Category Archives: Libertarian

Recent stories of farmers euthanizing livestock and dumping milk have startled many Americans, particularly those of us attempting to weather the economic shutdown by staggering trips to the grocery store every two weeks, or longer. These troubling stories are leaving many to wonder about the state of Americas food supply chains.

Arising from the displacement of food supplied to large-scale distributors such as restaurants, hotels, and schools, which have been forced to close or restrict operations during the pandemic, this supply chain is separate and distinct from food stocked by grocery stores and supplied directly to the consumer.

Although we are already seeing the effects of the government-ordered shutdowns ripple throughout the economy, there are some reforms in the short-term that can help both producers and consumers of local meat.

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (ME-01), a long-time organic farmer and liberal Democrat, is pairing up with Congressman Thomas Massie (KY-04), a libertarian-leaning Republican who built his own in-ground greenhouse on his off-the-grid homestead in northeast Kentucky. The unlikely bipartisan duo both raise cattle and have ongoing concerns about the nations meat supply, even before the economic shutdown threw it off the rails.

Massie and Pingree, along with Democrats from California, Republicans from the Deep South, and Congresss lone Libertarian, are sponsoring the PRIME Act to allow states to relax their rules on the transfer of custom-slaughtered meat within their borders. This is the third Congress in which Massie and Pingree have submitted the bill, and they are hopeful that this crisis will help many other members of Congress finally see its value.

Currently, some custom-slaughtered meat must follow federal meat packaging rules, requiring it to travel through a USDA-inspected facility. Only those cuts for farmers and ranchers personal, household, guest, and employee use are exempt from this requirement. The PRIME Act would broaden this exemption to allow slaughterhouses to serve consumers directly, as well as establishments that prepare food for the public, as long as each party follows state law.

The press release from the Pingree and Massie offices describes the problem:

in order to sell individual cuts of locally-raised meats to consumers, farmers and ranchers must first send their animals to one of a limited number of USDA-inspected slaughterhouses. These slaughterhouses are sometimes hundreds of miles away, which adds substantial transportation cost, and also increases the chance that meat raised locally will be co-mingled with industrially-produced meat.

At the state level, Amanda Beal, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry (DACF) recently sent a letter to the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Program, requesting the department waive federal rules on the transfer of meat over state borders if it has passed a state inspection.

In her letter, Commissioner Beal describes how this will help consumers and food pantries acquire locally-inspected meat during the shutdown imposed over the spread of COVID-19:

Allowing state-inspected meat to temporarily cross state lines will greatly support regional market expansion opportunities, smooth out bottlenecks in the local food chain, reduce the need to cull healthy livestock and poultry, and support our food-insecure during this extremely difficult time.

Making these two changes at the federal level, one to give states more leeway, and one to promote interstate commerce by relaxing federal rules, would help consumers better acquire locally-raised meat, no matter from which state it comes. While Commissioner Beal is calling for the USDA to temporarily waive inspection requirements, there would be little justification for reapplying this restriction on the food supply in whatever the post-pandemic days look like.

I have written previously on the difficult situations in which farmers may find themselves when onerous government regulations run up against real life. Unruly food rules harm not only farmers, but consumers as well.

Americans, today more than ever, need assurances that they will have access to nutritious food. The two modest reforms mentioned here can do much to provide those assurances, and give broader access to locally raised meats for people across the nation. It could also help farmers close gaps in their own faltering supply chains, enabling them to sell more of their products directly to the people.

Here is the original post:

Modest meat reforms would help Americans stay fed during the pandemic - The Maine Wire

The Senate on Thursday passed legislation reauthorizing three intelligence programs that lapsed earlier this year amid a GOP stalemate.

Senators voted 80-16on the bill, which pairs the reauthorization of the USA Freedom Act provisions with some changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISA court.

The Senate changed the bill, which originally passed the House in March,as part of a two-day floor debate. Senators addedmore legal protections for some individuals targeted by the court.

The proposal, which was spearheaded by Sens. Mike LeeMichael (Mike) Shumway LeeIn win for privacy hawks, Senate adds more legal protections to FISA bill Trump looms as wild card in Senate surveillance fight This week: Senate juggles coronavirus with surveillance fight MORE (R-Utah) and Patrick LeahyPatrick Joseph LeahyIn win for privacy hawks, Senate adds more legal protections to FISA bill Lawmakers look for ways to add to annual spending bills Trump looms as wild card in Senate surveillance fight MORE (D-Vt.), would increase the role of outside legal experts in FISA court hearings, including allowing them to weigh in on some FBI surveillance requests.

Because the Senate changed the bill, it will now have to be sent back to the House, which is expected to return on Friday. House Democratic leadership has not said if or when they will take up the amended bill.

It also remains unclear if President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Judiciary chairman hints at subpoenaing Barr Florida election supervisors urge DeSantis to 'act immediately' to make voting safe amid pandemic Paul claims Biden 'caught red-handed' eavesdropping on Flynn MOREwould sign the bill should it reach his desk. The president has railed about his campaign being spied upon and has sent mixed signals to lawmakers about if he supports the legislation.

Some supporters of the original House bill warned that letting the Senate make changes could open up the door to progressives and libertarian-minded Republicans in the House trying to reopen negotiations on the bill once it returns to the lower chamber.

Sen. Lindsey GrahamLindsey Olin GrahamSenate GOP to press for Biden, other ex-Obama officials to testify on Flynn Buttigieg PAC rolls out slate of endorsements The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by The American Investment Council - Pelosi touts T bill as Fauci stresses go-slow openings MORE (R-S.C.) said that while Lee had some good ideas, sending the bill back to the House could shut things down on reauthorizing the intelligence programs.

I want to promise Sen. Lee and everybody else, this will not be the last word on FISA reform, he said.

Sen. John ThuneJohn Randolph ThuneIn win for privacy hawks, Senate adds more legal protections to FISA bill Trump looms as wild card in Senate surveillance fight Senate GOP crafting wishlist for next coronavirus package MORE (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, added that it was the preference of leadership to pass the House bill without changes.

"I think the leader's position is that it's much simpler to pick up the House passedbill, pass it, send it to the president," Thune said.

