Mises Caucus claims it is ideologically based on Rothbard and seeks to replicate the political style of Ron Paul. But, unlike the MC, Rothbard was strongly pro-choice and Ron Paul was almost invariably polite. I’m sure they all would have agreed on repealing the anti-bigotry plank of the platform, though.
“Steve M, they did have a unified message. What they did not have to the same extent is unified strategy and tactics of nuts and bolts day to day party operations, the stuff that any party has to do regardless of ideology. For many of them, it seems like maybe ideological fine tuning was the only thing that mattered, with the assumption the rest would take care of itself or fall into place. Ideology was their strong point, along with takeover tactics. Post takeover operations, it seems is not so much their strong point.”
If what you state is actually the truth, they weren’t ready for primetime. Leadership matters. Anyone that says it doesn’t, be in an organization or work in a company with a bad CEO.
Tully,
So a Ron Paul message would include organizing an event and inviting leftist pro Russian invasion of Ukraine speakers to headline it?
Steve M, it sounds to me like what you mean by message is more like what I mean by operation / strategy / tactics. What I mean by message is that they define and market libertarian views more like Ron Paul and the Mises Institute, and less like Gary Johnson, Bill Weld, so called beltway libertarians, “libertarian socialists,” etc.
Thank you for the correction on Sarwark. For some reason that comment did not come up on my screen.
Tully, I am all ears. What was their unified message other than old leadership bad and we won’t embarras you. The latter they quickly failed.
I specifically asked the lpnh what they were going to do? Who were they going to run etc. They had no decearnable answer. I asked a few other state parties similar questions. All I got was we will do better.
So pray tell me what their unified message was and why they haven’t been sending it.
Steve M, they did have a unified message. What they did not have to the same extent is unified strategy and tactics of nuts and bolts day to day party operations, the stuff that any party has to do regardless of ideology. For many of them, it seems like maybe ideological fine tuning was the only thing that mattered, with the assumption the rest would take care of itself or fall into place. Ideology was their strong point, along with takeover tactics. Post takeover operations, it seems is not so much their strong point.
Or perhaps they just didn’t have much experience with it and will improve with time. It took them several convention cycles to get successful at takeover methodology. Maybe post takeover methodology will have a similar learning curve. I think they were founded in …2017? If so, by 2028 or so they should be just as good at running the party as they became at taking it over by 2022. That probably means a snafu of a presidential cycle in 2024, but that’s ok, because getting Biden and the Democrats out is more important right now. 2028 will have no incumbent running no matter what, so if I’m wrong in my thesis that ideologically based third parties will remain on a downward trajectory going forward, it may be a better year for Libertarians to make an impact in the Presidential race.
That’s if they keep running presidential candidates; I tend to think local races and technically nonpartisan candidates are better, which gets to my point that the ideal organizations to coordinate support for them may want to brand themselves and legally organize as something(s) other than a political party. Sorry. That’s jumping ahead of myself; I don’t want to discuss that point until I finish writing an article about it.
George Phillies, Nicholas Sarwark posted the initial comment on this article. If I may make a suggestion, it would be easier to follow if the initial comment appeared at the top, like on most discussion boards. Newer comments at the top rather than at the bottom seems weird and hard to follow, at least to me.
My observation of the Miss-named caucus is that while they were very well financed and organized to take over state parties and then the LNC….
They had no plan on what to do after they took over other than purge the old leadership. They had no unified message they wanted to deliver. They partnered with anyone as long as they were anti the old leadership.
I would be surprised if Miss-named Caucus held together another year.
Mr. Sarwark, the Chair disclosed this on the 8/9/23 statement, the same time the hiring of three staffers were announced. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RgSWf3CEVoHBg3miCQiHdFAiLXn4E1lS/edit
Ryan, I’m not a caucus guy. I’m not even a party member anymore and have not been in years if by party member you mean dues paid. I have no idea why they picked which particular person for which position. I would have voted for their candidates because I agreed with their criticisms of prior leadership which pandered to woke leftist commies, burn loot murder, covid hysteria/shutdowns/mandates, globalists like Weld and Barr, and there were definite airs of arrogance and corruption which I don’t remember all the details of anymore to be honest but I clearly remember it leaving a n ongoing bad taste and what Mises caucus people were a saying about it at the time rang true.
I’ll answer the last question in much more detail in the planned upcoming version. Very short version, there are lots and lots of ways for an ideological political movement to advance it’s goals, from caucuses in major parties to independent candidates to educational and informational groups to single issues and multi issues pressure groups, pacs, and many more. I’ll be making my case that the minor political party route has increasingly diminishing returns for increasingly wasted hamster wheel churning and why I came to that conclusion . Please be patient and give me a few days to write and submit it, and the editors a few days to decide whether to publish. If they decide against I’ll submit elsewhere. If that doesn’t work either I’ll self publish. Please do me a favor and not argue the point with me before the article is published, as that would defeat the purpose.
