Daily Archives: September 21, 2019

The recent voting lecture from Lori Sturdevant and Tom Horner (Minnesotans, dont be the spoilers, Sept. 15) could have used a host of other recycled headlines from the duopoly endorsement mantra headlines such as Dont waste your vote on a third party or They can never win or Lets just change existing parties from within.

It gave me a few flashbacks as I fought through the contradictions and arrogance of the piece.

The background was fair and true, explaining Minnesotas historical embrace of multiparty politics, how Minnesotans chafe at the binary nature of politics, and how, in 2016, we saw four times more third-party presidential votes than in 2012.

But then enters the Ragnarok advocate for third-party destruction, Tom Horner. It was correctly pointed out that he was the last great statewide Independence Party candidate, who back in 2010 grabbed a spectacular 12% running for governor. This was the last time the IP surpassed the major party line in Minnesota.

Horner has since spent his time persuading voters to support either side of the duopoly instead. This contradicts the assertion that he cannot be accused of blind loyalty to the two-party system. Actually, yes he can.

Exhibit A: On Sept. 29, 2014, Horners commentary in the Star Tribune titled Johnsons leadership will benefit state asked everyone to not vote for the party he had just championed, but instead vote for Republican Jeff Johnson in order to oust Democrat Mark Dayton. I issued a counterpoint on Oct. 6, The Libertarian Party alone now offers true alternative, expressing disappointment in that advice.

Exhibit B are Horners comments in the Sept. 15 piece, where he again suggests voters stay in the two-party system no matter what, but now on the other side. Voters have a duty it seems to vote for a Democrat (fill in the blank) to stop the Republican (the tweeter in chief).

Dont be led into third-party temptation in 2020, Horner is said to advise. Anything that even potentially detracts from [defeating President Donald Trump] is not a smart vote, he declares.

Its hard to see how this can pass for anything besides blind loyalty to the two-party system. Toss in an insult to intelligence for good measure.

It is further claimed that in Minnesota, third parties have it easy with simple ballot access and public campaign funds. This is just flat untrue. Minnesota has prehistoric structural limitations on political parties who attract support in the 1%-5% range to try to keep them at bay. An occasional breakout happens with a famous name like Ventura or any issue like marijuana, but the structure tamps them right back down. In fact the easy access laws referred to are so prohibitive and unequal that the Libertarian Party has filed a lawsuit to challenge them.

Changing the two-party system from within has obviously not worked, and it wont this time either despite advice to vote for the lesser of two evils. Guess what, that means evil still wins. And when those become the only choices, many stay home, which is exactly what they want.

Dont give in to that. We need more choices and more voices. Go out and vote for the one you believe in. Its your vote and your conscience. Its never a waste unless you dont use it. Dont listen to people who say youll only be spoiling something that is already rotten.

GO OUT AND VOTE HOW YOU WANT TO.

Chris Holbrook is chair of the Libertarian Party of Minnesota.

Excerpt from:

OPINION EXCHANGE | Counterpoint: Wrong time for third parties? No, vote for who you believe in - Star Tribune

The Trump campaign has an unprecedented war chest to spend on watch-list states like New Mexico. | Patrick Semansky/AP File Photo

2020 elections

The strategy centers on wooing Hispanics in the state, which has voted for a Republican presidential candidate only once since 1992.

By GABBY ORR

09/16/2019 05:03 AM EDT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. John McCain lost New Mexico by nearly 15 percentage points in 2008. Four years later, Mitt Romney pulled two top staffers from the ground here with weeks to go before Election Day admitting defeat even before Barack Obama trounced him by 51 points in the Santa Fe area.

The Land of Enchantment has voted for a Republican presidential candidate only once since 1992. With a considerable nonwhite voter population and all-Democratic congressional delegation, its not exactly fertile ground for a surprise GOP victory.

Story Continued Below

But then, President Donald Trump has seldom shied away from a long-shot challenge.

Despite the Democratic Partys statewide success here last November winning two congressional seats up for grabs, defending a third and defeating Republican nominee Steve Pearce for the governors mansion Trump and his aides are betting they can flip New Mexico next fall and expand his electoral playing field.

Their efforts begin Monday night with a campaign rally in Rio Rancho, which sits in a county Trump lost by 1,800 votes in 2016. The Hispanic-heavy city is four hours north of El Paso, Texas, where the president held a reelection rally in August that prompted campaign manager Brad Parscale to add New Mexico to his watch list a list of nontraditional battleground states, including Maine, Colorado, Minnesota and Virginia, that the Trump campaign has its sights set on.

Ive continued to say the presidents policies are a win for Latino voters across America and one of the first symbols of this was the El Paso rally, Parscale told reporters on a call last week. We saw in the data thousands of voters who did not vote for the president in 2016 show up to a rally, come listen to the president and register [to vote].

As we started doing polling there, we saw a dramatic increase from 2016 and I went over this with the president and he said, Lets go straight into Albuquerque, Parscale recalled.

poster="https://static.politico.com/eb/36/868c6ab4463cb2341d00657e5d89/immigration-eugene.png" true

Political forecasters and local officials remain puzzled by claims that Trump with his restrictionist immigration policies, white-identity politics and below-average approval ratings can woo enough voters to turn New Mexico in his favor.

What weve seen of the presidents immigration policy has been cruel and inhumane. I think Democrats and New Mexicans, in general, are much more interested in making sure our communities feel welcome and safe, said Miranda van Dijk, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, which is counterprogramming Trumps rally with an event focused on unity and diversity.

Hes a batshit racist, adds Chris Luchini, a New Mexico native who sits atop the states Libertarian Party. Im very skeptical that New Mexico is up for grabs with him.

The Libertarians of New Mexico earned major-party status in 2016 after Gary Johnson the states former Republican governor, who became the Libertarian presidential nominee in the past two elections carried nearly 10 percent of the statewide vote. Luchini contends that the party has become somewhat of a refuge for disaffected Democrats who are too conservative for the progressive politics of their state Legislature, but too appalled by Trump to reregister as Republicans.

