News Story of the Day: the Libertarian Party is getting some support from the Bernie Sanders camp.
A new poll by Bloomberg found that Gary Johnson and his running mate, Bill Weld, will possibly receive 18 percent of Sanders supporters in the upcoming general election. Perhaps it’s because Johnson has pretty much defined his campaign as all about legalizing marijuana and nothing else.
The survey discovered that 52 percent of Sanders followers will cast a vote for Hillary Clinton, while 22 percent will go to Donald Trump in November.
Despite just winning the nomination, Johnson has been a disaster for the libertarian movement (we will be writing about it in the coming weeks).
Chart of the Day: gold and silver are skyrocketing during the Brexit fallout. The yellow metal has soared above $1,300, while silver is inching towards $18 per ounce. Here is a chart of gold’s performance Friday courtesy of CNBC:
Illustration of the Day: many tourists love Cuba because it’s a snapshot of yesteryear. It’s 2016, but you feel like you’re living in the 1950s. That’s because the country is very poor and socialist so you can’t enjoy many of the luxuries that capitalism and free markets have created since then. Here is a perfect illustration of that via Daniel J. Mitchell:
Quote of the Day: it’s common knowledge in the libertarian community that former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has been inspired by legendary free market economist Murray Rothbard. Since Dr. Paul was around when Rothbard was growing the Austrian Economics brand, one has to wonder what the economist thought of the libertarian hero. During a speech about tax reform, this is what Rothbard told an audience (thanks to the new book “Rothbard Reader” for the quote):
We would then and only then have a tax system that truly, and at long last, fulfilled the proclaimed goals of our flat tax reformers. For here would be a system that would be truly simple, truly fair, and genuinely neutral to the free market. Short of that goal, we could settle temporarily for former Congressman Ron Paul’s (R-TX) interesting variant of the flat tax proposal: reducing all income tax rates to 10 percent, while at the same time keeping all existing deductions, credits, and exemptions. The principle should be clear: to support all reductions in taxes, whether they be by lower rates or widening of exemption and deductions; and to oppose all rate increases or exemption decreases. In short, to seek in every instance to remove the blight of taxation as much as possible. Here is one reform, at least, that could not fall under Mencken’s definition of a plot to injure the American taxpayer.
Video of the Day: what’s good for me isn’t good for you. That’s the line of thinking that politicians maintain. They don’t care about you. They never have and never will. New York Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, who seems to have been in Washington forever, told a reporter this week that those in Congress “deserve” and “need” weapon protection, but his constituents don’t. Yikes. Here’s the two-minute interview:
“Perhaps it’s because Johnson has pretty much defined his campaign as all about legalizing marijuana and nothing else.” This sentence betrays an outrageous ignorance of what Johnson says in interview after interview or else a disturbing dishonestly born of hostility. You really think someone who serves as a popular two-term governor can be a one-issue candidate?
You read my mind.
“Perhaps it’s because Johnson has pretty much defined his campaign as all about legalizing marijuana and nothing else.”
This is a complete bullshit statement. It is the MEDIA that tries to make Johnson’s campaign about marijuana. Libertarians are looking at the big picture, freedom for all choices, all private behavior. Johnson is making his campaign all about RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT and nothing else. The problem is not Johnson, it is YOU. Grow TF Up.
The comment about Gary Johnson’s whole campaign “as being about legalizing marijuana and nothing else” is so flippant and so wrong. Please see the Johnson/Weld website: https://johnsonweld.com/issues page where 12 issues are covered and not one of them is “legalizing marijuana.” I applaud the 18% of the Sanders supporters for having the intelligence and independence to learn about Gary Johnson and not just falling in step behind Clinton.
Please don’t publish crap that is so obviously wrong. If I assigned one of my 10th grade students to write about Gary Johnson and they turned in this mess they would be asked to start over and get the facts straight.
Johnson doesn’t even mention marijuana legalization unless asked about it.