The House bill would reauthorize two expired programs: One dealing with lone wolf suspects who are not tied to any known terrorist organization and another on roving wiretaps that allow the federal government to track a suspect across multiple devices.

The House bill also reauthorizes Section 215, which allows the government to request tangible things such as documents relevant to a national security investigation, but makes changes, including ending a controversial phone surveillance program.

And it also makes some changes to the FISA process, including requiring the attorney general to sign off on applications tied to an elected official.

While senators agreed to add the Lee-Leahy bill, they also rejected two other amendments: one from Sen. Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulPaul claims Biden 'caught red-handed' eavesdropping on Flynn Overnight Health Care: Ousted Trump official will warn of 'unprecedented illness and fatalities' | Experts tell coronavirus panel that more testing needed to reopen US | Pelosi pushes to unite party on coronavirus bill despite grumbling from left In win for privacy hawks, Senate adds more legal protections to FISA bill MORE (R-Ky.) preventing FISA warrants from being used against Americans and one from Sens.Steve Daines(R-Mont.) andRon Wyden(D-Ore.) preventing law enforcement from obtaining internet browsing and search history without a warrant.

The Senates vote comes amid growing concerns about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) after Inspector General Michael Horowitzfound 17 inaccuracies and omissions in the warrant applications related to Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

An interim report on a broader FISA review that looked at 29 applications found issues with each of them.

The House has to pull its initial bill from a scheduled vote in the Judiciary Committee over pushback from progressives and libertarian-minded GOP lawmakers that it did not go far enough to address privacy concerns or legal protections for those targeted by the court.

Fourteen Democrats voted against the bill:Sens. Tammy BaldwinTammy Suzanne BaldwinPoll: Biden leads Trump by 3 points in Wisconsin Senate Democrat presses meat processors on worker protections Five factors to watch in the meat supply chain crisis MORE (Wis.), Sherrod BrownSherrod Campbell BrownOn The Money: Unemployment rate spikes to 14.7 percent as 20.5 million lose jobs | Trump, White House pumps brakes on next relief bill | Senate GOP resistant to new round of stimulus checks An evidence-based response to rising child poverty reform and expand the Child Tax Credit Hillicon Valley: Uber to lay off thousands of employees | Facebook content moderation board announces members | Lawmakers introduce bill to cut down online child exploitation MORE (Ohio), Maria CantwellMaria Elaine CantwellWe can't afford to let local news die Key Republican senators to introduce coronavirus-related data privacy legislation GOP, Democratic senators call for more assistance to local media in coronavirus stimulus MORE (Wash.), Dick DurbinRichard (Dick) Joseph DurbinObama criticism gets under GOP's skin Senate Judiciary Committee calls for national safety guidelines amid liability hearing Bipartisan senators seek funding for pork producers forced to euthanize livestock MORE (Ill.), Martin HeinrichMartin Trevor HeinrichBottom line GOP sounds alarm bell over coronavirus-fueled debt Free-flowing rivers help ecosystems, wildlife, people and the economy MORE (N.M.), Mazie HironoMazie Keiko HironoHillicon Valley: Experts raise security concerns about online voting | Musk finds supporter in Trump | Officials warn that Chinese hackers targeting COVID-19 research groups Democrats introduce legislation to ensure internet access for college students Esper escalates war of words with Warren, Democratic senators MORE (Hawaii), Ed MarkeyEdward (Ed) John MarkeyOvernight Energy: 600K clean energy jobs lost during pandemic, report finds | Democrats target diseases spread by wildlife | Energy Dept. to buy 1M barrels of oil Trump administration to buy 1 million barrels of oil for national stockpile Democratic bill would require cash refunds for all canceled airline tickets during pandemic MORE (Mass.), Jeff MerkleyJeffrey (Jeff) Alan MerkleyOvernight Energy: 600K clean energy jobs lost during pandemic, report finds | Democrats target diseases spread by wildlife | Energy Dept. to buy 1M barrels of oil Trump administration to buy 1 million barrels of oil for national stockpile Hillicon Valley: Uber to lay off thousands of employees | Facebook content moderation board announces members | Lawmakers introduce bill to cut down online child exploitation MORE (Ore.), Patty MurrayPatricia (Patty) Lynn MurrayThe Hill's Coronavirus Report: Rep. Zeldin says Congress must help states; Fauci's warning; Dems unveil T bill The Hill's 12:30 Report: Fauci testifies, discusses students returning in August GOP senator: US 'not as prepared as we should have been' on coronavirus MORE (Wash.), Brian SchatzBrian Emanuel SchatzCoronavirus drives record number of complaints to consumer bureau More than 70 lawmakers join suit challenging Trump power plant rollbacks Trump says he will sign executive order temporarily suspending immigration into US MORE (Hawaii), Jon TesterJonathan (Jon) TesterSenators request emergency funding for postal service in next coronavirus bill On The Money: Black workers may face disproportionate COVID-19 risk | Trump pick for pandemic response watchdog vows independence | Stocks inch higher as oil prices rise Trump pick for pandemic response watchdog pledges independence amid Democratic skepticism MORE (Mont), Tom UdallThomas (Tom) Stewart UdallOVERNIGHT ENERGY: Interior sued over temporary appointments of top officials | Watchdog to probe why tribal stimulus was steered to corporations | EPA's independent science board, critics push for stronger lead rule Interior watchdog to probe why tribal stimulus was steered to corporations Democratic senators demand answers on US involvement in foiled Venezuela plot MORE (N.M.), Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenIt's time to invest in America's future Democratic bill would require cash refunds for all canceled airline tickets during pandemic The Memo: Fauci at odds with Trump on virus MORE (Mass.) and Ron WydenRonald (Ron) Lee WydenIn win for privacy hawks, Senate adds more legal protections to FISA bill Trump looms as wild card in Senate surveillance fight Experts sound alarms about security as states eye online voting MORE (Ore.). On the GOP side, Paul and Sen. Richard BurrRichard Mauze BurrFBI serves search warrant on Sen. Richard Burr amid stock trading controversy: report Our privacy is on the clock Burr's brother-in-law sold stock on same day as senator in lead-up to crisis MORE (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, voted against the bill.

