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The Houses lone independent, Justin Amash, has been flirting with a Libertarian presidential bid for more than a year.

That predates Amashs decision last spring to call for an impeachment inquiry of President Trump, which, of course led to the president torching him as a loser and total lightweight. Then Republicans ostracized Amash, culminating in his dramatic July 4 declaration that he was ditching the party to become an independent.

The buzz has died down a bit, as the Cascade Township congressman pulled out the rare feat last quarter of outraising all his rivals in West Michigans 3rd District, Democrat and Republican alike (several challengers have now dropped out).

But with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as the Democratic presidential frontrunner, solidified by a strong victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, the odds of an Amash third-party bid probably just went up. And while the conventional wisdom has been that his entry would siphon conservative votes from Trump and boost Democrats particularly in must-win Michigan theres some evidence that assumption may be wrong.

So why would Amash run, injecting uncertainty into an already combustible race?

Sanders wins Nevada, Biden a distant 2nd

Like many pundits, hes fond of the both sides critique of Democrats and Republicans. His take isnt rooted in amorphous cocktail-party-chatter centrism, but rather in libertarian economic principles that he believes both parties regularly violate.

He was elected in 2010 during the height of the Tea Party wave, supposedly fueled by righteous right-wing anger over President Obamas spending to lift us out of the Great Recession. Amash became a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus and joined forces with civil liberties groups to critique many of Obamas national security policies, like warrantless wiretapping.

But the party was over when Trump pulled out a surprising win in 2016. Suddenly, the Freedom Caucus was good with a president insatiably exploiting executive powers for his border wall and spiking the deficit, confirming progressives critique that the Tea Party was a hyperpartisan group angered by the first Black president.

Amash seemed to keep the faith that his brethren would see the light, but he resigned after coming out for impeachment hearings in 2019. Soon after, Amash abandoned the GOP completely. In December, he joined Democrats and voted for both articles of Trumps impeachment.

The conservative lawyer said Trump thinks people owe loyalty to him, but people are elected to Congress with an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not an oath to support and defend one person, the president who happens to be from your own party.

But Amash is still no fan of Democrats and is particularly critical of Sanders self-described democratic socialism, arguing his spending is unsustainable and squelches freedom. Last night, Amash helpfully suggested that Trump and Sanders read Henry Hazlitts libertarian bible, Economics in One Lesson.

He seems to be thoroughly relishing his independent status, telling the Advance last fall that he switches which side of the House floor hell speak on, depending on which party he plans to anger that day.

Being in one of these parties is kind of miserable, Amash said. You come to work and the leadership tried to focus you on partisan fights the whole time and messaging, and they dont really care about policy. They certainly dont care about principles. And thats just a miserable state to be in.

So Amash could take a principled stand and run as a third-party presidential candidate. It would instantly mean a national platform for his libertarian ideas and allow him to draw sharp contrasts with Democrats and the GOP Sunday shows and cable news would be chomping at the bit to book him. Recall that in 2016, talking heads valiantly tried to elevate Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson (whose laughable ignorance of foreign policy didnt stop the conservative Detroit News editorial page from endorsing him). But Amash would bring real intellectual heft.

I do think that one of the things President Trump revealed with his election is that one person can influence a lot of people by becoming president, and I certainly think thats important, Amash told the Advance last fall. I think that I could have a positive influence on the way people treat each other.

Amash: Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct

There also would be practical reasons for Amash to run for president.

Lets face it. Its an uphill battle to win a Michigan congressional seat as an independent. Unlike states like Maine, we have no real modern tradition of that. Former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, a former moderate Republican who used to represent part of the 3rd, has weighed independent bids for both Congress and governor, and ultimately decided it was a quixotic quest. (In case youre wondering, he endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and told me he absolutely will not vote for Trump this year).

So if Amash suspects hes going to lose in 2020, he may decide to do so while wielding a bigger microphone on a much bigger stage.

And now for the multi-billion-dollar question: What impact would Amash have on the presidential race? If Michigan proves decisive and is close as it was four years ago when Trump won by 10,704 votes a somewhat known, hometown third-party candidate could be a spoiler.

Last May, a Detroit News poll tried to test that theory out, pitting Trump against then-frontrunner Joe Biden with Amash in the mix. The results were somewhat startling, pollster Richard Czuba said, with Amash at 10%, thanks to drawing independents from the Democrat not Trump.

