Category Archives: Libertarian

With the release of Tiger King 2 on Netflix this month and a subsequent lawsuit from that woman Carol Baskin, Joe Exotic is back in the 24-minute news cycle. Im not sure he ever left, despite being incarcerated in federal prison after a 2020 conviction of attempted murder-for-hire and violations of animal welfare laws.

I somewhat famously interviewed Joe Exotic in September 2016 when he had been kicked out of a Donald Trump fundraiser at the home of Hunter Miller, Barry Switzers son-in-law.

A year and a half later, I conducted another Joe Exotic interview at the State Capitol on April 11, 2018, near the end of the teacher walkout. Moments before the interview, Exotic had filed to run for governor as a Libertarian, so I asked his thoughts on the historic revenue-raising bill passed just prior to the walkout by the Oklahoma Legislature. (Joe Exotics answer was similar to then-candidate Kevin Stitts.)

I also asked Joe Exotic whether he was still mad at President Donald Trump, a question that evoked a pretty good one-liner from Oklahomas favorited mulleted maniac. Its too bad I didnt remember I had this recording when he and his advocates were asking Trump to pardon him last year. Fortunately, Joe recently wrote a letter calling Trump a fool for not pardoning him.

So with Joe Exotic once again back in the public eye, what better time could there be to empty my digital notebook into the trashcan of the internet?

You can read a transcription of this Joe Exotic interview below, or you can listen to the 83-second recording, if you want to hear what a human Pall Mall sounds like.

Tres Savage: Im guessing you recorded a video in front of a bunch of tigers talking about this, but whats your feeling on the teacher walkout?

Joe Exotic: You know, I support the teachers 100 percent, because the educational system in this state has got to be improved. But we aint got to raise taxes to do that, and one thing that Im against is they raised [the tax on diesel by six cents], and it just costs our own school buses $1.2 million, approximately. Theyre robbing Peter to pay Paul. And the smartest thing Ive seen, at least this morning, is theyre considering consolidating superintendents, and thats where most of our money needs to come from. But instead of taxing people, Id like to see us go back to vehicle inspections.

Tres Savage: If youd have been governor, would you have signed the revenue bill that they passed?

Joe Exotic: No.

Tres Savage: You wouldnt have signed it? You would have vetoed it?

Joe Exotic: No. I wouldve vetoed the whole thing.

Tres Savage: Anything else? Whats the message around the state coming to you?

Joe Exotic: Well, we got to hold people accountable, OK? Especially departments like the health department.

Tres Savage: You still mad at Donald Trump?

Joe Exotic: Am I mad at Donald Trump?

Tres Savage: Yeah, you got thrown out of his fundraiser. Thats the second-most viewed video weve ever gotten on our YouTube page.

Joe Exotic: Donald Trumps got some issues. I think instead of draining the swamp, he filled it full of millionaires. But were gonna fix Oklahoma for the people, for a change.

Tres Savage: I appreciate it.

Joe Exotic: Thank you, sir.

Read this article:

The unearthed Joe Exotic interview about Donald Trump, Oklahoma's teacher walkout - NonDoc

WWE Hall Of Famer Kane was recently a guest on The Doug Collins Podcast where he spoke about his decision to start a career in politics. The former World Champion admitted he could see he was losing a step inside the ring.

As my wrestling career was starting to wind down and I could see that I was getting older and starting to lose a step. I knew that I needed to do something else in my life, Kande admitted. I had always been interested in politics and government. Mainly, my philosophy is very Conservative-Libertarian. My interest was keeping the government off my back.

One of the big things that wrestlers have to deal with is being away from home for large periods of time. That was the case throughout Kanes career and he spoke about that, admitting that his wife did everything and he believes you need a strong partner.

Crystal raised the kids and she also worked and did everything, he admitted. Its really because of her. I dont think its possible to do that if you dont have a strong partner. Not everybody is built for that, frankly, and that is okay. It is what it is.

I think you just have to understand the dynamics in your personal relationship, or in your marriage if thats the case. I was able to do it because Crystal could just do it, Kane said. She had actually been a single mom before we got married. Probably nine years, or so. So, she was used to that anyway. But its always hard. On our side of things, we miss all the good stuff. We miss the birthday parties and the holidays and the basketball games and thats whats really difficult.

If you use any quotes from this article please credit The Doug Collins Podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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Kane Reflects On Decision He Made When WWE Career Was Winding Down - Wrestling Inc.

