Category Archives: Libertarianism

Freshly annointed as Trumps VP, JD Vance. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

This piece was first published in 2019.

My book Hillbilly Elegy is really an exploration of the American Dream as it was experienced by me and my family and the broader community in which I lived.

It chronicled a real decline in the American Dream, not because people werent consuming as much as they have in the past if you look at the trend lines, were certainly able to buy more stuff today than we ever have been able to. Its a story about family decline, childhood trauma, opioid abuse, community decline, decline of the manufacturing sector, and all these senses of dignity and purpose and meaning that comes along with it.

When I was growing up, what the American Dream meant to me was that I had a decent enough job to support my family, and I could be a good husband and a good father. Thats what I most wanted out of my life. It wasnt the American Dream of the striver. It wasnt the American Dream, frankly, that I think animates much of Washington DC. I didnt care if I went to Ivy League law school, I didnt care if I got a best-selling book, I didnt care if I had a lot of money. What I wanted was to be able to give my family and my children the things I hadnt had as a kid.

That was the sense in which the American Dream mattered most to me. Now, that American Dream is undoubtedly in decline, what should a conservative politics do in response? I think a first and preliminary step is that we have to distinguish between conservative politics and libertarian politics.

I dont mean to criticise libertarianism. I first learned about conservatism as an idea from Friedrich Hayek The Road to Serfdom is one of the best books that Ive ever read about conservative thought. But I believe that conservatives have outsourced our economic and domestic policy thinking to libertarians, and because thats such a loaded word, and because labels mean different things to different people, I want to define it as precisely as I can.

The question conservatives confront at this key moment is this: Whom do we serve?

What Im going after is this view that so long as public outcomes and social goods are produced by free individual choices, we shouldnt be too concerned about what those goods ultimately produce. An example: in Silicon Valley, it is common for neuroscientists to make much more at technology companies like Apple or Facebook, where I think they quite literally are making money addicting our children to devices and applications that warp their brains, than folks who are neuroscientists trying to cure Alzheimers. I know a lot of Libertarians who will say Well, that is the consequence of free choices. That is the consequence of people buying and selling labour on an open market, and so long as there isnt any government coercion in that relationship, we shouldnt be so concerned about it.

What Im arguing is that conservatives should be concerned about it. We should be concerned that our economy is geared more towards the development of applications than curing terrible diseases, and we should care about a whole host of public goods, in addition to that, and actually be willing to use politics and political power to accomplish some of those public goods.

I want to tell a story, one of the most heartbreaking stories Ive heard since my book came out. A woman I met in southeastern Ohio which is really ground zero for the opioid problem and so many other social problems that all of us care about in this country was telling me about a young patient she had who had become addicted to opioids. He was eight years old and he was already addicted to Percocets. The way that this kid became addicted to opioids is that he would do drug runs for his family. Because they didnt have a lot of money, if he made a successful drug run, they would actually give him a Percocet as a reward. That was how this kid, at the tender age of eight, became addicted to opioids.

I think theres a tendency in our politics on the right to look at this kid and say You know, its a tragedy whats happened to him, but its fundamentally a tragedy that political power cant touch. Parents need to make better decisions. This child, God willing, needs to make better decision when he grows up.

I think that ignores the way in which human beings actually live their lives the cultural, economic, and environmental contexts in which this kid grows up. It ignores the fact that this kid lives in a community that has too few spare dollars to spend and too many spare opioids. That is a political problem. That is something that we decided to do using political power. We allowed commercial actors to sell these drugs in our communities. We allowed our regulatory state to approve these drugs and to do nothing when it was very clear that these substances were starting to affect our communities. That was a political choice and political power can actually fix it.

That kid lives in a community where even if he makes good choices later on in life, he lives in a place where there are virtually no good jobs for a kid of his educational status and his social class. If he wants to earn a decent wage, if he wants to work at a good job, those jobs in his community have largely gone overseas thanks to forces of globalisation that we unleashed because of political choices. We made the choice that we wanted that kid to be able to buy cheaper consumer goods at Walmart instead of having access to a good job. And maybe that was a defensible choice I dont think it was but it was a choice and we have to stop pretending that it wasnt.

Ive been blown away by some of the research that Ive seen in the past year about the way in which pornography warps young adults minds, and how they interact with their environment, and how they interact with their own sexuality. We know that young adults are marrying less theyre having less children. Theyre engaging in healthier and productive relationships less and less, and we know that at least one of the causes of this is that we have allowed under the guise of libertarianism pornography to seep even into our youngest minds through the channels of the Internet.

Again, we made a political choice that the freedom to consume pornography was more important than public goods like marriage and family and happiness. We cant ignore the fact that we made that choice, and we shouldnt shy away from the fact that we can make new choices in the future.

