US Presidential Contenders

[Buster's Uncle]

Sir, it's politics, and only dense people -as far too many are- finally realize this year that it's FUBAR.  I do blame Reagan, but not for most people being stupid, only for exploiting it.

Rant, rant away.

[Rusty Edge]

This goes to character more than criminality, but I just learned that the State Department's inspector general position was kept vacant during her tenure.

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There's apparently an occupy the DNC movement afoot with 20K people pledged.

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If Krystal and the NeoCons  field a candidate, well, they will struggle with ballot access, but things could get wide open in some states if the Bernie or Bust people feel cheated and go Green. I don't think either will be on the ballot in every state.

Hillary's best states were The South East, and they'll mostly vote [Sleezebag] anyway, I suspect.

[Sleezebag] is getting a bump in the polls  from clinching his nomination right now. Hillary will get one soon for the same reason, too. They should also get a bump with their conventions. I expect Johnson will get one soon. Whether he can sustain it long enough to get in a debate I have no clue.

Today's news coverage has basically been either continuing to try and ridicule and marginalize Johnson as being a Fringe ( or Libertarian lite, from the purists)  OR saying for those who want a 3rd choice, Johnson is IT and he should be included in the polls and debates. ( mostly major newspapers and magazines ).

[Rusty Edge]

Well, apparently not everybody at Salon has an anti- Libertarian bias-

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/01/could_gary_johnson_end_the_drug_war_libertarian_candidates_presidential_bid_could_put_sane_drug_policy_in_our_grasp/

Wednesday, Jun 1, 2016 10:34 AM CDT

Could Gary Johnson end the drug war? Libertarian candidate’s presidential bid could put sane drug policy in our grasp

A viable Gary Johnson candidacy and his unorthodox view on drug laws could be a game changer
Matthew Rosza

A recent survey found that Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who was just nominated to be the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, does surprisingly well against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald [Sleezebag]. Although his 10 percent is nothing compared to Clinton’s 38 percent and [Sleezebag]’s 35 percent, it’s enough to make his candidacy relevant to our national conversation.

This is where Johnson’s bold and unorthodox view on drug policy could alter the course of American history

Johnson is perhaps best known for his unabashed support for marijuana legalization. Back in 2000, he became the highest ranking American political official to ever call for ending the prohibition against recreational cannabis use; later that same year, Hawaii Governor Benjamin J. Cayetano and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura joined him in calling for the federal government to decriminalize pot and treat drug abuse as a public health issue rather than a crime. In the years since, Johnson has remained boldly iconoclastic on these issues, admitting to The Weekly Standard that he smoked pot from 2005 to 2008 to recover from a paragliding injury and vowing during his 2012 presidential campaign that he would pardon marijuana offenders and “defang” the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

There are good reasons for wanting to cut the DEA down to size. According to drugpolicy.org, America spends $51 billion annually (that’s billion with a ‘b’) in its so-called war on drugs, a program that exists for no other reason than to tell American citizens what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. Nearly 1.3 million people were arrested in 2014 alone merely for possessing contraband substances (83 percent of all drug arrests), more than 600,000 of whom were taken in for marijuana possession (88 percent of all marijuana-related arrests). All of this is occurring as America continues to house the world’s largest prison population, of whom a disproportionate number are African American or Latino (even though, when it comes to drug-related offenses, they are no more likely to use than whites). Not surprisingly, a 2015 Gallup Poll found that 58 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana – the highest number in the survey’s history – with that number rising to 71 percent for 18-to-34 year olds.

Of course, Johnson isn’t simply saying that marijuana should be legalized; he is arguing that, unless a drug user poses a direct risk to others (for example, driving while under the influence), their actions shouldn’t be criminalized at all. The logic here is very similar to that employed in supporting gay marriage (which Johnson does) and a woman’s right to choose (which Johnson also does up to 24 weeks, although as a fiscal conservative he opposes government funding for organizations that perform abortions). While socially conservative Americans have every right to disapprove of recreational drug use, it is profoundly troubling that they are able to use our government to impose their personal moral beliefs on other people… especially considering that, as President Obama admitted last year, the war on drugs has been “very unproductive.”

