From the Archives - Nipping ahead of regulators: Nick Gillespie discusses Reason.tv, free speech, and restraint (2010)

Nipping ahead of regulators: Nick Gillespie discusses Reason.tv, free speech, and restraint
August 2, 2010 3:27 AM MST

Reason.tv was started in October 2007 as a video journalism site designed to complement the work of the Reason Foundation, the print edition of Reason magazine, and the magazine’s web site, Reason.com.

Since then, according to Reason.tv’s editor-in-chief, Nick Gillespie, the site has grown every month, not only “in terms of web traffic but more importantly in terms of a kind of recognition among free-market-oriented, libertarian think tanks [for which] we are setting the standard for video.”

Gillespie spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner after a panel discussion hosted at Reason’s Washington office on July 12. (Another article based on this interview with Gillespie, focusing on the potential for privatizing Virginia’s liquor trade, appeared on Examiner.com on July 19.)

Measures of Success
In addition to its own web site, Reason.tv has a YouTube channel with 410 uploaded videos that have been viewed at least 5,840,679 times; it also has 16,363 subscribers and 7,398 “friends” on YouTube.

From among those 400-plus videos, Gillespie points to two of them as his favorites.

“One of them,” he says, “is Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey, a fifty minute, six-part series about how Cleveland might turn around a 60-year decline in population and economic fortunes. It’s a really interesting piece where we leverage all of the expertise we have in the public policy division of Reason Foundation, the journalism angle, etc.”

The other one he likes is called “UPS vs. FedEx, which was a two-minute long piece that looked at the way in which UPS is trying to get FedEx’s labor classification reclassified. We used a technologically advanced understanding of green screens and white screens and we had a lot of fun with it. It got a very complex message out in a very short period of time.”

Finding Government Nannies
A regular feature on Reason.tv is the “Nanny of the Month,” which looks at examples of paternalistic government action. Gillespie explained how he and his team find these “Nannies.”

Nick Gillespie

“We find the Nanny of the Month through two ways,” he said, first through original reporting by the staff of Reason, and second, through submissions by readers. “We get a hell of a lot – 50 to 100 – submissions a month.”

Gillespie noted that “that’s actually one of the things that’s interesting about the Web in general, that it’s a distributed intelligence network, so we’re getting a lot of information from people” who are strangers to the organization but who nonetheless “send us stuff.”

As the interview drew to a close, Gillespie mused that, “if there’s a message from Reason.tv, it’s that the 21st century, far from delivering on the utopian dreams of the 20th century, is a weird world where technology has continued to barely nip ahead of [the] government regulators at their heels across a wide variety of levels.”

Still, he remains optimistic, expressing the hope that “we’ll be able to outpace” government controls. The problem he sees is that the past two administrations – George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s – each have tried to restrict liberty in their own ways.

‘Worst continuity possible’
“This is something that I think people should understand,” he said, “which is that we tend to think in dichotomous terms about conservatives/liberals [or] Republicans/Democrats,” but these artificial divisions are “wrong.”

Gillespie pointed out that “George Bush signed the most restrictive campaign finance regulation act known to history, the McCain-Feingold law, which was then basically routed around by new technology. Barack Obama wants to control your political speech, he wants to control what is available on cable and satellite TV, and he wants to control what you can buy and sell on the Internet, just like George Bush.”

He concluded:

“Anybody who considers himself a liberal or a conservative should be concerned because what we are seeing is the worst continuity possible between a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat.”



Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 2, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Attorney General Cuccinelli calls Charlottesville ABC sting operation 'overkill'

Attorney General Cuccinelli calls Charlottesville ABC sting operation 'overkill'
July 3, 2013 4:17 PM MST

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli characterized as “overkill” an ABC sting operation in Charlottesville that resulted in a University of Virginia coed spending a night in jail and being charged with three felonies.

Cuccinelli, who is also the 2013 Republican nominee for governor, made his remarks during a July 3 interview with afternoon radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM.

The April 11th incident has received national attention since the charges against Elizabeth Daly were dropped by Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman on June 27. Change.org is currently circulating a petition demanding that the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control apologize to Daly and her two companions and to discipline the officers involved.

Late in the evening of April 11, Daly and two friends purchased cookie dough, ice cream, and canned sparkling water at the Harris Teeter store in Barracks Road Shopping Center. A group of six ABC agents, mistaking the water for beer, approached them.