And even if this kid marches through an opioid epidemic in an environment and a community where there are very few good jobs, and even if he finds himself in a healthy relationship and wants to do the thing that I most defined as core to my American Dream start a family and have happy, healthy children he will confront a society and a culture and a market economy that is more hostile to people having children than maybe at any period in American history.

There are a lot of ways to measure a healthy society, but the way that I measure a healthy society, or I think the most important way to measure healthy society, is whether a nation whether the American nation is having enough children to replace itself.

Do people look to the future and see a place thats worth having children? Do they have good enough jobs so that they can make the necessary sacrifices so that one of the parents can be home with that kid most of the time? Do they have economic prospects and the expectation that theyre going to be able to put a roof over their kids head, put food on the table and provide that child with a good education?

By every statistic that we have, what we see is that people are answering No to all of those questions. For the first extended period in the history of the American nation, our people arent having enough children to replace themselves. That should bother us. Now I know some libertarians will say Well, that choice comes from free individuals. If people are choosing not to have children, if theyre choosing to spend their money on vacations or nicer cars or nicer apartments, then we should be okay with that.

I think there is a good libertarian sympathetic response to that. We can point out, for example, that areas of the world and areas of the country with fewer children are less dynamic. We can point out that we have a social safety net thats entirely built on the idea that you will have more workers and more people coming into the system than retire, and to do that, you need to have children being born. But I think to make this about economics is to concede too much of a premise that we dont want to concede.

When I think about my own life, the thing that has made my life best is the fact that I am the father of a two year-old son. When I think about the demons of my own childhood, and a way that those demons have melted away in the love and laughter of my eldest son; when I see friends of mine whove grown up in tough circumstances and whove become fathers and have become more connected to their communities, to their families, to their faith, because of the role of their own children, I say we want babies not just because theyre economically useful. We want more babies because children are good.

Libertarians arent heartless, and I dont mean to suggest that they are. I think they also recognise many of the same problems that we recognise. But they are so uncomfortable with political power, or so skeptical of whether political power can accomplish anything, that they dont want to actually use it to solve or even to try to help address some of these problems.

If people are spending too much time addicted to devices that are designed to addict them, we cant just blame consumer choice. We have to blame ourselves for not doing something to stop it. If people are killing themselves because theyre being bullied in online chatrooms, we cant just say parents need to exercise more responsibility. You have to accept that parents live and swim in the same cultural pond as the rest of us.

It is one thing to be a good parent who monitors your kids screen time. It is another thing to tell a kid whose entire environment, whose school friends, whose school bullies, whose teachers, whose work friends all use these technologies and use them in a way that is increasingly causing social problems and say, we cant do anything about that other than let our parents be better about screen time. We live in an environment and in a culture that is shaped by our laws and public policy, and we cant hide from that fact anymore.

The question conservatives confront at this key moment is this: Whom do we serve? Do we serve pure, unfettered commercial freedom? Do we serve commerce at the expense of the public good? Or do we serve something higher? And are we willing to use political power to actually accomplish these things?

I serve my child, and it has become abundantly clear that I cannot serve two masters. I cannot defend commerce when it is used to addict his toddler brain to screens, and it will be used to addict his adolescent brain to pornography. I cannot defend the rights of drug companies to sell poison to his neighbours without any consequence, because those people chose to take those drugs.

It is time, as Ronald Reagan once said, for choosing, and I choose my son. I choose the civic constitution necessary to support and sustain a good life for him, and I choose a healthy American nation so necessary to defend and support that civic constitution.

This is an edited version of a speech entitled Beyond Libertarianism, delivered by JD Vance at the National Conservatism: Founding Conference in Washington DC on 16 July

The rest is here:
An elegy for the American Dream It's time conservatives rejected libertarianism and stood up for what matters - UnHerd

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WASHINGTON | Libertarians in Colorado want to put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot to create chaos.

Petition drives for Cornel West in Virginia and North Carolina are being run by groups with Republican ties.

And in Arizona, a convicted fraudster whos been repeatedly investigated for using deceptive tactics to gather signatures for conservative groups is also working on Wests behalf.

With early voting for the November presidential election set to begin in late September in some states, there are signs across the country that groups are trying to affect the outcome by using deceptive means and in most cases in ways that would benefit Republican Donald Trump. Their aim is to to whittle away President Joe Bidens standing with the Democratic Partys base by offering left-leaning, third-party alternatives who could siphon off a few thousand protest votes in close swing state contests.

Spoiler candidates are as old as representative democracy. But in a polarized country in which many Americans have voiced disapproval for both Biden and Trump, the zeal with which Trumps supporters and allies have lent assistance to third-party candidacies adds a new dimension thats deeply troubling to Democrats.

