Archive for the ‘Libertarian’ Category

Libertarians Back Florida Cannabis Legalization, $5M From Hemp Execs To GOP: Green Waves In Red States – Benzinga

A recent report by Beacon Securities, on the cannabis industry in Florida provides insights into campaign donations, political endorsements, market competition, and financial forecasts.

According to the report the Libertarian Party of Florida has formally endorsed the adult-use legalization measure. This endorsement could signal a shift in voter sentiment, as the party advocates for personal freedom regarding cannabis use. The growing political support from various parties highlights the increasing acceptance of cannabis legalization.

CBS News reported that hemp executives pledged $5M in donations to Floridas Republican Party after Governor DeSantis vetoed a bill that would have negatively impacted the hemp industry.

The report indicated that the veto was seen as a strategic move, with WhatsApp messages from the group Save Florida Hemp suggesting the veto secured the hemp industry's alignment with Governor DeSantis against the adult-use legalization measure on the November ballot.

Read Also:Ron DeSantis, Florida's GOP And Hemp Industry Pile On To Defeat Marijuana Legalization

Trulieve Cannabis TCNNF, leading the market with 140 locations, continues to expand, recently opening a new dispensary in Gulf Breeze. Verano Holdings follows with 77 locations, aiming to increase its market presence.

The competition among major players like Trulieve, Curaleaf CURLF, and Verano VRNOF is intensifying, with each company employing strategies to capture more market share.

Data from the Florida Department of Health shows that these companies are driving significant sales of both flower and oil-based products, as per Beacons report.

Verano Holdings and Curaleaf Holdings are expected to report their Q2 results on August 7th, with Verano forecasting revenue and adjusted EBITDA at the lower end of estimates.

Rescheduling and elimination of 280E tax penalties are anticipated to substantially boost operating cash flow and free cash flow for these companies.

Read Next:How A Trump Return Could Reshape Marijuana Policy

These issues will be a hot topicat the upcoming Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Chicago this Oct. 8-9. Join us to get more insight into what the wave of weed legalization means for the future of investing in theindustry. Hear directly from top executives, investors, advocates, and policymakers.Get your tickets nowbefore prices go up by followingthis link.

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Libertarians Back Florida Cannabis Legalization, $5M From Hemp Execs To GOP: Green Waves In Red States - Benzinga

Kennedy campaign says they have 30,000 signatures more than enough to make the Colorado ballot – Colorado Public Radio

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.s campaign says it has collected tens of thousands of voters signatures, which it believes will be more than enough to put him on Colorados election ballots as an independent candidate for president this November.

A small parade of Kennedy supporters hauled about a dozen boxes of paperwork, plus a banner and signs, from the state capitol to the Secretary of States office in downtown Denver on Thursday.

The campaign said those boxes contained more than 30,000 signatures from all around Colorado. State officials will now review those signatures. Kennedy will need at least 12,000 to be found valid, with a certain amount coming from each Congressional district, to secure his spot. That count will be completed by Aug. 1.

The signatures would allow Kennedy to run as an independent in Colorado. At the same time, the states Libertarian Party is attempting to get Kennedy on the ballot as a Libertarian. But that effort has been hampered by infighting in the party.

A spokesman for the national Kennedy campaign didnt immediately respond to a question about whether Kennedy would ultimately appear as an independent or Libertarian in Colorado.

Kennedy was a Democrat until recently.

The campaigns supporters on Thursday included a mix of disenchanted Democrats and Republicans, as well as those who vote more often for third-party candidates, especially Libertarians.

Wyatt Carr, 30, said he had voted for former president Barack Obama in 2012, former Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson in 2016, and former president Donald Trump in 2020.

Carr is volunteering for Kennedy now because Trump had failed at what he said he was gonna do. He got beat by the swamp, he said.

Carrs story is similar to others shown in polls. Kennedy is drawing significant support from voters who went from Democrats to Trump and are now looking for another option. That trend could ultimately be harmful for Biden, who may need to win back some of those voters, The New York Times reported in May.

A recent Rocky Mountaineer poll found Kennedy and his running mate Nicole Shanahan had support from 12 percent of respondents in Colorado. The pollsters noted that surveys tend to overstate support for third-party candidates. But the poll, which is meant to provide guidance for progressives, notes that Kennedy earns a significant chunk of the vote with unaffiliated voters, white women, white non-college voters and younger voters.

Combined with possible support for the Green Party ticket, the poll found that Biden was still leading in Colorado, but with less than half the vote. He had the support of 42 percent of respondents compared to 36 percent for former President Donald Trump.