Paul railed against the bill from theSenatefloor ahead of Thursdays vote.

The Patriot Act, in the end, is not patriotic. The Patriot Act makes an unholy and unconstitutional exchange of liberty for a false sense of security. And I, for one, will oppose its reauthorization, he said, referring to the post-9/11 bill that predated the USA Freedom Act.

More:

Senate votes to reauthorize intel programs with added legal protections | TheHill - The Hill

Whether theyre voting live or by mail-in ballot, Lincoln Countys registered voters have until 8 p.m. this primary election day to make sure their voices are heard.

If youre among the record 9,278 county voters who had ballots mailed to you due to the COVID-19 outbreak, your best bet is to drop off your ballots in the secure dropbox in the Sheriffs Office parking lot at 302 N. Jeffers St.

West central Nebraska counties in the Central Time Zone have from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to vote live or turn in mail-in ballots. Mountain Time counties will vote from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Lincoln County Clerk Becky Rossell says ballots physically mailed in must be in her offices possession by the deadline to count, even if theyre postmarked on or before Election Day.

No postage is required to use the county dropbox, Rossell said.

In-person primary voting in North Platte will take place at the D&N Event Center, 501 E. Walker Road, or the Berean Church, 202 W. Eighth St.

Precincts outside North Plattes city limits will vote at their usual locations, except for Hall, which will vote at the Berean Church.

Masks will be available for in-person voters who dont have them. Polling workers will wear personal protective equipment, Rossell said.

In North Platte, voters will make their first choice for mayor from among City Councilman Andrew Lee, former Councilman Larry Lee Britton, businessman and homebuilder Lonnie Parsons, Great Plains Health executive Brandon Kelliher and retired business leader John Hales.

The sixth listed candidate, Dave Vigil, withdrew from the race in April due to family health reasons.

The top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 3 general election. The same is true in City Council Ward 4, where incumbent Lawrence Ostendorf is being challenged by Mark Woods and Tracy Martinez.

Voters in North Platte Public Schools Ward 2 will advance two candidates for the school board seat being vacated by former board President Mike Morrell. Angela Blaesi, Pat Cullen and Brooke Luenenborg are the candidates.

Besides the mayors office, voters in November will fill a total of four City Council seats and three school board seats.

Because no candidates need to be eliminated in the other three council and two school board wards, all candidates in those races automatically advance to the general election.

Two Lincoln County Board elections will essentially be decided in Tuesdays Republican primary, as no Democrats or Libertarians filed for those seats. Petition candidacies remain possible for the general election.

In the boards District 1, 35-year veteran Joe Hewgley faces a GOP challenge from Irving Hiatt. The length of Hewgleys tenure ranks second among active county board members in Nebraskas 93 counties.

District 4, one of two commissioner districts created by county voters in 2018, features a Republican primary battle between appointed Commissioner Walt Johnson and challenger Chris Bruns.

Jerry Woodruff, appointed District 5 commissioner at the same time as Johnson, faces no primary opposition and automatically advances to the November election.

In federal races, first-term U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, a Fremont Republican, faces a primary challenge from Matt Innis of Crete, a former Lancaster County GOP chairman.

Seven Democrats are running to challenge the GOP winner: Dennis Frank Macek and Andy Stock of Lincoln; Chris Janicek, Angie Philips and Alisha Shelton, all of Omaha; Larry Marvin of Fremont; and Daniel Wik of Norfolk.

Gene Sladek of Omaha is unopposed in the Libertarian Senate primary.

Third District U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, a seven-term House member from Gering, is opposed for renomination by Republicans Larry Lee Scott Bollinger of Alliance, William Elfgren of Overton, Justin Moran of Atkinson and Arron Kowalski of Grand Island.

Mark Elworth Jr., who lives outside the 3rd District in Omaha, is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Libertarian Dustin Hobbs of Grand Island is also unopposed.

The presidential race also appears on Tuesdays ballot, though President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have essentially wrapped up the GOP and Democratic nominations respectively.

Six Libertarians appear on their partys Nebraska presidential ballot: former U.S. Sen. and Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, Dan Behrman, Jacob Hornberger, Jo Jorgensen and Adam Kokesh.

Also listed is New Hampshire state Rep. Max Abramson, who withdrew in March.

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a former Republican, declared his candidacy for the Libertarian presidential nomination after the deadline to qualify for Nebraskas primary ballot.

Read more:

Drop off or in person, 8 p.m. is deadline to cast your vote in the primary election - North Platte Telegraph

And to Walker, as with the bulk of the respondents in the Sarkissian et al. study Ive mentioned several times, you cant have moral responsibility in a world without libertarian free will. Of course, without moral responsibility, you cant be held accountable by God for your sins, sins that may include choosing the wrong savior, or no savior at all. Those who deny that libertarian free will is prevalent must reckon with the vast number of believers who are true libertarians.

(Ill mention again that I believe people must be held responsible for their acts, but not morally responsible if you construe that, as I do, as meaning you could have chosen to do a different thing. But of course I still believe in reward and punishment, though I wont reiterate my reasons for the umpteenth time.)

Now you may try to tortuously parse the good Reverends words to say what he really means is a compatibilistic free will that, deep down, accept determinism of our actions. But I think youd be dead wrong, for Walker states at the outset that he clearly rejects the mathematically-based determinism of science. No, hes talking about pure libertarian free willthe kind that his sheep accept.

Im surprised that, in a country wherealthough theres a state churchChristianity is on a precipitous decline, the BBC still emits a thought for the day that is invariably religious. Seriously, my UK friends, why does this persist? Why dont you write en masseto the Beeb demanding either that it ceases dispensing this goddy pabulum or give nonbelievers a chance to say something not only substantive, but bracing andtrue? Wouldnt it be nice to hear some words that came from science, for instance?

In fact, this happened once. Richard Dawkins was invited to give the Thought for the Day. He didnt mince words: goddy explanations were the stuff of toddlers. After that, a humanistic thought was never broadcast again. Neil reported this:

Any mainstream faith may provide the piece, but humanists are excluded, apart from on one occasionwhenRichard Dawkins was allowed 3 minutes to say his piece, prior to being banned forever for saying we should be more adult in our understanding than accepting simple explanations of the world. You can read his words here:

And heres one bit of Richards talk that surely irked the BBC:

Nerve cells, too, branch like trees. They are so numerous in the teeming forest of your brain that, if you stretched them end to end they would reach right round the world 25 times.