Since his 2016 campaign, Trump has railed against the specter of voter fraud and falsely accused Democrats of rigging elections, which he blames for his 2020 loss, a claim rejected in more than 60 court cases and by his own attorney general. Now, its his allies who are pushing questionable ways to tilt the vote in his favor.

Weve known for years that Donald Trump cant get 50% of the vote. His people know that. And they know they need to find ways to win. One way to do that is propping up third-party candidates, said Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign, which many Democrats believe she lost because the Green Party played spoiler.

Wests campaign did not respond to an email seeking comment. The Trump and Kennedy campaigns also did not respond to inquiries.

Democrats have focused closely this year on the threat of third-party candidates, intent on avoiding Clintons fate. Indicators of Republican involvement were quick to surface.

In April, The Washington Post reported pro-Trump activist Scott Presler was gathering signatures for West outside a Trump rally in North Carolina. In a video posted online, Presler described West, an academic, as a far-left Marxist who if we get him on the ballot he could take a percentage point away from Biden.

But Republican involvement in getting West and his Justice For All party on the state ballot runs far deeper.

At the beginning of June, West had been largely absent from the campaign trail and his political operation was $30,000 in debt, disclosures show. He had spent just $2,400 this year to gather the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot in states across the U.S.

But then, Justice For All submitted well over the 13,000 signatures needed. State government emails obtained by The Associated Press show current and former employees of Blitz Canvassing, a Republican firm that earned millions of dollars doing work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, helped West pull off the feat. The emails, previously reported by NBC News, show the employees affiliated with Blitz Canvassing were the designated representatives to pick up and drop off petitions for Wests campaign.

Its unclear who paid the firm, which isnt listed as a paid vendor in Wests campaign finance reports. Representatives for Blitz Canvassing didnt respond to requests for comment.

The GOP-linked signature collection effort on Wests behalf isnt limited to North Carolina.

Signature gatherers in suburban Washington were witnessed asking people in a Target parking lot to sign a petition to get Donald Trump off the ballot, NBC4 reported. The signatures were actually being collected to help get West on the Virginia ballot, and one of the workers said they would be handed off to the state GOP, the TV station reported.

Last month, more than 80 paid out-of-state signature gathers descended on the pivotal battleground of Arizona to collect signatures for West, state records show. Many of the workers listed Wells Marketing, a mysterious Missouri limited liability company, as their employer.

The company, which didnt respond to a request for comment, is closely affiliated with Mark Jacoby, a signature gathering operative from California with a longstanding reputation for using deceptive tactics and who was convicted in 2009 of voter registration fraud, court records show.

In 2020, Jacoby worked to gather signatures to place the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, on the ballot. Yes quixotic presidential campaign was widely viewed by Democrats as an effort to dilute Bidens popularity with Black voters.

Jacobys firm, Let the Voters Decide, was investigated for using dubious signature gathering tactics during a 2020 petition drive in Michigan that sought to roll back some of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmers emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic. No charges came of the investigation, though, in a report, state Attorney General Dana Nessel said investigators found evidence of sleazy practices and shady activity.

For Jacoby, it was nothing new.

He was accused in 2008 of tricking voters into registering with the California Republican Party by telling them they were signing an initiative to strengthen penalties for child molesters, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 2006, signature gatherers told Massachusetts lawmakers that Jacoby instructed them to use deceptive tactics, like asking people to sign a petition to allow for the sale of wine in grocery stores. They were actually gathering signatures to roll back the states historic gay marriage court ruling, the workers testified during a hearing.

Legal experts say Wests reliance on an army of paid signature gatherers financed by an outside party could cause him legal trouble because it could be viewed as an in-kind contribution to his campaign.

The short answer is, yes, there is a potential issue, said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney whos now executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington. Noti added, however, that its complicated and the success of any campaign finance complaint would heavily depend on specifics because the law on this issue is really messy.

West is hardly Democrats only concern.

Kennedy, a scion of one of Americas most storied political families, may have entered the race as a Democrat challenging Biden. But even before his break with the party deeply intertwined with his family name, he drew an inordinate amount of attention from Republicans.

Republican megadonor Timothy Mellon, himself the heir to a storied Gilded Age fortune, donated $25 million to a super political action committee supporting Kennedy, records show. Other major pro-Trump donors have followed suit, including Leila Centner, who donated $1 million to the Kennedy super PAC, as well as arch conservative donor Elizabeth Uihlein, who gave $3,300 to his campaign.

Kennedy, an avowed environmentalist, has long been a champion of liberal causes. But he also has been a leading proponent of vaccine conspiracy theories, which helped him rise to greater prominence during the pandemic and earned him admiration from conservatives like former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson.

Democrats are worried Kennedy still has enough left-wing star appeal that he could peel off voters from Biden. And that appears to have been part of the calculus when Colorados Libertarian Party reached an agreement to let him use its ballot line.