An employee holds up cannabis in the laboratory at the headquarters of herbal medicines manufacturer Bionorica in Neumarkt, Germany February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

BERLIN, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Legalising cannabis could bring Germany annual tax revenues and cost savings of about 4.7 billion euros ($5.34 billion) and create 27,000 new jobs, a survey said on Tuesday as politicians thrash out rules for the budding sector.

Chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz and his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) are in talks with the environmentalist, pro-spending Greens and the libertarian, business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) to build a three-way coalition.

Negotiators for the SPD, Greens and FDP are still working out details of their coalition deal, including rules under which the sale and use of recreational cannabis would be allowed and regulated in Europe's largest economy.

The survey by the Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf, and commissioned by the German hemp association, found that legalising cannabis could lead to additional tax revenues of about 3.4 billion euros per year.

At the same time, it could bring cost savings in the police and judicial system of 1.3 billion euros per year while creating tens of thousands of jobs in the cannabis economy.

Legalising cannabis in Germany would give a boost to a ballooning European market that is expected to be worth more than 3 billion euros in annual revenue by 2025, up from about 400 million euros this year, according to the European Cannabis Report by research firm Prohibition Partners.

The use of cannabis for medicinal purposes has been legal in Germany since 2017.

($1 = 0.8804 euros)

Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Miranda Murray and Pravin Char

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Pot of gold? Cannabis could bring Germany $5 billion a year - survey - Reuters

More Hollywood celebrities with no political pedigrees are floating their names as potential state and federal candidates, with former President Donald Trump having single-handedly obliterated what was once an expectation for candidates to have political experience before running for higher office.

On Wednesday, radio icon Howard Stern, known for hosting Sirius XM's "The Howard Stern Show," suggested in a broadcast that it was his "civic duty" to run for president in 2024 if Trump does.

"If Trump decides to run again, you have to run against him," said Robin Quivers, Stern's co-host.

"I know. I'll beat his ass," Stern responded, claiming that he'd play the audio tape of Trump asking Georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes to overturn the election.

RELATED: Georgia investigating Trump call pressuring secretary of state to "find" votes, overturn election

"I would just sit there and play that fucking clip of him trying to fix the election over and over again," the radio host added.

In January, Stern, a member of the Libertarian Party, said that he wouldn't have enough energy to run for president considering his age, 67.

"It's going to create some heavy lifting," he said at the time, according to The New York Daily News. "At this point in my life, I'm too tired to do that kind of heavy lifting. We need some young energetic people who care about their country."

Back in 1994, Stern cast a bid for New York governor against Democrat Mario Cuomo, but withdrew several months into his campaign.

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Another aspiring celebrity-turned-politician is TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz, who, according to a Tuesday report by The Washington Free Beacon, has begun hiring staff and reaching out to campaign allies for a U.S. Senate bid in Pennsylvania.

Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and onetime informal Trump COVID-19 adviser who has used his show to promote a number ofunproven treatments over the years, is apparently a registered New Jersey voter but has "deep ties" to Pennsylvania referring to his time at the University of Pennsylvania to study both medicine and business.

"Since last year, Dr. Oz has lived and voted in Pennsylvania where he attended school and has deep family ties," an Oz spokesman told the Free Beacon. "Dr. Oz has received encouragement to run for the U.S. Senate, but is currently focused on our show and has no announcement at this time."

RELATED: Trump tells health officials to ask "quack" Fox News guest Dr. Oz for advice on coronavirus: report

Last year, toward the beginning of the pandemic, Oz said in a Fox News interview that school re-openings "may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality" a "trade-off some folks would consider." He has also promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine at one point a "miracle drug" promoted by Trump to treat COVID-19. According to a 2014 study firstreported by The Washington Post, roughly half of Oz's medical advice is either "baseless or wrong."

Meanwhile, in Texas, Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey has floated the idea of a potential gubernatorial campaign, first announced back in March of this year. McConaughey told reporters on multiple occasions that he's interested in running, despite his lack of political experience. According to Forbes, the actor has reportedly not voted since 2012 and has no political donation records.

RELATED: Matthew McConaughey is flirting with a run for governor. But his politics remain a mystery

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Star power: More celebrities are lining up to run for office after Trump showed they can win - Salon

* Taxing wealth can combat disparities, says renowned economist

* Private sector ESG push not a cure-all

* Social inclusion standards out of reach for much of world

By David Sherfinski

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The challenge of combatting inequality will increase as workers compete with advances in technology, economist Jeffrey D. Sachs warned on Wednesday, calling for robust government intervention.

Private enterprise alone cannot be counted on to fix glaring disparities in wealth, said Sachs, who advocated levying taxes on wealth and private companies to ensure "social inclusion for all."

