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Lincoln Chafee Says he is Open to Seeking the Libertarian Presidential Nomination — 82 Comments

  2. How many 2019-2020 RED communist Donkey $$$ for LP Prez candidates ???

    How many 2019-2020 BLACK fascist Elephant $$$ for Green Prez candidates ???

    Both $$$ for NOV 2020 DIVIDE AND CONQUER MATH.

    WORKED IN 2016 – BOTH D AND R UNDER 50.0 PERCENT — NOW WITH PENDING CIVIL WAR II.

  3. I would welcome him into the race and the debates for the nomination. I wouldn’t vote for him for the nomination but I welcome anyone to come in and join us. The more choices for our delegates the better to get the best candidate we can.

  4. LOL! This is so predictable. Now the usual suspects, as in the same people who pushed fake “libertarians” like Bob Barr, Wayne Root, Gary Johnson, Bill Weld, etc… on us will get behind Lincoln Chaffee, and they will claim that he’s a real libertarian, or that he’s “moving in a libertarian direction,” and that we should nominate him because of his “Shiney Badge” credentials as a former elected official from the major parties, and that he will take the Libertarian Party to the next level. He will then be given speaking spots at all the state conventions, and he’ll interact with party members and pretend to be “one of us,” and he’ll be given interviews with Reason Magazine, and may even show up at a Cato Institute event. He’ll also be granted interviews on the CIA Fake News Network, err, um, I mean CNN, and Fox News, etc… He’ll probably get an interview with Glenn Beck, and Glenn Beck will proclaim that Lincoln Chaffee is a true libertarian. Then the usual suspects in the Libertarian Party will say that anyone who is not supporting Lincoln Chaffee, as in anyone who thinks that the Libertarian Party should run actual libertarian Libertarians for office, instead of running LINOs (Libertarians In Name Only), is an extremist who does not really want the party to get ahead. The usual suspects in the LP will assist Lincoln Chaffee in flooding the convention with delegates, and many of these delegates will be people who are only joining the LP to vote for Chaffee and whatever fake “libertarian” “Shiney Badge” candudate they pick to be his VP running mate. The Chaffee campaign will hire mainstream Republican and/or Democrat campaign consultants to run his campaign, and they will charge an outrageous amount of money, but we will be told that they are “professionals” who will take the LP to new heights. Big promises will be made prior to and at the convention about tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of dollars that will be raised, and how some of this big money will go to LP National and to the state parties, and about how the LP will get a record number of votes, and how the party will smash the 5% vote total, which will get tge LP ballot access nationally (which is not true), and will get the LP $90 million plus dollars in matching funds for the next election, which the non-libertarian mercenary consultants, and other con-artists and hucksters in the LP will be salivating over. Then Chaffee and “Shiney Badge” fake “Libertarian” running mate will win the nomination, run a campaign where they throw libertarian principles under the bus, waste lots of donor money (while enriching their non-libertarian mercenary consultants), and make the Libertarian Party look like unprincipled idiots for having nominated them, and they will under-perform in the election, and their campaign will leave no real growth for the Libertarian Party and movement, and whatever votes they received will be mostly protest votes from those who did not like the major party candidates. Post election, the usual suspects will engage in “chest pounding” over how great the Chaffee for President campaign was, and they will exaggerate its accomplishments and downplay its shortcomings. Chaffee and his fellow “Shiney Badge” LINO will talk about how they are going to stay with the LP for life, but they will end up going back to the Republican or Democratic party, and go back to supporting mainstream Republican or Democrat candidates. The non-libertarian mercenary consultants who worked on their campaign will also disappear from the LP, along with all of the loot they conned from donors.

    No thanks, we have already experienced this scenario before, in TBE last three presidential elections. How about the Libertarian Party go back to nominating actual libertarian Libertarians to be on its presidential tickets again. The heck with the LINOs, even if they have “Shiney Badges” and make bug promises.

  5. Andy –
    Perhaps have a fill-in-the-blanks history form for the Donkey/Elephant SPIES / AGENTS wanting to be LP Prez/VP candidates ???
    —

    What did the Donkey/Elephant re-treads [SPIES / AGENTS] do for deception before the LP and Greens ???

  8. “How many 2019-2020 RED communist Donkey $$$ for LP Prez candidates ???”

