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A campaign to identify the marchers spread on social media following the bloody right-wing rally in Charlottesville. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

Updated 3:15 p.m.

A white nationalist who participated in the torch-lit march through the University of Virginias campus this weekendhas lost hisjob at a Berkeley, Calif., hot dog restaurant after Twitter users posted his photo and place of employment. The employee, Cole White, was identified online after he was photographed among a shouting and torch-wielding mobduring the march Friday night in Charlottesville.

After being inundated with inquiries, his former employer, Top Dog, in downtown Berkeley, posted a sign on its door that reads:Effective Saturday 12th August, Cole White no longer works at Top Dog. The actions of those in Charlottesville are not supported by Top Dog. We believe in individual freedom and voluntary association for everyone, multiple news outlets reported. The shop has a political bent of its own, as its well-known in Berkeley forthe libertarian stickers and articles posted on its walls, and website.

Top Dogissued a statement to the Washington Post that read, in part:

Colechose to voluntarily resign his employmentwith Top Dogand we acceptedhisresignation.There have been reports that he was terminated.Those reports are false.There have been reports that top dog knowingly employs racists and promotes racist theology.Thattoois false.Individual freedomand voluntaryexchangearecore to the philosophy of Top Dog.We look forward to cooking the same great food forat leastanother50 years.

Another part of the statement noted: Wedorespect our employees rightto theiropinions. They are free to make their own choicesbutmust accept the responsibilities of those choices.

When asked by The Post if White would have been permitted to keep his job had he not resigned, the shop declined to comment further.

White wasin Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally, which turned deadly on Saturday.James Alex Fields Jr., 20, who was described as a Nazi sympathizer by one of hishigh school teachers,is accused of ramminghis car into a group of counterprotesters, injuring 19 and killingHeather Heyer,32.Two Virginia state troopers H. Jay Cullen, 48, and Berke Bates, 40 were killed while doing surveillance work during Saturdays rally when their helicopter crashed.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Aug. 13 said Charlottesville is "stronger" a day after violence erupted in the city. The organizer of a white nationalist rally said clashes occurred because police declined "to do their job." (Whitney Leaming,Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

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The mostly male crowd that participated in Friday nights tiki-torch-lit rally did not cover their faces, and they were widely photographed. A Twitter account,@YesYoureRacist, began posting photographs of participants and uncovering their identities. White was among the first itnamed.The account would soon identify students enrolled at the University of Nevada and Washington State University, leading both of the schools to issue statements condemning racism.

Top Dog, a Berkeley campus fixture, isnt shy about its libertarian values. The walls are covered with libertarian bumper stickers, yellowed newspaper articles urging the privatization of the postal service, and hand-lettered signs with statements like, Beware the leader and Theres no government like no government,' wrote SF Weeklyin 1996.

A section of the restaurants website is dedicated to Propergander, posting articles about sanctuary cities, nuclear war and diversity.A recent article about an anti-diversity memo circulating at Google read, in part, Jim Crow is long gone, but it seems that Progressives (which gave us Jim Crow in the first place) now are imposing what essentially is a new form of segregation, that being ideological and religious segregation that is more reminiscent of how the former USSR treated dissidents than anything we have seen in private enterprise. The website was down for a time after the weekends incidents but was online as of Monday afternoon.

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The restaurant wrote to one Twitter user that it had been overwhelmed with inquiries about White:

The restaurants Facebook page has been deluged with complaints about White, and its Yelp page is under active cleanup alert, due to the high number of people posting negative comments about him (Yelps note says it tries to remove comments related more to news events than users experience with the business). One sample review: Great place for Neo-Nazis. For people who arent Neo-Nazis? Not so much. A hot dog is a hot dog, but a hot dog place thatnot only employs Neo-Nazis but posts alt-right screeds on their webpage is a place that makes me want to vomit. But if you hate minorities, you might have a friend in Berkeleys Top Dog.

By the way, the hot dogs arekosher-style.

Charlottesville residents respond to the violence that erupted in their city Aug. 12. (Elyse Samuels,Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

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Charlottesville white nationalist demonstrator loses job at libertarian hot dog shop - Washington Post

The Libertarian Party is in full damage control mode after sparking backlash by praising North Korea as an example of more freedom than the United States for its marijuana laws.

In a now-deleted Aug. 7 tweet, the party wrote: Its sad that we can look to #NorthKorea for an example of more freedom than the United States. The tweet linked to a Business Insider article that actually undercuts the argument that North Korea has laxer marijuana laws than the United States.