The women did not recognize the agents as law enforcement personnel, called 911 to report their fears, panicked, and drove away. Daly was subsequently charged with striking two of the agents with her car and evading arrest, charges that brought with them the threat of up to 15 years in prison.

Well-placed concern

“I think your concern for overkill is well-placed,” Cuccinelli told Barefoot. “Mind you, I have not spoken to the agency about this,” he explained, so his knowledge of the situation has been based upon press reports.

However, Cuccinelli added, “these folks have a job to do, but do you really need a half dozen of them? Let's say this was hard liquor” that Daly allegedly bought. “So what?”

Based on the descriptions he had seen, the Attorney General said, “it seems to me that frankly – even if she bought beer or something – she got more than enough punishment in jail.”

Cuccinelli said, putting himself in the shoes of the women that night, “if I see a bunch of men surrounding me, that's going to instill a lot of fear in me.”

'Extreme measures'

Noting that, as an undergraduate at UVA, he had helped start a sexual assault prevention group on campus, Cuccinelli explained that he is “glad it didn't turn out worse than it did. It would have turned out worse for the agents. If I'm defending myself and I'm in my car, and I'm a young woman worried about sexual assault, I'm going to use extreme measures to keep myself safe.”

Why, he asked, “do we have six ABC agents staking out one store? It doesn't seem particularly wise. You end up with confrontations like this that could turn out a lot worse.”

Asked by Barefoot if he would teach his daughters to behave with the same sort of caution that Daly and her companions displayed that night, Cuccinelli exclaimed: “Absoflippinlutely!”

“I would never suggest to my daughters that they just trust what they've been told,” by people who might or might not be law enforcement officers. Those women, he said, “did exactly the right thing” by calling 911 and attempting to drive to the nearest police station.

“The important thing for us on the law enforcement side is we need to learn from this,” Cuccinelli said. “We need to be more concerned about the perspective of the person on the street.”

He pointed out that “the average person buying alcohol, even if they're buying it illegally, does not have the idea of escalating [the act] violently to complete the crime.”

Cuccinelli expressed confidence that higher-level officials at the ABC had already “had some serious conversations with [the agents] about their tactics.”

Looking forward, the gubernatorial candidate concluded, “what the rest of us need to do is [to ensure] the likelihood of this ever happening again gets as close to zero as we can make it.”

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 3, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Charlottesville civil liberties lawyer assesses 2012-13 Supreme Court term

Charlottesville civil liberties lawyer assesses 2012-13 Supreme Court term
June 29, 2013 11:10 PM MST

After 40 years of practicing law, Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead says he is “creeped out” by the decline in respect for civil liberties in the United States.

Whitehead, author of the new book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State (released June 25 by SelectBooks), spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner at the Barracks Road Barnes & Noble just before delivering a talk about his fears of increasing authoritarianism in the United States.

A longtime civil-liberties attorney who once represented Paula Jones in her lawsuit against President Bill Clinton, Whitehead offered his assessment of the U.S. Supreme Court term that ended on June 26 with a pair of rulings about gay marriage.

“One of the worst” terms ever, he said sharply.

This year, he said, the Supreme Court “basically upheld policemen taking you into custody and not giving you your Miranda warnings.” The Court also, he explained, eroded the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination because “now by being silent it's evidence of guilt.”

The Court, he added “approved the strip searching of anybody. If you're arrested now you can be strip searched by police for minor offenses like running a stop sign.”

'Statist Supreme Court'

“What I'm seeing is a very statist Supreme Court,” Whitehead explained.

“Some people say it's a right-wing Supreme Court. Well, I'm not sure it's right-wing. I put it more in the statist camp.”

He said the voting rights decision (in Shelby County v. Holder) was made “as if racism's no longer in America. Well, what I'm seeing in America is, there is a lot of racism.”

He gave the example of how “90 percent of the people who are arrested for marijuana offenses in New York City are either African-American or Hispanic but all evidence shows that whites smoke marijuana at a much higher rate than people with brown skin.”

Justices of the Supreme Court, Whitehead cautioned, are “living in an ivory tower.”

Supreme Court members are “chauffeured about in limousines and they don't know what we have to go through out here, especially if we're people of color.”

Dissenters

On Fourth Amendment rights, Whitehead noted that “Justice [Antonin] Scalia, whom I've been critical of in the past, and the women on the Supreme Court have been great in their dissents.”