Traditionally, the normal thing that most political operatives have believed is that people who vote Libertarian are disaffected Republicans. That is no longer true in New Mexico, he explained.

Luchini said he often calls voters when they reregister as Libertarian to ask what prompted the change, and what I get on the phone calls a lot are traditional conservative Democrats who can no longer stomach being called a Democrat, but are self-selected not to be Trump voters.

The trend he describes is consistent with the Trump campaigns attraction to New Mexico, though questions remain about whether the current political climate here is truly advantageous for the president. His net approval rating in the state has decreased by 34 percentage points since he took office, and recent matchup polls in bordering red Texas have shown him losing to the top three candidates in the Democratic presidential field.

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But Trump campaign officials say the numbers theyre looking at paint a different picture of a state in which Hispanic Catholics and rural voters feel abandoned by progressive lawmakers who have pushed to codify reproductive rights, increase taxes and mandate the creation of gender-neutral restrooms in commercial buildings. Furthermore, they maintain that the presidents actions on immigration are attractive to a particular subset of Hispanic voters who support border security or have family members who entered the U.S. legally.

That is, only if Trump can ditch the harsh rhetoric he typically employs when discussing his immigration policies and preferences, says Pearce, the failed gubernatorial candidate, who has spoken to the campaign about the presidents language in his current capacity as chairman of New Mexicos Republican Party.

This is a lot about tone, and youve got to watch that, Pearce said. You dont have to be cautious about saying you want to secure the border. You just have to say it with firmness and without anger.

Republicans in New Mexico are also eyeing retiring Democrat Tom Udalls Senate seat as a means to boost voter turnout and help the president in 2020. Two Republican candidates have already declared in addition to 10 different people who are interested in running, whom Pearce says he has spoken to though neither is viewed as particularly competitive in what is seen as a relatively safe seat for Democrats.

Still, van Dijk says Democratic activists and state party officials are not taking anything for granted for this cycle and will focus heavily on defending Udalls seat and appealing to voters from every corner of the state.

Were really excited about supporting our eventual nominee for Senate and lucky to have an incredible county party structure, she said. We are in every part of our state and were making sure our initiatives are focused in every part of our state.

By Parscales telling, Trump who hasnt visited New Mexico since October 2016 has long been eager to return. Campaign officials believe that Johnson attracted tens of thousands of would-be Trump voters during the presidents first White House bid. And if they can just win over those voters this cycle, it will bring Trump closer to having five more electoral votes in his pocket.

It wasnt until mid-August, though, that Trump himself was convinced of the idea. The president has spent months polling his inner circle about the political landscape in New Mexico, according to two people familiar with those conversations, one of whom recalled his asking an aide whether coming here would be a waste of time.

I started talking to them saying they shouldnt write off New Mexico in January. They didnt believe that in the least, Pearce said.

He continued: Eventually Brad began to watch it, and three to four months ago he said he wanted to come into New Mexico and do a little something with the party, and that morphed into Don Jr. coming with him, and then the president started wanting to come about the time of his New Hampshire rally in August.

With an unprecedented war chest, the Trump campaign has ample cash to spend on watch-list states like New Mexico, where at least a half-dozen staffers are expected to be stationed before the end of the year. If Mondays rally meets expectations, the president could turn the state into a regular stop on the campaign trail as 2020 draws near particularly if his prospects begin to dim in key battleground states.

He starts off with 164 electoral votes automatically, a Republican official familiar with Trumps strategy recently told POLITICO. What I would tell you is, I feel like hes going to win Texas, but I dont know that we have opportunities in Colorado, Virginia [or] New Mexico.

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Originally posted here:

Trump launches ambitious play to turn New Mexico red - POLITICO

Texas politics has never been very accommodating to third parties and their efforts to win votes. The Libertarian party has been perceived as siphoning votes away from the Republican party, and the Green Party from the Democrats.

But in the last legislative session, with the passage of HB 2504, critics charge the bill was passed and signed into law with the intent to make it easier for the Green Party to get on the ballot and make it more difficult for the Libertarians to get on the ballot.

HB 2504 from state Rep.Drew Springer (R-Muenster) requires small party candidates to either pay filing fees or secure a certain number of signatures to get on a November ballot. It also changes the threshold for guaranteeing a party a place on the ballot.

It all comes down to the upcoming election cycle and concerns of a follow-up Blue Wave maybe some green on the ballot can save some red seats.

Nevertheless Green Party officials are happy they have an opening to appeal to Texas voters and they dispute the thinking that they are spoilers.

Alfred Molson is the male co-chair of the Green Party of Texas.

The Long View of Racial Segregation

In East Texas the Longview Independent School District is moving forward now that a federal court has released it from decades-long supervision connected to its history of racial segregation.

Some argue that true integration never came to Longview ISD and there remain barriers for black and Hispanic students while White students have access to better opportunities for academic success.

The district has poured millions of dollars into new programs to correct that, but if it continues their policy to student equity now depends solely which way the school board leads.

Aliyya Swaby is an education reporter for the Texas Tribune and is part of a team producing Dis-Integration a podcast with the Tribune and the NPR program 1A, which focuses on Longview ISD and its efforts to topple barriers for students of color.

Dominicana

Angie Cruz is a New York born novelist, editor, and associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. Her latest novel isDominicanaand was inspired by her mothers story as an immigrant in the United States in the 1960s.

The protagonist, Ana, is a teen bride married off to a man twice her age who takes her from her small village in the Dominican Republic to New York City. She is forcibly cast into unfamiliar spaces made all the more inhospitable by his treacheries. Ana comes of age in these lonely situations using her strength and intelligence to find her own way as an immigrant in America.

Texas Public Radio contributorYvetteBenavides spoke to Cruz about the novel.