In the face of such wonders, do you fall back, like a child, on God? Its so wonderful, so complicated, only God could have done it.

Its tempting, isnt it. But its not a real explanation. Not the kind of explanation that actually explains anything. And its nowhere near as poetic as the true explanation.

Because the beauty is that humanity has grown up. We now know the true explanation. Its gloriously simple once you get it, and more wonderful than our forefathers could ever have imagined. It makes use of yet another tree. The family tree of life. It began with something smaller than a bacterium, and it branched and branched to give all the species that have ever lived, whether extinct like the dinosaurs, or still hanging on like our own. Evolution really explains all of life, and it needs no supernatural intervention of any kind.

The adult response is to rejoice in the amazing privilege we enjoy. We have been born, and we are going to die. But before we die we have time to understand why we were ever born in the first place. Time to understand the universe into which we have been born. And with that understanding, we finally grow up and realise that there is no help for us outside our own efforts.

Humanity can leave the crybaby phase, and finally come of age.

Now theres a thought for more than just a day!

The crybabies are actually at the Beeb, which apparently cannot stand the idea that there may be no God, or at least dont want to endanger public morals by promulgating such a Dangerous Idea.

Look, I know Britain has a state religion, lacks the equivalent of our First Amendment, and that the BBC is owned and run by the government. But they seem curiously immune to religious freedom and the rising tide of secularism in their land.

If youre in the UK, have you ever complained about this daily insult to our ears and intellect? If not, why not? If a lot of people objected, would they stop it?

Here: have a libertarian free-willer:

The Right Reverend Dr. David Walker, the Bishop of Manchester

Excerpt from:

Another ludicrous Thought of the Day from the BBC: The Bishop of Manchester assures us that we have libertarian free will - stopthefud

The NET News team is providing live coverage of the Nebraska 2020 primary election. The most recent updates will appear at the top of this page.

More coverage at netNebraska.org/campaignconnection2020

Most current election results available at electionresults.nebraska.gov

11:50 p.m. Central

In races for the Nebraska Legislature, in nearly every instance incumbents were leading challengers.

That included one senator appointed by Gov. Pete Ricketts, Julie Slama of Peru. But another Ricketts appointee, Andrew LaGrone of Gretna, trailed challenger Jen Day.

There are six seats opened up by term limits forcing out incumbents; of those races, it appears only three will have a registered Democrat running against a registered Republican in the fall. That reduced the chances of a significant change in party registrations in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, which currently has 31 Republicans, 17 Democrats, and one independent.

11:45 p.m. Central

Omaha businessman Chris Janicek won the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Senator Ben Sasse in November.

Janicek, who runs bakery businesses and invests in property in Omaha, outpolled six other Democrats to win his partys nomination. Meanwhile, Sasse easily outdistanced challenger Matt Innis to win renomination for a second term.

READ MORE

11:20 p.m. Central

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District will run against Democratic challenger KaraEastman in the November election.

Bacon easily beat out Republican challenger Paul Anderson in Tuesdays primary election, with about 90% of the vote. Eastman won about 61% of the vote against fellow Democrats Ann Ashford, with about 32% of votes, and Gladys Harrison with about 6%. (See most up-to-date results on theSecretary of State website.)

The November ballot is a rematch for Bacon and Eastman, who ran against each other in the district two years ago. Bacon won by fewer than 5,000 votes.

Bacon says hes encouraged by high turnout among Republicans this year, but says he wont take his foot off the gas: "Were going to have to work as hard as we can, because this is a purple district."

Eastman said she learned a lot from the 2018 campaign and says a lot has happened in the two years Bacon has been in office.

"People now see that hes not looking out for them," Eastman said. "Hes simply looking out for his party;hes looking out for special interests."

READ MORE

11:15p.m. Central

Voter turnout has already surpassed the 2016 primary election, with 70% of precincts fully reporting and 21% of precincts partially reporting.

About 442,000Nebraskans have voted, according to the partial results. That represents about 36%of the1,216,431 registered voters.

In the 2016 primary election, turnout was 26.9% of the state's 1,165,308 registered voters.

9:10 p.m. Central | Associated Press

The Associated Press declares Kara Eastman the Democratic nominee in the 2nd Congressional District. She will face incumbent Rep. Don Bacon in the general election.

9:05 p.m. Central | Associated Press

The Associated Press declares Chris Janicek the winner in theDemocratic primary for U.S. Senate.

Janicek has 31.18% of votes against six other candidates, with 63% of precincts partially reporting and 5% of precincts fully reporting.

Janicek will run against incumbent RepublicanBen Sasse and Libertarian Gene Siadek in the general election.

8:53 p.m. Central | Associated Press

The Associated Press declares Rep. Adrian Smith the winner in the Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District.

He has 83.28% of the vote over four challengers, with 38% of precincts partially reporting and 7.6% of precincts fully reporting.

8:40 p.m. Central | Associated Press

The Associated Press has declared winners in two key races:

Kate Bolz wins Democratic nomination for 1st Congressional District, with 79.15% of the vote and 52% of precincts partially reporting.

Rep. Don Bacon wins the Republican nomination in the 2nd Congressional District, with 90.62% of the vote and 65% of precincts partially reporting.

8:30 p.m. Central | Associated Press

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden sailed to an easy victory in the election.

So did Republican U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, who faced a GOP primary challenge because of his previous criticism of President Donald Trump.

8:10 p.m. Central

Results from early voting have been posted on the Nebraska Secretary of State's website.

Kate Bolz is leading in the Democratic primary for Congressional District 1, with 79.2% of the vote over opponent Babs Ramsey. Incumbent Rep. Jeff Fortenberry is running unopposed in the Republican primary. Dennis Grace is running unopposed in the Libertarian primary.

In Congressional District 2, Kara Eastman is leading with 61.19% of the vote over opponents Ann Ashford (32.66%) and Gladys Harrison (6.14%). Incumbent Rep. Don Bacon has 90.62% of votes in the Republican primary against Paul Anderson. Tyler Schaeffer is running unopposed as a Libertarian.