Four instance, he said, those four justices objected “to the forced taking of DNA from people now. If you're arrested for anything, they can go into your body and take your DNA.”

The DNA decision is part of what Whitehead calls “the new movement toward bodily probing.”

He explained that, “in large cities across the country, police are stopping men on the street and doing rectum searches, sometimes causing bleeding. This is without a warrant, without arresting them.”

He gave the example of how recently in Texas, “two women were pulled over for throwing a cigarette out of a car. The policeman accused them of smoking marijuana” but when he found no cannabis in the car, “he called for back up, [who] did vaginal and rectum searches on the women without changing their gloves.”

Those Texas police officers, he said, have “been sued for a million and a half – and they should have been sued.”

'462 words'

Offering advice to citizens, Whitehead warned, “I just say, be alert. Let's read the Bill of Rights again. Most people don't even know what's in the Bill of Rights. It's 462 words but most people have never read it. Can you believe that? 462 words, you can read it in less than five minutes.”

Because “we're not teaching [the Constitution] in school anymore, people don't know” what it says.

“If you're stopped on the street and they want to do a really weird search on you,” Whitehead advised, “assert your Fourth Amendment rights.” The police “have to have probable cause.” Before they begin a search, he said, citizens should ask, “Am I doing something illegal, officer?”

Next: John Whitehead talks about the growing American police state.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 29, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says Obamacare decision is 'a win for liberty'

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says Obamacare decision is 'a win for liberty'
June 28, 2012 11:30 AM MST

In a press conference today, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said that the Supreme Court’s health-care decision was a “victory for individual liberty” and that his initial reaction to the ruling was more negative than it ought to have been.

Speaking to reporters in Richmond and via telephone conference call, Cuccinelli called the ruling “a win for liberty” and explained that for the first time in 85 years, the Supreme Court had set “an outer limit” on the expansion of federal authority through the Commerce Clause.

He said that by its 5-4 ruling on the limits of the Commerce Clause, the Court had put in place a “critically important containment of federal power” and that in the parts of the ruling dealing with Medicaid, the justices had for the first time since the New Deal said that Congress has limited power to compel states to act through its spending authority.

Politics and legislation
Moreover, Cuccinelli argued, by defining the individual mandate as a “tax,” as Chief Justice Roberts did in his majority opinion, the Court opened up political challenges to the law because Congress’s taxing authority is the most accountable and sensitive of its powers to popular will.

By calling it a tax, he said, the Court (specifically the Chief Justice) removes the political cover for those legislators who claimed not to have voted for a tax increase. They can no longer go back to their home districts and say they did not vote for a tax, he said, and thus they will be subject to the judgment of voters on Election Day.

Given that, Cuccinelli predicted that, with the impending elections this November, the ruling will show the critical role that voters play in “ensuring that their liberties are preserved.”

‘Bipartisan failure’
As a policy matter, Cuccinelli said, health-care legislation has been “a bipartisan failure” and that the Affordable Care Act is such a “bad policy” that even the people who supported it are backing away from it, as a constitutional matter, “individual liberty has been substantially preserved in this case.”

He also noted that, apart from the aspects of the law addressed in the decisions delivered by the Court today, there are still matters about the ACA that continue to be litigated. He gave as an example the lawsuit filed by the Catholic bishops with regard to contraceptives.

Federalism preserved
Cuccinelli said that the justices came to their decision in an “unlikely way,” but that “if there had been five votes to compel us into commerce, federalism would have been dead,” pointing out that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her dissent on the Commerce Clause part of the ruling, claimed that the “Commerce Clause power is plenary,” that is, unlimited.

Wrapping up, the Virginia Attorney General said that upon reflection, his analysis of the Supreme Court’s health-care ruling is more muted than his initial reaction was, and that “by and large” the decision preserved individual liberty.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 28, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: 5 years after Kelo v. New London: Are property rights safe?

5 years after Kelo v. New London: Are property rights safe?
June 23, 2010 7:54 PM MST

In its 1972 ruling in Lynch v. Household Finance Corporation, the U.S. Supreme Court explained:

“Property does not have rights. People have rights. The right to enjoy property without unlawful destruction, no less than the right to speak or the right to travel, is in truth a ‘personal’ right.” The court went on to declare that “a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property.”