Continued here:

Texas Matters: Green Party Blues, Segregation In Longview And 'Dominicana' - Texas Public Radio

Libertarian: The Next Big School-Choice Case

The Supreme Court is now preparing to weigh the constitutional merits of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, reports Damon Root at Reason. It turns on a school-choice program that creates a tax credit for individuals and businesses that donate to private, nonprofit scholarship organizations but in 2018 Montanas Supreme Court declared religious schools entirely off-limits to the program, citing the state Constitutions prohibition on giving money to religious organizations. Yet past US Supreme Court rulings let school-choice programs include religious schools, and the federal Constitution cant mean two different things in two different states. So, if the Supreme Court follows its own precedents, the case looks to be a winner for the school choice side.

Iconoclast: Trudeau the Hypocrite

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the most woke, virtue-signalling and PC-crazed leader in the history of Mankind, has tumbled off into a pit of shameless hypocrisy, Piers Morgan guffaws at the Daily Mail. Earlier this week, Trudeau, who has been keen to paint himself as the male Mother Teresa, was found to have worn black- and brownface on multiple occasions. Trudeaus apology is predictably self-flagellating, but he refuses to resign, even though hed have demanded another politicians head on a plate for similar shenanigans. I detest the modern cancel culture, Morgan notes, but Trudeaus barefaced hypocrisy that should render his position untenable. Live by the woke cancel culture, die by it.

Conservative: Kavanaugh & the Legitimacy Crisis

It is impossible to separate the latest attack on Justice Brett Kavanaugh from the political strategy of the Democratic Party, Matthew Continetti opines at the Washington Free Beacon. On Sept. 16, two days after The New York Times ran a discredited attack on Kavanaugh, Axios AM described Democratic plans to portray the justice, President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as three villains. For the Democrats and their allies in the media, the goal is neither objectivity nor factuality. It is de-legitimization, using journalists as instruments of a political agenda. Kavanaugh is a pawn in this crisis of legitimacy that is coursing through our institutions. This ruthless assault on the nations institutions is fresh proof that the left is willing to break rules, and lives, to achieve social transformation.

2020 watch: Trump Will Trounce Biden or Warren

President Trump will have little difficulty beating current Democratic frontrunners Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, predicts David Catron at the American Spectator. Polls that now show Trump losing to either Democrat are as useless as the 2016 polls that incorrectly showed Hillary Clinton beating Trump. Its not clear how long Biden will hold on to his position as frontrunner, and his gaffes arent helping him. Warrens radical agenda, endorsing Medicare for All and a wealth tax, hasnt helped her connect with non-white voters. Meanwhile, Trump has the largest campaign war chest in US political history, and he is not hesitant to carpet-bomb his opponent when the time comes. Biden and Warren, on the other hand, are out of touch with voters.

Space race: Its Earth First for Sanders

For people who care about NASAs plans to return to the moon, a Bernie Sanders presidency would be a gut punch, warns Mark R. Whittington at The Hill. Under a Sanders presidency, no space exploration will take place, the candidate preferring to invest massive amounts of money in his plans to address climate change by remaking the American economy and to nationalize the American health-care system. Because President Trump warmly supports investments in space, even just a Sanders nomination for president would make space exploration a partisan issue, when NASAs leaders have worked hard to make it a bipartisan affair united by the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Democrats, take note, urges Whittington: Space is too important to be part of a political war.

Compiled by Karl Salzmann

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The next big school-choice case and other commentary - New York Post

It might not be the support hes looking for, but Bill Weld, the former Republican Massachusetts governor, said Thursday he backs Rep. Joe Kennedy in his bid to oust Sen. Edward J. Markey in the Democratic primary.

The race between Kennedy and Markey is shaping up to be among the most watched intramural contests this election cycle, pitting the scion of one of the countrys more famous political families against Markey, a longtime member of Congress.

Kennedy is expected to formally launch his Senate bid on Saturday in Boston.

Im for Kennedy, said Weld, who held a wide-ranging conversation with Washington Post reporters. Ive known him since the day he was born.

He doesnt want my endorsement, Weld added quickly.

He also praised Markey.

Ive known Ed for a long time and hes a hero in a lot of areas, Weld said, listing Telecom and the environment as two key issues where he said Markey has provided leadership.

Emily Kaufman, a spokeswoman for Kennedy, said, Joe appreciates the kind words. Hell be making a a campaign announcement this Saturday and looks forward to speaking with folks then.

Weld, who served as governor from 1991 to 1997, waged an unsuccessful bid for Senate in 1996, trying to unseat then-Sen. John Kerry. Weld is currently seeking the Republican presidential nomination, taking on President Donald Trump. His strategy involves trying to win New Hampshire, where hes been heavily campaigning. There have been few public polls of the Republican primary in New Hampshire, but an April survey showed Trump more than 60 percentage points ahead of Weld.

During his conversation with reporters, Weld ruled out running on the Libertarian ticket or as an independent if he fails to secure the GOP nomination. In 2016, Weld clinched the Libertarian Partys nod for vice president and ran on a ticket with Gary Johnson.

Weld avoided offering any endorsements on the Democratic side, but shared some thoughts about the candidates.

About fellow Bay Stater Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Weld said: She sure is smart and she sure is filled with energy. But he added that her economic policies are too far left for the country and predicted she would lose in a general election.

Weld sounded more impressed with former vice president Joe Biden, who is atop most of the Democratic polls. Ive known Biden the longest of any of these folks, Weld said.

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Bill Weld backs Joe Kennedy in his bid to unseat Ed Markey - Boston.com

Uber, Lyft, Juno and other ridesharing services have grown extremely popular in recent years. At this point in time, you or someone else you know regularly relies on these services to obtain a ride to a specific destination. Ridesharing services are very convenient and inexpensive, which makes them so hugely popular. Unfortunately, due to the large number of ridesharing drivers now taking to the roads to transport passengers from point A to point B on a daily basis, there are even more vehicles on the road than ever. As a result, many more car accidents are bound to happen. Its important to understand the situation based on your particular circumstances with a ridesharing vehicle and how you can recover the compensation you are due if you are injured in such an accident.