Hannah Goodman, the chairwoman for the Colorado Libertarians, did not respond to a request for comment. But in interviews posted to YouTube, Goodman, who has said she intends to vote for Trump, expressed disdain for Democrats and said she would like to give them a taste of that medicine.

The idea is we could essentially leverage this to make a swing state situation and become real viable players, Goodman said in an interview with the website Free State Colorado. I am tired of living under a Democratic monopoly.

Legal experts say elections will continue to be susceptible to dirty tricks and chicanery unless the more states adopt different methods of casting a ballot, like ranked choice voting, which allows voters to weight their candidate preferences.

Unfortunately, we obviously cannot put in place a better electoral system for this years election, and thus have to hope that no third-party or independent candidate acts as a spoiler, said Edward Foley, a law professor at the Ohio State University who specializes in elections.

Follow the APs coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

More:
Colorado Libertarians, GOP money part of nationwide spoiler campaigns of Kennedy, others - Sentinel Colorado

A recent report by Beacon Securities, on the cannabis industry in Florida provides insights into campaign donations, political endorsements, market competition, and financial forecasts.

According to the report the Libertarian Party of Florida has formally endorsed the adult-use legalization measure. This endorsement could signal a shift in voter sentiment, as the party advocates for personal freedom regarding cannabis use. The growing political support from various parties highlights the increasing acceptance of cannabis legalization.

CBS News reported that hemp executives pledged $5M in donations to Floridas Republican Party after Governor DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have negatively impacted the hemp industry.

The report indicated that the veto was seen as a strategic move, with WhatsApp messages from the group Save Florida Hemp suggesting the veto secured the hemp industry's alignment with Governor DeSantis against the adult-use legalization measure on the November ballot.

Read Also:Ron DeSantis, Florida's GOP And Hemp Industry Pile On To Defeat Marijuana Legalization

Trulieve Cannabis TCNNF, leading the market with 140 locations, continues to expand, recently opening a new dispensary in Gulf Breeze. Verano Holdings follows with 77 locations, aiming to increase its market presence.

The competition among major players like Trulieve, Curaleaf CURLF, and Verano VRNOF is intensifying, with each company employing strategies to capture more market share.

Data from the Florida Department of Health shows that these companies are driving significant sales of both flower and oil-based products, as per Beacons report.

Verano Holdings and Curaleaf Holdings are expected to report their Q2 results on August 7th, with Verano forecasting revenue and adjusted EBITDA at the lower end of estimates.

Rescheduling and elimination of 280E tax penalties are anticipated to substantially boost operating cash flow and free cash flow for these companies.

Read Next:How A Trump Return Could Reshape Marijuana Policy

These issues will be a hot topicat the upcoming Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago this Oct. 8-9. Join us to get more insight into what the wave of weed legalization means for the future of investing in theindustry. Hear directly from top executives, investors, advocates, and policymakers.Get your tickets nowbefore prices go up by followingthis link.

Photo: AI-Generated Image.

Originally posted here:
Libertarians Back Florida Cannabis Legalization, $5M From Hemp Execs To GOP: Green Waves In Red States - Benzinga

Well, now its getting interesting. First, there was a mad scramble to collect signatures to place Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who had been running as an independent candidate, on the states Libertarian ballot. State Libertarians accomplished that.

But now the national Libertarian party has filed paperwork that counters that effort. Turns out that the official paperwork has designated the Libertarian national candidate Chase Oliver as their Colorado general election ballot name.

A month ago, the state LIbertarian party held a vote and rejected the national nominee; which is what led to the wild petition process to select Kennedy. The agreement with the Kennedy campaign included getting him to agree to a set of state party principles and a fundraising collaboration.

With the petition process complete, the Colorado Libertarians got set to file documents making Kennedy and his VP pick California lawyer Nicole Shanahan, the partys official nominees in the state. At that moment the national partys secretary, Caryn Ann Harlos who happens to live in Castle Rock, filed ahead of them. Her forms nominated Oliver and his running mate, Michael ter Maat.

Colorado law is silent on intra-party conflicts regarding candidate nominations, according to the spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of States Office Jack Todd, in an email to Colorado Politics. But he added that parties can not place multiple candidates on the ballot for president and vice president.

What to do?

According to Colorado Politics, both sides accusing the other of going rogue and suggesting the dispute could land in court.

View post:
Libertarians in a Quandry Does the State, or the National Organization get to Name their Presidential Pick on the Colorado Ballot? - The Ark Valley...

Free State Project activist Dennis Pratt and Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein debate the resolution, "A better way to persuade more people of libertarianism is to convince them of the ethics stemming from self-ownership and the non-aggression principle, without relying primarily on consequentialist/utilitarian arguments."