Screenshot/Twitter

After a wave of criticism online, the party deleted the tweet Sunday night after leaving it up for almost an entire week and issued an apology (although the apology tweet now appears to have been deleted as well.)

The Libertarian Partys official New Hampshire arm sent the exact same tweet praising North Korea on August 7. That tweet has not been deleted and remains on Twitter.

Contrary to widespread rumors online, the Business Insider article stated that marijuana appears to be illegal in North Korea.

The Libertarian Party has struggled to establish itself as a credible third party.

The party convention last summer turned into a spectacle after a candidate for party chairman stripped down to a thong during his two-minute speech.

WATCH:

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Libertarian Party In Damage Control Mode After Praising North Korea As Example Of Freedom - The Daily Caller

Augustus Invictus, a former Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Orlando most famous for saying he sacrificed a goat and drank its blood, had an important role in the white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Invictus, 34, was listed as a featured marcher for the Saturday event, which was roundly condemned after marchers carried Nazi flags, performed Hitler salutes and chanted white supremacist and anti-Semitic sayings while carrying torches. He could not be reached for comment Monday.

Invictus lost the 2016 Libertarian primary for U.S. Senate in Florida to Paul Stanton, but not before state Chairman Adrian Wyllie resigned in protest. The Libertarian Party of Seminole County also disbanded and its chair, Don Menzel, resigned in protest of his candidacy. Wyllie alleged at the time Invictus wanted to lead a civil war in the country, recruit neo-Nazis to the party and supported a eugenics program.

Invictus denied he had white supremacist sympathies at the time, but the Tampa Bay Times reported Monday white nationalist leader Richard Spencer credited Invictus with writing a first draft of the Charlottesville Statement.

The statement, according to the Times, has tenets including, Jews are an ethno-religious people distinct from Europeans ... whites alone defined America as a European society and political order .. [and] the so-called 'refugee crisis' is an invasion, a war without bullets, taking place on the fields of race, religion, sex and morality.

Spencer is hoping to speak at the University of Florida on Sept. 12, according to student newspaper The Daily Alligator. UF President Kent Fuchs wrote in an email the university has a First Amendment obligation to let him do so.

Invictus, a former attorney who voluntarily gave up his eligibility to practice law in March, has been active on the political scene in Central Florida this year. In May, he spoke before the Orlando City Council meeting in May against removing the Confederate Johnny Reb monument. The statue was ultimately moved to a cemetery.

In a YouTube video posted in July, Invictus revealed he was leaving the Libertarian party and registering as a Republican.

Countless millions of Americans are beginning to lament the leftward shift in their homeland, and the great awakening is upon us, he said in his video. Let us aim our rifles in the right direction, let us fight beside each other rather than against each other. Let us unite the right wing of American politics at long last, in order to secure our country and its civilization.

In Charlottesville, a counterprotester, Heather Heyer, was killed and others injured Saturday after a car ran into them following the rally. An Ohio man has been charged with second-degree murder and other charges.

President Donald Trump was criticized, including by members of the Republican Party, for not specifically condemning white supremacists and neo-Nazis by name. But on Monday, Trump specifically denounced those groups, saying, We condemn in the strongest possible terms, this display of hatred, bigotry, and violence."

In 2015, Invictus said he had walked from Central Florida to the Mojave Desert two years earlier and spent a week fasting and praying. In a pagan ritual to give thanks when he returned home, he said he killed a goat and drank its blood.

I did sacrifice a goat. I know that's probably a quibble in the mind of most Americans, he said at the time. I sacrificed an animal to the god of the wilderness ... Yes, I drank the goat's blood.

He also contended he had been investigated by the FBI and other law enforcement because of his political views. He renounced his citizenship in one of his posted writings, and in another he prophesied a great war, saying he would wander into the wilderness and return bearing revolution.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. slemongello@orlandosentinel.com, 407-418-5920 or @stevelemongello

White nationalist Richard Spencer scheduled to speak at UF next month

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Goat-blood drinking Orlando man had key billing for Charlottesville rally - Orlando Sentinel

The Libertarian Party has issued an apology for portraying North Korea as a shining beacon of freedom compared to the allegedly oppressive United States.

In a now-deleted tweet, the Libertarian Party shared a Business Insider article about how North Korea has been dubbed a weed smokers paradise. In their assessment of the article, the Libertarian Party said the totalitarian dictatorship can be looked to for an example of more freedom than the United States:

While the Libertarian Party accurately read the headline of the article, the article itself notes that North Korea may not be as pot-friendly as the Libertarian Party may like:

In January, the AP's Eric Talmadge provides some of the most conclusive evidence yet that marijuana is illegal in North Korea.