Basic Steps to Take After a Car Accident

First and foremost, if you are involved in an accident involving an Uber, Lyft or other ridesharing vehicle or in any car accident, in general, there are certain basic steps you must take. They include the following:

Make sure everyone is okay after the crash. If there are any injuries, it might be possible to administer basic first aid. However, if anyone is seriously injured, its important that they get immediate medical attention and get checked out by a doctor and other healthcare professionals at the hospital. At the same time, even if you or anyone else feel completely unharmed, adrenaline is running high after such a harrowing experience, which means you may not even realize that you are injured. The symptoms, including aches and pains, may not show up until hours or even days later. Additionally, there may be internal injuries that require immediate medical attention. Call 911 to summon police officers to the scene of the accident. The police should come to assess the situation and make a police accident report. If you later decide you want to file a personal injury claim, you can also use a copy of the police report in your case. A Lyft accident attorney can use it as part of the evidence to back up your claim for damages. Snap plenty of photos of the scene of the accident. Snap as many as possible and get shots of the vehicles, the damage they have sustained, the road, skid marks, road conditions and weather conditions. You can use a digital camera or your smartphones built-in camera. Gather up the names and contact information of everyone involved in the accident. Specifically, you should focus on information belonging to the other drivers, including their names, phone numbers, drivers license and license plate numbers. Talk to people around the scene who were witnesses to the accident. Ask them to make a statement of what they saw and get their names and phone numbers. You may want to ask them to write down what they recall or record their statements. Contact your insurance company and inform someone that you were injured in an accident. Keep a journal and write down anything and everything you can think of pertaining to the accident. This can be helpful when you decide to speak with a uber accident lawyer about starting your own injury claim. Always stay calm. Panicking can only make the situation worse.

What Happens When a Ridesharing Vehicle Gets Into an Accident?

These days, ridesharing services are a big part of regular everyday life for many people. Lyft, Uber, Juno and other ridesharing services are so popular because its easy to request a ride. All you have to do is download the app of the ridesharing service of your choice to your smartphone, open the app and request a ride. You only have to wait for the vehicle to show up and dont have to fight for a car to take you to your desired destination. This plus the cheaper price is what makes ridesharing services so much more convenient than traditional taxi cabs, which require you to stand on the street and gesture for a ride.

In a nutshell, ridesharing services have essentially been a game-changer in the transportation industry as a whole. As of the summer of 2018, there were more than 75 million users relying on ridesharing services. This means there are now millions of vehicles on the road providing the service. Considering this fact, its only natural that there would be so many more accidents involving ridesharing vehicles.

Situations Involving Ridesharing Accidents and Claims

If you use Lyft, Uber, Juno or any other ridesharing service, you are unfortunately at risk of being involved in an accident with one of those vehicle. Furthermore, even if you are merely a bystander a pedestrian you can become injured if you are the unfortunate victim of an accident involving a ridesharing vehicle. Its important to know what your rights are and how you can claim compensation for your medical expenses and other damages. The various situations include the following:

You are a passenger in the ridesharing vehicle: If you are a passenger in a ridesharing vehicle that suddenly gets into a crash, you can rely on the ridesharing companys $1 million insurance policy, which covers injuries to passengers. Its wise to take advantage of this coverage, but you should definitely speak with a lawyer to ensure that your rights are protected. You are a bystander and the driver didnt have the app on: If you were injured in an accident with a ridesharing vehicle but the driver did not have the app on, you would have to rely on the drivers personal auto insurance policy to cover your medical expenses and other damages. Unfortunately, the ridesharing companys policy would not apply. If the drivers policy is insufficient in effectively compensating you, you would have to use your own underinsured or uninsured policy as well. You are a bystander and the driver has the app on while waiting for a ride request: If the driver is riding around with the app on while waiting for a request for a ride and hits you, the ridesharing companys insurance policy applies. Coverage includes $50,000 up to $100,000 max per person per injury and $25,000 per property damage. You are a bystander and the driver is traveling to pick up a passenger: If you are a bystander who is injured in an accident with a ridesharing driver who is on the way to pick up a passenger, the ridesharing companys $1 million insurance policy applies. Its easy to prove that the ridesharing company is liable for your medical expenses, lost wages and other damages due to the drivers GPS. Regardless, its smart to speak with an attorney so your rights can be protected. You are a bystander and the driver is transporting a passenger to a destination: If you were injured in an accident as a bystander after a ridesharing vehicle crash and the driver was transporting a passenger, the $1 million insurance policy again kicks in. However, you should still retain an experienced lawyer to ensure you get the compensation you deserve.

Unfortunately, accidents involving ridesharing vehicles are not going away anytime soon. If you have suffered an injury using one of these vehicles or as a pedestrian, its important to speak with a Lyft accident attorney at West Coast Trial Lawyers. When you contact West Coast Trial Lawyers, you can discuss your case with a skilled ridesharing accident attorney and can learn about your options.

Original post:

What to Know About Ridesharing Accidents - The Libertarian Republic

Senator Mitt Romney wrote Donald Trump a letter to stop his plan to reduce capital gain taxes. This is an important signal that a part of the Republican Party is becoming socially conservative but economically heterodox.

One of the more shocking political trends of the last year has been a sharp turn in political economy thinking by Republicans. Its not just Donald Trump and trade policy, its an increasing belief among thinkers within the GOP that the party strategy of pursuing unfettered rights for capital no longer delivers for the American economy, and increasingly opens up our communities to attacks from both an authoritarian China and domestic Big Tech progressives (what they sometimes call woke capital).

This debate remained largely hidden, with the important exception of Tucker Carlsons populist turn on Fox News, but it is becoming explicit as Republican elected leaders start making the case. Senator Marco Rubio, for instance, has written reports on financialization and China, Senator Josh Hawley is taking on Big Tech and increasingly Wall Street, and Congressman Doug Collins and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are investigating Google for antitrust violations. We can now add another Republican to the anti-libertarian and pro-business trend, and this ones as important as they come.

