Why I Left the Democratic Party and How I Ended Up With the Libertarians

By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News

11 November 16

spent the past three weeks traveling with the Libertarian presidential campaign of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson. The transition from the Democrats to the Libertarians was not an easy one for me. I consider myself to be liberal or progressive or whichever term is in vogue now. I was a third generation Democrat. Indeed, to hear my grandfather tell the story, Franklin Roosevelt was personally waiting for him at Ellis Island to give him American citizenship and a job. We owed our loyalty to the Democrats, he used to say. We were there for the Democrats because they were there for us. The WPA taught my grandparents how to speak English, and WPA classes taught them the information they needed to become citizens.

We were a Western Pennsylvania union family. My mother recalled with tears of joy shaking John F. Kennedy’s hand during the 1960 presidential campaign. The first time I ever saw my father cry was when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. My parents protested the war in Vietnam. They marched for civil rights. I was the only kid in my second-grade class to vote for McGovern over Nixon in the student straw poll.

In college I was the vice president of the George Washington University College Democrats. I introduced former senator George McGovern when he announced his candidacy for president at GW in 1983. I later took a student coordinating job on the McGovern campaign.

I considered myself to be a mainstream Democrat through the Bush years. I voted for Mondale in 1984, Dukakis in 1988, Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, and Obama, proudly, in 2008. But it was Obama who eventually turned me.

I had spent nearly 15 years in the CIA. (Liberals are patriots, too, after all.) I opposed the Iraq War during that period, as had many of my CIA colleagues, and I was vehemently opposed to the Bush administrations use of drones in warfare. I truly believed that Obama would change all that. In fact, though, the Obama national security policy was nothing more than an extension of the Bush national security policy, only bloodier, at least when it came to the use of drones.

Indeed, according to The New York Times, Bush killed some 296 “terrorists” and 195 civilians in 50 drone strikes between 2002, the date of the first drone strike, and January 2009. Obama killed 3,040 “terrorists” and 391 civilians in 506 drone strikes during his presidency. Amnesty International’s figures are far more chilling than The New York Times’, citing Pakistani and NGO reports documenting “thousands” of civilian deaths in Pakistan alone.

I had already begun to sour on Obama when I was arrested and charged with five felonies related to an interview I had given to ABC News in 2007, blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. The Bush Justice Department had closed the case against me in December 2008, finding that I had not committed a crime. I had no idea that the Obama Justice Department had secretly reopened the case four weeks later. I was the only CIA officer ever charged with a crime related to the torture program – not because I tortured anybody, but because I told the American people that torture was taking place.

Obama admitted that “we tortured some folks,” but he never charged the torturers with a crime. Nor did he charge the CIA leaders who came up with the torture program, the lawyers who twisted the law to justify it, or the CIA officers who destroyed evidence of it. Meanwhile, I did 23 months in a federal prison.

Ronald Reagan famously said that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left him. I felt exactly the same way. What was the difference between the Democrats and Republicans on the issues of war and peace, torture, and diplomacy? There was none. Obama told authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their book “Double Down: Game Change 2012” that he couldn’t understand why liberals were disappointed with his handling of counterterrorism. “I never said I was a liberal,” Obama stated. It was time for me to look for a new home. I voted for Gary Johnson in the 2012 election.

About three weeks after I got to prison, I received a letter from Gary Johnson. Johnson, the former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, had switched to the Libertarians in 2011. “I think you got screwed,” he said in the letter, adding that he had followed my case closely. I learned later that he had also sent letters to the Attorney General and to the director of the Bureau of Prisons asking that they transfer me to home confinement.

When I got home nearly two years later, one of the first calls I received was also from Gary Johnson. He said that he was running for president again in 2016 and he wanted to know if I would serve as an advisor to the party. I accepted.

I admire and support Libertarian ideas on war and peace and on government overreach. They oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They oppose intervention in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. They want to slash the Pentagon budget. The want to immediately end the “war on drugs.” The Libertarians also understand that the Obama administration has launched an unprecedented war on whistleblowers. Johnson has said publicly that if he were to be elected president, he would pardon Ed Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, Jeffrey Sterling, and me. The Libertarians are also strong supporters of marriage equality and marijuana legalization, issues that are very important to me.

This isn’t to say that I support everything the Libertarians stand for. They’re utterly wrong, for example, in their support for private prisons, their opposition to an increase in the minimum wage, and universal healthcare.

There are also serious organizational problems within the Libertarian Party. We are just beginning to see a rift between young millennials who support a more inclusive party with much in common with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, and old guard party members who oppose all government programs on principle and generally just want to be left alone.

