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Clout is betting that most voters in Philadelphia didnt hear much about Maj Toure, the Libertarian Party candidate in last weeks election for a City Council at-large seat.

It didnt go well. Toure took less than half of 1% of the more than 1.3 million votes cast by 304,500 Philadelphians for 18 candidates in the race.

Now Toure, 39, has broken up with the Libertarian Party, where he was seen as a rising star, thanks to his Second Amendment advocacy through Black Guns Matter," a group he founded in 2016.

That spotlight was revoked Wednesday after a political mess that started on and is still playing out across social media.

Libertarian Party Chairman Nicholas Sarwark said Toure became more and more controversial during his Council campaign and finally devolved into a lot of inappropriate name-calling with a prospective donor to the party. Still, Sarwark said, he had hoped Toure would remain a Libertarian after joining the party last year.

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Daniel Hayes, the Libertarian official who revoked Toures invitation, praised his Second Amendment advocacy and donated to his Council campaign. Hayes pointed to tweets from Toure that were seen by some party members as transphobic and anti-immigrant.

Its social media silliness, Hayes said of the furor after Toure was dumped.

Toure has been knocking the Libertarian Party in his Twitter feed. But he declined to discuss the matter with Clout. Thats not the first time hes dodged our questions.

He granted a brief phone interview about his Council campaign in late September but refused to answer pressing questions like How old are you? He was even less forthcoming when we asked about Black Guns Matter.

I dont want to talk about that at all, he said in September, before claiming his cell phone signal was fading and hed call us back. That never happened.

We had questions about the more than $250,000 he claims to have raised in three years for a 50-state tour to hold classes in urban communities on their Second Amendment rights and responsibilities through firearms training and education. We also wanted to ask about the Black Guns Matter gear $50 sweatshirts, $40 T-shirts he sells online.

Toures reticence is curious, because hes no stranger to public speaking.

With a recount waived, intrigue lingers in Superior Court race in Philly

That means Republican Megan McCarthy King, a Chester County assistant district attorney, will join Democrat Dan McCaffery, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge, on the statewide appellate court bench.

Even as Green-Hawkins bowed out, some Democrats wondered why McCaffery outperformed her by about 8,000 votes, or 1.5%, in Philly. Green-Hawkins, a lawyer for the Steelworkers union in Pittsburgh, lost to King by less than half of 1%. She waived her right to a recount Wednesday.

McCaffery was a hometown candidate, and his campaign raised more money. But there is a touch of intrigue. Clout heard that some Democratic ward leaders didnt step up to help Green-Hawkins. For example, 31st Ward leader Peg Rzepski encouraged voters in a letter to support McCaffery and other Democrats on the ballot with no mention of Green-Hawkins.

We also heard Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers distributed ballots in Northeast Philly promoting McCaffery but not his running mate.

Local 98 spokesperson Frank Keel said: The only Election Day ballot IBEW Local 98 put out on the streets, other than a handful of bullet ballots and a straight Democratic ticket, was the AFL-CIO endorsed slate of labor candidates, which included Amanda Green-Hawkins. Any inference to the contrary is false.

Did those single-candidate bullet ballots include McCaffery?

We bullet balloted many diverse candidates in many races, Keel said.

Bob Brady, chairman of the Democratic City Committee, said he wasnt aware of any rogue operation. Brady did say that Green-Hawkins campaign failed to contribute to the local party during the general election a requirement of every endorsed candidate.

I didnt hold it against her, Brady said. I guess people knew about it.

He added that McCafferys campaign not only made a $25,000 contribution, but also paid for the City Committees ballot printing costs.

He worked hard, Brady said. The partys sample ballot included both candidates, though McCafferys name was highlighted in green.

Pa. voters: President Trump? Bleh.' Top Democrats? Meh.

A Muhlenberg College/Morning Call Poll found that Pennsylvania voters agree on one thing they dont care much for any of the leading contenders in the 2020 presidential race.

President Donald Trump had a favorable/unfavorable rating of 43% to 54%. Former Vice President Joe Biden hit 43% to 45%. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was 38% to 47%. And U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders ranked at 41% to 50%.

None of the candidates have a groundswell of favorable public views when youre looking across the broader electorate, pollster Christopher Borick said.