Last week, Utah Senator and former Presidential nominee Mitt Romney wrote a letter to Donald Trump, a letter in which Romney argued against Trump pursuing a capital gains tax cut.

There is a debate within the administration, with Wall Street-friendly advisors like Larry Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin encouraging Trump to try and loosen tax obligations for investors who want to sell assets with a capital gain. They sought to have Trump go around Congress and issue a controversial executive order to index capital gains taxes to inflation, which would effectively reduce capital gains taxes. Trump has so far refused.

It was surprising enough to have a prominent Republican arguing against a capital gains tax cut. But the argument itself was far more important than the politics. Romney made several points in his letter, but this was the driving rationale:

Investors are not starved for capital, but rather productive investments are increasingly difficult to find. This retroactive tax cut creates a windfall for those who have already invested in capital assets based on past decisions, rather than encouraging future capital formation.

Essentially, Romney is saying that such a cut would be bad for businessbecause the current finance-friendly model of capital deployment isnt helping capital formation anymore. Romney is correct on this point.

Ive discussed what excessive financialization does to companies like Boeing, destroying engineering integrity and ultimately the corporation itself. Romneys making a broader argument, that such a tax cut no longer helps put capital together in productive ways. His point on capital formation is shocking not only because hes a Republican, but because hes a former private equity baron, one of the early pioneers of the industry.

To understand why this is such a big deal, you have to understand the context of the entire move towards finance-friendly politics in America. Private equitys rationale for existence was the idea that there was a capital shortage hindering American business. In my piece from late July on the origin of private equity in the late 1970s, I noted that private equity was a financial model largely created by a conservative Republican Nixon official and financier named William Simon in response to inflation and a lack of incentives for financiers to put capital to work. In 1978, a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President accepted Simons arguments and cut capital gains taxes.

These tax cuts were in the context of a society in which politicians perceived there wasnt a lot of capital to invest because of the high-inflation environment. But that was forty years ago. Romneys arguing that not only is there no more capital shortage, but that there is a capital glut. We dont lack capital, we lack productive areas in which to place that capital. To paraphrase, Romney is saying that this aint the 1970s anymore.

Romney is also making the case that such a tax cut would be bad for workers:

I also welcome President Trumps focus on the welfare of American workers, and share his notice that the proposed change would accrue primarily to high-income Americans. In 2018, 91.4% of Americans reported no long-term positive gains, while the top 1% of income earners paid 72.0% of all capital gains tax. The average tax paid on gains for taxpayers in the middle quintile is $280 far less than the top 1% that pays $157,890 on average. Furthermore, all contributions and earnings taxpayers withdraw from traditional retirement accounts, such as a 401(k) or an IRA, are taxable as ordinary income and do not stand to directly benefit from indexing capital gains.

My jaw is honestly on the floor at a Republican Senator who helped create the private equity industry making the (accurate) case that increasing financial power in our political economy is good for wealthy rentiers and bad for entrepreneurs and workers. Private equity was driven by an idea, and Romney is saying that this idea, while it used to make sense, has gone too far. The implication is that our real economic need at this point is to focus on production and innovation rather than just financing.

Theres pushback, of course. Kudlow, Mnunchin, 20 Republican Senators led by Ted Cruz, and the US Chamber of Commerce supported the proposed capital gains cut. And Romneys argument has been criticized by libertarian anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who wrote a letter in response that accused Romney of using regrettable left-wing rhetoric. But Norquist made no real policy arguments. Other conservative movement operators made the argument that Romney might technically be correct on substance, but its politically inconvenient for Republicans to be as honest as Romney is in his letter to Trump.

Ive always thought of Norquist as a savvy political strategist with a long-term goal of reshaping society. But what is fascinating is to see how petty Norquist looks, shorn of any intellectual rationale for what hes doing. He seems silly and out of touch advocating for capital gains tax cuts in todays world, like the liberals in the 1970s seemed arguing from the premise America was endlessly affluent as stagflation was hitting. Theres a real lack of ideas within the libertarian right, and it shows.

Romneys argument, by contrast, reflects a refreshed idea about what is driving our economy. He is contributing to a new and different intellectual framework for the GOP, and one that is fascinating to watch emerge. Republicans are beginning a shift towards a party that is socially conservative but economically heterodox. Its still a tentative series of steps, but the party seems to be evolving its political economy thinking in the wake of the financial crisis. And it is driven by ideas. Rubios work on financialization is oriented around analyzing deep-seated economic trends. And Senator Hawley, for instance, who is another important leader in the GOP, wrote a very impressive book on 19th-century intellectual history and the political creation of corporate America.

At this point, theres something of a race between the Democrats and the GOP over who has something to say about the multiple combinations of crises we as a society are facing. My best proxy is the quiet collapse at Boeing, which combines a corrupt defense and political establishment, monopolization, financialization, Chinese power, all leading to crashed civilian airplanes. So far, neither party has grabbed this problem directly, because neither has a totally coherent way to understand the breakdown of productive integrity. But Romneys observation about the role of excess financial power is getting close to the core of the problem.

It may seem trite, it may seem naive, but what Ive seen from over 15 years in politics is that ideas really do matter.

Editors note:This article is an excerpt from the latest edition of BIG, Matt Stollers newsletter on the politics of monopoly. You can subscribehere.Matt Stoller is the author of the upcoming book Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy and a fellow at the Open Markets Institute.

The ProMarket blog is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Blog Policy.

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The Surprising Twist in GOP Economic Thinking: Tax Cuts Might Be Bad for Business - - ProMarket

The Arizona Green Party in danger of losing its spot on the ballot.(Photo: Patrick Breen/The Republic)

Greens in Arizona are scrambling to keep their status as a recognized political party in 2020 after state lawmakers moved up the deadline for them to submit tens of thousands of signatures.