Amash has long been a party of 1 in the Michigan delegation

He will not take away Republican votes from Trump, Czuba said. What he will do is give independent voters who dont want to support President Trump an outlet to not vote for the Democrat. And if you look at who or what would be moving toward Amash, it is particularly independent men.

Amashs presence could also hurt Democrats further down the ticket, as fewer people would likely be voting straight-ticket.

A lot has changed in the election since the poll was taken, of course. But it is a helpful reminder that knee-jerk assumptions in politics are often wrong.

Amash says he believes Trump will lose Michigan in 2020, since hes turned off suburban voters. But it would really be something if the one of the highest-profile conservatives who refused to pledge undying loyalty to Trump ended up securing his reelection after all.

Read more from the original source:
Susan J. Demas: Dems nominating Sanders could up the odds Amash runs 3rd party. But what will it mean? - Michigan Advance

Sarah Hurst on how the far-right activist visited Russia to praise Vladimir Putin and spread Islamophobic and racist propaganda about the UK.

The far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon who calls himself Tommy Robinson has received VIP treatment in Russia, giving a press conference at the headquarters of newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda and speaking at a Libertarian Party conference.

Yaxley-Lennon was greeted at the newspapers offices in Moscow by Alexander Malkevich, formerly the head of a propaganda outlet called USA Really and currently billed as the head of the Foundation for Defending National Values.Malkevich was sanctioned by the US in 2018 for attempted election interference.

The 37-year-old founder of the English Defence League (EDL) and a recent convert to the Conservative Party has served prison time in the UK for various crimes, including assault and mortgage fraud, and last year for contempt of court for broadcasting a Facebook Live video of defendants in a trial, in breach of reporting restrictions. However, Russian media didnt think any of this was worth mentioning, depicting him instead as a victim of censorship and EU oppression.

Yaxley-Lennons visit followed one by Britain First leader Paul Golding last year to the Russian Duma, which resulted in a criminal charge being brought.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, which claims to be the most popular newspaper in Russia, announced that the theme of the press conference would be whats going on with free speech in Europe? It described Yaxley-Lennon as a politician and journalist and noted that, not only had he been jailed for making a video, but he had also been illegally banned from Twitter forsupposed extremist statements, despite having half a million followers.

Yaxley-Lennons own title for his presentation at the event was more direct: The Rape of Britain.

Robinson said that all the problems he was talking about were connected to Muslims, the website RIA-FAN reported. This is not just about one-off crimes by individuals but about gangs of migrants raping underage British girls, it continued, relaying Yaxley-Lennons words uncritically. You cant believe the British media! Robinson ranted. Ive seen their manipulations, how they make up lies about me Thats why Im here! Because all these issues are relevant in Russia.

The website Vechernyaya Moskva interviewed Yaxley-Lennon at the press conference and published an article with the headline British Politician Robinson: Lets Break Up the European Union Together. He told them that he thought the Netherlands and France would be the next countries to leave the EU after the UK, and that Frances exit would be possible if Marine Le Pen got enough support. The French far-right leader met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in March 2017 one month before the presidential election in which she was a candidate. A Russian company is now suing her to recover a loan of $10.8 million.

Peter Jukes and Hardeep Matharu

Yaxley-Lennons views are also remarkably similar to Putins. He said in the interview that EU sanctions on Russia arent motivated by Russias aggression against Ukraine but are an attempt to rein in Russias power. The EU is destabilising Ukraine and intervening militarily there as part of a programme of expansion, Yaxley-Lennon insisted. And if Russia had wanted to take out Sergei Skripal, it would have done it quietly, not with aRussianchemical weapon, he claimed. He said that he hoped Russia would become one of the UKs key partners after Brexit and that they would fight jihadism together.

We can cooperate to preserve our Christian values,culture and identity, Yaxley-Lennon told the newspaper. Russians see Putin as the defender of their country. He is a strong politician. The West doesnt have enough strong men. Western politicians are emasculated. He said that he would like to go for a beer with Putin and would advise him to fight the censorship and propaganda that is being used against Russia. Yaxley-Lennon would also ask Putin to let him host a Russian TV show.