While there is an inexorable logic of completely legalizing marijuana – Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. have already done so — Clinton and [Sleezebag] haven’t gone nearly as far as Johnson. Characteristically, Donald [Sleezebag] has been deliberately vague about all matters related to drug policy; although he supports medical marijuana, his main criticism of the war on drugs is that “we do such a poor job of policing.” By contrast (and to her credit), Clinton has been much more specific,

advocating rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule II substance (which would allow further research into its health benefits), supporting its use for medical purposes, condemning the wildly disproportionate racial disparities in drug-related arrests and sentencing, and vowing not to interfere with states that have legalized it entirely. That said, she doesn’t support outright legalization of marijuana, and although she supports sentencing reform for other drug-related offenses (in particular singling out the disparity between cocaine powder and crack cocaine), she still backs both the DEA and the underlying policy goals of the war on drugs – one that, notably, her husband’s administration did a great deal to worsen.

Fortunately for drug policy reformers, a viable Johnson candidacy could be a game-changer. Third-party candidates have a long history of supporting ideas that are ultimately picked up and implemented by one or both of the major parties: Two of the most famous examples include the Populist Party in 1892, which introduced American voters to the secret ballot, the direct election of US Senators, banking reform, and the graduated income tax, and the Progressive Party in 1912, which called for the prohibition of child labor, mandatory workplace safety laws, workers’ compensation, and many of the business regulations later implemented by the New Deal. Because the presidential candidates of those parties (General James B. Weaver and former President Theodore Roosevelt, respectively) outperformed most third-party candidacies, future Democratic and Republican candidates saw the practical as well as moral wisdom in adopting their more reasonable policy proposals.

Given that he has already cracked double-digits in early polls, Johnson is in an excellent position to play a comparable role in this election. After all, it isn’t like Clinton and [Sleezebag] aren’t already in considerable trouble. Both of them have higher unfavorability ratings than any major party candidates since the dawn of modern polling, and each has alienated large swathes of their party’s bases in order to become their presumptive nominees. If Johnson continues to poll well and increases his mainstream media exposure, he could pose a simultaneous threat to Clinton from the left (he is more liberal than her on a number of social issues) and [Sleezebag] on the right (he is more conservative than him on a number of economic issues). In order to stave Johnson off, both Clinton and [Sleezebag] will need to peel off his voters by moving closer to his positions… and, as the surveys of public opinion make clear, drug policy is a shoo-in to be one of them.

This is why, although I’m not a libertarian myself, I can’t help but wish Johnson a fare-thee-well in his upcoming presidential bid. His statements about America’s war on drugs have been courageous and ahead-of-the-curve, and we would benefit enormously if they were enacted into public policy. The 2016 presidential election is already a historic one – from Clinton becoming the first major female candidate to [Sleezebag] breaking the GOP establishment’s half-century lock on their party’s nomination process – but that doesn’t mean further history can’t be made here. If Johnson’s campaign is able to pressure our next president into doing the right thing about marijuana specifically, and our war on drugs in general, he will have cemented his place as one of America’s great champions of social justice and personal freedom.

[Rusty Edge]

The buzz today indicates Bill Kristol's cat is out of the bag. Mr. NeoCon wanted to run a NeoCon to keep conservatives from staying home and inadvertently costing the GOP the senate. Reactions range from 'Who?' to "it'll throw the election to Hillary!' to 'he's a fine person'. Personally, I applaud him for getting involved. It's supposed to be government of We the People. Not that I expect he'll make it to the debate stage.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/who-david-french-n583886
Who Is David French and Is He Running for President?

by Jane C. Timm

After a feverish few days of speculation over who conservative "Never [Sleezebag]" activist Bill Kristol was hinting about in a tweet over the weekend boasting of a third-party challenger to Donald [Sleezebag] and Hillary Clinton, the cat is out of the bag: Kristol is courting constitutional lawyer and Weekly Standard writer David French to run for president.

Several sources confirmed to NBC News that French is interested in a bid, but has not yet committed to running or not.

Wait, who?

That's a question a lot of people are asking! French isn't well-known.

He's a constitutional lawyer, conservative thinker, veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a co-author of best-selling book that bills itself as the 'definitive book on ISIS'. His recent Weekly Standard columns range from a "Game of Thrones" recap to railing against the conservative movement's awkward embrace of [Sleezebag] and college activists.

Perhaps the bigger question is can a relatively unknown private citizen mount a presidential bid in five months against one of the most well-known public servants and an internationally-known mogul and reality television star?

Well, does he have a lot of cash? 

Not that we know of, but millionaire and [Sleezebag] critic Mitt Romney has already signaled his interest.

What about his family? 

He's married to Nancy French, a ghostwriter for the Sarah Palin family, and they live in Tennessee with three children.

RELATED: Does Donald [Sleezebag] Need to Worry About a Third-Party Challenger?

