Political bullies often try to disguise or play down their intimidation. They’re not as blunt as playground bullies.

One exception is Tom Matzzie, a left-wing political activist heading up a new group called Accountable America.

The group’s goal is to bully major contributors to conservative campaigns. It’s been sending “warning” letters to such donors, threatening them with smears and legal harassment. Matzzie brags that he’s “going for the jugular.”

Example: On the Accountable America website, a donor is attacked for contributing to Tom Delay’s PACs in 2001 and 2002, noting that Delay was indicted in 2005. Guilt by association, you see — except there isn’t even any guilt. Delay hasn’t been convicted. Moreover, no legal or ethical questions have even been raised about this donor’s gifts.

Mattzie’s activities remind us of the value of anonymity, which can protect contributors to political groups from being subjected to such vindictive harassment.

I read that Accountable America doesn’t have to reveal its donors. And doesn’t. Gee whiz, whatever could they be afraid of?

Mattzie’s group is not alone in its attempt to muzzle political opponents and squelch political discourse. Groups like By Any Means Necessary and the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center invite supporters to harass people circulating petitions they don’t like.

I feel their pain. Two citizen activists and I are being threatened with prison time for having the gall to support an Oklahoma ballot initiative. Visit the Free Paul Jacob website for details.

Yep, lot of bullies out there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Been a long time coming. The twelve-year term limits law passed by Nevada voters in 1996 is finally taking effect.

Except for state lawmakers elected in 1996, that is.

Nineteen ninety-six plus twelve equals 2008. But in 1996, legislators seized on a technicality to claim that — unlike for other office-holders — for them the count didn’t start until 1998. That’s because, under Nevada law, state lawmakers take office the day after the election. Yet it takes more than a day to ratify ballot results. So the argument goes that it would be unfairly “retroactive” to include the 1996 term in the twelve-year limit.

Inspect the Nevada constitution, and you’ll see provisions stating that no person may be elected to legislative or other elective office who “has served in that office . . . twelve years or more. . . .” Nothing about starting the clock on the date the ballot measure is ratified.

But in 1996 politicians and courts pretended the new law was not retroactive, and got away with it.

Come 2008, non-legislative office-holders finally facing term limits scavenged for yet another technicality. They claimed that the law is unconstitutional and should be thrown out altogether. Fortunately, the Nevada Supreme Court didn’t play along with the latest scam, so Nevada voters must wait only two more years for state lawmakers to be ousted by it.

Better late than never.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Which major party works behind the scenes, illegally, to scuttle democratic processes? Well, consider Pennsylvania.

Ralph Nader has an $81,000 judgment against him, to pay off the legal costs of those who challenged his campaign in 2004. In early August, Nader petitioned the state Commonwealth Court to overturn that judgment, saying the whole thing was orchestrated — illegally — by Democratic legislators and aides in the State House. Conspiracy, he says.

He may have a case. In July, the state attorney general’s office filed criminal charges against a dozen people connected with the House Democratic caucus. Soon we’ll see how good the evidence for conspiracy is.

But don’t think it’s just Democrats who’d do nearly anything to keep a competitor off the ballot. This year, the chair of the Cumberland County Republican Party, an attorney, is suing the Libertarian Party for putting up former congressman Bob Barr as its presidential nominee. You see, when Pennsylvanians signed the petition, another name was on it. A paper candidate.

The plaintiff calls this fraud. Of all things.

Of course, since this minor party hadn’t held its national convention yet, the placeholder candidate was just a pro forma thing, to comply with an idiotic ballot access law that should be ruled unconstitutional anyway.

Yes, folks, the people who run both major parties look at election laws pretty much like the Borgias looked at pharmacology: Something to use to bump off the opposition.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

How many homes do I own? Just one. That’s all I can afford.

But what if I had more money and bought a vacation home or two? Would that somehow make me a bad guy?

Not in my book. I don’t hold wealth as a strike against someone. Rather, it’s a likely sign of hard work, dedication and smarts. Some of my favorite people are wealthy. In fact, I’d like to be wealthy myself someday. My wife is all for that.

That’s why I find it repulsive that Barack Obama and some in the media are pouncing on Senator John McCain for the terrible offense of owning a number of homes. Seven, apparently. He’s been successful and his wife has been even more so. Good for them.

Funny, I don’t recall Obama attacking the prominent congressmen who received sweetheart home loan deals from lenders, with obvious reason to be currying congressional favor. And while McCain is slapped for owning several homes, at least he makes the payments. Haven’t heard a peep from Obama about Congresswoman Laura Richardson of California. She defaulted on one of her homes and the lender foreclosed. But then, mysteriously, the lender rescinded the foreclosure and returned the home to the congresswoman.

Hmmm. Silence when politicians use their positions for material gain? Attacks when McCain pays his own way!

Regular readers know that I’ve been very critical of McCain. But for his actual political positions with which I strongly disagree. Not because he has more money than I have.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

How does the marketplace of ideas — and how do people who generally support free speech — react to the advancement of free-market ideas?

Well, the new Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago has sure kicked up a fuss. That is, a whole bunch of anti-free-marketers have kicked up a fuss about it.

More than a hundred University of Chicago professors have signed a letter to the university president complaining that the pro-market approach of the Milton Friedman Institute has not been adequately vetted. By them. By the foes of free markets. They are “disturbed,” they write, by the school’s support for the institute.

Oh, theirs is no simple case. They express no worries about academic freedom. They admit that the work of the institute “will not have a chilling effect” on other inquiry at the university. But they claim it will make the public more likely to “perceive” that the Chicago faculty “lacks intellectual and ideological diversity.” And they insist that the growth of global markets is not as beneficial as Milton Friedman’s followers make it out to be.

This last claim tips the hand of these professors. I am sure they were irked by Professor Friedman’s long tenure at the University of Chicago and his vast influence there. Now they can take out their revenge by preventing others from exploring his ideas.

Their fear and loathing makes me like the Milton Friedman Institute already.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.