Property rights – a shorthand term for the rights of people to own and use property – and human rights are indistinguishable. One cannot exist without the other. The right to a free press is impossible without the right to own ink or a photocopier or a typewriter. The right to free exercise of religion is not possible without the right to own churches and seminaries and cemeteries and Talmuds and schools.

Kelo v. New London
It is fitting today to remember these fundamentals because five years ago, on June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court undercut Americans’ property rights in the case of Kelo v. City of New London. In that case, the Court ruled that governments can take the property of one person, using the power of eminent domain, and hand it over to another person, who may be able to generate more tax revenues from the property than the original owner was able to do – or chose to do.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to hold property and to make contracts using that property. The Fifth Amendment makes plain that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”

Property Rights Under Attack
Still, property rights are under assault throughout the United States. Through taxation and regulation, state and federal governments are impeding our rights to do what we please with our property, even if we are not harming other people or their property.

Towns and cities across the country, for example, have begun to designate certain neighborhoods as “historic districts,” usually without the consent of homeowners in those neighborhoods. This designation is accompanied by hundreds of restrictions regarding what homeowners can do with their property, such as whether they can repaint their homes, put up aluminum siding, replace a roof, cut down a tree, and so forth.

This is not a trivial issue. It affects any person who owns property, whether a residence or a business. “Historic district” designations strike at the root of individual liberty and should not be dismissed lightly. Much is at stake. In fact, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled a similar law unconstitutional because it took away the decision making capacity of homeowners in favor of a politically defined “public good,” thus taking private property for public use without just compensation.

Environmental regulations do much the same. Thousands of acres of farms, ranches, and residential areas have been declared “wetlands” that deserve government protection. The owners of the designated property are not permitted to plant crops, graze cattle, or build homes or factories on government-designated “wetlands” unless they can cut through miles of red tape.

Kelo’s Legacy
The Kelo decision states that it is permissible for the government to use eminent domain to seize one person's property and give it to another. The recipient is almost invariably wealthier and better connected politically than the victim of the seizure.

In the aftermath of Kelo, the good news is that the American people demanded that laws be made to reject the Court’s decision. Across the country, state legislatures have passed statutes or even constitutional amendments to protect people against eminent domain abuse. (In Virginia, the law is somewhat better than it was but still weaker than it should be.)

The bad news -- sadly ironic news -- is that the situation that started it all, Pfizer's demand that the city of New London, Connecticut, destroy a working-class neighborhood to create housing for its high-paid executives, turned out to be moot. Pfizer pulled out of the project, which was never built, and Suzette Kelo's former neighborhood is a desert, populated only by "feral cats," as one chronicler noted. New London took a vibrant cityscape and turned it into blight.

Kelo’s lesson is that nobody’s property is safe, even though property rights should be seen, properly, as one component the bundle of basic human rights that each individual possesses.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 23, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Glenn Beck's substitute host Doc Thompson talks about libertarian values and hot issues of the day

Glenn Beck's substitute host Doc Thompson talks about libertarian values and hot issues of the day
August 19, 2010
11:40 PM MST

Radio talk-show host Doc Thompson, whose regular gig is afternoons from 3 to 6 o’clock on WRVA (1140 AM) in Richmond but who sometimes substitutes for Glenn Beck on his nationally syndicated program, spoke with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on August 10 about his political philosophy, the hot issues of the day, and this year’s election prospects.

“Personally, I live my life with fairly conservative leanings,” Thompson explained, but “I take a little bit of a step toward libertarian when it comes to government, in that I want to be left alone. Yes, I’m a conservative, and I have conservative values, but I don’t want the government necessarily supporting conservatism or liberalism. I want them to just leave everyone alone.”

Listeners are ‘ticked’

Doc Thompson

Thompson said that his listeners are angered by the growth and intrusiveness of the federal government.

Most of what concerns them, he said, “is the simple, ‘I can’t believe government is doing this’ issues, the no-brainer issues.”

He listed their top issues: “They’re ticked about health care, they’re ticked about the spending, and they’re ticked about immigration. Those are probably the big three things right now.”

The listeners’ irritation is easy to understand, he added.

These all are “really simple issues to them. You know: don’t spend what you don’t have; I can’t spend that much. Let me pick for myself whether I want health care and what [kind of] health care. And immigration – there’s a border; you’re breaking the law.”