They opened up about their marriage in a book, Home and Away, and shared the detailed rulebook they'd followed while he was in Iraq, which banned Nancy's use of Facebook (to avoid "the ghosts of boyfriends past"), phone conversations with men, or "meaningful e-mail exchanges about politics or any other subject."

When his wife began emailing with a colleague about faith, French asked her to end the relationship, writing that "the most intimate conversations a person has are about life and faith" — and that "spiritual and emotional intimacy frequently leads to physical intimacy."

What do they think about all this? 

"He's been trying to get other people to run for a long time, so that's probably why people are considering him, you know, because he's been very adamantly anti-[Sleezebag], or at least Never [Sleezebag], Never Hillary," Nancy French told NBC News on Wednesday.

"So we just want someone to run. I don't know if it'll be him-it'll be quite jolting to our lives if that is the case. But he'd be great. We just don't know if it's the right thing for him to do."

What does he think about Donald [Sleezebag]? 

He's not a fan.

"When I look at [Sleezebag], I see a catastrophe in the making," French wrote in a recent column. "And for that reason - among many others — I cannot in good conscience vote for the instrument of national crisis."

He condemned [Sleezebag] supporters in another column: "While I'm often frustrated by GOP leadership…the idea that we should destroy their influence for the sake of elevating a far more liberal, ignorant, and dishonest human being to the height of American power strikes me as virtually insane. It would be like Lincoln firing his previous commanders and replacing them not with U.S. Grant but with Bill the Butcher."

This story originally appeared on MSNBC.com.

[Rusty Edge]

http://lawnewz.com/uncategorized/bill-weld-im-not-buying-that-clinton-will-be-indicted-not-enough-evidence/

Bill Weld: ‘I’m Not Buying’ That Clinton Will Be Indicted, Not Enough Evidence

by Rachel Stockman | 6:37 pm, May 31st, 2016
 
On MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, former Governor Bill Weld, who is now the vice presidential Libertarian candidate, said he didn’t buy the rumors that Clinton would be indicted. In fact, he said he doesn’t think there is enough evidence to hold her criminally responsible.

“I will give you one news tip,” he said. “All this stuff about Secretary Clinton’s use of email accounts and the report that came out,  how she might get indicted, I’m not buying it. I used to be head of the criminal division of the Justice Department of the United States.” Weld served in that position from 1986 to 1988 and he also served as the United State Attorney in Massachusetts. Weld, a Republican before his affiliation with the Libertarian party, was promoted by President Reagan to the DOJ’s Criminal Division.

Todd pressed Weld on why he wasn’t buying the rumors.

“I’m not buying it, you can’t indict somebody if there is no evidence of intent, and I don’t see it, I don’t see any evidence of criminal intent,” Weld said.

Weld’s analysis is consistent with LawNewz.com founder Dan Abrams’ article earlier this year in which he wrote that there is not enough (as far as we know) to indict Clinton. However, another former DOJ official, Dan Metcalfe, recently penned an opinion piece in which he said it was ‘difficult to imagine’ Clinton not being indicted.

[Rusty Edge]

Here's one about Bill Weld that reveals character with regard to Ed Meese -
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a45382/william-weld-libertarian-ticket/

One of the Republican Party's Last Good Men
William Weld is back for one last hurrah.

By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 1, 2016

Back when I was just starting out at The Boston Phoenix, William Weld was the United States Attorney in Boston. He was tasked with cleaning out the traditional rat's nest of corruption in city and state government, and he was very enthusiastic about his job. He was just the strangest combination of joviality and implacability that I ever encountered.

Once, in 1981, his office brought an extortion case against the president of the Massachusetts Senate, whom Weld charged with shaking down a contractor who'd been consensually paying off the senator for over a decade. (The government's case depended on some arcane point of the extortion statute that I still don't understand.) I sat through the entire trial; I was in the courtroom the day that Ronald Reagan was shot. The judge on the case was as hostile to the government's case as it was possible to be. He did everything but throw rocks from the bench at the prosecutor's table. The jury, which was as baffled as the rest of us were, couldn't come to a verdict. I spoke to Weld in the aftermath and we had a good laugh at the antics of the judge and of some of the witnesses.

Then he tried the guy again and convicted him.

I headed into fulltime sportswriting just as his political star was rising nationally and, when he ran for governor, I voted for him. Twice. I believe he may be the last Republican for whom I ever voted. He was the last of the WASP scions—the descendants of those grim-faced gombeens who scratched a society out of some of the most unforgiving terrain on the continent, the ones who gave up the power in Boston only grudgingly to the immigrant populations that came flooding in during the 19th century, in part because, sooner or later, Trey Eliot Cabot IV fell in love with Maureen, the downstairs maid.