"The challenges will get worse in the future because technology will continue to replace jobs, will continue to limit opportunities for those who do not have a college education," he said.

"And that means working-class families that cannot afford a college education for their children."

The director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in New York was speaking on the first day of Trust Conference, the Thomson Reuters Foundation's annual flagship event.

"If the rich act with impunity and can amass even fortunes of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and not pay taxes along the way, well then, you can't have social inclusion," said Sachs, who has advised three United Nations secretaries-general.

"These divisions are going to widen unless we get a grip on public policy to ensure that there is inclusion."

Parts of northern Europe are "pretty close" to a standard of social inclusion where almost everybody has access to key social safety programs like healthcare, child care and paid leave, but much of the world is not, he said.

"The battle is in countries like the United States with these libertarian, let the rich keep anything they want, let politics be oriented towards the rich philosophy."

Much of President Joe Biden's domestic agenda, which includes an expanded social safety net, is currently bogged down in the U.S. Congress.

Sachs said the recent focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles in the private sector, while worthwhile, can only go so far.

"Social inclusion and decent work is not merely a matter of what happens in an enterprise, though that's very important and worker representation is extremely crucial," he said.

"It's also a matter of what happens in society at large, in broad public policy, in budgets and that's where the struggle is."

"We must tax wealth and tax the rich and tax the companies so that we have the chance to ensure social inclusion for all."

Sachs is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which works to promote the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a set of goals that includes aspirations to cut poverty and promote equality.

He said for lower-income countries, key tenets of those goals - like access to healthcare and education - need financial support.

"We know that these goals ... are absolutely unachievable unless there is also a financial system globally that enables the poor(er) countries to have the fiscal space to be able to provide these basic services," he said. (Reporting by David Sherfinski. Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tax the rich to help promote social inclusion, says Jeffrey ... - Thomson Reuters Foundation

To the Editor:

The Libertarian Party of Clay County opposes the proposed expansion of the Clay County Jail.

The expansion, with a price tag of $25 million, is being built to house ICE detainees in which you the taxpayer will most likely be ultimately responsible for. The cost to house 1 detainee per day costs $61 while the Federal Government only pays $55, so the taxpayers will have to foot the $6 negative difference per detainee.

ICE makes no guarantees as to how many detainees will be held especially when there are approximately 29,000 beds nationwide for 22,000 detainees. In the past ICE pulled out of agreements and funding with a detention facility in Kenosha, Wisc., because the sheriff said they would not house any new detainees due to COVID.

Why would anyone want their hard-earned money used to pay for a facility at the cost of $25 million and have the possibility of ICE pulling out and leaving us to entirely fund it?

This facility does not look to be the cash flow some are saying.

The LPCC feels that $25 million to house detainees can be used in better ways like funding programs for substance abuse, homelessness, and family reunification.

Contact your Clay County Commissioner at 812-448-9008 and tell them you are against the use of taxpayer money to fund the building.

Jesse Killion, Brazil

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Local resident claims county will have to fund $6 per detainee in expansion - Brazil Times

When a growing list of Democrats face off in a primary next spring for the office of Bexar County judge, it will be the first serious race for that office in 30 years. Bexar County has had only two county judges in that period. One never had an opponent after her first race, and the other never had to sweat.

The main reason for the interest in the position is the retirement of the current county judge, Nelson Wolff, the one who occasionally had opponents but never had to sweat.

Not only did Wolff, who will have held the job for two of those three decades, perform in such a way as to ward off top-tier contenders, but he also transformed the position into one that would attract office seekers who actually want to accomplish something.

Our story starts back in 1992. The incumbent county judge, John Longoria, had been appointed by his fellow county commissioners to replace Tom Vickers, who had resigned to take a position in Gov. Ann Richards administration.

The main reason his colleagues chose Longoria was that they figured he couldnt win an election to hold onto the office. He apparently agreed and ran for the Legislature instead. Meanwhile, state Sen. Cyndi Kriers political life was being made miserable by Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock.

Krier, a reform-oriented Republican, defeated Southside politician Tommy Adkisson in a close race to serve out the unexpired term as county judge. The courthouse, having been controlled by Democrats for more than a century, was ripe for reform. Krier was reelected in 1994 and 1998 without opposition in either the primary or in the general election.

In 2001 Krier resigned in order to take a position on the Board of Regents of her alma mater, the University of Texas. In a bipartisan move that is almost unimaginable now, she joined her colleagues in unanimously appointing Nelson Wolff, a Democrat, to replace her until the 2002 election.