In Congressional District 3, incumbent Rep. Adrian Smith has 83.2% of the vote in a race with four Republican primary opponents. Mark Elworth, Jr. is running unopposed in the Democratic primary, and Dustin C. Hobbs is running unopposed in the Libertarian primary.

President of the United States: Democratic Party (45% of precincts partially reporting)

7:30 p.m. Central

Polls across the state will close at 8 p.m. central time.

Election officials hoped polling sites would be quiet after a record number of Nebraskans submitted mail-in ballots.

"I went to vote today," said Gov. Pete Ricketts. "I went right at 8 o'clock, I was the only person there to vote. When I turned around and left there was one other person walking in, and usually there's a line at my polling place. So I am guessing that many people took advantage of the opportunity to send in an early ballot."

Gov. Ricketts signed an executive order allowing the National Guard to serve as poll workers in counties with shortages.

A poll worker disinfects a voting station at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds in Aurora. (Bill Kelly, NET News)

A voter at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds in Aurora. (Bill Kelly, NET News)

Election officials hoped polling sites would be quiet after hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans sent mail-in ballots. (Bill Kelly, NET News)

Casting ballots at the Clay County Courthouse in Clay Center, Nebraska. All voting in Clay County is done by mail. (Bill Kelly, NET News)

A poll worker at the First Congregational Church in Hastings. (Bill Kelly, NET News)

See the original post here:

Live Blog: Nebraska 2020 Primary Election Results | netnebraska.org - NET Nebraska

The current pandemic is revealing critical flaws in the American electoral system

Howie Hawkins. Jacob Hornberger. Don Blankenship.

Yes, these are real names. But do you know who they are? They are the current leading nominees for the respective Green, Libertarian and Constitution parties.

If youre a political junkie, you are probably familiar with Blankenship. The former West Virginia coal mining executive has experienced occasional cameos in national headlines: first, for a trial concerning a mine explosion that killed 29 people in 2010 and later, for a bizarre 2018 Senate run where he declared himself Trumpier than Trump and ran ads referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as Cocaine Mitch. To a lesser degree, you may also be familiar with Hawkins, the environmental activist who co-founded the Green Party just over two decades ago.

But for most Americans, these names are simply more faces in the crowd.

The national appeal of a viable third-party candidate has increased in recent weeks by the possible entry of two figures with significant name recognition: Justin Amash and Jesse Ventura. Amash, a current U.S. representative from Michigan and frequent critic of President Donald Trump, announced the formation of an exploratory committee aimed at seeking the Libertarian Party nomination. Likewise, former professional wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who has his own complex relationship with Trump, recently voiced his interest in a potential 2020 Green Party run. It is a given that neither candidate will command major support on a national stage, but the general consensus is that they could potentially siphon enough voters to prevent Biden victories in a number of swing states.

Currently, third-party advocates are engaged in a number of legal battles aimed at gaining ballot access come November of 2020. In Illinois, the Greens and Libertarians are engaged in a court case aimed at removing all petitioning requirements for ballot access while a similar lawsuit by the coalition in Georgia aims to reduce the minimum number of signatures necessary.

Meanwhile, the countrys two biggest parties share a vested interest in limiting third-party ballot access. As a result of political polarization, both parties are severely limited by the number of active electors up for grabs, meaning that any significant conversion of swing voters could have devastating effects on their path to the White House.

For Democrats, this issue is especially pronounced. Historical precedence shows that they have the potential to be severely damaged by a strong third-party run. In particular, Jill Steins 2016 Green Party campaign won more votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin than Trumps margin of victory in those states. Although its hard to say whether Steins absence would have allowed for a Clinton victory, it certainly played a role in the outcome.

Third-party candidates in 2020 are far less of a risk for Republicans, but there is still a chance that their presence on the ballot could sway a number of states. After leaving the Republican Party and becoming a registered Independent, Amash voted for Trumps impeachment, earning notoriety as a strict non-partisan ideologue. Now a Libertarian, Amashs recondite political ideology may simply be too niche for widespread national appeal.

Rather, Amash could steal more Libertarian-minded voters in Michigan from Trump, a vital state to the presidents re-election path. Lawsuits by the Libertarians and Greens in states like Georgia and Arizona could also put the little known, socially conservative Constitution Party on the ballot, potentially bringing the furthest politically right of Trump supporters with them. The threat seems negligible at first, but when you consider just how close the margin of victory is likely to be in these states, it is a threat worth considering.

Irrespective of the morality of voting for a third party in 2020, the entire scenario at hand reveals a number of fundamental albeit obvious flaws in the American electoral system. Most blatantly, it reveals the fragility of the two-party system. Its a system so fragile and riddled by establishment influence that it promotes candidates uninspiring enough to allow for a few thousand disaffected voters to sway the entire election. Furthermore, the dilemma posed by the lack of ballot access for third parties is part of a broader issue concerning politics in the era of COVID-19. From issues over voter disenfranchisement to a highly politicized debate over the entire logistics of ballot-casting, the predicament has revealed just how unprepared the American electoral system is for a crisis of this magnitude.

In this regard, the battle for third-party ballot access is merely a further indictment of a wildly myopic voting system. Instead of merely arguing over the merits of granting increased access to third-party candidates this fall, we should approach this problem with a degree of introspection, questioning just how we managed to get to this debate in the first place.

Written by: Brandon Jetter brjetter@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie

Read more from the original source:

Will COVID-19 block third-party ballot access? - The Aggie

Rep. Justin Amash announced April 28 that he was launching an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Partys presidential nomination.

There had long been buzz about a potential presidential run around Amash, who last year left the Republican party and became an Independent member of Congress (a spokesperson for Amash says he is now officially a Libertarian member of Congress). Though hes been critical of Trump and the Republican party, Amash says his main argument is broader: He believes the country is locked in what hes repeatedly called a partisan death spiral in which representative government is broken.

Amash, who says he will not seek reelection to his current House seat, spoke with TIME via Skype from his home in Michigan on May 3, where he discussed the state of the current Republican party, how he believes campaigning virtually levels the playing field, and why he thinks he has a pathway to the nomination.

