The Libertarian Party of Northeast Ohio is an affiliate of the Libertarian Party of Ohio. The Northeast LPO encompasses the counties of Lorain, Medina, Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, and Ashtabula. Our mission is to defend, advance, and restore the cause of liberty to our region and our nation through the political process of building membership, obtaining relations with the media, organizing our infrastructure, and ultimately fielding and running candidates for public offices. We are always looking for new ways to promote the Libertarian Party and our ideals to Greater Cleveland.

On Monday, November 24th, the Northeast LPO held their meeting at Crickett Photo and Imaging on Brittian Road in Akron. It was a joint meeting with the East Central LPO, as Jim Babka and Chet Sutherland discussed our planned Anti-Clinton protest at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron. A few activists from the Central LPO and the Northwest LPO were present as well.

Jim and Chet discussed the importance of contacting the various media sources for coverage. They urged all LP members to write Letters to the Editor to your local newspaper, such as The Akron Beacon Journal and The Cleveland Plain Dealer. They also urged members to call into talk radio shows, such as Rush Limbaugh. Jim had done interviews with WKSU, 89.7 FM, WNIR 100.1 FM, and WAKR, 1590 AM. At the meeting, a sign party was sceduled for Sunday, November 30th, and a Press Conference for Tuesday, December 2nd.

It was noted that Clinton's Summit on Race Relations (the subject of our demonstration) was choreagraphed to present the President in a popular fashion, with a carefully hand-picked audience asking prearranged questions to prelude Clinton's authoritarian solutions to the "race problem." It was also noted that Clinton urinates on the First Amendment (he ordered a woman arrested after she yelled, "You suck! You got our men killed in Saudi Arabia!"), so we must moderate our demonstration to prevent patriotic, freedom-loving Americans from being thrown in prison.

We will not be meeting for December, due to the holidays. We will be ready to go with fresh new speakers starting in January. Our meeting date will be changed. From now on, we will be meeting on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Some of our future potentials include: Donald Julius of the John Birch Society, Jim Babka - fundraising chair of the LPO, and Bruce McArthy to offer a biblical perspective on money. In the meantime, have a great holiday!

Our regular monthly meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of every month, at Denny's in Parma, on the corner of Rockside Road (Snow Road) and Broadview Road. You can get there by going I 480 to the "Brookpark Road" exit just West of I 77. Turn Left, and continue through Tuxedo Road, and keep going until you reach Broadview Road (a plaza will be on the right, a Dairy Queen will be on the left). Turn Left, and keep going until you reach Rockside/Snow Road (National City will be on the left, Rally's will be on the right). Turn right, and right after Rally's on your right is Denny's. Dinner generally starts between 6:00 PM and 6:30 PM, with the speaker to start at 7:00 PM. All of those interested in liberty are welcome.

Also our business meetings on the second Tuesday of the month are held at the same location and time, and are open to all LPO members.

A Cato Institute study, timed to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of Florida's controversial concealed-carry law, found that in the 24 states with concealed-carry laws, murders dropped by 7.7%, rapes fell by 5.2%, robberies decreased by 2.2%, and aggravated assaults were reduced by 7%.

The next time you walk into a 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes or beer and you look underage, a clerk will probably ask to scan your driver's license. A small electronic device will allow clerks to quickly determine whether you're old enough to make the purchase. The scanner reads information coded onto a magnetic strip on the back of a driver's license or state-issued ID, which includes a person's name, birth date, address, height and weight.

Army Lt. Col. David Hause, a deputy armed forces medical examiner, personally examined a suspicious head wound of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's corpse while it was being examined at Dover Air Force Base, Del. He steped forward because of the military's harsh treatment of Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell who first broke the story of the .45-inch inwardly beveling circular hole in the top of Brown's head, which is essentially the description of a .45-caliber gunshot wound. No autopsy was conducted on Brown's body. Cogswell has also alleged that an initial X-ray of Brown's head showed tiny metallic fragments.

Dr. Jerry Spencer, chief medical examiner for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, hand-delivered a memo signed by himself to approximately 20 AFIP staff members. The memo placing restrictions on those staffers comes in the wake of allegations by two AFIP forensic pathologists that the agency did not properly investigate Brown's death.

The woman who held police at bay outside her home in the town of Roby for 39 days was released from a mental hospital Tuesday by a judge. A Christian County judge approved her release after a psychiatrist concluded Ms. Allen posed no danger to herself or others.

Immediately following last month's Senate Subcommittee Hearings on "violent lyrics" a group of concert hall operators held a meeting to brew up their own brand of censorship called "Concert Rating." Based on what a few who attended that meeting have said, we can expect to see a major push after the first of the year to initiate some form of rating system for live shows. Currently every idea imaginable has been thrown on the table ranging from warning labels on tickets, warning labels on all advertising or promotions material, barring anyone under 18 from attending "objectionable" shows unless accompanied by a parent to outright banning of shows by "objectionable" bands. Just who is going to decide what is "objectionable" is still unclear, but likely will include any and every act that celebrates non-conformity in any way.