The state Libertarian Partys executive director, James Wiley, said he wanted to see Kennedy run a fusion candidate, allowing him to appear on multiple ballot lines or to be listed as both Libertarian and unaffiliated. A state spokesman said that is not allowed under state law.

Editor's note: This article was updated July 11, 2024, with comment from the Secretary of State's office.

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Kennedy campaign says they have 30,000 signatures more than enough to make the Colorado ballot - Colorado Public Radio

Trump’s Veep: Better Burgum Than Vance or Rubio – Reason

Next week, the Republican National Convention will choose Donald Trump to be its nominee for the third presidential election cycle in a row. Between then and now, Trump will also choose his vice president. No one can know Trump's mind for certain, but he is believed to have settled on three finalists: Sen. J.D. Vance (ROhio), Sen. Marco Rubio (RFla.), and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

While the vice presidency is often derided as a relatively unimportant job, there are reasons to think that Trump's choice could have significant ramifications in the future. When Trump does, at long last, exit the political stage, his most recent veep will be a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in subsequent cycles. Vance, Rubio, and Burgum all share certain similaritiesin that they are Republicans who strongly support Trumpbut they are also distinct personalities with significant policy differences.

When Ronald Reagan ran the party, he famously used the metaphor of a three-legged stool to describe modern conservatism, with the legs being neoconservatism (on foreign policy), religious conservatism (on social issues), and libertarianism (on economics). This triple alliance continued through the George W. Bush administration, but Trump shattered it when he won the nomination and the presidency in 2016. Neoconservatism, in particular, fell out of fashion with the GOP; Trump also pushed the party to move away from economic libertarianism, at least on trade.

The battle for control of the GOP's ideological direction is still being fought, and Trump's veep and eventual successor could play a decisive role in winning it. (Trump is himself not particularly ideological.) For libertarians who would like to see the Republican Party adopt a more market-friendly platform wherever possible, the vice presidency has some stakes.

It's unfortunate, then, that Trump's seemingly most likely choiceVanceis also the least libertarian by far.

Vance first came to public attention after publishingHillbilly Elegy, a memoir about his adolescence in Appalachia. The book chronicled the decay of the American Rust Belt and the resulting social instability among the working class, and it helped explain Trump's appeal to blue-collar voters. It is notable, however, that at the time, Vance did not endorsethe phenomenon he was describing. In fact,Hillbilly Elegylargely avoids scapegoating market forcesand instead asserts that the struggling members of Vance's community were wrong to blame their problems on sinister outsiders.

Unfortunately, avoiding demagoguery is not a winning strategy when seeking higher office. Today, Vance is a committed populist who embraces tariffs and protectionism. He has called for the federal government to break upGoogle. He has even praised Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, a Joe Biden appointee waging a one-woman crusade against major tech companiesand indirectly, their customers.

"A lot of my Republican colleagues look at Lina Khanand they say, 'Well Lina Khan is sort of engaged in some sort of fundamental evil thing," said Vance earlier this year. "And I guess I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job."

Khan's entire project is empowering federal bureaucrats to gum up the operations of major companies like Amazon for the crime of efficiently and successfully meeting human needs. Vance co-signs this effort.

In truth, Vance is fond of all sorts of progressive economic ideas. Interviewed by Ross Douthat inThe New York Times, Vance showed affection for the minimum wage, explicitly rejecting libertarian arguments against it.

"You raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and you will sometimes hear libertarians say this is a bad thing," said Vance. "'Well, isn't McDonald's just going to replace some of the workers with kiosks?' That's a good thing, because then the workers who are still there are going to make higher wages."

Vance went on to argue that cheap immigrant labor outcompeting American workers was in fact bad and ought to be prevented by the federal government. That is Vance's ideology in a nutshell: If American workers lose their jobs because government interference sped up the process of automation, oh well. But if these same workers lose out due to free market competition, the feds should work to prevent it.

Vance is arguably more committed to anti-libertarian ideas than is Trump himself. Trump's rhetoric is often quite at odds with his actual policies, and he is capable of dramatic policy shiftslike supporting a ban on TikTok and then dramatically backpedaling. When Trump's former secretary of defense raised the idea of mandatory national military service, Trump called it a "ridiculous idea." Vance has said he is in support of some version of the proposal, however. If Vance becomes the vice president, he will be well-positioned to hone Trump's populist instincts and bring the policy in line with the rhetoric.