    Try tracking down even one penny. It’s not happening. Nor should it, given that the LP vote has zero impact one way or the other on the D/R balance on average. Where the LP actually gets money for ballot access is public record. It’s from LP members, almost all in small donations from people who are not wealthy.

  9. “WORKED IN 2016 – BOTH D AND R UNDER 50.0 PERCENT”

    What worked, the lack of any contributions from Democrats and Republicans to Libertarian and Green ballot access? Or the Ds and Rs nominating the worst candidates seeking their respective nominations, yet somehow getting a majority of the people who bothered to vote anyway to vote for one or the other? In a world not ruled by fear, hatred and venality, Trump and Clinton would not have come in first or second.

  11. Well, yeah, we knew this was coming. I mainly like this guy because he has a cool sounding name. And so does Howie Hawkins.

  12. EN –

    The OLIGARCH extremists in all parties at the party hack national conventions do the actual nominations of the Prez/VP candidates.

    Rank the convention hacks as being more/less *representative* of average party members of each party.

    Extremist / UN-representative Prez/VP nominees are no surprise.

    Same in caucuses and primaries.

    —
    NOOOO primaries, caucuses and conventions.

    EQUAL ballot access- nom pets / filing fees.

    PR and Appv and TOTSOP

  14. Official primaries came along in 1888-1890 due to the dictatorship caucuses and conventions.

    If ANY of the larger parties were *democratic* their USA Prez/VP candidates would be chosen DIRECTLY by the party’s members — ie in a USA national primary — NO caucuses/conventions.

    Platform stuff can be done by party members via snail mail / email — in advance of any such national primary.

  15. “Me” When I said that he wasn’t running. As of today Chaffee still isn’t running. Being open to running is not a campaign announcement. If Lincoln Chaffee decides to run for the LP Presidential nomination then I will not support him. Let him run for Senate or Congress. Only after Chaffee has been active in the LP for several years will I even begin to consider him as a possible Presidential nominee.

  16. “Andy” Calling CNN the CIA Fake News Network is nonsense.

    Gary Johnson’s Presidential campaign was the most successful Libertarian Presidential campaign in the history of the Libertarian party. Over 4 million votes. Almost 4% of the total vote. No other Libertarian party Presidential candidate has come close to Johnson’s results.

    Hopefully whomever is the LP nominee will build on that foundation.

  17. Correction on Gary Johnson’s percentage of the vote. 3.28% instead of almost 4%. This is still a higher percentage than any other Libertarian Presidential candidate.