‘Speaking from their hearts’
These concerns are not limited to people in the Richmond area, either. When Thompson wears Glenn Beck’s headphones, he hears the same complaints.

“It’s very similar when I fill in for him,” he pointed out.

“I’m not sure if that’s because that’s the general attitude of anybody [who is] leaning conservative, or if it’s that Glenn and I are similar. Our approaches are pretty similar to things but the topics, the discussion, the things people are saying are virtually the same.”

Thompson has noticed a similar phenomenon with regard to the Tea Party movement.

“It’s the same, too, tea party to tea party. I go around and meet with people all over the region, from Williamsburg to the Shenandoah Valley. I was up in Pittsburgh in the spring, speaking at a tea party. All of them, it’s the same. It’s like you’ve taken the same people and just put them in a different place. The same quotes – [but] it’s not talking points. These people are speaking from their hearts and saying the same things: ‘Enough is enough, leave me alone!’”

While this year’s election looks to be good for Republicans, Thompson said, he predicts it might turn out to be more of a mixed bag, with no “clear-cut winner.”

“It’s just going to be election by election, district by district. I think you’ll see a conservative movement somewhat this election, and probably a bigger one the next election,” when President Obama faces re-election in 2012.

For those outside the Richmond area who want to hear him, Doc Thompson will be filling in for Glenn Beck on Labor Day and again on the following Friday.

Editor's note: Doc Thompson passed away on February 5, 2019. To hear the audio version of this interview, visit the February 9, 2019, episode of The Score from Bearing Drift.

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 19, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Former state legislator Terri McCormick asks ‘What Sex Is a Republican?’

Former state legislator Terri McCormick asks ‘What Sex Is a Republican?’
December 20, 2011 7:52 PM MST

A former state legislator from Wisconsin, Terri McCormick is the author of a memoir called What Sex Is a Republican? Stories from the Front Lines of American Politics.

One reviewer, the author noted, called it “the first Tea Party book” because of what McCormick identifies as its themes.

“It’s all about integrity of leadership,” she told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in an interview early in 2011, while she was attending the national convention of the Republican Liberty Caucus in Arlington, Virginia.

‘Founding principles’

“All the themes are centered around the Constitution, the founding principles, and what we need to do to be a better republic.”

The reason she published the book, McCormick explained, was that she had been asked to write about her experiences as a member of the Wisconsin Assembly, where she served three two-year terms beginning in 2000. She later twice ran for Congress, seeking the Republican nomination in Wisconsin’s Eighth District in 2006 and 2010.

It was while she was serving in the legislature, representing about 60,000 constituents in and around the cities of Appleton and Oshkosh, that McCormick discovered she was a libertarian.

“I didn’t even know that I was a libertarian Republican,” she explained, “until somebody had actually watched my work and said, ‘You know what? You believe in the constitution and free market.”

‘Core values’

To McCormick, that seemed just like common sense.

“I had a set of core values. I readily knew what they were: opportunities, free market systems, and I actually believed the constitution should apply to everybody.”

When it was pointed out that her statements and the legislation she sponsored manifested libertarian values and ideas, she “thought, ‘So that’s where I fit!’” Up to that point, she admitted, that she “didn’t quite know” what a libertarian was, or that she was one herself.

Running for Congress after her self-imposed term limits ended her time in the legislature “was interesting,” McCormick said, noting an odd paradox:

“When I ran for the state house, I was recognized as having ideas and [people] wanted me. When I ran for the U.S. House, I was recognized as an individual with ideas and therefore people didn’t want me.”

Legislative achievements

Prior to her first election to the Wisconsin Assembly, McCormick had worked with various civic groups and drafted the state’s first charter schools law. She helped form a group that lobbied for the law’s passage.

Once elected to office, she chaired the economic development committee, which became her platform for regulatory reform efforts.

Challenging entrenched interests in Madison, McCormick said she “took on the [state’s] capital investment company. In order to have more capital investment readily available, I wrote the small business regulation reform act.”

Her achievements, she added modestly, came about “just by listening to others and working with them.”


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on December 20, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Virginia politicians rush to remember Nelson Mandela, pay tribute on Twitter

Virginia politicians rush to remember Nelson Mandela, pay tribute on Twitter
December 5, 2013 6:05 PM MST

Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, the first non-Afrikaner president of the Republic of South Africa, died on December 5 at the age of 95.