The Greens and any other party aiming for recognized status must now file at least 31,686 signatures by Nov. 28, instead of the previous deadline that was in February 70 days later.

The new deadline is one of the earliest of its kind in the country, according to Richard Winger, editor of the San Francisco-based newsletter Ballot Access News.

Losing 70 days to gather signatures has been a hardship, said Liana West, secretary of the Arizona Green Party.

"It makes us feel like we are being targeted," West said.

And because the number of required signatures is tied to election turnout, the relatively high level of voters in 2018 means the Greens and any new political party have to collect more signatures than they typically have had to.

The Secretary of State's Office has until Dec. 1 to announce which political parties continue to qualify for recognized status.

But the Green Party has struggled to keep that title under Arizona's ballot access laws.

To keep its status as a recognized political party, .6% of all voters in the state would need to be registered as Greenor its candidate for governor would need to have won at least 5% of the vote in last year's election.

While the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties are all on track for official recognition, the Green Party has fallen short on both counts.

Only 6,420 Arizona voters were registered as Greens as of July, or .17%, according to the Secretary of State's Office. And the party's candidate for governor, Angel Torres, got about 2% of the vote last year.

Still, Greens have been successful year after year in petitioning for party status.

So, the party began collecting signatures in January, West said.

If they don't have a recognized political party, Green candidates would face a higher bar to get on the ballot in individual races.

"If we don't have ballot access, it would be nearly impossible for individuals to run as Green Party members," West said.

But many Democrats have been wary of the Green Party's place on the ballot, viewing it as winning votes that would have otherwise gone to Democratic candidates.

In 2018, for example, the state Republican Party sent mailers to some Democrats tying the Green candidate for U.S. Senate to Sen. Bernie Sanders. Some Democrats argued Republicans were trying to trick Democrats on the party's left wing to vote for the Green candidate instead of the more moderate Kyrsten Sinema.

Republicans have been accused of attempting to squeeze out third parties, too, like the Libertarian Party, such as with a 2015 law to require more petition signatures for a spot on the ballot.

The latest change was part of a bigger piece of legislation sponsored by Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, that also moves up the date of the state's primary election from the last Tuesday in August to the first Tuesday in August.

SB 1154 passed the Senate by a vote of 24-2 and the House 39-21.

The change in deadline for new political parties went largely unnoticed amid a slew of other provisions in the bill.

Such deadlines have been contentious in the past.

In 2015, the Green Party challenged the February deadline in court, arguing it was unconstitutional and provided too little time for it to gather the signatures necessary for official status.

A federal district court dismissed the case and an appeals court upheld that decision, finding that then-Secretary of State Michele Reagan demonstrated the deadline served a purpose when considering the other dates and deadlines leading up to the election.

Contact Andrew Oxford at andrew.oxford@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter at @andrewboxford.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/09/20/arizona-election-2020-green-party-may-lose-ballot-recognition/2355187001/

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Arizona Green Party in danger of losing its status as a recognized political party - AZCentral

Glossary in the entrance area of the exhibition The Alt-Right Complex On Right-Wing Populism in the Net at HMKV in Dortmunder U (photo by Hannes Woidich; image courtesy HMKV in Dortmunder U)

DORTMUND, Germany The lexicon of tyranny has a long history, but perhaps an even more complicated present.An exhibition, The Alt-Right Complex: On Right-Wing Populism Online, at the Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) in Dortmund, attempts to shine light on the verbiage of alt-right movements, including 12 projects by 16 contemporary artists that unravel the ethos, ideology, terminology and aesthetics of contemporary right-wing extremism. Crucially, the exhibition also contains a glossary of 37 entries that offer a window into the alt-rights cryptic language, including words, symbols and phrases that members of this nebulous group use to promote an intersection of xenophobic, racist, libertarian, and ethno-nationalist ideas online.

The curator of both the exhibition and glossary, Inke Arns, admits that defining the alt-right can problematic. The term Alt-Right itself is controversial because it seeks to mask precisely these political beliefs; namely, Islamophobia, antisemitism, racist nationalism and contempt for the constitution, Arns writes in the edited text and glossary accompany the exhibition (available for free online).

Entering the exhibition, one is confronted with the glossary of terms and symbols printed on the walls of a transparent, illuminated tunnel. Words like transhumanism, cuckservative, and accelerationism describe the vocabulary the alt-right uses to promote ideas closely linked to their extremist political beliefs.

The word cuck, for example, from the old French word for cuckoo (cucu), has become a go-to insult that captures toxic masculine behaviours and incel anxieties that define the alt-right today. In online porn, a cuck is short for cuckold, a word from the same root referring to a man who allows his female partner to have sex with someone else (often Black). The term has evolved to encapsulate a political meaning, one that now equates mainstream conservatives with effeminate values, with the term cuckservative used to denote someone who willfully absorbs conservative values with a liberal/centrist bent.

The symbiosis of words, symbols, and visual culture at the heart of alt-right discourse is sometimes difficult to discern one case in point being the numerology of 168:1. The number is code for the Oklahoma City bombing in which 168 people died, identified in the glossary of the exhibition. When used on message boards like 4chan and 8chan, image message boards frequented by right-wing trolls, 168:1 gives fodder to would-be extremists who support mass murder, the same macabre glorification of neo-Nazi ideology promoted by the Oklahoma City bombings perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh. (The numerical code also appears on some of the poster motifs for the exhibition, embroidered on the collar of a black jacket wearing mouthpiece.)

The exhibition prefaces how the alt-right became an internet subculture dripping with irony by making use of techniques like trolling, meme-making and pranking. Using a combination of strategic words, symbols and memes, the alt-right disseminates extreme right-wing ideology first through forums like 4chan and 8chan, then through broader platforms like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook, which sometimes then make it onto more mainstream conservative blogs, websites, and even newsrooms like Fox Newss. The trolls discovered that the best way to get lulz was to employ politically incorrect rhetoric and/or subject such a position and so raid existing online communities, Arns writes in her exhibition text.