Tully,
I understand your frustration, but seriously what else are you going to do? The Democrats and Republicans are both very far away from the libertarian movement. There’s some issues here and there that both take a libertarian point of view on, but philosophically, both the Democrats and Republicans want a super-powered strong government so they can implement their policy points of view. That’s fundamentally anti-libertarian/pro-statist. Because what we realize that both sides don’t is someday the people you don’t like will become President and will run everything. And you spent all that time making the government more powerful for yourself that now it’s also more powerful for the side of people you don’t like. The key then is limited government. Neither the Republicans or Democrats believe in limited government.
“Mises is doing a fine job cleaning up the horrible mess they inherited from prior boards.”
Which is what? Give me items with clear undisputable public evidence and since you have problems with anonymous state chairs, every item you list must have an identifiable source. It’s public knowledge cash receipts are down and membership is down (LNC Business group). It’s public knowledge multiple Board members have resigned (LNC Business group). It’s public knowledge there’s been a lot of national staff turnover (LNC Business group). It’s public knowledge the national party has intervened in the governance of multiple state affiliates when Joe Bishop-Henchmann was ran out of national chair for intevening in the governance of New Hampshire (this site, Ballot Access News). It’s public knowledge that New Hampshire-ites now have about as high an opinion of the Mises Caucus as they did JBH (this site, Red Pill Diaries Substack, LPNH Twitter account). It’s public knowledge they’ve spent national party funds that are finite to take Libertarian Party members to court (Ballot Access News). It’s public knowledge that Angela McArdle is organizing anti-war events with Russian enthusiasts and the LaRouche Movement (this site, media doing gaslighting that don’t want Libertarians to succeed). It’s public knnowledge that ational moneys were spent on the campaigns of failed Republican candidates that were not really libertarian, which makes them no different than Bill Weld (Jake Porter Substack).
Mises is doing a fine job cleaning up the horrible mess they inherited from prior boards. An alleged letter from an unnamed chair isn’t changing my mind.
“I agreed with the thrust of Mises caucus criticisms of prior leadership and would have voted for their candidates if I was a delegate. Maybe they will find their stride, and hopefully these are just growing pains, but when it comes to nonideological nuts and bolts operations management they have so far proven disappointing. ”
I’m not a Mises guy, but to repeat something I’ve said on this site previously, they succeeded in overthrowing the old regime and getting their own people in place, why did they choose to bank their developing reputation on them in leadership on Angela McArdle? There needs to be an answer to this other than “they had no one else”. That’s not an answer, if it’s the real answer, you’re telling me no one of competence in your whole caucus wanted to run the party. Why is there no one competent in your caucus willing to run the Libertarian Party once you took control? Why did you not have someone in waiting?
Honestly, I wouldn’t give a damn about your caucus’s beliefs if your caucus demonstrated competence running the party when your people were elected up, down, and everywhere in Reno.
I spent another 5-10 minutes looking up Freddie Franklin to see any other articles he wrote and found nothing. If anyone knows any maybe put up some links. Also, what’s the evidence that Padgett and Franklin are one and the same?
In the course of looking this up, I found a gofundme appeal fundraising for Angela and Austin on the occasion of their baby being born, and something from Angela describing the new lphq employees/contractors and their duties. One of Padgett’s is rebuilding relationships with prior major donors. Good luck with that. Him being hired by his baby mama, especially if it’s true she didn’t publicly vet that decision before making it, would be additional reason for them to use their money otherwise. I know that would be my position if I was one of them, regardless of anything else. The fact that they had to fundraise to deal with the birth of their child adds to the suspicion of nepotism and self dealing. At best, not a good look. But maybe he’ll make up for that with his blockchain technology and ag tech industry connections. We shall see.
This is not axe grinding. I agreed with the thrust of Mises caucus criticisms of prior leadership and would have voted for their candidates if I was a delegate. Maybe they will find their stride, and hopefully these are just growing pains, but when it comes to nonideological nuts and bolts operations management they have so far proven disappointing. I’m increasingly of the view that the Libertarian Party is past its time as a tactic for the libertarian movement, and can’t and won’t resume an upward trajectory regardless of what faction gains the upper hand. I’ll try to work up an article expanding on that last part in the next few days and send it to Phillies. If he decides against publishing it, I may try some other possible outlets or put up a new WordPress.
Ed Reagan, his article is well written and I agree with his point. I see no way on their site to see what else he wrote. Nevertheless, it looks shady she hired her baby daddy, even if he’s the best man for the job. Hopefully he is. It also looks even more shady if she didn’t disclose that fact and get public input first, if I’m correct in deducing that’s what happened.
I have the names. Without them, IPR would not have printed the report.
Without names given, I’m taking this with a grain of salt. It’s a rumor at this stage.
Austin Padgett has penned some articles, like this one, under the pen name “Freddie Franklin.”
https://lpmisescaucus.com/libertarianism/separate-or-die/
Nicholas Sarwark, according to the LNC Chairwoman’s Go Fund Me campaign to cover the costs related to her having a baby, her partner is named Austin Padgett.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/hooray-angela-and-austin-have-a-baby
“Madam Chair, when are you going to disclose publicly that you hired your own domestic partner, putting the Party’s money in your pocket?”
Who is this domestic partner, what were they hired to do, and how much were they receiving from the Libertarian Party?