Yaxley-Lennon posted pictures of his lecture at the Libertarian Party conference in St. Petersburg on his Telegram channel, with the words Thank you Russia. The party itself also tweeted pictures of himspeaking to a packed hall. He was an odd choice of guest for a party, the leader of which Mikhail Svetov was one of the organisers of anti-Putin protests in Moscow last summer. But, if people on the fringes are likely to get together somewhere, it will be in Russia.

This article is part of a series on Kremlin links to prominent people in Europe that issupportedby a grant from JournalismFund.EU.

Original post:
'Rape of Britain': Russia Rolls Out the Red Carpet for 'Tommy Robinson' - Byline Times

Something Ive been thinking a lot about recently is the way we often conflate two very distinct things when we assign political labels. The first is ideology, which describes our vision of a just society. The second is something less discussed but equally important: temperament. It describes how we approach social problems, how fast we think society can change, and how we understand the constraints upon us.

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, the editor in chief of the public policy journal National Affairs, and the author of the upcoming book A Time to Build. Levin is one of the most thoughtful articulators of both conservative temperament and ideology. Perhaps for that reason, his is one of the most important criticisms of what the conservative movement has become today.

Theres a lot in this conversation, in part because Levins book speaks to mine in interesting ways. One of my favorite parts was when Levin spoke about how conservatives are beginning to rethink libertarian economics, creating space for unlikely coalitions.

Yuval Levin

I think we live now in a moment where much more basic questions are open than were earlier in this century and in the last couple of decades of the 20th century. It seemed at the end of the cold war as though there was a settlement around what broadly we might call liberalism and the question now was how to make the most of it and how to govern it. We now are asking ourselves much more basic questions about how to be a justice society. I think thats a good thing.

On the right, there are really fundamental debates about whether it makes sense for conservatism to be oriented around a commitment to the market economy or whether instead it be fundamentally grounded in social and moral commitments and religious commitments. I am on the side of those who say that libertarian [economics] should not be the organizing principle of American life.

It is important to see that the arguments that were having now are moral more than economic. Theyre not exactly arguments against capitalism. Theyre arguments about a society that puts economic questions first and foremost. And, to the extent that that is the objection [socialists] raise, they have a lot of allies on the right. There are a lot of people on the right who worry that our society too often puts economics first and foremost, and instead believe we should think about human flourishing first and foremost about enabling families to start, about enabling communities to thrive, about allowing people to organize their lives around basic moral principles that they understand to be the definition of justice.

We also discuss:

Theres a lot Levin and I disagree on, but there are few people I learn as much from in disagreement as I learn from him.

You can listen to this conversation and others by subscribing to The Ezra Klein Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Yuval Levins book recommendations:

Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville

The Quest for Community by Robert Nisbet

Statecraft as Soulcraft by George Will

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:

David French on The Great White Culture War

George Will makes the conservative case against democracy

Read this article:
Why some conservatives are rethinking libertarian economics - Vox.com

The Iowa caucuses are not quite over.

Now that Iowa Republicans and Democrats have sounded off, another presidential nomination contest is starting. This weekend, Libertarian Party of Iowa members will gather for their own caucuses and presidential straw polls. Later this month, 10 Libertarians running for the presidential nomination will appear together in Iowa.

Its too late for registered voters to switch parties and participate in the Libertarians virtual or in-person caucuses Saturday. But there are a couple reasons all Iowans should pay close attention to the state and nations largest third-party nominating process.

For one, thousands of us will end up voting for someone besides the Republican or Democrat in the November general election. For another, those who dont will spend a few months scolding and wagging fingers at third-party voters. Either way, its a good idea to start vetting the candidates now.

A large portion of Americans say the country is poorly served by the existing two-party system. That discontent could be emboldened by an incumbent Republican with underwhelming popularity, and a Democratic nominee with her or his own unfavorables.

In 2016, eight third-party candidates appeared on the ballot in Iowa and altogether earned nearly 100,000 votes. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and running mate Bill Weld both former Republican governors won about 3.7 percent of the vote, making them by far the states most popular third-party ticket last cycle.

Johnson was considered a front-runner for the nomination throughout the 2016 process, but this years field is wide open. Delegates elected at the caucuses and state convention will attend the national convention in May, where they will be unbound and free to support whichever candidate they choose.