Entering the exhibition, walking through the illuminated glossary, 12 projects and art works look into the rise of the alt-right not only in the US, but also in Germany and Europe more broadly. One project by the artist duo DISNOVATION.ORG, by Maria Roszkowska and Nicolas Maigre, presents a large scale cartography of alt-right memes in the form of a political compass, wallpaper, and poster. The graphic interface presents about 100 symbols and figures on a four-quadrant, horizontal and vertical axis divided between authoritarian and libertarian, economic-right and economic-left. Entitled Online Culture Wars (2018-1019), the work graphically interprets how brands, celebrities, and symbols become linked along an ideological spectrum.

Alongside the political compass, a hacked version of the immensely popular board game, Life, by the artist Simon Denny, offers a speculative post-national future in which colonies at sea and in space vie for supremacy on a planet in which the welfare state has collapsed. The goals of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor, Peter Thiel, which the exhibition leans on heavily, include the idea that transhumanism mixed with temporary libertarian autonomous zones can facilitate a future society in which the individual reigns supreme. In Dennys apocryphal board game, Game of Life: Collective vs Individual Rules (2017), the end-game of Theil and others like him are inscribed into the rules itself, offering a speculative scenario in which players are tasked with disposing of nation states via Cloud Lords who utilize tools like deregulation, optimism and R&D (research and development) to fight against unadaptable monsters like legal systems beyond the expiry date, transparency, democracy and fair elections.

In a work by the Canadian video artist Dominic Gagnon, a montage of censored amateur videos from YouTube is interspersed with footage of conspiracy theorists known as preppers, people who live in perpetual fear of an eventual doomsday scenario. Like Peter Thiel, preppers project a fundamental mistrust of the current political and social system. Informed by an intense wave of paranoia, rage, and suppressed anxieties, preppers tend to espouse views deeply critical of migrants and a fundamental distrust in mainstream narratives, using these ideas to give fodder to post-apocalyptic near future scenarios in which only the rich will survive.

In a dual-channel video work by the Hungarian artist Szabolcs KissPl, From Fake Mountains to Faith (Hungarian Trilogy) (2016), the focus shifts beyond preppers to understand how grand narratives and national symbols of authoritarianism intersect. Looking into his native Hungary, KissPl posits how quickly democratic societies can devolve into illiberal democracies, often under strong-man leaders, such as Hungarys current Prime Minister Viktor Orbn. The docu-fiction brings to light an imagined scenario involving a museum that seeks to counter the ideological foundation of race and nation. It deconstructs how forms of ethno-nationalism manifest in supposedly neutral institutions, but also how this becomes a romantic myth that supports political references in support of the nation state, and with it forms of political belonging and social communities therein.

Not far from these ideas, a project by Vanja Smiljani examines how religion and nationalism are used to reinforce one another based on a comparative investigation into the internet-based movement of the Cosmic People and the Flag Nation Society, a Christian community that bases its ideology around allegiance to an ominous flag. Taking up the mantle of a Minister of the Cosmic People for the countries of ex-Yugoslavia, Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies, the lecture performance and documentation offers a buoyant and timely criticism responding to dangers of worship, albeit here in a dystopian, cyber-ruled world.

In Jonas Staals 10-channel video installation Steve Bannon: A Propaganda Retrospective (visual ecology) (2018), the artist presents a visual encyclopedia of visual tropes taken from Banons work as a Hollywood filmmaker. The work consists of 10 separate screens Staal filmed and edited between 2014-2018. In them, we see how the cacophony of right-wing ideology is filtered from fringe groups and message boards all the way up to the mainstream media. It narrows in on Steve Bannon, the veritable architect and propagainst-in-chief of US President Donald Trumps successful campaign in 2016, who prior to that served as executive chairman of Breitbart News. Staals work offers a timely and potent examination of Bannons ideology through the prism of film and cinematic editing and references, it is very Eisenstein or Michael Moore-esque, with the end result being scenes that employ visual references to themes and mythologies long since debunked. One of these themes involves the false and often cited narrative of the triumph and former golden age of Western white civilization. Here, we encounter how Trumps problematic narrative feeds into alt-right groups who often attempt to prolongate a false ancient mythology in order to reinforce ethno-nationalist and xenophobic world views today. (The pseudo-historiography of white erasure and Western civilization has been debunked numerous times, including in the annals of Hyperallergic by the Classicist scholar Dr. Sarah Bond, whose recent article The Origins of White Supremacists Fear of Replacement argues that the fear of being replaced can be traced to the French far right, but racist fears regarding supposed White genocide, and invasion by varied ethnic groups, go back centuries). In Staals work, we encounter how Bannons scripted ideological narrative continues to obfuscate the truth, with the purpose of furthering a highly divisive political ideology.

Leaving the exhibition, I was reminded of the unnerving parallels between the alt-right online and in real life. 8chan, the image and message board modelled after 4chan, has recently been in the news after the revelation that the El Paso shooter used the forum to post his far-right manifesto moments before his killing spree, which marks the third time a right-wing mass shooter has posted plans and/or manifesto on the site. Hence, the title of the exhibition, The Alt-Right Complex, is an exhibition that draws nuanced parallels between hateful ideology and imagery online, bearing in mind the psychological minefield that transcends the internet and enters into mainstream consciousness and into real life political events.

The Alt-Right Complex: On Right-Wing Populism Online continues at HMKV Dortmund until September 22, 2019.

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Entering the Echo Chamber of the Alt-Right - Hyperallergic

Campus of Columbia University in New York City(Mike Segar/Reuters)There is much that is in need of reform on campus. But there also is much that is wonderful, inspiring, and enriching.

One of these days, I will make a list of all the people who have been right when they have told me: You should know better. There will be a couple of priests, several editors, and at least one police officer on that list, but I am afraid our friend George Leef must be excluded, at least for the moment.