Rubio, by contrast, is not a very sincere populist. He entered the Senate in 2011 as part of the Tea Party wave; his instincts at the time were traditionally Republican, but he emphasized some limited government themes, like reining in spending and opposing congressional earmarks. He also supported immigration reform and wanted to design a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants living within the United States. Unlike other prominent Republicans identified with the Tea Party such as Sen. Rand Paul (RKy.), Rubio remained reflexively hawkish on foreign policy. When he ran for president in 2016, he was arguably the candidate most similar to former President George W. Bushquite a feat, given that Jeb Bush was also in the race.

One thing Rubio has in common with Vance is that both politicians completely changed their tune with respect to Trump once his conquest of the Republican Party was complete. Rubio once called Trump a "con artist" and "the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency." Now he routinely defends Trump at all costs, even comparing the criminal proceedings against Trump to "show trials" of the likes of Communist Cuba.

Rubio's incoherent defenses of Trump have also caused the senator to embrace bad policies he once opposed. AsReason's Eric Boehm has noted, Rubio previously understood that raising tariffs on China would punish consumers in the U.S., the people buying the goods in question. He quite succinctly explained this to Trump during the Republican presidential primary debates in 2016. Eight years later, Rubio is not only defending tariffs on Chinahe agrees with Trump's plan to expand them.

All that said, Rubio comes across as more ideologically flexible than Vance. He has betrayed libertarian economic ideas because the current trajectory of the Republican Party is away from this philosophy. If that were to change, one suspects that Rubio would too.

This means that Burgum is the least bad choice for vice president, almost by default. The North Dakota governor has not been on the national political scene for nearly as much time as Vance or Rubio, instead emerging last year as an unlikely Republican presidential candidate during the primaries. He did not particularly distinguish himself during the debates, though he did attract some positive attention for displaying his pocket Constitution.

According to a largely sympathetic evaluation of his tenure in office, Burgum has governed as a traditional conservative: cutting taxes, improving the business climate in the state, supporting the Second Amendment, and so on. He signed a very restrictive ban on abortion, which may be a nonstarter for Trump, who has correctly surmised that this issue is currently the biggest barrier to a second Trump term. Burgum did, however, take the position that abortion is an issue for the states and should not be decided by the federal government.

Before entering politics, he was a self-made businessman who started his own software company and sold it to Microsoft for $1 billion in 2001. While success in the business world is no guarantee of fealty to libertarian economicsVance was a venture capitalist, after allit is somewhat encouraging. Political candidates invariably end up disappointing libertarians, but Burgum's record as a governor suggests that he is less likely to abandon basic free market principles at the drop of a hat.

By contrast, Vance and Rubio have already proven that they are happy to do so.

Unfortunately, none of the candidates under consideration for Trump's veep slot are particularly libertarian. Vance and Rubio, though, are not just unlibertarianthey have moved decisively in an anti-libertarian direction on economic issues where a generic Republican might be plausibly expected to at least casually align with liberty. That's ample reason to hope Trump excludes them from the ticket.

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Trump's Veep: Better Burgum Than Vance or Rubio - Reason

Libertarians in standoff over presidential ticket in Colorado; divided Republicans plan dueling meetings over Dave Williams; Social Security can be…

Today is July 11, 2024, and here's what you need to know:

Rival factions of the Colorado Republican Party have scheduled separate meetings a week apart in different corners of the state later this month to consider whether to remove Dave Williams as the state party's chairman, though the meeting set by Williams' allies is only planned to last long enough to gavel in and then immediately recess.

Leaders of both groups accuse the others of staging "illegal" and "fraudulent" meetings in what they characterize as attempts to hijack the state Republican Party for their own gain, even as GOP candidates are left scrambling to prepare for a crucial election just months away.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado's plans to place independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the state's ballot hit a snag this week when a national party official filed paperwork instead designating the Libertarians' presidential nominee, Chase Oliver, to Colorado's general election ballot.

The move has led to a standoff between the state and national Libertarian parties over which has the authority to put a presidential and vice presidential ticket in front of Colorado voters, with both sides accusing the other of going rogue and suggesting the dispute could land in court.

After voting a month ago to reject the ticket nominated by the national party, the state Libertarians' board announced last week that it would nominate Kennedy after reaching what it described as a "groundbreaking partnership" with his campaign. Elements of the agreement included securing the candidate's signature on a pledge to abide by a list of the party's principles and an intention to collaborate on fundraising, the party said.