Wolff would win the next five elections. In the first, he faced a little-known Republican and a Libertarian. In the second he had no opponent and in the third only a Libertarian. In the fourth he easily fended off Adkisson in the Democratic primary and City Councilman Carlton Soules in the general election. Finally, in 2018 he defeated Republican Tom Rickhoff, who had held a variety of judicial positions, by 20 points.

With Wolffs tenure nearing an end, former Bexar County District Judge Peter Sakai declared his candidacy for the job last week, and on Monday state Rep. Ina Minjarez joined the field.

When Krier ran for the job in 1992 it was attractive for the salary more than for the power. The county judge now makes $172,000 a year, nearly $20,000 more than the Texas governor. The judge, a misnomer in urban counties, presides over the five-member Commissioners Court, which approves the county budget. It has little power other than funding over the dozens of elected judges, court clerks, sheriff and district attorney.

The Commissioners Court operates county roads and parks departments, and appoints and oversees the board of the hospital district, but traditionally these were not the kinds of high-profile tasks that attract ambitious politicians.

Wolff changed that. Politically sophisticated after serving as a state representative, state senator and two-terms as one of San Antonios more effective mayors, he fashioned the county judge job into what might best be described as San Antonios second mayor.

He started by bringing some discipline to what he described as the weirdest government I had ever seen.

Ten department heads reported to five commissioners, he said, often playing them off each other. Krier tried to increase efficiency through performance audits but met strong resistance. Wolff won support from Commissioners Court to hire a county manager, whose job is to coordinate county functions and to alert the Commissioners Court to areas in which improvements can be made.

Wolff led in making some other organizational improvements, but the primary way you can see how he acted as a second mayor is the list of projects he pushed. Previously the county played very little role in what might be called city building. Krier had cracked the door open when City Hall hesitated on providing a new arena for the Spurs. She led the county in building and virtually donating to the Spurs what is now called the AT&T Center located on county-owned land on the East Side.

Wolff went much farther. Consider this partial list of city-building projects he championed:

He took over the ancient and aptly named Municipal Auditorium and led the effort to turn it into the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, a state-of-the-art venue. The city donated the 1926 auditorium and an old adjacent structure. Wolff persuaded voters to approve a $100 million bond issue and put together a private-sector group to raise millions more to convert the facility into the gem it is today.

In 2008 he led the effort to permit University Health, formerly the Bexar County Hospital District, to sell bonds for expansion. The district now boasts more than two dozen facilities, including a diabetes hospital on the West Side, the expansion of the old Robert B. Green facility on the edge of downtown with a six-story pavilion that makes it the largest outpatient facility in the county, and the addition of the million-square-foot Sky Tower at the original hospital at the South Texas Medical Center. In addition, a new Womens and Childrens Hospital is scheduled to open in 2023.

Under Wolffs leadership the county was a major force in developing the Mission Reach extension of the San Antonio River Walk, allocating more than $200 million while working with the San Antonio River Authority. Together with the Museum Reach to the north of downtown developed by the City, the entire 15-mile stretch is one the nations great linear parks.

Wolff persuaded the Commissioners Court to also play a major role in the San Pedro Creek development along the west side of downtown, putting up about $175 million to provide the bulk of the projects funding.

He led the county in contributing to then-Mayor Julian Castros Decade of Downtown, providing tax incentives for projects ranging from housing to the new Frost Tower.

Other county efforts under Wolff include part of the funding for the Alameda Theater restoration and the creation of BiblioTech, an all-digital library with three locations and 24-hour online access to digital books and publications.

Theres more, and you can agree or not with the countys role in some of these projects. But I think an urban county deserves an urban leader. The Texas Constitution does not give us that, but former Mayor Wolff has. I hope his successor can do the same.

San Antonio has benefited from having two mayors.

This article has been updated to correct the name of the Bexar County Hospital District.

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San Antonios second mayor: How Nelson Wolff transformed the county judge role - San Antonio Report

The dirty little secret about political labels is that nearly all of them are creations of the leftist legacy news media. When news organizations report that a politician is conservative, quite often that label is based on an extremely shallow subset of criteria: Republican party affiliation, pro-life and pro-gun votes, and a stated aversion to national figures such as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. In truth, many of the elected officials that the socialists in the media claim are conservative are actually very much leftists.

The labels are irrelevant, and the loose use of the words by the press makes them largely meaningless.

That said, when reporters write that the IFF is Libertarian (with a capital letter L) that implies a connection with the Libertarian Party, which is an absolute lie. The IFF is nonpartisan, and is not connected with any political party: Libertarian, Republican, or Democrat. As far as the lowercase version of the word, IFF has never labeled itself as libertarian.