  18. Robert, I disagree that Johnson’s campaign was successful. Sure, they got a lot of votes, relatively speaking, and by LP standards (which are pretty low), but it should be pointed out that Johnson ran under the most favorable set of circumstances in which the LP had ever participated in a presidential election, with there having been a record level of disgust with the major party candidates, and with no higher profile and/or better funded minor party or independent ticket in the race (no John Anderson or Ross Perot or Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan or etc…), and none of the ones that were in the race appeared on as Manu ballots. The circumstances under which Johnson ran were so favorable, that he actually under-performed in vote totals if anything. Also, it should be pointed out that the Johnson campaigned severely watered down, and in multiple cases ran against, the Libertarian Party’s platform. I am not saying that every candidate has to run the most radically libertarian campaign as possible, but every candidate should ran on a platform that is at least fairly strong libertarian, and candidates should not run against multiple platform planks, as was especially done by Johnson/Weld 2016. Getting votes as a Libertarian Party candidates is meaningless if a candidates severely waters down, and outright runs against the party’s platform, and the party’s overall philosophy, to the point where many, including those outside the party, questioned whether Johnson/Weld was even really a libertarian campaign. If getting votes for the sake of getting votes is all that matters, then the Libertarian Party should run Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz for President. Who cares if neither of them are really libertarians, they would both get a lot of votes, more than Johnson got quite likely, and getting votes is all that matters, right? Johnson/Weld also came off as unprepared goofballs in interviews, and they also gushed over one of their opponents, Hillary Clinton, going so far as calling her a “wonderful public servant,” which is something that no actual libertarian would say. Why did they do this? Because Johnson/Weld were (are) a couple of charlatans who were (are) not really libertarians. Bill Weld is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (aka-the CFR), of which Hillary Clinton is also a member, and he’s also buddies with Robert Mueller. Johnson/Weld was a Deep State sabotage operation meant to turn the LP into “controlled opposition,” and also to go after the Donald Trump campaign while playing “kid gloves” with the Hillary Clinton campaign. This is not to say that Trump is a libertarian or a constitutionalist, or some kind of great savior, as he is not really any of those things, but he is less tied to the Deep State, as in the intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, etc…), and the “rountable” controller groups (the CFR, the Bilderberg Group), than any President has been in several decades. This made Trump a bit more of a “wild card” for the Deep State than this country has had in quite awhile. They want presidents who are tightly controlled, and the Deep State felt that they did not have as much control over Trump as they would like to have over a President. They want the President to go lockstep with their New World Order agenda. The Deep State does not want any “wildcards,” and even though Trump is not really a good guy, they felt that he is too much of a “wildcard” for their taste. So what we are really seeing here is different factions of the New World Order battling for control over Slavery Inc. Now as this relates to the Libertarian Party in 2016, its presidential ticket was essentially hijacked (and I would say the same about the 2012 and 2008 LP presidential tickets) in order to turn the party’s presidential ticket into “controlled oppozition,” and in 2016, the ticket was also being used to attack Trump, who had less Deep State ties than Hillary Clinton, while “playing nice” with Hillary Clinton, who had stronger ties to the Deep State than Trump. It is a common subversion tactic to jump in front of and/or infiltrate a movement that the government sees as a threat, or a potential threat, and to co-opt it, and steer it in a direction that renders it ineffective. It is not in the best interest of the government, or more specifically, the Deep State, for there to be a strong Libertarian Party that puts out bold libertarian proposals, like abolishing the Federal Reserve System and fiat currency (allow currency competition between gold,
    silver, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Monero, etc…), ending the income tax and replacing it with nothing, repealing all gun control laws, withdrawing from the United Nations and bringing all American troops home and taking a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy, completely eliminating/phasing out all government welfare programs, and to stop prosecuting victimless crimes, and re-Institute fully informed jury trials and jury nullification. These are “dangerous ideas” that the government does not want spreading, hence the need to hijack and subvert the LP’s presidential ticket.

  19. Andy- I hope you read Chuck Baldwin’s columns. He doesn’t seem to think Trump is any threat to the “Deep State”.

  20. DEEP STATE SINCE OCT 1929 – START OF 1929-1941 GREAT DEPRESSION I — BASED IN PART ON THE SUPER-STATIST PREZ WILSON REGIME IN 1913-1921.

    ALMOST ALL PRE-1929 ADULT FOLKS GONE BY 1992 – CLINTON I 43 PCT MINORITY RULE PREZ –

    DUE TO PEROT.

    ALL PUNK FLIPPANT PREZS SINCE SUCH 1992 – CLINTON I, BUSH II, OBAMA, TRUMP
    — BASIC NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY WITH THE LATTER 3 — NOW ABOUT $$$ 40 [REPEAT 40] TRILLION IN ALL GOVT DEBTS – USA/STATES/LOCALS.
    —
    RED CNN = RED COMMUNIST/COLLECTIVIST NEWS NETWORK ???
    —
    PR AND APPV AND TOTSOP

  22. I do sometimes read Chuck Baldwin’s columns, and I agree with most of what he says, and I do agree that at the end of the day, Donald Trump is still an establishment politician. The fact remains that Trump was not connected to the intellugence agencies (CIA, FBI, etc…), nor was he a member of the CFR, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Order of Skull and Bones, etc… He is more on the outter layers of the ruling establishment, as in he is less of an insider, as are say the Clintons or the Bush family. Trump is still a part of the establishment, and he’s obviously in bed with Israel, so it is not like he’s a true anti-establishment guy. If Trump was really for real, he’d be ralleying against the Federal Reserve System, promoting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies instead of attacking them, and doing other things I described above. Trump has said a few of the right things, and it is possible that he may be slowing down the destruction of the country as compared to what a President Hillary Clinton would have done (as in Hillary may have driven us toward a cliff at 100 mph, while maybe Trump is driving us toward the cliff at 85 mph), but even on those things Trump has been more talk than action. I have to wonder if Trump was installed as President with the intention of passifying the mostly white middle class. Many of them have been duped into believing that Trump is really going to “Make America Grear Again,” but meanwhile, government continues to grow bigger and bigger, and Trump has done little to nothing to address the underlying problems. Donald Trump, at the end of the day, could be just another actor, playing the role of President of the United States of America.