Below is a lightly edited, condensed transcript of the interview.

As a presidential candidate, what would the core idea of your campaign be?

The core idea is liberty and representative government. And what we have right now in Washington is a very broken system. What happens right now too often is a few leaders in Congress negotiate with the White House, and they decide everything for everyone. And this leads to a lot of frustration and a lot of partisanship because when Congress cant deliberate actual policies, when you have most members of Congress left out of the process, then they start to debate personalities.

Why are you dipping your toes into this with an exploratory committee instead of just outright running?

Im new to the Libertarian Party, and Im seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party. I want to be respectful of all the delegates, I want to be respectful of the people who have been a part of that party for a long time. And Im starting it as an exploratory committee so that I can try to earn the nomination, and if Im able to get further along and obtain the nomination, then we can talk about changing it to a full committee.

Do you have a deadline then when it comes to deciding whether you will actually run versus exploratory?

I dont have a specific deadline in mind. I think as this goes on, well have a better idea of where we stand with the delegates. And there may come a point where I feel more comfortable moving forward concretely and saying, yes, Im in 100%, Im going all the way. But right now I want to make sure Im being respectful of the delegates and working to earn their trust. And Im going to continue to work to do that over the next few weeks.

Why now, when its so late in the election cycle, and in the middle of a pandemic?

Well for one thing, I think its important to think about the fact that the election cycles have been getting longer. Theyre starting early in the year before the election, and we dont need that much campaigning going on for a presidency, otherwise these things are just nonstop, around-the-clock, and people get really tired of it. But actually, at the beginning of this year, in February, I started to look at it very carefully, and wanted to consider whether I would be a candidate, and I would have made a decision earlier, but then we had the coronavirus pandemic come up, and I had to make the decision, the right decision, I believe, to delay the final judgement of whether Im going to jump in or not, because I want to be able to represent my constituents during this time, I wanted to make sure Im in top of what was going on in Congress, and I wanted to reassess how a pandemic situation where were all stuck at home would affect the campaign.

Is it still possible to advance the things you want to talk about as a third-party candidate?

It is possible to do that, and the way Im going to do that is by getting my message out there. And if I do that, I feel confident that people will see that among the three candidates, the one running as a Libertarian Party nominee right now, or seeking the Libertarian Party nomination, is the one who will be the most compelling and qualified candidate of the three.

Do you think your presence in the race will help or hurt either candidate?

I think it hurts both candidates. The goal is to win, so you obviously want to take votes from both candidates. Theres a huge pool of voters who arent represented by either of the parties, and a lot of times, they just stay home or they settle for one of the two parties, but they would be happy to vote for someone else if they felt there was another candidate that was compelling.

Have you thought about whether youd vote for Biden or Trump?

I would not vote for Biden or Trump. Getting rid of Donald Trump does not fix the problems because Donald Trump is just a symptom of the problems. The problems will still exist with Joe Biden in the White House.

Is there anything that your friends in the Republican Party could do to redeem themselves now in your eyes?

I dont think that theres any way to pull them back from where they are. The culture of Donald Trump that has become dominant in the Republican Party is not going away anytime soon. Its probably here for at least a decade. Its a very different tone; its a very different style. Theres not much focus on principles anymore, its a focus on personality.

What makes you think that theres a viable path for you?

When you think about whether Republicans are firmly behind Trump, yes, theyre firmly behind Trump because they dont see an alternative. And they view the alternative right now as Joe Biden, and thats not a viable alternative for most Republicans. So there is a path for a third candidate to receive votes from Republicans.

Michigan has been in the news recently for the protests against the governors coronavirus policies. Can I ask what you made of them?

I support people protesting. I support their right to protest. I think people are very upset in Michigan about much of the overreach. I do condemn and denounce things like using Nazi flags or Nazi symbols at protests. Or coming into the state capitol holding weapons in a way that might be intimidating to many people.

What about the protests where folks havent been adhering to socialdistancing practices?

It shouldnt happen where people dont keep away from each other by at least 6 ft. I mean, were hearing from doctors and epidemiologists and others. We should adhere to those guidelines.

What was the decision not to run for reelection like?

It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I think its important to focus on one race at a time, and this is the race Im focused on. Ultimately I decided that even though I can win reelection as an independent, I wasnt sure it would make the same kind of difference to our system as running a presidential campaign and winning that campaign. If you win as an independent, some people might just write it off to some oddity of the third district of Michigan, saying, well in that district, an independent can win, but it wont work anywhere else. If you win the presidency as a Libertarian, you have a chance to really upset the system in a way that can restore our constitutional process and our representative government, and to me that is the more important thing.

Whats it like being home and deciding whether you want to run for President under these circumstances?

Its a different kind of campaign, but its one that actually may work to my benefit. If we were running a normal campaign, I obviously dont have the name ID yet to go out and hold massive rallies or any of those kinds of things, like the President might, or maybe Joe Biden might. So were at a point where we can compete with the other candidates through video and through technology, and I have an advantage in that, maybe, as a younger candidate, going out there and getting my message out on social media and elsewhere.

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Write to Lissandra Villa at lissandra.villa@time.com.

Here is the original post:

Michigan Rep. Justin Amash on Why Hed Run for President as a Libertarian and the Culture of the GOP - TIME

The government has not been an efficient or competent dispenser of the masks so vital to protecting health care workers and patients from COVID-19.

As of mid-April, The Wall Street Journal reports, the federal government had for whatever reason dedicated millions in contracts, involving at least 80 percent of the 20 million N95 masks it was trying to procure, from "suppliers that either had never done business with the federal government or had only taken on small prior contracts that didn't include medical supplies." Predictably, some of those vendors"missed delivery deadlines or have backed out because of supply problems. The parent company of one supplier is in bankruptcy and its owners have been accused of fraud in lawsuits by multiple business partners."

One contractor, who usually works in hospital renovation for the government, told the Journal he just figured he'd be able to find the masks somehow through suppliers he typically worked with. After he agreed to a $5.5 million contract, the paper says, he was "stymied by sellers that don't really have high-quality masks or who jack up the price."