Colorado Springs, A 6-year-old boy has been suspended for half a day for bringing "drugs'' to school lemon drops bought in a health food store.

WASHINGTON (AP) Congress has closed for the year, but before leaving town America's legislators wrote into law millions of dollars worth of benefits for narrow interests back home.

The largess ranged coast-to-coast, from $10 million to develop a flood-prone area near Sacramento, Calif., to $30 million to build water and sewer systems in Pennsylvania, and further afield to Hawaii and Alaska.

Money was set aside for a shrimp-raising study in Arizona. One provision blocked a new trawler from competing with local fishermen for mackerel and herring in the bountiful waters off New England.

All were included in spending bills, passed just before adjournment, to finance government agencies.

Those who benefit call it bringing home the bacon. Critics call it pork-barrel politics.

Whatever the name, the Republicans who now control Congress are just as good at it as the Democrats they once criticized for wasteful spending.

"It was my party that promised in 1994 that we would stop these practices," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. After a slight improvement in 1995, "it's getting steadily worse," he said. "It's the same old mutual back scratching that we've seen in years past."

In the Army Corps of Engineers' budget, for example, $30 million was set aside for "South Central PA Environmental Improvement." It requires the government to pick up 75 percent of the tab for water and sewer system improvements in 21 Pennsylvania counties. Most of the country's local governments never get such aid.

But these counties are in the congressional districts of three key lawmakers: Republican Joe McDade, chairman of the subcommittee that wrote the bill; Democrat John Murtha, a senior Appropriations Committee member; and Republican Bud Shuster, chairman of the House public works panel.

There's also a single line in an energy and water projects bill that reimburses Sacramento's flood-control agency for $10 million it spent on levee construction around the Natomas Basin, an 86-square-mile "bathtub" just minutes from downtown.

The money encourages development of agricultural land that would be flooded if the levees break, and cost billions more for federal disaster relief, said Gary Estes, a local environmental activist.

"Why should my tax dollars be spent to help people live in these dangerous places? It doesn't make good public policy sense," Estes said. But when he tried to make those arguments to Congress, aides said they had to defer to the local lawmakers, Reps. Robert Matsui and Vic Fazio, both Democrats. Fazio is a senior member of the Appropriations panel.

The president was given line-item veto power for the first time this year, enabling him to eliminate individual spending items he considers wasteful. But Clinton has shown little enthusiasm for taking on Congress' pet projects.

So far, he has used that power to excise less than one-tenth of one percent of the money Congress appropriated for 1998. And the biggest veto $287 million for military construction projects is likely to be largely restored by Congress next year.

Southern Republicans whose states are home to major defense contractors used the spending bills to pump money back home for projects that weren't even sought by the Pentagon.

Ingalls Shipbuilding, in the hometown of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., will get $720 million to step up construction of an Aegis-class destroyer. Lockheed Martin will begin building $503 million worth of new C-130 transport planes in Marietta, Ga., where House Speaker Newt Gingrich lives. And near New Orleans, Avondale Industries is getting $100 million to begin work early on an amphibious ship. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston is from Louisiana.

Several narrow spending provisions affect Alaska, the home state of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens. One directs the Army to build a bridge across the Bull River to provide access to a mine for students at the School of Mineral Engineering in Fairbanks and to give the school two six-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicles.

Another requires that the port of Kodiak, Alaska, be established as port of entry requiring U.S. Customs Service personnel to serve there.

A section in the Commerce Department's spending bill shields New England fishermen from competition from the Atlantic Star, a newly outfitted 370-foot trawler four times the size of most vessels now fishing there.

The vessel's owners had planned to start fishing for mackerel and herring this month, but Northeastern lawmakers stepped in with language that bans any vessel longer than 165 feet because of purported threats to fish stocks. Federal fisheries regulators say, however, the factory trawler poses no threat to fish populations. Rather, the fight is over shares of a resurgent Eastern European market for herring and mackerel.

Other items in the fine print:

$3 million for improving a waterway next to the New Orleans Coast Guard station. McCain said the improvements are more for private users of the waterway than for Coast Guard vessels.

$500,000 for a commission to develop a plan for a National Health Museum in Washington. Leading the effort is former surgeon general C. Everett Koop.

$286,000 to work on enhancing the flavor of roasted peanuts, $250,000 for pickle research and $3.3 million for shrimp-raising studies in Hawaii, Mississippi, Massachusetts, California and Arizona.

"I have yet to fathom the logic of conducting shrimp research in the desert," McCain said.