Dennis Pratt, a libertarian writer and activist in New Hampshire, took the affirmative, arguing that the consequentialist arguments typical of libertarian economists are only narrowly effective, don't represent the core of libertarianism, and are too difficult for most people to quickly grasp. The philosophy of self-ownership, he said, has far more force in its ability to persuade the most people.

Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein disagreed. While he espouses the same philosophy as his opponent, he made the argument that the empirical facts related to the poor results of government interventions can get many people to rethink their anti-libertarian assumptions.

The debate occurred on June 20, 2024, at the Porcupine Freedom Festival in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and was moderated by Free State Project founder Jason Sorens.

Continued here:
What's the Best Argument for Libertarianism? - Reason

His supporters were out in force (literally) appearing around the (nonpolitical) FIBArk events, waving petitions, and talking up his candidacy and now it is official. The Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -Shanahan campaign has petitioned its way onto the Libertarian ballot slot in Colorado for president and vice president.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Courtesy of NBC News

In an announcement on July 3, the Kennedy campaign said it looks forward to joining forces with the Libertarian Party of Colorado to canvass, phone bank, and turn out the vote for Kennedy and the American freedoms that we will together restore.

It points out that the partnership with the Libertarian Party of Colorado is intended to disrupt the entrenched two-party system and provide Colorado voters with a viable alternative to our last two presidents disastrous status quo in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

Kennedy, whose own, rich, famous family has disavowed his politics, and his stance on issues, is running as an anti-vaccination, anti-government, free-market, less regulation candidate. He often touts conspiracy theories and has been accused of everything from sexual assault to bar-b-qing a dog. He recently sat for an interview in which he reported that he had a flesh-eating worm (pork tapeworm) in his brain and added that it didnt impact his reasoning.

Thank you, Libertarian Party of Colorado and Chair Hannah Goodman for your visionary leadership in defense of freedom, said Kennedy. Together, we will win the White House and steadfastly protect the Bill of Rights, the First and Second Amendments, and all the foundational liberties they secure. Our administration will restore free markets, end corporate welfare, stop the money-printing and unwind the war machine it fuels. On day one, I will pardon Edward Snowden, Ross Ulbricht, and all political and corporate whistleblowers who protect our democracy.

It remains to be seen what such a high-profile third-party candidate might do to the presidential race; but many political observers say that his appeal leans toward the right, and could take votes away from GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado partnership is a testament to Kennedys unifying independent run and how the campaign is bringing this country together, said Libertarian Colorado State Director Isaac James. Our movement has universal appeal because of its common sense values, rooted in the founding principles of our country, and its rejection of the divisive fear narratives used by the establishment parties to steal the wealth of our children and keep their corrupt hold on power.

Excerpt from:
Kennedy Gains Libertarian Ballot Access in Colorado - by Jan Wondra - The Ark Valley Voice

Today is July 11, 2024, and here's what you need to know:

Rival factions of the Colorado Republican Party have scheduled separate meetings a week apart in different corners of the state later this month to consider whether to remove Dave Williams as the state party's chairman, though the meeting set by Williams' allies is only planned to last long enough to gavel in and then immediately recess.

Leaders of both groups accuse the others of staging "illegal" and "fraudulent" meetings in what they characterize as attempts to hijack the state Republican Party for their own gain, even as GOP candidates are left scrambling to prepare for a crucial election just months away.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado's plans to place independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the state's ballot hit a snag this week when a national party official filed paperwork instead designating the Libertarians' presidential nominee, Chase Oliver, to Colorado's general election ballot.

The move has led to a standoff between the state and national Libertarian parties over which has the authority to put a presidential and vice presidential ticket in front of Colorado voters, with both sides accusing the other of going rogue and suggesting the dispute could land in court.

After voting a month ago to reject the ticket nominated by the national party, the state Libertarians' board announced last week that it would nominate Kennedy after reaching what it described as a "groundbreaking partnership" with his campaign. Elements of the agreement included securing the candidate's signature on a pledge to abide by a list of the party's principles and an intention to collaborate on fundraising, the party said.

A new panel of Colorado lawmakers, officials and industry experts met for the first time on Tuesday to take a closer look at gaps in cell phone coverage across the state.

The newly formed Cell Phone Connectivity Interim Study Committee has begun its work to identify gaps in coverage, particularly in rural areas and underserved communities.

Whether its for work, school, meeting virtually with your doctor, searching for directions, or contacting emergency services quality cell phone connectivity is vital, Committee Chair Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, said. However, many of our neighbors living in rural and mountainous communities are stuck with unreliable cell services. Gaps in cell phone connectivity means Coloradans can find themselves on their own in a dangerous, emergency situation.

Colorado's second-highest court clarified last week that federal law does not prohibit a person's Social Security benefits from being diverted to pay for their ex-spouse's alimony.