Libertarians are having lively debates about the partys future. The key question is whether to once again nominate an established figure with ties to one of the major parties, or go with a bold and die-hard Libertarian activist.

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On Feb. 29, I will moderate a presidential candidates forum in Des Moines, part of the Libertarian Party of Iowas state convention. Questions submitted by members cover a range of policy points, and also meta issues about the party and its strategy.

Most third-party activists acknowledge winning the White House in the next election is unlikely, but there are other good reasons to support minor presidential candidates. Top-of-the-ticket races help parties build lists of supporters and can create momentum for down-ballot candidates.

Most importantly in Iowa, parties earning 2 percent in a gubernatorial or presidential election gain official party status, which Libertarians achieved in 2016 and lost in 2018. That status entitles parties to the same ballot access as major parties, and also attracts more equitable coverage from the media.

Loyalists to the partisan duopoly worry that third-party candidates sway elections. They claim, without compelling evidence, that recent elections would have turned the other way if not for spoilers.

To that, I say get over it. When parties nominate bad candidates, dont be surprised when voters look elsewhere.

(319) 339-3156; adam.sullivan@thegazette.com

Read the rest here:
For Iowa's 100,000 third-party voters, 2020 field is wide open - The Gazette

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

Despite repeated warnings from legacy media, it seems xenophobia is breaking out as rapidly as the coronavirus. Anecdotal reports of Asians being denied Uber and Lyft rides are adding fog to an already uncertain situation, but there are clear lessons to be drawn for advocates of free market libertarianism.

The worldwide coronavirus figures as of Tuesday are 425 dead and 20,438 confirmed cases, mostly all in China. In the U.S., there are six cases in California, two in Illinois, and one in each of the following states: Arizona, Washington, and Massachusetts. No Americans have died so far.

Reading up on the latest, one cant ignore a couple of patterns in the media, and these patterns matter to how an open market functions.

First, many news reports often downplay the severity of the virus. Note that the media almost never calms down its audience when the subject is trivial political drama like impeachment, which has less bearing on the real world than a contagion of national and international proportions. The ploy in this instance is to compare coronavirus to seasonal influenza as if to shrug off the top global story.

The second pattern might help explain the first. It has to do with the perceived threat of rising racism and xenophobia, mostly emanating from the bat soup meme, which is based on a rumor of the viral breakouts origin. For example, Health.com ran with the headline No, Coronavirus Was Not Caused by Bat SoupBut Heres What Researchers Think May Be to Blame.

It turns out, however, that the scientific consensus isnt too far off from the internet meme. Researchers point to bats and/or snakes passing it on to humans, and both of those animals are sold in the notorious Wuhan wet market in China for human consumption.

Underlying both of these media narratives is the ever-present competition from alternative media outlets that are constantly under a barrage of censorship attacks from the elite social media platforms. Many of those alternative outlets are viewed and shared in libertarian or right-leaning networks, which are increasingly concerned with globalization and immigration.

It is plain to see that there is a business interest as well as a cultural or political one at play behind most media narratives. Thankfully, there are populist forces that will eventually put an end to this top-down manipulation of public information.

Now CNBC is reporting on Uber and Lyft drivers refusing or reluctantly accepting Asian passengers. Perhaps its ironic that the same article downplays the threat of the coronavirus but plays up the racial tensions without a second thought.

The medias phobia of xenophobia isnt genuine but instead serves as a bludgeon against any argument in favor of private property-based free market solutions. Why, if average people were left to their own devices, their ignorance and racism would doom us all, were told.

Of course, its the government (mis)management of public health responsibilities that lets things get this bad in the first place. On the other hand, the wet market in Wuhan, China must not be excused by libertarians. Bat soup might just be a bad idea, whether or not its regulated by a state.

A free market should be strengthened beyond simple atomistic individualism, by means of developing or rejuvenating civil institutional frameworks that help us protect and conserve our quality of life and societal cohesion.

Racism isnt what we should fear in letting loose hundreds of millions of Americans to make free choices. Rather, we should concern ourselves with disconnected, loyalty-free consumers who continue to lap up legacy media propaganda, because it happens to be offered at the lowest price.

Excerpt from:
To Fear the Coronavirus, the Media, or Xenophobia? - The Liberator Online