An uneasy peace was struck that mellowed over the years into a culture of friendly insult. Once, at an annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast, the local Hibernian wiseguys jibed at Weld about his family's having come over on the Mayflower. No, Weld told them, his family hadn't made the trip, but they had sent the servants over to make sure the summer cottage was ready.


The last time we ran into each other was at the 2012 Republican convention in Tampa. He reached out and grabbed my arm and we spoke for quite some time. He had long ago fallen out of favor with what the Republican Party had become, and it had fallen out of favor with him. (The last straw was when Jesse Helms, that nasty old bigot, blocked Weld's appointment to be ambassador to Mexico.)

Now, though, he's back, improbably, as Gary Johnson's running mate on the Libertarian ticket. They were on with Lawrence O'Donnell on Tuesday night, and O'Donnell and Weld fell into that old-school Irish-WASP pol-patter in which anyone who's been around Massachusetts politics is fluent.

There always has been a temptation not to take Weld too seriously, because he doesn't take himself too seriously. This is a capital mistake, as is made clear by a little-remembered episode in Weld's career.

In 1988, as Ronald Reagan's term of office was winding down, Attorney General Edwin Meese, a career authoritarian and Reagan's bulldog dating back to their days in California, was caught in a corruption scandal involving his investment adviser and one of his closest friends. (One of the allegations involved the construction of an oil pipeline in Iraq. Plus ca change and all that.) This was one of the last scandals of the Reagan Administration, which had a record of corruption unmatched since the sudden death of Warren Harding.

On March 29, 1988, Weld, who then headed up the DOJ's criminal division, and Deputy Attorney General Arnold Burns marched themselves to the White House and handed their resignations to Howard Baker, then Reagan's chief of staff. No muss. No fuss. Gone.

As The Los Angeles Times wrote at the time:

Burns, who built a thriving New York law practice and joined the department only 18 months ago, first began discussing the possibility of resigning in January, according to department officials. He was said to have become increasingly fearful that he would be tarnished by criticism of Meese's conduct. "He came here with a reputation, and he wants to leave with it intact," one official said of Burns, who has no immediate job plans. As for Weld, he was convinced that "the top guy had to go, and when the top guy didn't, he did," one source said.

Beneath the lopsided grins and the self-deprecation and the occasional glass of what he always called "the amber-colored liquids," Bill Weld is a man of considerable conscience and considerable substance. But he does not brag about any of that because, my dear young man, it simply is…not…done. Both qualities are more than welcome in this particular election year and, if this is really Bill Weld's last hurrah—a reference, I suspect, that would delight him—then I hope he makes the most of it. It's good to have him back.

[Buster's Uncle]

Finally, someone -two in a row since I just got ninja'd- bothers to mention that Weld used to be a Republican - I couldn't recall, and have meant to ask for a week.

-That right there's failing Journalism 101, which I actually took and passed in college; "never assume your readers know anything" is one of the very most basic principals they tell you the first day of class, and in a deluge of stories heavily featuring him not being considered a "real" Libertarian, the failure of so, so, SO many writers to say "former Republican" flunks all of a very large class on a very basic bit of journalistic competence.

[Rusty Edge]

Well, it's kinda what you said months(?) ago , the socially liberal Republicans need to bail out of the GOP and go Libertarian.

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But there is yet another alternative-  More Powerful than The Leader with nukes. Scarier than Kodos.

The Sweet Meteor of Death
https://twitter.com/smod2016

[Rusty Edge]

I think it's remarkable when an opposition party guy can get elected governor, get something done and get re-elected.

Both Johnson and Weld have done that, proving that they can reach across the aisles. To me, a record speaks more loudly than speeches. But that's also why the discontent at the convention- Some think these too are too lite and too late to join the Party. Of course, that faction would rather do away with taxes and government altogether than to make government work better.

I'm sorry I didn't make that clear earlier. Johnson and Weld actually know something about passing budgets with an opposed legislature, so that should'nt be a concern about an upstart party.

[Buster's Uncle]

There's drawbacks to having had a foot in the establishment door, but there's still no substitute for experience and a proven record.

-I was saying the small-gov conservatives don't belong in the same party with the theocons -who are openly foaming-at-the-mouth statists, the very opposite- the day after the 2012 election.  I linked that thread a couple months ago.