  23. Andy website / TV show / columnist NOW !!! — NOOO shortage of words.

    Govt = STATIST Control FREAKS — due to primaries, caucuses, conventions and minority rule gerrymander systems and major violations of Separation of Powers.

  24. Andy, Gary Johnson’s Presidential campaigns were both successful for the Libertarian Party. I know you won’t accept that. But they were.

  25. “Andy” It is absolutely false that the 2016 Presidential election was one of the most favored opppertunities for a third party candidacy. Mr. Winger has pointed out on this very site that all third parties had the worst showing in 2016 then they had in over 100 years. You may have thought that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were horrible unthinkable candidates, but that is not the way the vast majority of voters thought of those two. 2016 was one of the most unfavorable years for a third party and Gary Johnson still achieved more than any Libertarian Presidential campaign in Libertarian party history.

  26. “Andy” There is no such thing as a Deep State. There are entreched bureaucrats who jealously guard their privileges. But they are not working together in any organized way.

    There is no conspiracy from the CFR, Bildebergers, or other groups. There is nothing nefarious about being a member of those groups.

  28. I think a solid argument can be made that it was the very applicability of both Hillary and Trump that made it harder for third parties to break through (that and increasing tribalism in politics). A voter may have initially concluded (correctly in my view) that they were both awful, and that may have led that voter to consider, say, Johnson or Stein. However, as soon as one of those two (doesn’t matter which) shows himself or herself to be more despicable than the other (in the voter’s eyes), that voter starts to have second thoughts, and that’s where the lesser of two evils starts to kick in. In order to vote third party under those circumstances (with two despicable candidates running against each other), you have to conclude, as I did, that you despised them both — and that you despised them both immensely, viscerally, and (most importantly) equally.

    I think better conditions for a third party candidate are if there is a specific issue or specific voter demographic that the two so-called major parties aren’t appealing to. I believe those conditions were present in the more successful third party candidacies of George Wallace and Ross Perot.

    Under those circumstances, I think Johnson accomplishing 3.28% and Stein accomplishing 1.06% were pretty good showings. Could Johnson had done better? Yes, I think so. Aside from his verbal faults, I think two things in particular held his totals down — the concerted (and in my view, inexplicable) attacks he received from Hillary’s cronies (Paul Krugman is a good example, and a complete idiot in my view), and Weld seeming to endorse Hillary in the waning days of the campaign.

  29. Correction: “applicability” in the first sentence of my post above is a typo. It should read, “despicability.”

  30. It depends on how one defines success. If you define success as just getting votes for the sake of votes, sure, by this measure the Johnson campaigns had some success. However, if you define success as spreading a strong libertarian message, and inspiring morepeopke to become hardcore libertarians, and building the Libertarian Party and movement, the Johnson campaigns were a failure.

  32. Andy and Robert,

    If the goal was to produce rigorously ideological libertarians then Johnson/Weld did not do that. I’m not entirely sure what the goals of the Johnson campaign were but in my view a LP presidential campaign should seek to popularize the party, increase it’s visibility, and increase it’s recognition status while maintaining a libertarian message, even if it is watered down. While there is certainly plenty to criticize, there also seems to me to be a great deal to praise.

    However, I think Robert was in error in describing 2016 as a particularly difficult year for alternative parties. Richard Winger has said that 2018 was among the bleakest in terms of such results. That’s not to say that 2016 was as much of a missed opportunity as Andy thinks it is. My view is that it is difficult to deny that Johnson was a tremendous success compared to all preceding LP presidential nominees but that we have yet to see a campaign take a serious practical political approach.

  33. Gary Johnson did so poorly because he was a terrible candidate. A real libertarian should have had at least 5% running against Trump and Clinton, as they are the two worst candidates in modern history.

    Of course, Robert Stock is a fake libertarian, so it doesn’t matter to him. If Chafee wins the nomination, Stock will vote for him. If they nominate Ted Cruz, or John Kasich, or Jeb Bush, or any other fake, Stock will still vote for them

  34. RKS –

    Deep State = part of the GOVT NET LOOTERS groups — getting more $$$ FROM govts than they pay in $$$ taxes TO govts.