Although other states' courts had addressed the issue, the Court of Appeals never previously evaluated the meaning of two provisions of federal law as applied to divorced couples. First, a person's Social Security benefits "shall not be transferable or assignable." However, those payments "shall be subject" to alimony, which Colorado refers to as "spousal maintenance."

The upshot, wrote Judge David H. Yun for a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, is that judges may "consider social security retirement benefits, as well as other non-assignable federal benefits, in awarding maintenance or child support, even in circumstances where the order effectively results in an indirect assignment of those benefits."

Colorado's second-highest court reversed a woman's felony convictions for child abuse resulting in death last month after concluding the instructions that a San Miguel County judge provided the jury did not include the necessary language.

Hannah Marshall, 8, and Makayla Roberts, 10, were discovered dead and decomposing in a vehicle located on Frederick Alec Blair's Norwood farm in 2017. A forensic examiner was unable to conclusively state the cause of death because of the condition of the girls' bodies, but evidence suggested long-term malnourishment near the end of their lives.

Among those charged was Madani Ceus. Jurors heard she was in charge of the group of itinerant adults and children living on the farm. At some point, the victims were banished to live in a car with no food. Ceus directed that no one contact them.

Go here to see the original:
Libertarians in standoff over presidential ticket in Colorado; divided Republicans plan dueling meetings over Dave Williams; Social Security can be...

Next week, the Republican National Convention will choose Donald Trump to be its nominee for the third presidential election cycle in a row. Between then and now, Trump will also choose his vice president. No one can know Trump's mind for certain, but he is believed to have settled on three finalists: Sen. J.D. Vance (ROhio), Sen. Marco Rubio (RFla.), and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

While the vice presidency is often derided as a relatively unimportant job, there are reasons to think that Trump's choice could have significant ramifications in the future. When Trump does, at long last, exit the political stage, his most recent veep will be a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in subsequent cycles. Vance, Rubio, and Burgum all share certain similaritiesin that they are Republicans who strongly support Trumpbut they are also distinct personalities with significant policy differences.

When Ronald Reagan ran the party, he famously used the metaphor of a three-legged stool to describe modern conservatism, with the legs being neoconservatism (on foreign policy), religious conservatism (on social issues), and libertarianism (on economics). This triple alliance continued through the George W. Bush administration, but Trump shattered it when he won the nomination and the presidency in 2016. Neoconservatism, in particular, fell out of fashion with the GOP; Trump also pushed the party to move away from economic libertarianism, at least on trade.

The battle for control of the GOP's ideological direction is still being fought, and Trump's veep and eventual successor could play a decisive role in winning it. (Trump is himself not particularly ideological.) For libertarians who would like to see the Republican Party adopt a more market-friendly platform wherever possible, the vice presidency has some stakes.

It's unfortunate, then, that Trump's seemingly most likely choiceVanceis also the least libertarian by far.

Vance first came to public attention after publishingHillbilly Elegy, a memoir about his adolescence in Appalachia. The book chronicled the decay of the American Rust Belt and the resulting social instability among the working class, and it helped explain Trump's appeal to blue-collar voters. It is notable, however, that at the time, Vance did not endorsethe phenomenon he was describing. In fact,Hillbilly Elegylargely avoids scapegoating market forcesand instead asserts that the struggling members of Vance's community were wrong to blame their problems on sinister outsiders.

Unfortunately, avoiding demagoguery is not a winning strategy when seeking higher office. Today, Vance is a committed populist who embraces tariffs and protectionism. He has called for the federal government to break upGoogle. He has even praised Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, a Joe Biden appointee waging a one-woman crusade against major tech companiesand indirectly, their customers.

"A lot of my Republican colleagues look at Lina Khanand they say, 'Well Lina Khan is sort of engaged in some sort of fundamental evil thing," said Vance earlier this year. "And I guess I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job."

Khan's entire project is empowering federal bureaucrats to gum up the operations of major companies like Amazon for the crime of efficiently and successfully meeting human needs. Vance co-signs this effort.

In truth, Vance is fond of all sorts of progressive economic ideas. Interviewed by Ross Douthat inThe New York Times, Vance showed affection for the minimum wage, explicitly rejecting libertarian arguments against it.

"You raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and you will sometimes hear libertarians say this is a bad thing," said Vance. "'Well, isn't McDonald's just going to replace some of the workers with kiosks?' That's a good thing, because then the workers who are still there are going to make higher wages."

Vance went on to argue that cheap immigrant labor outcompeting American workers was in fact bad and ought to be prevented by the federal government. That is Vance's ideology in a nutshell: If American workers lose their jobs because government interference sped up the process of automation, oh well. But if these same workers lose out due to free market competition, the feds should work to prevent it.