The IFFs policy concentration is on the limitation of government, which is central to the definition of conservative values, and the conservative spectrum of political ideas sometimes overlaps with libertarianism. Some libertarians believe that no government is the proper level of government. The IFF does not share that objective. We do, however, believe there is too much government, and too much government harms people and denies people their God-given rights.

If one is to label the IFF, it is most appropriate to label it as conservative, but more appropriate and specific descriptors would be pro-limited government, pro-free market, pro-liberty, and so on.

Go here to see the original:

Is the Idaho Freedom Foundation conservative or libertarian? - Idaho Freedom - idahofreedom.org

A recent comment suggesting it was "funny" for a "libertarian blog" to suggest the possibility of restricting private social media platforms' property rights led me to want to repost this reminder:

I'm not a libertarian.

This is not a libertarian blog.

Don't expect solid or even near-solid libertarianism from us.

Some of us are pretty hardcore libertarians. Some are more conservatives. Some are moderates. Most of us are a mix. Our blog subtitle says "Often libertarian," and that's true. But "often" was deliberately chosen to also flag "not always" (and not even almost always).

If you call me anything, you might call me a libertarianish conservative, but even that isn't really that helpful, since sometimes my positions aren't aligned either with most libertarians or most conservatives. I think human affairs are complicated thingsas my father likes to quote, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." We all come at this with some general principles, but, to offer another quote, "General propositions do not decide concrete cases," in part because there are so many things we want at once and so many opportunities for good general principles to conflict.

For instance, I want liberty (often including privacy)and security; indeed, security is often another term from liberty from private misconduct (or liberty from foreign governments). These aren't always consistent, but I can't tell you that one should always trump the other. (That's why the Fourth Amendment, for instance, bansunreasonable searches and seizures rather than banning all searches and seizures; that's why the Constitution tries to create a limited government, but does create a government.) I support private property rights, subject to some limitations, and can't easily capture all the limitations into one formula. My guess is that many of my cobloggers take the same view.

Now maybe I'm not libertarian enough. Or maybe I'm too libertarian. Or maybe I'm one of these in some situations and another in others. Perfectly possible, indeed very likely. But measure me, and the blog, based on the merits of the particular analyses we offer in each post, not against our supposed (but never actually offered) assurances of libertarianism.

Read the rest here:

Never Took That Libertarian Loyalty Oath - Reason.com - Reason

Election Day is this Tuesday, and there are quite a few choices to make on the ballot.

Across Virginia, voters will be choosing the three highest statewide offices on Tuesday.

Running for governor to lead the state of Virginia through the next four years are Democrat Terry McAuliffe, Republican Glenn Youngkin and Libertarian Princess Blanding.

Running for lieutenant governor are Democrat Hala Ayala and Republican Winsome Sears.

Running for attorney general are the incumbent Democrat, Mark Herring, and Republican Jason Miyares.

Across the state, voters will also choose House of Delegates candidates in Suffolk, thats for the 64th District, where incumbent Republican Emily Brewer and Democrat Michael Drewry are running, or the 76th District, where incumbent Democrat Clinton Jenkins has two challengers in Republican Mike Dillender and independent Craig Warren.

Across the city, there will also be elections for four constitutional offices. For Commonwealths Attorney, Craig Bales and Narendra Pleas are running for an open seat occasioned by Phil Fergusons retirement. For Treasurer, David Boyd faces off against incumbent Ron Williams. And Commissioner of the Revenue Susan Draper and Sheriff E.C. Harris are running unopposed for re-election.

Readers in the Sleepy Hole Borough will also find a special election for a School Board member to serve the remainder of a term ending on Dec. 31, 2024. Member David Mitnick stepped down from the board earlier this year, and Linda Johnson filled the seat by appointment, but running in the election to fill the remainder of the term are Heather Howell and Ebony Wright.

The polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. You can visit elections.virginia.gov to find out where your polling place is, or you can call the Suffolk Voter Registrars Office at 757-514-7750.

If you have received a ballot by mail and not yet returned it, you can also drop it off at the registrars office, 440 Market St., first floor, or at any voting precinct on Election Day only up until 7 p.m.

Identification is needed to vote, so make sure you have one of the following with you. If you have none of these, you will be required to either sign an ID confirmation statement or vote a provisional ballot:

Election Day closings

Election Day is now a holiday in the state of Virginia, so some city offices will be closed. The following offices, facilities and services will observe the following schedule:

Originally posted here:

Election Day this Tuesday - The Suffolk News-Herald - Suffolk News-Herald