Leef, who does excellent work excoriating the failures and excesses of American university life at the Martin Center, wrote yesterday on the Corner: Lots of people who should know better claim that our higher education system is the envy of the world, but it isnt the best by a long shot. Whats needed, he writes, is ... libertarianism. If we would only implement that, Leef writes, then we would get the optimal system. I do not know if he had me in mind when he wrote that, but given that I have used exactly those words to describe our universities on many occasions, Ill deputize myself to respond, if only because the words optimal system always give me the willies.

I am a libertarian myself, and a few years ago I wrote a book about how many things (including education and health care) might be radically improved by taking a more market-oriented, spontaneous-order approach to them. The title of that book, The End Is Near and Its Going to Be Awesome, refers to the decline of the dominance (often monopoly dominance) of government-based and politically managed programs at the most sensitive pressure points of American life: education, health care, retirement, etc. The book also contains a critique of lazy libertarianism of the sort Leef offers above, treating some variation of the free market will take care of it or private philanthropy will take care of it like the ultimate abracadabra. The free market will take care of health care for the poor? Okay what does that actually look like? It is not that I do not think that we could and should radically improve health care for everyone (providing an especial benefit to the poor in the process) but I want something a good deal less vague than Let markets work.

Some libertarians are conservatives and some are not. Some libertarians are utopians or quasi-utopians, who offer the same answer to every question laissez faire! as though such a thing possibly could be dispositive. What Leef offers is really a kind of variation of the familiar progressive approach. He begins with a study says indictment (A new study by AEI scholars Jason Delisle and Preston Cooper looks at 35 nations higher ed systems and concludes that no nation is the best, he writes) and then follows up with an ideologically satisfying promise: If we (or any other country) would take government out of higher education and allow the spontaneous order of a free society to work, we would get the optimal system.

For the ideologue, take government out is a self-recommending policy. The conservative might take a different view, as I do. There is a lot that is silly, meretricious, distasteful, and genuinely destructive going on in American universities, especially at the second-rate institutions and in second-rate programs. (The thing about second-rate schools is, theyre second-rate.) But there also is much that is splendid, productive, admirable and, indeed, the envy of the world.

And if you do not believe that American universities are the envy of the world, ask the world. The number of students from abroad who travel to the United States to study dwarfs that of any other country: The United Kingdom, whose top universities have for centuries attracted the best and brightest, doesnt have half the foreign students the United States does. France has about a third the number; Germany, a quarter.

And top academics from around the world flock to American campuses, too for good reason. If you are among the worlds best in any significant intellectual field, chances are excellent that an American university is the place you want to be. For a rough indicator, consider which universities have the most Nobel laureates associated with them. What do you imagine that list looks like? The top ten includes the two British universities youd guess (Oxford and Cambridge) and eight U.S. universities: Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, and Princeton. You wont find a continental European university on the list until No. 13 (Humboldt) and only four more in the top 20 (University of Paris, Gttingen, Munich, Copenhagen). You wont find a single Asian, African, South American, or Middle Eastern university on the list.

Envy of the world? No question.

Libertarianism in action? No, not really. But we ought not to let our ideological commitments blind us to the fact that these splendid universities do a great many wonderful things that enrich our lives and our national life in important ways. There is much to criticize about my alma mater, the University of Texas. But whatever it lavishes on Jim Allisons work is money well spent.

Germany would love to have an MIT, a Berkeley, a Stanford, or a Cal Tech of its own; having all four would be beyond its dreams. (Yes, Berkeley comes with some hippies life is full of tradeoffs, and thats a good one.) American educational excellence has consequences far beyond the college campus: Quick, whats the hot new technology startup in Germany? (Dont worry, Ill wait.) Whats the big innovative Internet company in France? In Italy? More than half of the worlds most valuable firms are domiciled in the United States, according to PwC. China has twelve, the United Kingdom five, Germany four, France four, Switzerland three. Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark each have one. And Europes big companies are big, old-fashioned conglomerates such as Unilever and Nestl, while the United States has enjoyed the growth and innovation of Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, and Microsoft.

Thats nothing to harrumph at.

Conservatism is, at its foundation, a creed of love a love of real things and people as they actually exist, defects and all, rather than a longing after more-perfect glories promised by this or that theory. To love is not to love blindly, but the conservative can only take the world very much as he finds it.

Fallen as he is and imperfect as his works must be, we love man for who and what he is, and so we abhor the inevitably inhumane schemes to produce New Soviet Man, or whatever this years model of progressive perfection is, because such programs of transformation are based on reducing and mutilating man, suffocating his endless inventiveness, forcing conformity and homogeneity upon him, and stamping out the infinite variety of his communities.

This is not to be confused with a creed of sentimentality. Conservatives, as Russell Kirk put it, feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. (Harvard, founded 1636, is about as long-established a social institution as this country has.) At the same time, Kirk writes, conservatives understand that to seek for utopia is to end in disaster. ... The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the 20th-century world into a terrestrial hell.

Libertarians can be utopians and ideologues, too. Theirs may be a less destructive and bloody kind of utopianism than that of the nationalists and socialists and national socialists, but it can cause them to undervalue wonderful and productive institutions right here in the real world, right here under our noses, while they dream of theoretical optima.

The United States is the worlds financial capital (sorry, London), the worlds technology capital, and the worlds cultural capital, but conservatives detest Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood, along with the Ivy League and other elite universities, Broadway, publishing, the media industry, the fashion industry, the architecture and design industry, New York City, Los Angeles... Apparently, Americas dominant military position and its world-beating oil-and-gas industry are the only commanding heights to which conservatives believe it to be worth aspiring. There is something wrong with that. Make America Great Again, But Burn It All Down If Mark Zuckerberg and the Chairman of the Princeton English Department Dont Share My Politics! is a funny kind of way to look at the world.

There is much that is in need of reform on campus and in the church, in the state, and everywhere else in American life. But there also is much that is wonderful, inspiring, and enriching. For that, we should be grateful. A conservatism without gratitude and grace is not one worth having.

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American Universities Are the Envy of the World - National Review