[Rusty Edge]

Here's an article that tries to interview Johnson supporters, as opposed to painting Libertarians as lunatic fringe.
It interviews 8 of them ages 18 to 46, from various states. They are educated and articulate. It asks them all "Why are you supporting Johnson?"  & "Can he actually win?" 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/we-asked-gary-johnson-supporters-if-he-can-actually-become-the-next-president-a7057661.html

"

[Dale]

Wait, let me get this straight.........

The two main party's put up a list of candidates, which the people voted on and picked as [Sleezebag] and Hillary (presumed).  Now the party's don't like the two candidates the people have picked and are trying their hardest to get someone else in the job which the people don't know about, or don't care about?

I thought Aussie party politics was delusional!  This is a whole new level of deluded!

[Spacy]

Wait, let me get this straight.........

The two main party's put up a list of candidates, which the people voted on and picked as T rump and Hillary (presumed).  Now the party's don't like the two candidates the people have picked and are trying their hardest to get someone else in the job which the people don't know about, or don't care about?

I thought Aussie party politics was delusional!  This is a whole new level of deluded!

Yep, crazy eh!

[Rusty Edge]

Wait, let me get this straight.........

The two main party's put up a list of candidates, which the people voted on and picked as T rump and Hillary (presumed).  Now the party's don't like the two candidates the people have picked and are trying their hardest to get someone else in the job which the people don't know about, or don't care about?

I thought Aussie party politics was delusional!  This is a whole new level of deluded!

I often wish it's a bad dream as much as you wish it was a joke.

Something like this-

*Obama is popular enough that nobody can beat him, but controversial enough that he has cost his Democratic party seats in the legislature, and governorships.

*Obama and the Republican opposition disagree so much they can't even pass a budget. They fight over everything. This infuriates the public.

* Clinton is the Democratic establishment choice. She had the money and the support all lined up. There are only two problems with that 1) Not everybody in the Democratic Party wants 4 more years of the same, and 2) Senator Bernie Sanders ( an independent who is at heart a Euro-style socialist ) had the audacity to register as a Democrat and challenge her, and he was wildly popular with young people, who fund him with small donations. He can carry on the fight for reform as long as he has support and money. He may be mathematically eliminated, but he essentially claims that's because Clinton sold out to Wall Street investment banks, and used the money to buy the sitting Democrat politicians before any votes were cast.

* On the Republican side, with no heir apparent, there were 15 candidates running, Plus reality TV star and real estate Billionaire Donald [Sleezebag] ( formerly a Democrat and a financial donor to Hillary ). He doesn't know much about issues, but he knows a lot about publicity and psychology and branding. He got a lot of angry white guys who haven't voted in years involved again. He has been able to run on their donations and an estimated $1.6 billion dollars in free publicity. Eventually, the other 15 candidates ran out of money or hope. [Sleezebag] has completed a coup d' ta of the Republican Party.

* So, essentially our two parties haven't evolved, have become gridlocked, and outsiders succeeded in overthrowing the Republicans, but not the Democrats. The two losing factions are frantic and looking for an alternative. The Libertarians think this is their breakthrough year, as the only other party likely to be on the ballot in every state. The Neocons ( Republicans like Bush the lesser, ) despise the choice between Clinton and her former donor, [Sleezebag], and are trying to find anyone to run against them and avoid losing legislative seats and governor's offices by preventing their voters from staying home in disgust.

This was a March poll, but it gives you an idea of it-

"On the Republican side, [Sleezebag] scores a net negative of -33, with a favorable rating of 24% compared to 57% of voters who view him unfavorably. On the Democratic side, Clinton fares only slightly better with a net negative of -21, registering a 31% favorable rating and a 52% unfavorable rating, according to the poll."

But as you say, a whole new level of deluded.

[Unorthodox]

I'm putting in my prediction.  [Sleezebag] is going to win.

Since Ronald Reagan’s first victory, sales of rubber Halloween masks caricaturing the Republican and Democratic candidates have predicted the next president

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6143259/ns/politics/t/can-halloween-masks-predict-poll-outcome/#.V1BkpE32a70 (and that's from 2004, we've since added several more elections to the streak)

Essentially since they started making candidate masks in election years, Halloween mask sales figures have 100% predicted the outcome of presidential elections.

I don't see ANYONE being able to outsell a [Sleezebag] mask.  Period.  He might have outsold both candidates during the last election just on celebrity status.

The industry is banking on it as well.  They've been mass producing [Sleezebag] masks since he announced from several sources.  You can buy them for $2. 

Clinton's masks have also been around a while, hers are more varied and frightening (zombie Clinton exists in many forms) and also more expensive, there is one cheap version being mass produced.  Going for $4. 

Anyone else barely exists.