Vance is arguably more committed to anti-libertarian ideas than is Trump himself. Trump's rhetoric is often quite at odds with his actual policies, and he is capable of dramatic policy shiftslike supporting a ban on TikTok and then dramatically backpedaling. When Trump's former secretary of defense raised the idea of mandatory national military service, Trump called it a "ridiculous idea." Vance has said he is in support of some version of the proposal, however. If Vance becomes the vice president, he will be well-positioned to hone Trump's populist instincts and bring the policy in line with the rhetoric.

Rubio, by contrast, is not a very sincere populist. He entered the Senate in 2011 as part of the Tea Party wave; his instincts at the time were traditionally Republican, but he emphasized some limited government themes, like reining in spending and opposing congressional earmarks. He also supported immigration reform and wanted to design a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants living within the United States. Unlike other prominent Republicans identified with the Tea Party such as Sen. Rand Paul (RKy.), Rubio remained reflexively hawkish on foreign policy. When he ran for president in 2016, he was arguably the candidate most similar to former President George W. Bushquite a feat, given that Jeb Bush was also in the race.

One thing Rubio has in common with Vance is that both politicians completely changed their tune with respect to Trump once his conquest of the Republican Party was complete. Rubio once called Trump a "con artist" and "the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency." Now he routinely defends Trump at all costs, even comparing the criminal proceedings against Trump to "show trials" of the likes of Communist Cuba.

Rubio's incoherent defenses of Trump have also caused the senator to embrace bad policies he once opposed. AsReason's Eric Boehm has noted, Rubio previously understood that raising tariffs on China would punish consumers in the U.S., the people buying the goods in question. He quite succinctly explained this to Trump during the Republican presidential primary debates in 2016. Eight years later, Rubio is not only defending tariffs on Chinahe agrees with Trump's plan to expand them.

All that said, Rubio comes across as more ideologically flexible than Vance. He has betrayed libertarian economic ideas because the current trajectory of the Republican Party is away from this philosophy. If that were to change, one suspects that Rubio would too.

This means that Burgum is the least bad choice for vice president, almost by default. The North Dakota governor has not been on the national political scene for nearly as much time as Vance or Rubio, instead emerging last year as an unlikely Republican presidential candidate during the primaries. He did not particularly distinguish himself during the debates, though he did attract some positive attention for displaying his pocket Constitution.

According to a largely sympathetic evaluation of his tenure in office, Burgum has governed as a traditional conservative: cutting taxes, improving the business climate in the state, supporting the Second Amendment, and so on. He signed a very restrictive ban on abortion, which may be a nonstarter for Trump, who has correctly surmised that this issue is currently the biggest barrier to a second Trump term. Burgum did, however, take the position that abortion is an issue for the states and should not be decided by the federal government.

Before entering politics, he was a self-made businessman who started his own software company and sold it to Microsoft for $1 billion in 2001. While success in the business world is no guarantee of fealty to libertarian economicsVance was a venture capitalist, after allit is somewhat encouraging. Political candidates invariably end up disappointing libertarians, but Burgum's record as a governor suggests that he is less likely to abandon basic free market principles at the drop of a hat.

By contrast, Vance and Rubio have already proven that they are happy to do so.

Unfortunately, none of the candidates under consideration for Trump's veep slot are particularly libertarian. Vance and Rubio, though, are not just unlibertarianthey have moved decisively in an anti-libertarian direction on economic issues where a generic Republican might be plausibly expected to at least casually align with liberty. That's ample reason to hope Trump excludes them from the ticket.

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Trump's Veep: Better Burgum Than Vance or Rubio - Reason

One of the fascinating phenomena in the libertarian movement for the last several decades has been the division of libertarians into those who have decided to settle for advocating welfare-warfare-state reform and those of us who have decided to continue trying to achieve liberty.

The reformers have thrown in the towel with respect to achieving liberty. They have concluded that liberty is simply too difficult, even impossible, to achieve. The federal and state welfare state and the warfare state have become too massive, too well-established, too ingrained in peoples minds, and too powerful. There is no reasonable possibility, the libertarian reformers have concluded, of achieving freedom and so there is no point in wasting our time, energy, and resources trying to achieve freedom. Better to do what is practical work within the system to make our serfdom better and more palatable.

After all, its important to keep something in mind: Freedom necessarily entails a dismantling of infringements on freedom, not the reform of infringements on freedom. If all we do is reform infringements on freedom, the most we accomplish is an improved serfdom, but we dont achieve freedom.

Think about 19th-century American slaves. A group of reform-oriented libertarians in 1855 Alabama exclaim, Slavery is too deeply ingrained in Alabama life. Its protected by the state constitution as well as by the U.S. Constitution. Popular sentiment, especially here in Alabama, is in favor of continuing slavery. We have to be practical. We are not going to get rid of slavery any time soon. We need to devote our efforts to reforming slavery, making it better and more palatable. We need to promote legislation that will bring about fewer lashings, shorter work hours, better food and healthcare, and even a modicum of education for the slaves.