A new panel of Colorado lawmakers, officials and industry experts met for the first time on Tuesday to take a closer look at gaps in cell phone coverage across the state.

The newly formed Cell Phone Connectivity Interim Study Committee has begun its work to identify gaps in coverage, particularly in rural areas and underserved communities.

Whether its for work, school, meeting virtually with your doctor, searching for directions, or contacting emergency services quality cell phone connectivity is vital, Committee Chair Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, said. However, many of our neighbors living in rural and mountainous communities are stuck with unreliable cell services. Gaps in cell phone connectivity means Coloradans can find themselves on their own in a dangerous, emergency situation.

Colorado's second-highest court clarified last week that federal law does not prohibit a person's Social Security benefits from being diverted to pay for their ex-spouse's alimony.

Although other states' courts had addressed the issue, the Court of Appeals never previously evaluated the meaning of two provisions of federal law as applied to divorced couples. First, a person's Social Security benefits "shall not be transferable or assignable." However, those payments "shall be subject" to alimony, which Colorado refers to as "spousal maintenance."

The upshot, wrote Judge David H. Yun for a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, is that judges may "consider social security retirement benefits, as well as other non-assignable federal benefits, in awarding maintenance or child support, even in circumstances where the order effectively results in an indirect assignment of those benefits."

Colorado's second-highest court reversed a woman's felony convictions for child abuse resulting in death last month after concluding the instructions that a San Miguel County judge provided the jury did not include the necessary language.

Hannah Marshall, 8, and Makayla Roberts, 10, were discovered dead and decomposing in a vehicle located on Frederick Alec Blair's Norwood farm in 2017. A forensic examiner was unable to conclusively state the cause of death because of the condition of the girls' bodies, but evidence suggested long-term malnourishment near the end of their lives.

Among those charged was Madani Ceus. Jurors heard she was in charge of the group of itinerant adults and children living on the farm. At some point, the victims were banished to live in a car with no food. Ceus directed that no one contact them.

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Libertarians in standoff over presidential ticket in Colorado; divided Republicans plan dueling meetings over Dave Williams; Social Security can be...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on the Colorado ballot under the Libertarian party – Colorado Public Radio

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on Colorados presidential election ballots, as a Libertarian.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado announced its members have agreed to form a partnership with the RFK campaign.

As part of this partnership, the Libertarian Party of Colorado will place the Kennedy/Shanahan ticket on the Colorado state ballot for president and vice president, the party said in a statement. This move reflects our commitment to offering voters a choice that transcends the traditional partisan divide and promotes individual liberty, personal responsibility, and limited government.

This move comes after the Colorado Libertarian Party voted to reject the national partys candidate for president, Chase Oliver. Party chairwoman Hannah Goodman said on the libertarian podcast, Free State Colorado, that Oliver and his running mate, Mike ter Maat, did not share the state partys core values.

He really doesnt even necessarily represent Libertarians across the nation. I was told by his campaign that hes broadly libertarian, whatever that means, she said. Goodman told the podcast the party disagrees with Olivers positions on the COVID-19 response and transgender youth.

Kennedy Jr. has been gathering signatures in Colorado to have his name appear on the ballot as an Independent. His campaign had until July 11 to turn in 12,000 valid signatures, but this partnership with the Libertarian party makes that effort unnecessary.

Nationally, Kennedy Jr.s campaign for ballot access has been expensive, leading to steep debt and layoffs among his staff. He has already secured ballot access in Illinois, New York and Utah.

During his campaign, Kennedy Jr. has built a reputation of being an anti-establishment firebrand, hoping to take votes away from both Joe Biden and Donald Trumps voter bases. Hes come out against vaccinations, against corporations and pollution and against the funding of foreign wars. The Libertarian Party of Colorado said those values align well with theirs.

His campaign's focus on ending corporate welfare, reducing government spending, and protecting the environment aligns with our values and resonates with Colorado voters, the party said.

In a statement, Kennedy Jr. thanked the party and outlined his vision for the nation.

Together, we will win the White House and steadfastly protect the Bill of Rights, the First and Second Amendments, and all the foundational liberties they secure, he said. Our administration will restore free markets, end corporate welfare, stop the money-printing and unwind the war machine it fuels. On day one, I will pardon Edward Snowden, Ross Ulbricht, and all political and corporate whistleblowers who protect our democracy.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado has about 37,000 registered voters, according to recent state data.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will appear on the Colorado ballot under the Libertarian party - Colorado Public Radio