At least one would-be contractor has now been nabbed for fraud on such a mask deal.

ProPublicatagged along with what theJournalcalled the "largest N95 mask contract given out by the VA [Veterans Administration], for an initial $35.4 million." The company, Federal Government Experts, "agreed to provide the VA six million masks for $5.90 apiece by April 25, with potential for another five million masks at the same price at a later date, for a total of $64.9 million, according to federal contracting data."

It didn't work out. As Robert Stewartthe boss at Federal Government Expertswondered to the ProPublica reporter himself, "Awarding a $34.5 million contract to a small company without any supply chain experience.Why would you do that?"

Stewart let that reporter tag along on fruitless (and expensive) private jet rides (including picking up what Stewart hoped would be his proud parents) on his way to cities where he didn't know he'd find any masks, and in general to witness him get jerked around by other unreliable potential sources for the masks he promised to deliver.

The fiasco ended with no masks deliveredbut at least, according to the VA, no money paid either. (This contract paid only on delivery.) Despite months of scrambling, the Veterans Administration was not prepared to keep its hospitals equipped with masks. As of now over 2,000 V.A. employees have tested positive.

Stewart's absurd deal is only the tip of the iceberg in questionable procurement practices. ProPublica notes that the administration "has handed out at least $5.1 billion in no-bid contracts to address the pandemic."

The feds aren't the only ones making bad mask decisions. California is currently trying to get a refund on a $456.9 million wire transfer it sent as a down payment on a $600 million contract for 110 million N95 masks. It paid the money to a firm called Blue Flame Medical, which, The Wall Street Journalinforms us, was "founded days earlier by former Republican fundraiser Mike Gula.Blue Flame struck a flurry of deals with states looking for medical supplies in late March and the first weeks of April, most of which have unraveled." Maryland and Alabama are also cancelling orders with the company, having decided that they are unlikely to be fulfilled.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Timesreports that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is refusing "to reveal the contents of a $990-million contract for purchasing protective masks from a Chinese electric car manufacturer." All the state would cough up was that they committed to buying 200 million masks a month for two months, of which 150 million were N95, but "all other details, including the price paid per mask, have been kept confidential." Even the state's legislators are being blocked from learning details of the deal. Such secrecy is not comforting when such enormous amounts of public funds are being spent.

When it does have the masks, the government hasn't been a great or intelligent caretaker or distributor of them. The Transportation Security Agency decided to hoard more than 1.3 million N95 respirator masks (which it received from Customs and Border Protection) rather than distribute them to hospitals or agencies or people who might lack themeven, as ProPublica reported, "as the number of people coming through U.S. airports dropped by 95% and the TSA instructed many employees to stay home to avoid being infected."

Other wasteful, clumsy, or even macabre stories have arisen from government attempts to help with or procure medical equipment. In Seattle, the county Public Health Department sent a Native American community health board body bags instead of requested medical supplies.

Before COVID-19 hit, certain pundits were promoting "state capacity libertarianism"the idea that it is silly to focus on how much government spends or taxes, or the ways it dictates how people live, buy, sell, or behave, or the breadth and width of tasks it takes upon itself: What's important, this argument holds, is how effective and smart government is at doing what it tries to do.

The idea was, at best, an attempt to turn libertarian energies toward making government better at what it does. But these not-at-all-shocking snafus show no obvious way the concept could help, other than hand-waving calls to have better people making better decisions.

Mask procurement is not going awry because government lacks the capacity to do anything. They have plenty of money, essentially as much as they want to have, and they have plenty of staff. It's not because they don't have professional experts and bureaucrats trying to manage things, and it's not because Republicans hate government and want it to fail.

Even in a relatively free market, fraud and incompetence exist. The government in its mask decisions have shown a keen ability to find market actors who are very bad (deliberately or not) at what they do and offer them ungodly amounts of money. But government's unique combination of endless money and impunity for messing things up mean that the state is going to get things more wrong, more often. And that's true even, or perhaps especially, when it's urgent that the state get things right. The evidence is in the news every day, even if ideological blinders prevent non-libertarians from acknowledging it.

More here:

Governments Have Screwed Up Mask Purchase and Distribution. Maybe Everyone Should Be a Libertarian in a Pandemic. - Reason

At the supermarket last week, amidst too many empty shelves, the manager looked at me through a plexiglass sneeze barrier and groused, "they need to open things up. I'd rather get the sniffles than face an angry mob."

COVID-19 is more than the "sniffles"so far, over a quarter-million people have died globally during the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. But it's also not the only risk human beings face, even if many policymakers seem consumed with it to the exclusion of all else. There are also the economic repercussions of harsh enforcement of lockdown measures to consider. And we should also include in there the danger to life and liberty inherent in mandated shutdown orders that are enforced by police and jails.

To focus on the virus alone to the exclusion of other threats is to court disaster. Well, not just to court itdisaster is here.

For the week ending May 2, another 3.2 million Americans filed unemployment claims, bringing the total number to over 33 million for the seven weeks since pandemic-related lockdowns began. On a similar note, the European Union predicts its economy will contract by 7.5 percent in 2020 because of the pandemic and related lockdown measures. And "the global economy likely shrank an annualized 12.6 percent in first quarter 2020 relative to fourth quarter 2019 and will weaken a further 8.6 percent in the second quarter," according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

If numbers bore you, we can just go with the International Monetary Fund's pithy description: "worst economic downturn since the Great Depression" because of the pandemic and related lockdowns. Or there's the United Nations' equally catchy forecast of "multiple famines of biblical proportions"not entirely due to the pandemic, but certainly made much worse by the disruptions it has created.

Enforcing lockdowns inflicts a cost on our freedom, too.

"As countries around the world institute extraordinary measures to fight the pandemic, both dictatorships and democracies are curtailing civil liberties on a massive scale," Florian Bieber of Austria's University of Graz observed in Foreign Policy.

That has meant opportunistic muzzling of dissent and arrests of critics, as documented by monitors including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. But it has also meant moronic enforcement of stay-at-home orders, such as protecting people from infection by beating them (the predictable go-to for many law-enforcers around the world). Less brutal but just as stupid are arrests for playing with family members in public parks, and jailings for hanging out with friends and opening businesses without government permissionheavy-handed moves that increase the danger of transmitting disease through contact with cops and incarceration in crowded cells.