Torkel Stiernlof, a Swedish diplomat living in North Korea, told the AP that marijuana is a controlled substance in the same category as cocaine and heroin. He rejected the idea that government looks the other way when it comes to drug use, as some online stories suggest.

"There should be no doubt that drugs, including marijuana, are illegal here," Stiernlof said. "One can't buy it legally and it would be a criminal offense to smoke it."

In fact, the lack of knowledge surrounding the legal enforcement of marijuana laws in North Korea is an example of why North Korea is an oppressive, repressive regime that should not be heralded as an example of freedom. Since Business Insider relies partially on anonymous internet reports to discuss whether North Korea is actually a safe-haven for pot smokers, it shows that the government cracks down on the free exchange of information beyond the borders and the bureaucrats.

It should also be noted that North Korea is famous for the hero-worship cult of personality surrounding its Dear Leaderand that the country routinely punishes any dissent of any kindwith work camps. These are, obviously, not libertarian principles.

After outrage over the tweet, the Libertarian Party reportedly issued an apology nearly a week later. The apology, like the original tweet, appears to have been deleted:

This is far from the Libertarian Partys first time making a social media faux pas. In April, the official Facebook account for the Libertarian Party praised Satanism as an example of libertarian principles.

The Libertarian Party is also famous for allowing a man to strip on stage during a live broadcast of its 2016 National Convention and for musing about whether it should be legal to sell heroin to children during its 2016 presidential candidate debate.

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Libertarian Party Praises North Korea As Less Oppressive Than the US - MRCTV (blog)

The list of candidates for Congress on Maines 2018 ballot continues to grow, including some from a new political party in Maine: The Libertarian Party.

Chris Lyons of Brunswick has announced he has launched a campaign to oust fellow Brunswickian Angus King, an independent, from the U.S. Senate. Farther north, Brian Kresge of Winterport has launched his own bid as a Libertarian against 2nd Congressional District Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican.

Both are leaving the starting gates with similar messages: that Republicans and Democrats in Washington and at the state level have failed to lead and govern. And both are starting a considerably steep uphill slog as fourth-party candidates taking on established incumbents.

Call the prospect of a Libertarian candidate being elected a long shot, but thats also what was said about the party gaining official status in Maine in 2015 and 2016 as supporters sought to register the 5,000 voters they needed take the first step.

The Secretary of States office rejected some of the signatures in January 2016, spurring the Libertarian Party of Maine Inc. to sue. That lawsuit went on for months, resulting in a federal judge first ruling against the partys bid to be a party and then reversing his decision on appeal a month later. That allowed the libertarians to collect the additional registrants they needed and propelled their contention that Maines process for creating a new political party is unconstitutionally rigid.

Being an official political party in Maine affords candidates from that party a much easier path to the ballot, setting up a simple registration system in place of a more formidable petition-based system. The partys efforts are not over. It has to sent at least 10,000 registered Libertarians to the polls in November 2018, according to new legislation enacted this year.

Lyons, who is a contractor by trade, ran a write-in campaign against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in 2014. He has yet to file for his 2018 candidacy against King with the Federal Election Commission but has already launched a series of campaign events. He said he is in the race to win it and that converting independents or voters enrolled in major parties is easy.

One thing Ive learned in the past couple of years is that it isnt so much that people become a Libertarian, he said during an interview on Wednesday. They simply realize they are one. Ive heard this time and time again.

Kresge, a senior software developer for RKL eSolutions LLD of Pennsylvania and Army veteran, said his priority as a candidate and congressman is to advocate for smaller, more effective government, which is at the core of the Libertarian ideology. Kresge also has not filed yet with the Federal Election Commission.

The Libertarian Party is here and is serious about representing your interests, Kresge said in a written statement on Wednesday.

The candidate lineups against King and Poliquin are still developing. So far, only Republican state Sen. Eric Brakey has jumped into the race against King.

This item was originally published in Daily Brief, a free political newsletter distributed Monday through Friday by the Bangor Daily News to inform dialogue about Maine politics and government. To read more of todays Daily Brief, click here. To have the Daily Brief delivered daily to your inbox, click here.

Originally posted here:
Libertarian candidates jump into races to unseat King, Poliquin - Bangor Daily News