Within hours of the announcement of Mandela's death, Virginia politicians issued statements of remembrance and appreciation.

In a press release, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell called Mandela “one of the true giants of history.”

McDonnell went on to say that the man known by his Xhosa clan name, Madiba, “lived a life that broke down barriers, tore down walls, and lifted up a nation, a people, and a world. All Virginians can learn from his example, and I encourage the citizens of this state, especially our young people” to study his life.

Mandela, the Virginia governor added, showed “us the incredible good one person can do; he has demonstrated the unique, positive power each life contains... This is a better world for the long and uplifting life of Nelson Mandela.”

Facebook and Twitter

Former Governor Jim Gilmore posted on his Facebook page that his “heart is filled with grief after hearing the news that one of the most celebrated leaders of our time, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa, has died. My heart goes out to the nation he helped transform, to all of those who lives he touched and the generation of activists he inspired.”

Former Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, who was the first African-American governor elected in any state since reconstruction, paid tribute by retweeting a video of Mandela's speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

Other Virginia political leaders also took to Twitter to pay their respects.

Senator Mark Warner said “Few people in history have represented such a positive, lifelong force for change.” His colleague, Senator Tim Kaine, added that the “world has lost a great leader & advocate for equality [with the] loss of Pres. Mandela & I join millions across the globe in mourning his passing.”

'Inspirational'

Congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA1) tweeted that “Nelson Mandela brought together a nation divided. He was an inspirational & uniting leader during time of challenge and disunity in [South] Africa,” adding that “today we remember his efforts in bringing a country together.”

Representative Scott Rigell (R-VA2) offered his “prayers for the Mandela family and those mourning in South Africa,” a thought echoed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6), who said he was “saddened to hear of the passing of Nelson Mandela. Prayers with his family and the people of South Africa.”

So far alone among Virginia Members of Congress to do so, Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA9) issued a press release that said, in part, that “the world has lost one of its great leaders. Nelson Mandela was a leader of courage who led South Africa after apartheid. While he could have done like so many other leaders in emerging nations have done and created a country where he became a president or ruler for life, he did not turn his back on the principles of representative government. Nelson Mandela’s journey is over on this earth, but his ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ will never be forgotten.” (“Long Walk to Freedom” is a reference to Mandela's best-selling autobiography.)

'Transformative'

Eighth District Representative Jim Moran (D) said that the “world lost a great man today in Nelson Mandela. What an incredible life filled with courage and hope,” while his Eleventh District colleague, fellow Democrat Gerry Connolly, tweeted that “Nelson Mandela's passing reminds us that one transformative individual can make a profound and positive difference in this troubled world.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA7) praised Mandela for his “lifelong commitment to justice and human rights,” adding that “his legacy should serve as an example for all of us.”

The dean of Virginia's congressional delegation, Frank Wolf (R-VA10), wrote that “Nelson Mandela’s unyielding fight against apartheid was heroic and evidence of an unyielding belief in the basic dignity of every person.”


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on December 5, 2013. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: African scholars bemoan Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama’s foreign policy

African scholars bemoan Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama’s foreign policy
November 21, 2011 2:16 PM MST

Although the annual meeting of the African Studies Association rotates among various American cities, this year it was the turn of Washington, D.C., to host it. Hundreds of academic experts on Africa – anthropologists, economists, linguists, political scientists, and others – gathered at the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel from November 17 through November 20 for lectures, panel discussions, and networking.

One panel discussion was entitled “Obama’s Noble Ancestors: Nobel Prize Laureates of African Descent.” There were papers presented on earlier Nobel Peace Prize winners such as Ralph Bunche, Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu, and Martin Luther King, Jr., but the focus was very much on 2009 laureate Barack Obama, who won the prize only nine months after taking office as the 44th U.S. president.

Two of the panelists were highly critical of Obama’s performance in office, saying that he did not live up to the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize and that his foreign policy before and after winning the prize leaves much to be desired.

In a paper called “Obama’s Nobel Ancestors,” Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town, South Africa, noted that the announcement of Obama’s Nobel Prize came as he was preparing to send more U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan.

‘Bush with a smile’

“Some of his foreign policy actions,” Adebajo said, “unfortunately have followed in the hawkish footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush. According to The Economist, in his first three years in office, Obama ordered targeted assassinations of terror suspects for an average of one drone attack every four days, compared to George Bush’s one every forty days."