    GOVT NET LOOTERS 5 sub gangs — elected officers / appointed officers-employees / biz contractors / creditors [interest] / welfare — now getting 30-40 pct of GDP in USA ??? [WORSE IN MANY FORN REGIMES].

    ZERO new in 6,000 plus years – LOOT-LOOT-LOOT THE TAX/ACTUAL SLAVES MORE AND MORE to Foreign/Civil WAR/REVOLT — destruction of regime.

    See recent DEAD empires – British, French, German, Russian, Ottoman, etc etc etc. – plus zillion earlier DEAD REGIMES – many with TOTAL destruction >>> NOOOO records – revolts killed ALL connected to regimes — BAAD OLDE TRIBAL GANGS STUFF – SEVERE MONARCH/OLIGARCH REGIMES.
    —-

    LP membership / registration stats 1970-2019 ??? up – down – level ???

    LP 0001 – how many statist laws repealed / LP laws enacted — due to LP effort ???

    Personality cult stuff is 100 percent useless.

  35. Robert Stock: I’m not sure what you mean by “all third parties had the worst showing in 2016 than they had in over 100 years.” In 1964, Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater combined for 99.52% of the popular vote, leaving only 0.48% for anybody else. By contrast, in 2016, Trump and Clinton combined for only 94.27%, leaving 5.63% for the other candidates; Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Evan McMullin each did better in 2016 than the combined performance of all third parties in 1964.

  36. I apologize. I did confuse 2016 and 2018. Thank you for the correction.

    “Me” Yes. I will vote in November for whomever the Libertarian party chooses as it’s nominee. If someone is not willing to vote for their party’s nominee then they shoud quit their party and become an independent. I trust the wiil of the Libertarian party as expressed by a majority of party members meeting in convention.

  39. Robert Stock has no problem with Chafee supporters, who are not libertarians because he is not, flooding the convention to get their guy in. Who cares about the actual candidate, it’s the party that matters, he says. Funny thing is, most libertarians are disgusted when people vote R or D because of “Party locality”. Therefore, Robert Stock is a fake and a hypocrite.

  41. “Joshua K” I confused election results from 2018 with 2016. I am sorry for my mistake.

    “Demo Rep” Almost everything you write is indecipherable gobbledygook. I have only read two or three coherent posts from you in the past few years.

  42. This discussion reminds me of some reasons why the Libertarians are more popular than the Greens. On top of having an elegant message that most people feel like they can get behind at least some of the time, they never want to stop arguing, and, they really want to win elections.

  43. How many Libertarians NOW in the POWER offices —

    USA Congress or State legislatures ???

    —
    PR and Appv and TOTSOP

  44. I admit, if Chafee is serious about doing this -then he better start making inroads with the party and its skeptical members asap and prove to us that he is no Bill Weld.

  46. Hence why I’m not jumping on the Chafee bandwagon right away.

    …why can’t you post under your real name like I do?

  48. No libertarian should jump on the Chafee bandwagon. The man has ZERO background of ever having been a libertarian, and now he joins the LP and has thoughts of going straight to the top of the party by becoming the party’s candidate for President. How about starting from the bottom and proving yourself as an actual libertarian with years of libertarian activism? Anyone who takes this clown seriously as an LP presidential contender obviously has not learned anything from the last three LP presidential campaigns, or maybe they just are not really libertarians themselves and are here to subvert the Libertarian Party.

  49. Green Party presidential candidate, Jill Stein, received over 1.4 million votes in 2016, which was the best for the GP in a presidential race since Ralph Nader was the GP’s presidential candidate in 2000, and Nader has much higher name recognition than Stein and was better funded than Stein. Stein was on the ballot in 44 states plus DC.

    Evan McMullin jumped in the 2016 presidential race late, and only qualified for the ballot in 10 states, yet he received over 716,000 votes.

    Darrell Castle, the Constitution Party’s candidate for President, received over 203,000 votes, which was the most raw votes for a Constitution Party candidate ever, and Castle only qualified for the ballot in 24 states, which was the worst ballot access ever for a Constitution Party candidate for President.

    Bernie Sanders received a lot of write in votes for President, and he did not even declare himself to be a write in candidate for President.

