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Category Archives: Libertarian

The Chamorro Language across Islands and Generations [PRT 1/2] – Video

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The Chamorro Language across Islands and Generations [PRT 1/2]
PART 1/2. Public presentation by Manny F. Borja, Sandra Chung and Matt Wagers on the Chamorro language, and, in particular, on linguistic variation in the perception of relative clauses. Discusses...

By: ChamorroPsycholinguisticsNaProject

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The Chamorro Language across Islands and Generations [PRT 1/2] - Video

The Best Mentawai Islands Surf Video from my drone, Phyllis June 2014, by Paul Borrud HD – Video

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The Best Mentawai Islands Surf Video from my drone, Phyllis June 2014, by Paul Borrud HD
http://vimeo.com/99275308 In June of 2014, we spent 11 days surfing the Mentawai Islands. The conditions were perfect the entire trip with light offshore winds and plenty...

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The Best Mentawai Islands Surf Video from my drone, Phyllis June 2014, by Paul Borrud HD - Video

Libertarian candidate Fellows seeks U.S. House seat

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Mike Fellows said hes running for the U.S. House for three reasons: to try to balance the federal budget, reduce the federal debt and protect Second Amendment gun rights.

The perennial Libertarian candidate from Missoula faces Democrat John Lewis and Republican Ryan Zinke in the Nov. 4 general election.

If you want smaller government, lower taxes and more liberty, were the only candidate in the race, Fellows said. Were the only fiscal conservative thats out there. Lewis is the liberal. Zinke has already said hes a moderate, and then youve got myself, whos a fiscal conservative.

Fellows, who said hes around 55, is self-employed in video preparations and odds and ends.

Hes coming off his best showing in a statewide race in 2012, polling 43 percent in a losing race against longtime Supreme Court Clerk Ed Smith, a Democrat. No Republican ran.

To balance the federal budget, Fellows called for elimination of the U.S. departments of education, commerce and energy.

He said the U.S. Education Department should just send its budget to the states, which would trigger innovation in education, halt its top-down, one-size-fits-all approach and eliminate the jobs of the federal agencys current employees.

It would be nice to scrap the tax code as well, but you and I know that is not going to happen, the Libertarian said. We need to reduce the rate of corporate and individual taxes.

As for the $17.7 trillion federal debt, Fellows said, We just have to control spending. Thats the only way were going to do it. We cant spend more than we take in.

Fellows said the country is slowly becoming more Libertarian, with candidates actually talking about reducing spending and getting our debts under control.

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Libertarian candidate Fellows seeks U.S. House seat

The Pizza Guy Who's Shaking Up the NC Senate Race

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By day, Sean Haugh delivers pizzas and resells old books on Amazon.

But moonlighting as North Carolinas Libertarian Senate candidate, he could serve up the states hotly contested Senate seat to Democrats in November.

Im very much a factor in the race, Haugh told ABC News.

Tight NC Senate Race Keeps to Playbook in First Debate

North Carolina Senate Race 2014: ABC News' '14 For 14'

If the contest between Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis remains narrowly divided in the final weeks of the race, political strategists believe Haugh could siphon votes away from Tillis and help hand the incumbent Democrat a victory. Democrats believe North Carolina is increasingly becoming their best firewall to stop Republicans from picking up the six seats needed to win control of the Senate.

If its really close -- people might say even at two percent -- Haugh would be playing a role in the outcome, said North Carolina State University political scientist Andrew Taylor.

Haugh, 53, is no stranger to state politics. He ran for Senate as a Libertarian in 2002, and has also worked with the states Libertarian Party in various capacities. He said he entered the race in February as an act of conscience.

There wasnt any Libertarian stepping up, he said.

His platform, laid out in a series of low-fi YouTube videos filmed at the home bar in his campaign managers basement, calls for peace and fiscal security, and an alternative to candidates owned by outside corporate interests.

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The Pizza Guy Who's Shaking Up the NC Senate Race

Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson: How the Libertarian Party can be Viable – Video

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Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson: How the Libertarian Party can be Viable
2012 Libertarian Presidential Candidate, Gary Johnson, joins Stephen Kruiser to discuss the future of the Libertarian Party in 2014 and 2016...and beyond.