These drone attacks, he pointed out, "have been mostly in the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing hundreds of innocent women and children. As a result of these actions, some of us have been forced to ask whether Obama’s foreign policy could come to represent ‘Bush with a smile.’”

Adebajo, author of UN Peacekeeping in Africa, also found Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech “disappointing.”

It was, he explained, “quite a belligerent speech” in which Obama “was effectively explaining why force had to be used to bring about peace. A celebration of peace thus turned into a justification of war.”

Although he called Obama the “most cosmopolitan and urbane individual to occupy the White House,” Adebajo compared him unfavorably to Bill Clinton, saying Obama is “very much a dyed-in-the-wool politician cut from the same pragmatic cloth as his Democratic predecessor” as president.

Both presidents, he said, “have demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice core principles on the altar of political survival.”

In fact, Adebajo concluded, “Barack’s instincts to be a force for good in the world have often been diverted by his country’s imperial temptations, as we saw recently in Libya.”

On the same panel, Ali A. Mazrui, director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies and Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at Binghamton University in New York, recalled that he “shed tears when Obama was elected president” and that he “was deeply moved even when he won the Nobel Prize for Peace,” but today he feels “upset that [Obama] has let us down so badly in foreign policy.”

‘Israeli-style assassinations’

In his paper on "Barack Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize," Mazrui also pointed to the targeted assassinations that the Obama administration has employed in the war on terror in the Middle East and South Asia, which he referred to as “Israeli-style assassinations.”

Obama, he said, “has orchestrated more political assassinations, either by sending troops to kill somebody or by the drones, if I’m not mistaken, than any U.S. president in the last 100 years. “

On Obama’s record in office since winning the Nobel Prize, Mazrui, author of The Politics of War and the Culture of Violence, conceded that on domestic policy, Obama still “looks hopeful.”

On the other hand, with regard to Obama’s foreign policy, Mazrui quipped, “I’m sure whoever voted for that prize, says ‘what were we smoking that day?’”

One reason, he pointed out, is that “Obama is one of the very few U.S. presidents in history who managed three wars at the same time -- since winning the Nobel Prize.”

Mazrui also cast suspicion on the motivations that led to Obama’s award of the Nobel Prize in the first place.

Racial obsession

“For some people,” he said, “it’s easier to understand how Obama became President than why he won the Nobel Prize so soon after being elected.”

Noting that the stated reason by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for giving the prize to Obama was for his “diplomatic efforts,” Mazrui added that “I suspect the hidden agenda among those who nominated Obama was almost entirely in the domain of race relations. The issue of race and the prospect of peace has obsessed the Nobel Foundation in Oslo for more than a half a century.”

He pointed out that four out of the seven Nobel Peace Prize recipients from sub-Saharan Africa were all from South Africa and suggested that “the obsession with defining peace too narrowly in terms of race relations” has infected the deliberations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 21, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson on ‘Freedom Riders,’ the news media, and civil rights
November 18, 2010 1:11 PM MST

"What the civil rights movement did,” reflected documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson, was to force people “to make a choice. You couldn’t ignore it anymore. It was stuff that was on the front page, it was in your face, you had to choose: which way are you going?”

Nelson, whose new film, Freedom Riders, was screened at the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville on November 5, made his comments in a panel discussion following the screening.

Other participants in the discussion were civil-rights activists Dion Diamond, Reginald Green, and Joan Mulholland, who were among the original “freedom riders” of 1961. The panel was moderated by Larry Sabato of the UVA Center for Politics.

Effective engagement of the news media

In response to a question from Sabato, Nelson pointed out how the civil rights movement’s strategy of engaging the news media was slow in emerging but eventually “incredibly effective.”

During the 1961 freedom rides, he said, “the media’s role really changed.”

When the freedom rides started in May of that year, “there was no media coverage except the black press,” such as the Washington/Baltimore Afro-American and Johnson Publications (Ebony and Jet), which each had a “representative on the ride.”

The rest of the news media, however, “totally ignored the rides and there was no media coverage at all,” Nelson said, which caused difficulty for him and his team of filmmakers, because there was a dearth of archival material from the early part of the freedom ride phenomenon.

What changed “by the end of the freedom rides,” he explained, was that there were “400 people coming in [and] that was a huge news story, so you had the nightly news and you have all the print journalists and camera people there.”