I saw evidence of this struggle firsthand when I was traveling with the campaign two weeks ago in Alaska. One of our guest speakers was a Libertarian presidential nominee from decades ago. It took us five hours and as many phone calls to his wife in Dallas because we couldn’t find him prior to our event. He had no cell phone and no email account because, he said, “I don’t want the government tracking me.” He didn’t answer pages at the airport because he didn’t know if we were paging him or “the government” was trying to ascertain his location.

Later, at dinner, he asked me if I had attended the Libertarian convention in Orlando. I had not, I said, but I had watched it on C-SPAN. He was delighted, and said that he hoped it inspired young people to run for office as a Libertarian. I doubted it, I said. I told him that I really like what the Libertarian Party is turning into, but when your three presidential candidates are, besides Gary Johnson, a guy who gives his keynote address while disrobing until he’s butt naked, and another guy who legally changed his name to “Vermin Supreme,” nobody in this country is going to take the Libertarians seriously.

But that is changing. Largely on the strength of millennials and disgruntled Democrats and Republicans, rather than old-school Libertarians, Gary Johnson won more than 4 million votes in this election, double the previous record for a Libertarian presidential nominee. The party will likely be on the ballot in all 50 states again. And if the trend continues, and the Libertarians get five percent in the 2020 election, they’ll qualify for federal matching funds, something that would help the party grown further.

I’ve not completely given up on the Democrats, although I can’t take another corrupt neo-Liberal like Hillary Clinton, and I won’t abide the “super delegate” system, whereby the primary race this year was stolen from Bernie Sanders. But if there aren’t real changes for the Democrats, this liberal is sticking with the Libertarians.

"John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program."

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

We Will Stand Up to Bigotry

By Elizabeth Warren, Reader Supported News

11 November 16

ello,

This wasn’t a pretty election. In fact, it was ugly, and we should not sugarcoat the reason why. Donald Trump ran a campaign that started with racial attacks and then rode the escalator down. He encouraged a toxic stew of hatred and fear. He attacked millions of Americans. And he regularly made statements that undermined core values of our democracy.

And he won. He won – and now Latino and Muslim-American children are worried about what will happen to their families. LGBT couples are worried that their marriages could be dissolved by a Trump-Pence Supreme Court. Women are worried that their access to desperately needed health services will disappear. Millions of people in this country are worried, deeply worried. And they are right to be worried.

Today, as President-Elect, Donald Trump has an opportunity to chart a different course: to govern for all Americans and to respect our institutions. In his victory speech, he pledged that he would be “President for all” of the American people. And when he takes the oath of office as the leader of our democracy and the leader of all Americans, I sincerely hope that he will fulfill that pledge with respect and concern for every single human being in this country, no matter who they are, no matter where they come from, no matter what they believe, no matter whom they love.

And that marks Democrats’ first job in this new era: We will stand up to bigotry. There is no compromise here. In all its forms, we will fight back against attacks on Latinos, African Americans, women, Muslims, immigrants, disabled Americans – on anyone. Whether Donald Trump sits in a glass tower or sits in the White House, we will not give an inch on this, not now, not ever.

But there are many millions of people who did not vote for Donald Trump because of the bigotry and hate that fueled his campaign rallies. They voted for him despite the hate. They voted for him out of frustration and anger – and also out of hope that he would bring change.

If we have learned nothing else from the past two years of electioneering, we should hear the message loud and clear that the American people want Washington to change. It was clear in the Democratic Primaries. It was clear in the Republican Primaries. It was clear in the campaign and it was clear on Election Day. The final results may have divided us – but the entire electorate embraced deep, fundamental reform of our economic system and our political system.

Working families across this country are deeply frustrated about an economy and a government that doesn’t work for them. Exit polling on Tuesday found that 72 percent of voters believe that "the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful." 72 percent of ALL voters – Democrats and Republicans. The polls were also made clear that the economy was the top issue on voters’ minds. Americans are angry about a federal government that works for the rich and powerful and that leaves everyone else in the dirt.

Lobbyists and Washington insiders have spent years trying to convince themselves and each other that Americans don’t actually believe this. Now that the returns are in and the people have spoken, they’re already trying to wave their hands and dismiss these views as some sort of mass delusion. They are wrong – very wrong.

The truth is that people are right to be angry. Angry that wages have been stagnant for a generation, while basic costs like housing, health care, and child care have skyrocketed. Angry that our political system is awash in barely legalized campaign bribery. Angry that Washington eagerly protects tax breaks for billionaires while it refuses to raise the minimum wage, or help the millions of Americans struggling with student loans, or enforce the law when the millionaire CEOs who fund our political campaigns break it. Angry that Washington pushes big corporate interests in trade deals, but won’t make the investments in infrastructure to create good jobs right here in America. Angry that Washington tilts the playing field for giant corporations – giving them special privileges, letting them amass enormous economic and political power.