    So yes, the 2016 election was a very favorable set of circumstances for the Johnson/Weld campaign, and for minor party and independent candidates in general.

  50. Robert K. Stock said: “Andy” There is no such thing as a Deep State. There are entreched bureaucrats who jealously guard their privileges. But they are not working together in any organized way.

    There is no conspiracy from the CFR, Bildebergers, or other groups. There is nothing nefarious about being a member of those groups.”

    LOL!!! Are you posting from a government troll center, or are you an infiltrator operating inside the Libertarian Party?

  51. Unfortunately there are still a lot of conspiracy theorists in the LP (though many just call themselves small “l” libertarians) Many have moved on to the Trump side ever since he treated Alex Jones like a real journalist. Whether they are anti-vaccine, flat-earthers, or believe that the government replaced all birds with surveillance drones (Yes that one is really believed by some people) they are a distraction from people that want to advance the Libertarian message. They and are only interested in holier-than-though competitions of their libertarian “purity” and proclaim anyone challenging their view to be a puppet of the government or an infiltrator without even listening to what their message is.

  52. “Andy” I am posting from my home in El Reno, Oklahoma. I have been a member of the Libertarian party since 1992. My only time in government has been serving on the Board of Adjustment for the City of Weatherford, Texas and on the Economic Development Authority for the City of El Reno, Oklahoma. How about you? Which insane asylum do you call home?

  54. Wikipedia lists how many voters each candidate appeared on the ballot for. Jill Stein got 1.07% of the vote while appearing in front of 89% of voters in 2016. In 2012 she got 0.36% of the vote while appearing on the ballot in front of 83.1% of voters.

    So that can be standardized.

    2016: 1.07% / 89% = 1.20%
    2012: 0.36% / 83.1% = 0.43%

    And then we can measure her improvement.

    1.20% / 0.43% = 176% better

    The same calculation for the Constitution Party:

    2016: 0.15% / 39% = 0.38%
    2012: 0.09% / 49.9% = 0.18%

    0.38% / 0.18% = 113% better

    And the Libertarian Party:

    2016: 3.28% / 100% = 3.28%
    2012: 0.99% / 95.1% = 1.04%

    3.28% / 1.04% = 215% better

    I don’t care how you want to look at it Andy, Johnson outperformed every other 3rd party candidate that year and he outperformed every other historical Libertarian candidate, not just in terms of the number of votes and percentage of votes, but also using other metrics like inflation adjusted fundraising, inflation adjusted cost per vote, and very likely Signature Members generated for the LP, although I can’t be certain of that because I don’t have data all the way back.

    I know – those weren’t “real” libertarians. Guess what? Not all of the people who voted for Trump were “real” Republicans. Not all of the people who voted for Hillary were “real” Democrats. But one of the first steps to converting people to libertarianism is making non-libertarians comfortable with voting for libertarian candidates. Johnson could do that. I know – it doesn’t count because Johnson wasn’t a “real” Libertarian, either. So it was just a bunch of non-libertarians voting for a non-libertarian, and a bunch of them were tricked into signing the Pledge so that they could hijack the party 4 years later in order to nominate another, as yet unnamed non-libertarian. Oh, and also, Johnson underperformed. He could have gotten way more non-libertarians to vote for him, if he were a better candidate.

  55. “Me” I welcome Lincoln Chaffee and any former Democratic or Republican office holder to join the Libertarian party. I do not support Chaffee as the LP Presidential nominee.

    I am registered to vote Libertarian and I am a dues paying member of my State party as well as the National party.
    I contributed money to most of the Libertarian candidates in my home State and to Laura Ebke in her race in Nebraska. The only candidates that I did not give money to in Oklahoma did not provide an address where I could send them a check.

    Are you registered to vote Libertarian? Are you a paid member of any Libertarian party? Do you give money to or volunteer for Libertarian candidates?

  56. “Me” You wish that the Libertarian party was a cult. It’s not, and that makes you angry.

  57. BOTH DONKEYS AND ELEPHANTS BECAME CULTS IN 1960

    TV JFK — ESP WITH COLOR TV IN EARLY 1960S.

    SEE EACH CULT PREZ DOING DAILY PREZ CULT THINGS.