By mid-summer, the news media was reacting to the civil rights movement’s strategy “to hold the front page” for at least five days at a time, to keep people’s attention on the issue so that it became “impossible to ignore.”

Making a choice

In researching the freedom rides, Nelson explained, “one of the fascinating things that we found making the film was that” in the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi), “there was a very small percentage of people of white people who supported integration -- a tiny percentage [of] 1, 2, 3 percent.”

At the other extreme,he said, “there was another small percentage of people who were violent racists, maybe 10 [or] 15 percent.”

That meant, he explained, that “the rest of the people, 80-85 percent, just were able to kind of go on, and ignore what was going on” – hence his remark that the civil rights movement, in general, and the freedom rides, in particular, forced people to make a choice about which way to go.

How ‘Freedom Riders’ became a film

After the panel ended, Nelson told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner that the Freedom Riders project came to him while he “was working on a film for American Experience called Wounded Knee.”

The producers “called and said that they had purchased this book, Freedom Riders by Ray Arsenault, and would I take a look at it [because] they’re thinking of making it into a film.”

Nelson “said yes without even getting the book,” because he “knew a little bit about the story and realized it would be great, so that’s how that happened.”

Making the film took about 18 months from start to finish, Nelson explained. It will be broadcast on PBS as part of the American Experience series in May 2011, “which is the 50th anniversary of the freedom rides.”

Currently, Nelson is showing Freedom Riders at film festivals and also at schools, including a screening at Charlottesville High School earlier this month. In addition, some college students will be recreating the freedom rides next year as part of a fiftieth anniversary commemoration that will also promote the film.


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on November 18, 2010. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters

Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
September 6, 2012
3:06 PM MST

As he has done almost every year since he first ran for elective office in 1996, Virginia Senator Mark Warner (D-Alexandria) marched in the annual Buena Vista Labor Day parade and spoke to a gathering of local citizens and political activists from around the state.

In an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Warner looked forward to what Congress is likely to do between its return from its summer recess next week and Election Day in November.

The top agenda item, he said, will be to “continue the funding of the federal government,” adding that “the Republican-Democratic leadership have agreed on a plan on that.”

‘Comprehensive debt-reduction’

His own priority is to “go ahead and give the confidence that the economy’s looking for” by taking on sequestration and “the comprehensive debt-reduction plan.”

That would require two stages, Warner said, but “chances are we won’t [do it] because both national campaigns in the last sixty days before the election probably can’t show any level of compromise that’s going to be needed.”

Warner said he hopes that Congress “will have a bipartisan plan to put on the desk either of Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney after the election,” noting that he personally favors the re-election of President Obama.

“Whoever is elected,” he said, “we’re going to have to work with that individual to get this problem fixed.”

Asked whether the failure of Congress to pass a budget over the past three years has had an effect on business confidence and the economic recovery, Warner replied that “we’ve had this debate before.”

‘Political document’

There is “a budget in place,” he said emphatically. “It was part of the Budget Control Act that passed last year and this year. This will also set the appropriations level for the coming year.”

What Congress has not provided, he said, “is a long-term plan but frankly,” he pointed out, “the federal budget document is a political document. It doesn’t have the force of law.”

This contrasts, Warner explained, with his experience as a business executive and as a governor, when “we had budgets we had to meet” or face adverse consequences.

“What we need is a real plan with consequences,” he continued, “so that Congress doesn’t try to put a plan in place and then, when they care to, continue to spend or create new initiatives without any responsibility.”

The bipartisan coalition of six senators known as the Gang of Six, which included Warner, had proposed “budget control restrictions that would make sure that budgets that were adopted couldn’t be breached in the dark of night.”

‘Folks were mad’

Warner also commented on what former Governor Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Virginia this year, could do to attract the votes of those who cast ballots for neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney in the presidential race.

“My sense is that 2010 was a year where folks were mad and a lot of folks got to Congress and expressed that anger by just saying no to everything,” he said.

“That didn’t move the country forward,” he explained, adding: “As a matter of fact, we’re in a deeper hole.”

The 2012 election will be different from the 2010 election, Warner predicted.

“My sense is that what people are looking for now, more than party labels, or even ideological labels, are [candidates] who can actually get stuff fixed and,” he concluded, “I think at the end of the day that’s been part of Tim Kaine’s record.”