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Maj Toure exits the Libertarian Party in controversy after a failed bid for City Council | Clout - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Though still a relatively small group, Libertarians have had a growing political presence in the US in recent decades. Olivier Lewis and Jeffrey Michels write that while the Republican Party has historically been closely aligned with libertarians, George W. Bush-era curtailments on civil liberties and the rise of Donald Trump has pushed the movement away from that traditional alliance. With both Trump and the Democrats alike becoming more supportive of big government ahead of the 2020 election, libertarians will need to decide how best to use their votes so that their views are not squeezed out.

True or not, the US libertarian movement is known better for wielding its influence behind the scenes via interest groups and corporate donors rather than on the campaign trail. But with Republican and Democratic parties simultaneously shifting away from small-government values, the way may be open for libertarians to stand up for themselves in the upcoming presidential elections. As a large bloc in a tight race, their protest votes could paradoxically put them in the position of kingmaker.

Estimated to make up at least 10 percent of the population, libertarian-minded Americans have long posed an immense potential as swing voters at least in principle. Their political views which are centred around the idea of personal autonomy though now rather mainstream, have never fit cleanly in the programs of the two main parties. Socially liberal (for instance with regards to marriage and drug use), they could stand to gain from the Democrats, while their fiscal conservatism brings them closer to the Republicans. Meanwhile the movements underlying philosophy, championing the free-acting individual who spurns irrational bonds in the pursuit of self-interest, would hold libertarians to be the quintessential swing voters, ready to align with either side depending on which is willing to offer more at any given moment. But we argue that libertarians were never so detached. In fact, it is nearly impossible to speak of them as a bloc, most having been captured by a mainstream party and lacking their own through which to assert their public identity. But could this now be changing?

Historically, the Republican Party (GOP) has monopolised the libertarian vote, mainly with its promise of fiscal conservatism. Amid growing aversion to post-war welfare programs championed by the Democratic Party, the GOP cobbled together an unlikely consensus uniting small-government libertarians with religious conservatives and foreign policy hawks. This alliance seemed to offer libertarians more than going it alone with the Libertarian Party, founded in 1971. In the 1980s, for instance, President Reagans rhetoric seeped with the pathos of the enterprising American individual helped elevate libertarian doctrine to the status of a public norm. This norm then became biting policy in the 1990s, as the Republican Party proved famously intransigent on budgetary questions. It seemed like libertarian hardliners had won the upper hand not only in the Republican Party, but in US politics writ large.

The libertarian alliance with conservatives weakened in the 2000s, with the Republican Party back in the White House. Many libertarians, including some Fox News hosts, turned against President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11 attacks, as he expanded military engagement abroad and curtailed civil liberties at home. In the 2006 midterms a significant number of Libertarian voters allegedly voted for Democratic candidates. But the rise of Barack Obama who promised healthcare reform that recalled the era of robust government welfare programs and later bolstered the surveillance capabilities of the National Security Agency brought this dalliance with the Democratic Party to an end. Libertarian dissatisfaction with the Republican Party did not therefore give way to a rapprochement with the Democratic Party. But neither did it result in a turn towards the Libertarian Party, whose presidential candidate, in the form of former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, still failed to reach the one-percent mark.

Instead, libertarians sought to regain the upper hand within the Republican Party. And for a brief period, they were succeeding. The 2010s were promising to become the libertarian moment. While doctrinal libertarians, such as Texas US House Representative Ron Paul, were vying for the Republican presidential ticket and mobilising young activists, the grassroots Tea Party movement energised the GOP with politicians who seemed singularly dedicated to reducing the scope of government. But the libertarian decade ended abruptly when its partisans were outflanked by another disaffected group of Republicans: non-urban, working-class, white voters. This large segment of the US population was galvanized by Donald J. Trump and elected him in the 2016 presidential election.

Trumps presidency is laying bare the Republican Partys tenuous claim to represent libertarian values. Even before Trump, the Republican Partys fiscal record was hardly disciplined: at the state level, for example, over the past 30 years Republicans took control of two dozen states, and over this period median spending, adjusted for inflation, doubled. Today, much to the discomfort of libertarians, a large portion of Republican voters explicitly welcome a larger and more active government, one that increases public spending, raises tariffs, erects fences, and creates international coalitions of the illiberal.