The liberty-minded libertarians say otherwise. They say, Slavery is wrong. We need to end it, not reform it. It doesnt matter how deeply established it is or how popular it is. We need to continue standing squarely against it. Constitutions, both state and federal, can be amended. We need to continue making the case for immediately ending slavery. We cannot settle for reform.

Serfdom is not exactly like slavery, but it comes pretty close. In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote his popular book The Road to Serfdom. People can debate on when the end of that road was achieved for Americans but there is no doubt that by the time the late 1960s arrived, Americans had become full-fledged serfs on the U.S. welfare-warfare-state plantation. Ever since, Americans have lived their lives to support the welfare-warfare state. Thats our role in life to work and toil to maintain the structure of serfdom under which everyone is born and raised and under which they ultimately die.

Libertarians who have thrown in the towel on achieving freedom say to those of us who are still fighting for freedom, Whats the big deal? You all can continue fighting for freedom while the rest of us have settled for reform of our serfdom. What difference does it make?

It makes a huge amount of difference!

Lets hypothesize. Lets say that we need 125,000 libertarians who want freedom to bring about a paradigm shift to freedom. Lets assume that we currently have 100,000 libertarians. Theoretically, we need to find only 25,000 more to achieve the genuinely free society.

But lets assume that out of those 100,000 libertarians, 90,000 have thrown in the towel and have decided to settle for reform. Obviously, that makes it much more difficult for those of us 10,000 who are still fighting for freedom. We now have to find an additional 90,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to reach the 125,000 critical mass that will bring us freedom.

Now, lets turn things around. Lets say that out of those 100,000 libertarians, only 10,000 have thrown in the towel in favor of serfdom reform and 90,000 are still committed to achieving freedom. That means that those 90,000 only have to find an additional 10,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to achieve freedom. Moreover, with 90,000 libertarians making the case for freedom, rather that reform, it becomes a much easier task to find those additional 35,000 libertarians who want freedom.

One thing is for certain: The more libertarians who throw in the towel and settle for serfdom reform, the more diminished becomes the libertarian light of freedom. If 100 percent of libertarians decide to settle for serfdom reform, the possibility of achieving freedom is virtually nonexistent. In that case, the libertarian light of liberty is extinguished.

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Serfdom Reform vs. Liberty The Future of Freedom Foundation - The Future of Freedom Foundation

The New York state Libertarian Party is gearing up to get their presidential candidate on the ballot in the Empire State. Due to new ballot access provisions, the Libertarians and other parties without automatic ballot access will need to collect 45,000 signatures between April 16 and May 28 to get their party on the ballot.

The Libertarian Party has placed a candidate on the ballot for president in New York every cycle since 1976 with their best performance on their own line coming in 2020 with Jo Jorgenson receiving over 60,000 votes. In 2016, the partys ticket, which included former Massachusetts Governor and New York gubernatorial candidate Bill Weld, was cross endorsed by the Independence Party and received over 176,000 votes.

Candidates from a party that does not have ballot access must obtain 45,000 signatures or 1% of the total number of votes in the last gubernatorial election, whichever is less. At least 500 signatures each must come from 13 congressional districts.

Currently, the only parties in New York state that have automatic ballot access are the Democratic, Republican, Working Families, and Conservative parties. The Working Families Party has typically cross endorsed the Democratic candidate and the Conservative Party has done the same with the Republicans.

In 2020, the Green and Independence parties placed their own candidates on the ballot, Howie Hawkins and Brock Pierce respectively. This cycle, Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Partys nominee in 2012 and 2016, is leading in her partys primary and the Independence Party has slowed their activity with their party website not being active. The Greens will need to go through the ballot petitioning process as well.

Incumbent President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, are the presumptive nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Libertarians will select their official candidates for president and vice president at their national convention which will be held in Washington, D.C. at the end of May. Chase Oliver, the partys nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2022, has won five state primaries but other candidates for the nomination include 2000 vice presidential nominee Art Oliver and former party Vice Chair Joshua Smith.

Due to New Yorks petitioning process happening before the partys nominating convention, the party will be using stand-in candidates, which will step aside for the official candidates. The stand-in candidates will be former gubernatorial nominee Larry Sharpe and the partys second Vice Chair Rich Purtell. Sharpe briefly ran for the partys vice presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.

The next major election in New York will be closed primaries for state and federal legislative offices on June 25with early voting running from June 15-23. The general election is set for Nov. 5with early voting running from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3.

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N.Y. Libertarian Party launches petition drive for ballot - Spectrum News