Which is to say, focusing narrowly on the danger of the virus has made billions of human beings poorer than they were before, and less free than they have every right to be. And, as the phrase "multiple famines of biblical proportions" implies, there are add-on costs in terms of human life and welfare to being impoverished and under the boot.

"In some cases, people are dying because of the inappropriate application of measures that have been supposedly put in place to save them," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet concedes.

That's probably a little more analysis than the local supermarket manager had in mind when he talked about balancing fear of "sniffles" against that of an "angry mob," but he did a fair job of recognizing that there are tradeoffs in dealing with the pandemic. He knows that his customers are hurting because of the measures taken to battle the virus, that their paychecks are drying up, and that it's difficult to fully stock shelves because some items are in short supply.

That's not to say he and I would necessarily agree on the proper balance between the competing dangers. Like I said, I think there's more to COVID-19 than "sniffles." But if one of us enforces his judgment on the other with a nightstick, that disagreement becomes a lot more costly than if we're free to make our own assessments about the proper balance of risksespecially since we don't know each other's risk tolerances and abilities to weather one danger relative to another.

Noah Feldman, professor of law at Harvard, frames the ability to conceive of tradeoffs in handling the pandemic in terms of the different ways epidemiologists and economists think.

"Unlike epidemiologists, who identify a biological enemy and try to defeat it without thinking much about the costs, economists live on trade-offs," he wrote for Bloomberg. "It's an article of faith for economists that there is no such thing as an absolute valuenot even the value of human life. Instead, most economists embrace the hardheaded reality that helping one person often leaves another less well-off."

If you add a civil libertarian (or perhaps just a jaded defense attorney, who knows that "law enforcement" is synonymous with busted heads) to that mix, you might get an even better-balanced discussion of the tradeoffs in various approaches to dealing with the pandemic. That would make for a much more serious discussion about the danger of a new, deadly, and highly contagious virus, balanced with the risk of poverty and despair from shutting down societies in order to battle that virus, and considering the peril inherent in turning the world into a vast prison in order to enforce a shutdown.

Maybe that's a discussion we could have soon. Because the tradeoffs among considerations of health, prosperity, and liberty are catching up with us even if we don't want to acknowledge them.

More here:

We Need Economists, Civil Libertarians, and Epidemiologists in the COVID-19 Discussion - Reason

In ablog post entitled It Is Time For aLibertarian Case Against China, Tanner Greer responds to apiece in Reason magazine by Dan Drezner, in which Dan argued that There is No China Crisis. Greer says that libertarians need to take the [China] problem with the seriousness it deserves.

Not that it matters much, but if he wants to make a libertarian case against China, is Greer even alibertarian? Kind of, sort of, maybe, but not really. He says:

I like libertarians and libertarianism. Icant bring myself to identify as one, but someone recently described me as libertarian adjacent, and Iwill not dispute the label.

But regardless of whether Greer identifies as alibertarian, the issue of how to deal with arising power that is authoritarian and looking to expand its influence in world affairs is certainly one of the biggest foreign policy challenges the U.S. government faces. We do need to take it seriously. (And if you read Dans piece, Ithink its clear that he does take it seriously, in the sense of offering thoughtful and nuanced analysis). How people in the United States (including, but not limited to, libertarians) think about this issue is extremely important. Having gotten so many of our foreign policy challenges wrong in recent decades, it would be nice to get this one right.

But in order to think about it clearly and rationally, we need to understand exactly what Chinas goals are, in particular in the global arena. This post wont answer that question fully, because it would take much longer than ablog post to do so. But we do want to push back on some of Greers characterizations, which reflect the overheated rhetoric of many China hawks. Greer says this about President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party:

What [Liza]Tobin describes as a new path to peace, prosperity, and modernity Xi has variously described as Chinese wisdom and aChinese answer to solving the problems of the mankind, a new [achievement] in the history of the development of human society, a new and greater contribution to mankind, and new advance in political civilization.[8] Notice the scope of what the Party hopes to reshape. They hope not to remake China, nor even Asia, but human society, civilization, and mankind. As Politburo member Yang Jiechi exhorted in 2018, the time has come for the Party to energetically control the new direction of the common progress of China and the world. [9]

Clearly, then, based on this language, China is out to dominate the world, right? Not so fast. First of all, relying too much on official government statements (of any government!) may be amistake, in part because governments have many audiences in mindwhen they speak (importantly, their own citizens).But if you are going to use them, you need the full context. In the first sentence that Greer quotes, Xi does, in fact, use the quoted words. But when you read them in context, you dont get the impression that the Communist Party hopes to remake, as Greer puts it,human society, civilization, and mankind. For example, the speech by Xi says this: The Communist Party of China strives for both the wellbeing of the Chinese people and human progress. To make new and greater contributions for mankind is our Partys abiding mission. That sounds like the usual generalities of agovernments public relations campaign rather than an objective of remaking the world.

And with regard to the phraseenergetically control the new direction of the common progress of China and the world, translations are difficult, and word choices between languages are not always clear, but we offer this translation of the broader passage at issue:

We (China) should have aprofound insight into the new developments in China and the world, fully understand the new connotations of Chinas relations with the world, accurately grasp the new law of interaction between China and the world, and proactively drive the new direction that China and the world are heading together.

Again, this seems like somewhat normal and expected governmentspeak.

So what are the actual goals of the Chinese government in world affairs? Thats an area where we need more analysis from unbiased experts. For security hawks, its very convenient to have found anew existential threat that can justify aconfrontational foreign policy and more military spending. But in order to craft the appropriate policy here, we need to get past the selfserving assumptions of certain members of the foreign policy establishment, and sort out exactly what we are dealing with in terms of the Chinese governments global ambitions.The case against China needs examining, but an overexcited rush in one direction could be very damaging (and has been before).

This article by Simon Lester and Huan Zhu first appeared in CATO on May 7, 2020.

Image: Reuters.

Read more from the original source:

Is the Chinese Communist Party Really Trying To Take Over the World? - The National Interest