Republicans close to the libertarian movement are therefore among the very few pushing back against the GOPs new statist platform. For instance, Bill Weld, who ran as Vice President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2016, returned to the Republican fold to challenge Trump in upcoming primaries. But resistance may have to come from the outside. Consider the fate of Justin Amash, renowned for his principled libertarianism. In 2015, Amash co-founded the House Caucus for Freedom to check GOP leadership and guarantee libertarian values from within, and later known for shutting down the government over budget fights. When Amash read the Mueller report and supported an impeachment procedure against Trump, members of the Freedom Caucus voted unanimously to dismiss him.

Policy-wise, the Democratic Party and libertarians could work together to promote causes like privacy, gay rights, free trade, a more welcoming immigration policy, and the legalisation of recreational drugs. But with Democrats on the cusp of selecting a big-government candidate, libertarian voters are likely to keep their distance. While a centrist like Joe Biden would likely garner a strong share of libertarian votes as the lesser of two evils, a more radical candidate, such as Elizabeth Warren, would leave libertarians a choice between two economically interventionist candidates. In other words, you may end up with a Republican and a Democratic nominee, [who] are both opposed to the libertarian position.

One option, of course, would be to vote for the Libertarian Partys presidential candidate. Indeed, the Libertarian Party has already been building momentum. In 2012, the party received more than 1 million votes for the first time. Four years later, with two former state governors on its ticket, the Libertarian Party obtained over 3 percent of the votes, the best result for a third-party contender in that election.

For 2020, the Libertarian party is on its way to, once again, having its candidates on presidential ballots in every state, and holding a record number of presidential primaries. Justin Amash may run as a candidate for the Libertarian Party, possibly reshaping the race in his home state of Michigan a crucial swing-state. Of course, the Libertarian Party candidate is unlikely to win the presidency. Consequently, those who vote for the Libertarian Party will be casting a protest vote. Some libertarians, however, sense a victory of a different type. Given how tight the last presidential race was, and that US voters increasingly identify as political independents (42 percent in 2017), the Libertarian Party could grow to become a swing-party, acting as a gate-keeper to power.

Is it possible that the US will witness the same trend that has swept continental Europe, where mainstream party systems have fallen apart? With a record showing, the Libertarian Party could resemble those smaller parties in Europe that have won over voters with their clearer ideological stances and position apart from politics as usual. These have had an increasing sway over their larger rivals, who have either had to mimic their demands to win back votes or welcome them into increasingly complicated coalitions. The likelihood of something similar happening in the US remains remote.

After decades of support, it will not be easy for even self-conscious libertarians to dislodge themselves from traditional party loyalties. This will be more difficult given the American medias unwavering representation of party politics as having only two-sides; though the Libertarian Partys stance is far simpler than that of its larger competitors, it is hardly articulated in public discourse. Finally, though Trump, Warren and Sanders may be pushing libertarian voters away from mainstream parties, they are also demonstrating these parties capacity for renewal. When it comes to winning over mainstream politics, libertarians may have lost the battle but not the war. The Republican Party may soon face another libertarian siege But for the elections to come, a change of tactic will likely be necessary and it could prove consequential, if libertarians move as one.

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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.

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Olivier Lewis College of EuropeOlivier has been a Research Fellow at the College of Europe, Natolin campus, since August 2019. Olivier is currently writing his first book, Security Cooperation between Western States, to be published with Routledge. He is also working on shorter publications related to counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and Brexit.

Jeffrey Michels College of EuropeJeffrey Michels is an Academic Assistant at the European Interdisciplinary Studies Department at the College of Europe.

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Primary Primers: How Libertarians could be the kingmakers of the 2020 presidential election - USAPP American Politics and Policy (blog)

Last week, self-defeating Libertarians in Kentucky helped take themselves out of the frying pan while throwing the entire state of Kentucky into the fire, enabling a Democrat challenger to win the Kentucky governors race.

Afterward, Kentucky Libertarians rejoiced, enamored with the seldom-felt perception of political power when the Democrat challenger won. In so doing, Kentucky Libertarians confirmed their love of liberty in-principle much more than they could ever love liberty in-fact, publishing a statement which read that if they cannot advance liberty, they are always happy to split the vote in a way that causes delicious tears, ostensibly those tears shed by the incumbent Republicans supporters.

In publishing that statement, and claiming a misguided victory when theirs was actually an overwhelming loss, Kentucky Libertarians demonstrated that there is a practical side of politics they do not, and likely will never, understand.

Ironically, in splitting the vote and possibly becoming the deciding factor in a Kentucky gubernatorial race in which a Democrat won the seat, the Kentucky Libertarian Party became a tool of its own enslavement, while reveling in the erroneous perception of political power a small minority might wield in a close race. Real political power does not come in a distant last place.

Libertarians are still mad, often harkening back to the 2012 Republican National Convention that nominated Mitt Romney to run for president. They recall that in that convention their star, Congressman Ron Paul, was unjustifiably silenced from the proceedings in an attempt to publicly convey a perception of unity for Romney within party ranks. Granted, that happened. It was bad and should never happen again. But that was the Mitt Romney Republican Party, which also became the never-Trumper movement among Republicans.

Seven years later, the world sees Mitt Romney for who he is, the same Mitt Romney he was during 2012, an establishment placeholder and globalist shill whose purpose is not to better America but to simply do what any made-individual must do to retain his wealth and political standing.

Todays is not the Republican Party of Mitt Romney in 2012, far from it. Todays is the Trump Republican Party and becoming more so each day. One by one, Republican establishment placeholders are either leaving, seeing the writing on the wall, or being voted out.

It was the Trump Republican Party, who when faced with the alternative of electing a transformational socialist Democrat, defeated the socialist movement at Georgias front door in 2018 and elected an outstanding new governor of Georgia in Brian Kemp.

Had Stacey Abrams won and turned Georgia into a socialist repository, in keeping with the attitudes of the Kentucky Libertarian Party, the Georgia Libertarian Party would likely have been just as ecstatic, even knowing that Abrams would do all she could to deny them every right they presently enjoy.

Thats the truly short-sided part of all this. It is interesting that even the founder of todays liberty movement, Ron Paul, joined and supported the Republican Party, knowing that doing so was the only way he could compete. And then theres also Rand, his son.

But none of what I will conclude today has anything to do with whether the Kentucky Libertarian Party actually had a hand in defeating the incumbent Republican in their state. It has to do with the power dance of those who published the piece on behalf of Kentucky Libertarians, claiming responsibility for the Republican defeat in the same way a terrorist group might claim responsibility for a public bombing, whether they had anything to do with it or not.

The statement published by the Kentucky Libertarian Party was a flexing of under-developed political muscles, touting a supposed achievement, citing the defeat of a sitting Republican as evidence. And now they have even worse political prospects, abetting the election to a four-year term of an individual beholden to the organized crime unit that is the National Democrat Party.

Kentucky Libertarians are happy with all that, at least today, which just goes to show that even Libertarians, who forever complain of political power in the hands of those with whom they disagree, fervently enjoy fleeting moments of perceived power themselves when their limited numbers can help decide a close election.

And at the very bottom of Libertarian disgruntlement, the very foundation of their discontentment with the Republican Party and in particular President Trump, is the issue of recreational drug legalization. Thats it. The once-proud and principled Libertarian Party has become the drug party. Thats what this is all about.

Just look at who they nominated to run for president in 2016, pot-smoking Gary Johnson, whose major campaign pledge had nothing to do with libertarianism, but was merely to stop smoking while on the campaign. And it is doubtful he adhered to that pledge.

But thankfully, leading Georgia into the 2020 election we have a Trump/peoples governor in Brian Kemp, and a cast of Trump Republicans occupying both houses of legislature. And, thankfully, in 2020 President Trump will be on the ballot, which will bring patriots out of the hills and to the voting polls all across Georgia and the country.

And so I am amazed at the number of people I encounter who love freedom in-principle more than freedom in-fact. They revel when those more likely to remove their rights are elected. Obviously, there is a practical side of politics that this very small percentage of voters, who on occasion represent a deciding factor, will never seemingly understand.

Hank Sullivan is a Forsyth County resident, businessman, author and speaker on American history, economics and geopolitics.

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Opinion: The practical side of politics - Forsyth County News Online

Friday, November 15, 2019

GoLocalProv Political Team

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Pat Ford, Libertarian Party of RI Chairperson

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What great news! Headlines announce Rhode Islands Democratic House Speaker and the Rhode Island Republican Minority Leader are working together to fix a dilemma that raises ethics eyebrows and bitterly divides the state: the 20-year no-bid contract to IGT over the boisterous protests of Twin River Worldwide Holdings. The bi-partisan agreement of the RI legislators will be to hire consultants to offer expert analysis of the situation.

Imagine our disappointment, however, when the Libertarian Party of Rhode Island (LPRI) learned that the stated goal of hiring consultants to weigh in was actually to analyze how to divide the billions of dollars of monopolistic corporate welfare rather than how to eliminate the current system and introduce open market into the gambling economy in Rhode Island.

IGT and Twin River Worldwide Holdings who already have been granted monopolies worth billions are fighting over who can control an even wider swath of the Rhode Island economy.

Casino gaming, sports betting & lotteries in their current structure - represent a real drain on the Rhode Island economy, as billions of dollars leave in the form of capital flight to out-of- state interests, or empty into the bottomless pit of State Government.

The real casualties are Rhode Island businesses and taxpayers. Increasingly, Rhode Island government seeks even greater control of our consumer economy in order to support an out of control $10 billion budget. Local businesses routinely find themselves in the unenviable position of not only having to compete with state monopolies for their share of discretionary consumer spending, but actually paying taxes in order to subsidize their direct competition.

The answer lies not in the specter of entitled billionaires feeding at the trough of taxpayers money, but in the creation of opportunities for all Rhode Islanders to participate in the gaming economy. Restaurants, concert venues, entertainment facilities, and entrepreneurs of all stripes must be given access to the same games of chance as IGT and Twin River. Marketing subsidies to IGT and Twin River must be eliminated.

Let the Free Market determine who will succeed in this arena. Allow all business an opportunity to complete on for gambling revenue on a level playing field. End the State of Rhode Islands interference in consumer markets.

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Libertarian Party of RI Issues Statement on Twin River - IGT Negotiations - GoLocalProv

Anything goes with Libertarians, and you dont have to pay for it.

What? Well, as a non-Libertarian, when I see the entire Democrat line up of Presidential candidate raise their hands for free health care for all illegal immigrants, I believe Yale just reported there are 30,000,000, and Libertarians cheerwell I cant help but wonder.

I thought the basis for freedom was property rights? Now, if you are going to pay for the health care of 30,000,000 on top of 300,000,000 and there are already talking about taking all the money from the private sector that is already committed to paying health care, plus a wealth tax, etc. and the Libertarians are silent, even encouragingseems to me that Libertarians are off doing the dope they legalized.

I know there must be some smart Libertarians, even if I dont know any. So I expect some Libertarians have realized, through life experience, that whenever Democrats talk about taxing the wealthy that is a cover for taxing everyone!

It does not take someone who actually understood calculus to figure out that free health care is the end of American prosperity.

I wonder, are most Libertarians from the Ivy League Halls? Has reality and pragmatism slipped from their understanding? Even more, have Libertarians accepted that socialism is the path to Liberty?

President Trump should be a breath of fresh air to Libertarians. Who worked on prison reform without being pushed? Who has stayed clear of any LGBT issues? Who has avoided conflict, and wants to withdraw Americans from commitments all around the world? Commitments that have no bearing on the national interest?

Or is it globalism that is the opiate of the Libertarians? Have Libertarians embraced no borders thinking that a global government will not be dictatorial, fascist, and controlling? And did you all buy into climate fantasia? Do you think some supreme government atop the whole world, a secular government without religious foundation will actually bring Utopia?

Most human beings are blind to the good times when they are enjoying them, and it appears Libertarians are most human beingsnot special, not smarter than the average bear.

The national deficit is on run away proportions, and it will not be the Democrats that bring it under control. Oh yes, they promise new taxes, but not without promising boundless new programs with costs that cannot be contained.

So are the Republicans any better? Not today they are not. A divided Republican Party cant get out of its own way. What is needed is a new party, or at least a renovated GOP, and Donald Trump is the proven leader who can do it. But without an America First- Tea Party cadre brought into Congress, both Houses, Trump is at best an eight year break in the decline of America and its bankruptcy.

For America to address its problems, it must first come back to a consciousness it must first, as Clint Eastwood would say, recognize its own limitations. It is not the savior of the world, or the hospice for dying third world central American nations. It mustnation build itself. It must embrace the one truism of Libertarian-ism that is absolute truth, behavior has consequences, and those consequences should be paid by the person practicing the behavior. Consequences do not require a villagethey do require personal responsibility.

Term limits balanced national budgets personal responsibility should be the hallmarks of Liberty.

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Are debt and the national deficit Libertarians best friends? - Nolan Chart LLC