By: PJ Media

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Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson: How the Libertarian Party can be Viable - Video

Meet the Woman Who Could Keep Control of the Senate Up for Grabs

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TIME Politics 2014 Election Meet the Woman Who Could Keep Control of the Senate Up for Grabs Courtesy Swafford for US Senate Libertarian Amanda Swafford considers forcing a Jan. 6 run-off in the Peach States Senate race a victory for third party candidates everywhere

There is a nightmare scenario that keeps most politicos working on both sides of the aisle up at night: after the midterm elections, and even through the anticipated Dec. 6 run off in Louisiana, control of the Senate likely wont be decided until Jan. 6, the date a run-off in Georgia will take place, if any one candidate fails to muster 50% of the vote. It is this scenario that Libertarian candidate Amanda Swafford, who regularly pulls 5% in most polls, relishes.

In that situation, if we did force a runoff, Swafford tells TIME, Id say thats a clear mandate from people of Georgia for a small government and less involvement in peoples lives.

Small government has hardly been a theme in the race between Republican businessman David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn, who are competing to fill retiring Republican Saxby Chamblisss seat. The two have spent millions firing at one another: Perdue accused Nunn of funding terrorists through her work with the Bush Family Foundation and Nunn said Perdue lost jobs and discriminated against female workers as CEO of Dollar General.

If that nastiness continues in a run-off, the folks responsible for the run-off will probably just stay home, Swafford says of her supporters. And they will have to find new voters in order to win and they will be exceptionally hard.

Perdue now leads Nunn by 3.4 points, according to an average of Georgia polls by Real Clear Politics. But Perdue has only broken the 50% threshold in one out five of the most recent polls, and hell need at least 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off. Swaffords mere presence on the ballot creates the potential for a run-off, says Jennifer Duffy, who follows Senate races at the non-partisan Cook Political Report. Overall, Libertarians tend to draw more from Republicans, so she is a bigger problem for Perdue than Nunn.

But Swafford says that may not be the case with her voters, who she maintains are open to whomever makes the best case. Swafford isnt even sure shed caucus with the Republicans if, by some miracle, she were to be elected.

And so an unlikely figure could impact national politics. As of the end of June, Swafford had raised $7,683 for her senatorial bid. The single 37-year-old has kept her day job as a paralegal as she has mounted her campaign. It makes for a lot of late nights and early mornings, she says, but I believe electing someone to the Senate like me, who knows what its like to work a job, have a boss, and make ends meet on a regular budget, would bring a valuable perspective to the Senate.

Swafford is pro-choice and for the legalization of marijuana. And, like most Libertarians, shes deeply suspicious of President Obamas engagement abroad, particularly in Syria and Iraq. Last year, the President wanted to bomb Syria for their chemical weapons, now hes asking for their help to defeat another enemy, she says. (Obama hasnt actually asked Syrian strongman Bashar Assad for help in defeating ISIS.)

Swafford benefits from Georgias strong Libertarian history. It is home to 2008 Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman. And that same year, John Monds made history by becoming the first Libertarian candidate to draw more than a million votesstatewide or nationallythough he still lost his attempt to become Georgia Public Service Commissioner. Four years later, Libertarian David Staples made another bid for the same office and again broke the one million-vote threshold, though again fell short. But, unlike Swafford, both of those men faced only one rival from a major party, not two.

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Meet the Woman Who Could Keep Control of the Senate Up for Grabs

Libertarian Senate candidate sues KET over debate

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate David Patterson has asked a federal judge to order Kentucky Educational Television to include him in the station's televised debate on Oct. 13.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes have both said they will participate in the debate. It will likely be the only time voters will see the two debate on statewide television before the Nov. 4 election.

Patterson, who is a police officer in Harrodsburg, is also on the ballot but was not invited to the debate. His lawsuit alleges KET officials are excluding him from the debate because of his political views - something the U.S. Supreme Court has said public broadcasters cannot do.

A call to a KET spokesman was not immediately returned.

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Libertarian Senate candidate sues KET over debate

Ben Koyl, Libertarian for Illinois Attorney General 2014 – Ad 3 – Video

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Ben Koyl, Libertarian for Illinois Attorney General 2014 - Ad 3
Vote for Ben Koyl, the Libertarian Party Candidate for Illinois Attorney General. As a small business owner and attorney, Ben knows that public corruption wastes tax payer money and erodes...

By: DuPage Libertarians

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Ben Koyl, Libertarian for Illinois Attorney General 2014 - Ad 3 - Video

Volokh Conspiracy: Why arent there more libertarian land use scholars?

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In this interesting recent post at Concurring Opinions, liberal land use scholar Kenneth Stahl asks why there arent more libertarians in his field:

Many professors who study land use and local government law, myself included, consider ourselves leftists rather than libertarians. That is, we have some confidence in the ability of government to solve social problems. Nevertheless, were you to pick up a randomly selected piece of left-leaning land use or local government scholarship (including my own) you would likely witness a searing indictment of the way local governments operate. You would read that the land use decisionmaking process is usually a conflict between deep-pocketed developers who use campaign contributions to elect pro-growth politicians and affluent homeowners who use their ample resources to resist change that might negatively affect their property values.