Angry that while Washington dithers and spins and does the backstroke in an ocean of money, while the American Dream moves further and further out of reach for too many families. Angry that working people are in debt. Angry that seniors can’t stretch a Social Security check to cover the basics.

President-Elect Trump spoke to these issues. Republican elites hated him for it. But he didn’t care. He criticized Wall Street and big money’s dominance in Washington – straight up. He supported a new Glass-Steagall. He spoke of the need to reform our trade deals so they aren’t raw deals for the American people. He said he will not cut Social Security benefits. He talked about the need to address the rising cost of college and about helping working parents struggling with the high cost of child care. He spoke of the urgency of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and putting people back to work. He spoke to the very real sense of millions of Americans that their government and their economy has abandoned them. And he promised to rebuild our economy for working people.

The deep worry that people feel over an America that does not work for them is not liberal or conservative worry. It is not Democratic or Republican worry. It is the deep worry that led even Americans with very deep reservations about Donald Trump’s temperament and fitness to vote for him anyway.

So let me be 100% clear about this. When President-Elect Trump wants to take on these issues, when his goal is to increase the economic security of middle class families, then count me in. I will put aside our differences and I will work with him to accomplish that goal. I offer to work as hard as I can and to pull as many people as I can into this effort. If Trump is ready to go on rebuilding economic security for millions of Americans, so am I and so are a lot of other people—Democrats and Republicans.

But let’s also be clear about what rebuilding our economy does not mean.

• It does not mean handing the keys to our economy over to Wall Street so they can run it for themselves. Americans want to hold the big banks accountable. That will not happen if we gut Dodd-Frank and fire the cops responsible for watching over those banks, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If Trump and the Republican Party try to turn loose the big banks and financial institutions so they can once again gamble with our economy and bring it all crashing down, then we will fight them every step of the way.


• It does not mean crippling our economy and ripping working families apart by rounding up and deporting millions of our coworkers, our friends and neighbors, our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters. And if Republicans choose that path, we will fight them every single step of the way.


• Americans want reform to Obamacare – Democrats included. We must bring down the costs of health insurance and the cost of health care. But if the Republicans want to strip away health insurance from 20 million Americans, if they want to let cancer survivors get kicked to the curb, if they want to throw 24-year-olds off their parents’ health insurance, then we will fight them every step of the way.


• Americans want to close tax loopholes that benefit the very rich, and Donald Trump claimed to support closing the carried interest loophole and other loopholes. We need a fairer tax system, but if Republicans want to force through massive tax breaks that blow a hole in our deficit and tilt the playing field even further toward the wealthy and big corporations, then we will fight them every step of the way.

The American people – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – have been clear about what economic policies they want Washington to pursue. Two-thirds of people support raising the federal minimum wage. Three-quarters of Americans want the federal government to increase its infrastructure investments. Over 70 percent of people believe students should have a chance at a debt-free education. Nearly three-quarters support expanding Social Security. These are the kinds of policies that will help level the playing field for working families and address the frustrations felt by millions of people across the country.

The American people sent one more message as well. Economic reform requires political reform. Why has the federal government worked so long only for those at the top? The answer is money – and they want this system changed. The American people are sick of politicians wallowing in the campaign contributions and dark money. They are revolted by influence peddling by wealthy people and giant corporations. When Bernie Sanders proved his independence by running a campaign based on small dollar contributions and when Donald Trump promised to spend his own money, both were sending an important message that they could not be bought. And once again, if Donald Trump is ready to make good on his promise to get corruption out of politics, to end dark money and pay-to-play, count me in. I will work as hard as I can and to pull as many people as I can to end the influence of big money and return democracy to the people.

Donald Trump won the Presidency under a Republican flag. But Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and the Republicans in Congress – and their way of doing business – were rejected – rejected by their own primary voters, rejected during the campaign, and rejected in Tuesday’s election. Regardless of political party, working families are disgusted by a Washington that works for the rich and powerful and leaves everyone else behind.

The American people have called out loudly for economic and political reform. For years, too many Republicans and too many Democrats have refused to hear their demands.

The majority of Americans voted against Donald Trump. Democrats picked up seats in both the House and the Senate. And yet, here we are. Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress and the White House. And that makes our job clear. As the loyal opposition we will fight harder, we will fight longer and we will fight more passionately than ever for the rights of every human being in this country to be treated with respect and dignity. We will fight for economic opportunity, not just for some of our children, but for all of our children. We do not control the tools of government, but make no mistake, we know what we stand for, the sun will keep rising, and we will keep fighting – each day, every day, we will fight for the people of this country.

The time for ignoring the American people is over. It’s time for us to come together to work on America’s agenda. Democracy demands that we do so, and we are ready.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth