FORTY-SEVEN DEAD AND STILL COUNTING

TO BE A FRIEND OR EVEN JUST TO HAVE A WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON IS TO LIVE DANGEROUSLY.  HERE IS A LIST OF 47 PEOPLE WHO WERE EITHER "FRIENDS" OR ASSOCIATES OR WORKED WITH THE CLINTONS.  ALL ARE DEAD.  SOME WERE MURDERED.  SOME 'COMMITTED SUICIDE.'  SOME DIED UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES.  BUT, ALL ARE DEAD !!!

The Clinton "involuntary assisted suicide" list: 1 - James McDougal - Clinton's convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation. 2 - Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown. The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House. 3 - Vince Foster - Former white House councilor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock's Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide. 4 - Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman who had a serious disagreement with Clinton. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. 5 - C. Victor Raiser II and Montgomery Raiser, Major players in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992. 6 - Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock, September 1992...after a serious disagreement with Clinton. Described by Clinton as a "Dear friend and trusted advisor." 7- Ed Willey - Clinton fund raiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day after his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events. 8 - Jerry Parks - Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock. Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton. He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house. 9 - James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a "Black Book" of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas. Although the book was seen by several persons, it disappeared. 10 - James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He had ties to Whitewater. 11- Kathy Ferguson, ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Kathy Ferguson was a corroborating witness for Paula Jones. 12 - Bill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fiancÈe of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiancÈe, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiancee. There were no powder burns. 13 - Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor. 14 - Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal Mena Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot wounds. 15 - Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death. 16 - Paula Grober - Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9, 1992. She died in a one car accident. She told a friend that Clinton made advances. 17 - Danny Casolaro - Investigative reporter. Investigating Mena Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation. Before his death, he claimed to have found a shattering story involving Clinton. 18 - Paul Wilcher - Attorney investigating corruption at Mena Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993 in his Washington DC apartment. Had delivered a shocking report to Janet Reno three weeks before his death. 19 - Jon Parnell Walker - Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington, Virginia apartment balcony August 15, 1993. He was investigating the Morgan Guarantee scandal. 20 - Barbara Wise - Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce. 21- Charles Meissner - Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash. The plane had been tampered with. 22 - Dr. Stanley Heard - Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee, died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Again, tampering with the plane. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton's advisory council personally treated Clinton's mother, stepfather and brother. 23 - Barry Seal - Drug running pilot out of Mena Arkansas, death was no accident. 24 - Johnny Lawhorn Jr. - Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole. Apparently he was dead before the car hit the pole. 25 - Stanley Huggins - Investigated Madison Guarantee. His death was a purported suicide and his report was never released. 26- Hershell Friday - Attorney and Clinton fund raiser died March 1, 1994 when his plane exploded. This happen two days after an argument with Clinton. 27 - Kevin Ives and Don Henry - Known as "The boys on the track" case. Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation. A controversial case, the initial report of death said, due to falling asleep on railroad tracks. Later reports claim the two boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury. THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE: 28 - Keith Coney - Died when his motorcycle apparently slammed into the back of a truck, July 1988. No one saw the accident and the bike was not damaged. 29 - Keith McMaskle - Died stabbed 113 times, Nov, 1988 30 - Gregory Collins - Died from a gunshot wound January 1989. 31 - Jeff Rhodes - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989. 33 - James Milan - Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to "natural causes." 34 - Jordan Kettleson - Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June 1990. 35 - Richard Winters - A suspect in the Ives / Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989. THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE DEAD: 36 - Major William S. Barkley Jr. 37 - Captain Scott J. Reynolds 38 - Sgt. Brian Hanley 39 - Sgt. Tim Sabel 40 - Major General William Robertson 41 - Col. William Densberger 42 - Col. Robert Kelly 43 - Spec. Gary Rhodes 44 - Steve Willis 45 - Robert Williams 46 - Conway LeBleu 47 - Todd McKeehan All had said to friends that they had seen too much.

NO SUCH LIST COULD EVER BE COMPILED FOR ANY PRESIDENT OR CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE HISTORY OF OUR NATION.
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME ??????? 

TRUMP TWEETS AND HILLARY CACKLES WITH DELIGHT !!!

• Townhall

Hillary's Corruption Is Overwhelming

Ben Shapiro

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Posted: Aug 24, 2016 12:01 AM

After over two decades in the heart of America's spotlight, Hillary Clinton is still an unknown quantity for most Americans. That's thanks to one factor and one factor only: the love and worship of the mainstream media.
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Over the weekend, no less than six terrible stories broke that would have crippled anyone else's campaign. First, we learned that Clinton aide and confidante Huma Abedin acted as assistant editor on the radical Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, where she greenlit pieces that stated that "pushing (mothers) out into the open labor market is a clear demonstration of a lack of respect of womanhood and motherhood," among other things.
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Next, we found out that Clinton had blamed former Secretary of State Colin Powell for giving her the idea to set up a private email server at a dinner party, and that Powell not only denied giving her the idea but also denied ever having a dinner conversation with her on the topic. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who Clinton claimed was present for the conversation, has also denied the story.
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Then we discovered that the Clinton State Department oversaw some $6 billion in mismanagement, fraud and incompetence.
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Meanwhile, it was revealed that Clinton's pay-for-play -- Clinton Foundation donations in exchange for access to the State Department -- ran deeper than originally thought.
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And we learned that the FBI and Justice Department are investigating the Podesta Group -- co-founded by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta -- over its ties with former Ukrainian President and Vladimir Putin ally Viktor Yanukovych.

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Finally, we found out that the FBI uncovered some 15,000 emails that Clinton failed to disclose to the State Department. Presumably, they do not all concern yoga and Chelsea Clinton's wedding plans.
So, what was the media's response to this tidal wave of incompetence and corruption?
They focused on the Trump campaign's internal mess, naturally. That's what they always do.
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And that's why Trump became the Republican nominee.
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The media once painted former Gov. Mitt Romney the way they paint Donald Trump, and they excoriated anyone who dared to ask about President Barack Obama's botched Benghazi policy. They scoffed at Romney's suggestion that Obama's Russian policy had emboldened Moscow. They castigated legislators like former Rep. Michele Bachmann for connecting Huma Abedin to Islamic radicalism via the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.
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By the time Trump came along, the American people had already rejected the media's capacity for truth-telling. So when the media targeted Trump and Trump refused to be cowed by them, many Republicans resonated to Trump's call. They believed that Trump would hit Clinton with all the material the media covered up and ignored.
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So far, that hasn't panned out. Trump's been far too distractible to focus on Clinton. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't. If Trump were to target Clinton, he'd be doing the job Americans thought they elected him to do: exposing the empress who's protected by the media Praetorian Guard.
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If he doesn't, Clinton will become president, scandals and all. The media are still the gatekeepers, and they still have no intention of allowing Clinton to become the story when Trump's tweets can be.

TRUMP IS ABOUT TO BE TRUMPED BY BANNON

I Know Trump's New Campaign Chairman, Steve Bannon. Here's What You Need To Know.

Photo by Danny Moloshok/Invision/AP, File

By:

Ben Shapiro

THE DAILY WIRE 

August 17, 2016

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On Wednesday, the Trump campaign shifted top campaign staff: the new CEO of the campaign is, predictably and hilariously, Steven K. Bannon, the current chairman of Breitbart News. I have a bit of experience with Bannon, given that I was the editor-at-large of Breitbart News for four years, and worked closely with Breitbart and Bannon.
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Here’s what you need to know about Bannon, as well as new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.

1. Steve Bannon Turned Breitbart Into Trump Pravda For His Own Personal Gain. Back in March, I quit Breitbart News when it became clear to me that they had decided that loyalty to Donald Trump outweighed loyalty to their own employees, helping Trump smear one of their own reporters, Michelle Fields, by essentially calling her a liar for saying that she had been grabbed by then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Andrew Breitbart built his life and his career on one mission: fight the bullies. But Andrew’s life mission has been betrayed. Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda…the facts are undeniable: Breitbart News has become precisely the reverse of what Andrew would have wanted. Steve Bannon and those who follow his lead should be ashamed of themselves.

Not to say "I told you so," but I did tell you so.
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2. Bannon Uses Celebrity Conservatives To Elevate His Personal Profile. Bannon began receiving conservative media attention for his documentary Generation Zero. And he began elevating his profile by latching onto Michele Bachmann with his documentary Fire From The Heartland. But he truly insinuated himself into the circles of conservative power by making a 2011 documentary about Sarah Palin, The Undefeated. His connection with Palin upped his brand in the movement significantly. He soon began appearing on Fox News with Sean Hannity fairly regularly, became personal friends with Hannity, and met Andrew Breitbart. He insinuated himself into Breitbart’s business by lending him office space, then made a documentary starring Breitbart, Occupy Unmasked. When Breitbart died, his business partner Larry Solov offered Bannon chairmanship of the company. Bannon then turned Breitbart into his personal domain, making himself a regularly bylined columnist (certainly rare for a major media company) and installing himself as a radio host on Breitbart Radio on Sirius XM. Finally, he used his role as Breitbart CEO to turn the outlet into Trump Pravda, creating a stepping stone to close connection with Trump. Breitbart publicly burned bridges with everyone to maintain its Trump loyalty. That was Bannon, a scorched-earth personal opportunist.
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3. Bannon Took At Least One Major Breitbart Investor For A Serious Ride. One of the main investors in Breitbart News is Robert Mercer. The Mercer family put millions of dollars into a Ted Cruz super PAC during this election cycle, even as Bannon manipulated Breitbart News into a Cruz-bashing Trump propaganda outlet. The spokesperson for the Mercer family was Kellyanne Conway, who has now been installed as Trump’s campaign manager. I have been reliably informed by sources associated with the pro-Cruz super PAC that for months, as Bannon was using Breitbart News to promote Trump, the Mercers were defending Bannon’s neutrality to other Cruz supporters worried about Breitbart’s dishonest coverage about Cruz.
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4. Breitbart’s Staff Lusts After Trump Involvement. Long before the billionaire officially entered the presidential race, Bannon was close to him; in April 2014, the Trump offices described Bannon thusly: “MAJOR SUPPORTER OF MR. TRUMP.” The new team at Trump headquarters will undoubtedly include all the Breitbart staffers who openly lusted after power within the Trump campaign: Joel Pollak, the Breitbart lawyer who desperately wanted to be a Trump speechwriter, and wrote a disgusting hit piece about me personally when I left and accurately accused the website of becoming an adjunct to the campaign; Matthew Boyle, the pseudo-journalist who reportedly bragged about becoming Trump’s press secretary; Milo Yiannopoulos, the Trump-worshipping alt-right droog stooge. They’re all in with their Godking, now.
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5. Under Bannon’s Leadership, Breitbart Openly Embraced The White Supremacist Alt-Right. Andrew Breitbart despised racism. Truly despised it. He used to brag regularly about helping to integrate his fraternity at Tulane University. He insisted that racial stories be treated with special care to avoid even the whiff of racism. With Bannon embracing Trump, all that changed. Now Breitbart has become the alt-right go-to website, with Yiannopoulos pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers.
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6. This Is Precisely The Sort of Corrupt Media Relationship Breitbart Used To Abhor. Andrew Breitbart used his memoir, Righteous Indignation, to target one thing above all else: what he called the Democrat-Media Complex. He hated the merger of the Democrats and the media, and particularly despised their lie of objectivity. Breitbart News never claimed to be objective. But until Trump won the nomination, leadership at Breitbart News maintained that they had not become a loudspeaker for Trumpism. That was obviously a lie, and one Breitbart would hate. HATE. Now, it’s clear that Breitbart News is indeed Bannon.com and Trumpbart News. That’s pathetic and disgusting.
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7. Trump’s Campaign Strategy Could Be The Launch Of A New Media Outlet. Because Bannon’s ambitions extend to Steve Bannon, he’ll tell Trump he’s doing a fantastic job even if he isn’t. That’s how Bannon Svengalis political figures and investors – by investing them in his personal genius, then hollowing them out from the inside. There’s a reason Sarah Palin went from legitimate political figure to parody artist to Trump endorser, with Steve Bannon standing alongside her every step of the way. There’s a reason Breitbart News went from hard-charging news outlet to drooling Trump mouthpiece. Bannon emerges from all of this unscathed. So what’s next on his agenda? If Trump wins, he’s in a position of high power; if Trump loses, Bannon could head up a new media empire with Trump’s support and the involvement of new Trump supporter and ousted former Fox News head Roger Ailes. Look for Sean Hannity to be a part of any such endeavor.
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8. Bannon Is A Legitimately Sinister Figure. Many former employees of Breitbart News are afraid of Steve Bannon. He is a vindictive, nasty figure, infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies. Bannon is a smarter version of Trump: he’s an aggressive self-promoter who name-drops to heighten his profile and woo bigger names, and then uses those bigger names as stepping stools to his next destination. Trump may be his final destination. Or it may not. He will attempt to ruin anyone who impedes his unending ambition, and he will use anyone bigger than he is – for example, Donald Trump – to get where he wants to go. Bannon knows that in the game of thrones, you win or die. And he certainly doesn’t intend to die. He’ll kill everyone else before he goes.
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Bannon’s ascension is the predictable consummation of a romance he ardently pursued. I joked with friends months ago that by the end of the campaign, Steve Bannon would be running Trump’s campaign from a bunker. That’s now reality. Every nightmare for actual conservatives has come true in this campaign. Why not this one, too?

SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T WIN FOR LOSING !!!

Why Is The Most Corrupt Candidate In History Winning Big?

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

By:

Ben Shapiro

August 15, 2016

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The most corrupt candidate in the history of the presidency, Hillary Clinton, is cruising toward victory. If the election were held today, she’d win in excess of 360 electoral votes. She’s currently leading in Pennsylvania (+9.2 percent), Michigan (+6.6 percent), Ohio (+2.6 percent), Virginia (+8 percent), New Hampshire (+8.2 percent), Georgia (+0.3 percent), Florida (+3.6 percent), Iowa (+0.4 percent), Wisconsin (+9.4 percent), Colorado (+11 percent), North Carolina (+2 percent), Nevada (+2.3 percent). Trump’s barely ahead in Arizona (+0.3 percent) and Missouri (+5.3 percent).
How in the world is she winning?

In the last three months, the head of the FBI has said she was “extremely careless” with classified material and came whisker-close to indicting her. Every day, new headlines break about the cozy and likely illegal relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. She’s unlikable, she’s nasty, and she’s boring.

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How can she be blowing out anyone, even Donald Trump?
The answer lies in what economist George Gilder might call the “information theory” of politics. Gilder says that the economy runs on new information changing the equilibrium. In essence, there is a steady drone of old information in the economy – and that’s what creates an economic status quo. Both entrepreneurial successes and devastating depressions add new information to the economy, which is why you see movement in the markets.
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But old information doesn’t change anything.
This is the problem with Hillary: she doesn’t add any new information to the system. We already knew Hillary was deeply corrupt from her time in the White House. From Whitewater to Chinagate, from Travelgate to leading up the coverup for Bill’s sexual harrassments, Hillary’s corruption has been top of mind for well over two decades.

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And her threats to national security have been well known for years, too. In 1996, the Clinton campaign allegedly took Chinese donations in return for declassifying sensitive missile technology, which the Chinese then used for their weaponry. So it’s no surprise to find out that she’d willingly sell access to foreign nations in return for donations to the Clinton Foundation slush fund.
In other words, she’s been so dirty for so long that it’s almost impossible to add new information to the system. All she has to do is continue to be the same old kind of dirty we already knew she was, and she’ll waltz her way to the White House.
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Trump promised to expose Hillary to criticism she’d never felt before, but he hasn’t done it. Instead, Trump has provided new information to the system every day. While we’ve known Trump for as long (longer!) than Hillary, we didn’t know him on a political level in any serious way. We knew him as an entertaining business magnate and personal branding specialist. But nobody had any real perspective on his view of disabled reporters and Mexican judges. While Hillary refuses to add any new information to the system, Trump’s adding new information every day. That’s why Hillary’s campaign continues to maintain stability while Trump’s seems to bump up and down, nearly at random.
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This means that if Trump wants to win, he’ll have to somehow reverse that polarity. He’ll have to force Hillary off her game – he’ll have to give us new information, a new angle about her. We already knew Hillary was Crooked Hillary; labeling her that doesn’t change the background noise. And we didn’t know that Trump was as volatile as he’s proven to be.
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Trump needs to stabilize, of course. And then he needs to punch at Hillary, expose information about her most people don’t know. That’s tougher than it looks. We now live in an era where politicians benefit from surviving years of corruption – it makes them seem stable by comparison with newbies who make lots of mistakes and commit lots of sins. That’s Hillary’s major advantage, even more than the media that licks her boots. And that’s the advantage Trump will have to overcome.
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Tags

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton

THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY FLUNKS POLITICS 101

• 2016

Libertarians Are Blowing The Opportunity Of The Century

This is the one year I'm considering voting for the Libertarians. Too bad Gary Johnson and Bill Weld are blowing it.

 

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By Robert Tracinski

August 15, 2016

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This is the one year I am vaguely considering voting for the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson. I’m sure I’m not the only regular Republican voter to do so. Too bad Gary Johnson and his running mate Bill Weld are kind of blowing it.
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I normally wouldn’t vote Libertarian because they’re a small splinter party with no hope of winning and have no real impact on the election, and because, as a result of being a small splinter party, they tend to attract a lot of crackpots and repel the best political talent. (Libertarians with real political prospects, like Rand Paul or my own congressman, Dave Brat, bolt for the Republican Party when they can.) Then there’s the Libertarians’ dogmatically anti-interventionist foreign policy, complete with Ron-Paul-style rhetoric about how we were asking for 9/11. That is not exactly what you want to hear from the commander-in-chief.

 

But the offerings this year from the two big parties are so dreadfully bad, so clearly below the minimum level of acceptability, that I am willing to cast about for alternatives. It’s highly unlikely the Libertarian candidate could win outright, particularly in a year when the political Right is badly divided. There’s a slightly less slim hope that he could get enough electoral votes to throw the election to the House of Representatives and prevail there with the support of disgruntled anti-Trump Republicans. But at the very least, a Libertarian candidate who gets 20 percent or 25 percent of the vote, or more, would serve as an effective way to register a protest vote against both of the major parties, rob the actual winner of any kind of mandate, and give those of us who just can’t bring ourselves to pull the lever for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton a way to vote our conscience.

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All the Libertarian Party had to do was to put forward a candidate who could take relatively sane and defensible positions, particularly on the kinds of issues—like civil liberties and free markets—where you can usually expect a prominent Libertarian to think clearly and take a position in line with a commitment to liberty. Because that’s kind of what the Libertarian Party exists for, right?

Yes, well, those of us who have followed the Libertarian Party over the years know they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. So it’s no surprise that Johnson and Weld are doing their best to drive us away—and they’re doing it by not even being good at being Libertarians.

Johnson badly flubbed a question about religious liberty, for the second time, coming out in favor the state’s right to coerce you into compliance with its notion of what your religious values ought to be. He wrapped up by declaring, “I just see religious freedom, as a category, as just being a black hole.” This sort of thing is Libertarianism 101, and Johnson just flunked it.

 

 

Then in the past few days, we got Weld sounding like a Massachusetts liberal on gun control (which he basically is), making hysterical claims about imaginary gun parts like “clips” and “pins” and calling the AR-15 a “weapon of mass destruction.”

Again, this is Libertarianism 101.

Libertarians Are Basically Flower Children

So what went wrong? Actually, none of this comes out of the blue, and it reflects a basic problem with the libertarian movement going back to the beginning.

When the Libertarian Party was first formed in 1971, the free-market firebrand Ayn Rand dismissed them as “hippies of the right,” and there was definitely something to that. While some libertarians saw themselves as taking inspiration from Rand’s political ideas, there was also a large strain in the movement that saw itself as ideologically and culturally aligned with the Left, as an offshoot of the counterculture. Libertarianism wasn’t about reasserting an American tradition of liberty and constitutionally limited government. It was about smashing the system, man.

Did you notice how, in the last election, Ron Paul kept billing his campaign as the “Ron Paul Revolution,” with the “evol” flipped backward so it read “LOVE”?

This was pure hippie flower-child nostalgia.

That’s why the Libertarians have been wasting so much effort in this election trying to appeal to disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters by railing against social conservatives and the military-industrial complex and a whole bunch of other lefty bogey-men. They cling to the illusion that they can convert a bunch of utopian socialists to libertarianism, if only they make clear that they’re opposed to religious nuts discriminating against gays, and that they don’t like guns. That, and the part about being allowed to smoke pot

Meanwhile, they’re letting the political opportunity of a century pass them by. A sizeable chunk of the Republican Party is there for the taking. They may not agree with the Libertarians on everything, but they would be open to a ticket that can emphasize areas of agreement on a few core issues, while presenting themselves as the sane and normal alternative in this insane election year. You know how, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king? This is the year when just being minimally acceptable is enough to snap up millions of grateful voters. It could also be done without having to compromise actual pro-liberty principles, for example, by actually defending religious liberty and Second Amendment rights.

Even on foreign policy, a candidate who presented himself as skeptical about overseas intervention but not eager to blame America first—the kind of balancing act Rand Paul has been working on—could, in this year, seem a reasonable alternative even to the hawks.

This is an opportunity that any sensible, pro-free-market libertarian should be able to run away with. But in a year when Republicans have chosen a candidate who is indifferent to their own party’s ideological roots, Libertarians have allowed themselves to be held back by their ideological history. They just have not been able to bring themselves to change course to meet the requirements of this unprecedented political moment.
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They haven’t missed this opportunity to miss an opportunity.

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Follow Robert on Twitter.

Related

Libertarians Have A Chance To Make Some Noise. But Not With These CandidatesMay 20, 2016In "2016"

Libertarians Could Appeal To Social Conservatives. They Just Don't Want ToJune 3, 2016In "2016"

The Libertarian Moment Can't Just Be A MomentAugust 13, 2014In "Politics"

2016 Bill Weld Donald Trump Gary Johnson Libertarian Party libertarianism Rand Paul Religious Liberty Republican Party Ron Paul Second Amendment William Weld

"TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE" SIGNED BY DONALD TRUMP AND PAUL MANAFORT

15 August 16       HOW RUSSIA TOOK OVER THE GOP: One of the more remarkable aspects of the level of Russian activity in support of Donald Trump during the primary was how unwilling anyone was to talk about it openly. It was dismissed as conspiratorial craziness in so many corners that very few serious journalists seemed willing to engage in the idea, or to do the basic research required to reveal that something was very definitely off about the social media surrounding Trump – something that seemed very much in common with the way Russia has leveraged social media propaganda in other instances.  The comparisons between their activity in favor of Trump and particularly in the methods used to target critics were clear, and the language barrier that created the hackneyed form of English used in their posts was easy to spot. But for some odd reason, this was never really investigated until after Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee. Odd, that. But then, as with so many other troublesome aspects of Trump, what was clear in January didn’t become a story until August. http://vlt.tc/2ieh The conversation about Paul Manafort’s ties to the dark side of political activity has finally begun. http://vlt.tc/2iee  “On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office used for years by Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for Ukraine’s ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still there as recently as May. “And Mr. Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. “Handwritten ledgers show 12.7 million dollars in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. “In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies that helped members of Mr. Yanukovych’s inner circle finance their lavish lifestyles, including a palatial presidential residence with a private zoo, golf course and tennis court. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin. “Mr. Manafort’s involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign — from Mr. Trump’s favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea, to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats’ emails — an examination of Mr. Manafort’s activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev. “Anti-corruption officials there say the payments earmarked for Mr. Manafort, previously unreported, are a focus of their investigation, though they have yet to determine if he actually received the cash. While Mr. Manafort is not a target in the separate inquiry of offshore activities, prosecutors say he must have realized the implications of his financial dealings.” Corey Lewandowski eagerly retweeted the link to the New York Times story, the better to get back in the good graces of his former master. http://vlt.tc/2ief The fact that reports like this are only coming now supports those analysts who claim Vladimir Putin has already won our election. http://vlt.tc/2ie0  “Alarming evidence of how deep the Kremlin’s got its tentacles in Washington mounts by the day. Large-scale hacking by Russian cyber-warriors didn’t just hit the Democratic National Committee, it stole emails from a wide array of top power-players, including the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO’s military boss. “Systematic Russian cyber-attacks on the DNC and related political targets in Washington were detected over a year ago by the National Security Agency, which monitors foreign cyber shenanigans, but the highly classified nature of this intelligence made it difficult to alert Congress about Kremlin espionage. That the Russians stood behind this operation, using well-known hacking cut-outs, was established early by NSA. “It was the Kremlin, we had them cold,” explained an NSA official with direct knowledge of the case: “Moscow didn’t care we knew, they were unusually brazen.” Because, in a way, it only helps them for some members of the public to know what they did, and remain aghast that they were able to do it so easily. ---