The organization of local governments, on the surface a merely technical matter, has fallen victim to a similar pattern of what public choice scholars call rent-seeking.

It hardly paints a pretty picture of local government. Yet, most leftists prescription is more government.

So why would left-leaning scholars, who have seen so clearly the failures of local government, place so much faith in a largely untested restructuring of governmental institutions, rather than looking to less government as the solution? Libertarians often point out that Houston, the lone American metropolis without single-use zoning, has far lower housing prices than comparable cities elsewhere, and has become a magnet for young families and immigrants. What is holding leftists back from embracing Houstons (sort of) free-market solution?

Its a good question! In attempting to answer it, I would start by pointing out that there are in fact a good many libertarian land use scholars. I am one of them myself. For years, I have argued that cities should adopt the Houston approach to zoning (or go even further in a free market direction), strengthen protection for property rights, and severely limit the use of eminent domain. I even wrote an entire article devoted to explaining why state and local governments are likely to be particularly dysfunctional when it comes to regulating property rights in land and other immobile assets.

Obviously, the vast majority of land use scholars are far more left-wing than I am, and far less willing to impose tight constraints on government power. But thats largely because academia in general is dominated by the political left, as is legal academia in particular. Relative to the general distribution of opinion among legal scholars, land use and property law specialists are probably more libertarian than the average. Admittedly, I dont have systematic survey data to prove it. But that is my strong impression based on over a decade of experience in the field. Certainly, the percentage of libertarian scholars in the land use/property law fields is much higher than in my other field, constitutional law. Some of the most famous libertarian legal scholars of the last several decades have been property law specialists, most notably Richard Epstein and the late Bernard Siegan.

Even left-wing property and land use scholars are often more skeptical of government than liberal legal scholars in other fields. For example, many of them advocate tighter constraints on zoning authority that leads to exclusionary zoning that fences out the poor. As compared to several decades ago, few scholars still support the Progressive/New Deal era vision of systematic comprehensive land use planning. The backlash against the Supreme Courts decision in Kelo v. City of New London has even led many on the left to look favorably on reinvigorating public use constraints on takings, though this trend is much stronger outside of academia than within it.

That said, I agree with Stahls suggestion that most left of center land use scholars are much more supportive of government intervention than its track record can justify. Most still reject the imposition of tight constraints on zoning and the aggressive use of eminent domain, despite extensive evidence that zoning and blight and economic development takings inflict great harm on the poor and racial minorities.

There are a variety of reasons for that trend. But one important one is that what Stahl calls confidence in the ability of government to solve social problems is almost a defining feature of modern left-liberalism. To give up on that idea is almost to reject more left-wing ideology generally. Like adherents of other ideologies (including libertarians), left-wing land use scholars are very reluctant to give up on their core commitments. As a result, even when they see an extensive pattern of government failure, they instinctively prefer to look for ways to address the issue without giving up on government intervention more generally. We often make marginal adjustments in our views on specific policy issues. But it is psychologically difficult to reject long-held basic precepts of your world-view.

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Volokh Conspiracy: Why arent there more libertarian land use scholars?

GOP consultant Terry Casey denies plotting with Kasich against Libertarian challenger

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The Daily Briefing Buckeye Forum Podcast

The Dispatchpublic affairs team talks politics and tackles state and federal government issues in the Buckeye Forum podcast.

From wire reports Tuesday September 30, 2014 6:11 AM

The Republican who spearheaded a challenge that bumped a Libertarian gubernatorial candidate off Ohios November ballot testified yesterday to extensive communications with Gov. John Kasichs re-election campaign ahead of the protest, but he rejected suggestions that Kasichs campaign orchestrated the effort.

Terry Casey, a former elections official who is now a GOP consultant, testified in federal court that he discussed his petition challenge against Libertarian Charlie Earl with top Kasich campaign advisers and exchanged many emails and calls with them seeking help with research, paperwork and mechanics.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio is suing to have Earl and Libertarian attorney general candidate Steven Linnabary restored to the Nov. 4 ballot. Yesterday, Judge Michael Watson gave each side a day and a half to present its case.

Libertarians say that Republican Secretary of State Jon Husteds decision to disqualify Earl and Linnabary is unconstitutional because it was based on partisan reasons. Husted has said politics did not play a role in his decision.

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GOP consultant Terry Casey denies plotting with Kasich against Libertarian challenger


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