    SEE THE CURRENT MINDLESS MEDIA FOLLOWING THE DAILY CULT RAVINGS OF PREZ T — ESP CNN AND FOX.

    AKIN TO THE OLDE CULT STUFF REGARDING THE KILLER MONARCHS IN EUROPE — LOUIS XIV, NAPOLEON, ETC.

    —
    END THE CULTS — OF DEATH, DESTRUCTION, TAX SLAVERY AND NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY.

    PR AND APPV AND TOTSOP

  58. I was a member of the LP. I dropped out after they continued to deliver sellout after sellout as candidates. I did not vote for Gary Johnson.

    Robert Stock, you really should reread what you post. You admitted if Chafee is the nominee you would support and vote for him. You have admitted principles mean squat to you.

  59. @me
    I’m the opposite. I’ve been registered LBT for ~20 years but it wasn’t until Gary Johnson that I became a dues paying member of the LP and got involved with the party. Now I hold a small local office and am running unopposed for re-election this year.

  60. “Me” I have consistently stated the same position. I will support whomever is chosen as the Libertarian party Presidential nominee. If that is Lincoln Chaffee, and that is a big if, then I will support him at that time. I do not support him now. He has not announced his candidacy. If he does run for the nomination it is doubtful he will be chosen by a majority of delegates. How is it possible that you cannot understand the difference between what is happening now and what may happen at a future date?

  61. “Me” What a person does is more important than what they think. Voting for, donating money to, and volunteering for Libertarian candidates is more important than have then your idea of what a real Libertarian is.

  62. Edit, strike the words “have then” from the last sentence of my previous post.

  63. Robert K. Stock said: “‘Me’ I have consistently stated the same position. I will support whomever is chosen as the Libertarian party Presidential nominee.”

    So if say Bernie Sanders were to join the Libertarian Party, and declare that he’s running for the party’s presidential nomination, and campaign on a platform that included blatantly socialist policies, such as a complete government takeover of healthcare, “free” college for all, and increasing the minimum wage, and he and his campaign staff were to flood the national convention with delegates and win the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination, you would support his campaign and vote for him for President in the general election.

    If your attitude is “my party, right or wrong,” then you don’t really have any principles.

    I support principles over party and candidates. I don’t except any candidate to be perfect, or to agree with me on every detail of everything, but I do have standards, and if I don’t consider a candidate to be somebody that I’d call a libertarian, and/or if I know them to be of bad character, I will not support them or vote for them. Also, if a Libertarian Party committee, be in the LNC, or a state committee, or a county committee, does something that I do not consider to be inline with libertarian principles, or otherwise makes a bonehead decision, I will call them out on it and I will not support it.

    I have been a Libertarian Party member since 1996, and I enthusiastically voted for Harry Browne for President in 1996 and in 2000, and I enthusiastically voted for Michael Badnarik for President in 2004, but I have not voted for any of the Libertarian Party’s presidential tickets since 2004, because I do not think that any of them were really libertarian. Back in the 2008 general election I cast a right in vote for Ron Paul for President and Gail Lightfoot for Vice President (they were registered as official candidates in the state where I voted). In 2012, I cast a write in vote for None Of The Above for President, and in 2016, I voted for the Constitution Party’s ticket of Darrell Castle for President, and Scott Bradley for Vice President, both of whom were on the ballot in the state where I voted, and both of whom were more libertarian than Gary Johnson and Bill Weld. I have continued for vote for Libertarians who were on my ballots for lower level offices, but I have not supported the Libertarian Party’s presidential tickets since 2004, because the Libertarian Party has not had any actual libertarians on its presidential tickets since 2004.

    I support principle over party label. Political parties can be corrupted and/or make stupid decisions, both of which have happened in the Libertarian Party.

  64. Jim, who gives a damn how many votes Gary Johnson got when his campaign severely watered down, and in a multiple cases, outright RAN AGAINST, the Libertarian Party’s platform? Should the Libertarian Party run Bernie Sanders for President? I bet he’d get a lot more votes than Gary Johnson.

    Gary Johnson and Bill Weld also came off a unprepared, unprincipled goofballs in interviews. They made fools of Libertarians for nominating them.

    The ONLY reasons that they did as well as they did are that there was record levels of disgust with the major party candidates, and there was no other presidential tickets that qualified for the ballot in all 50 states plus DC (Jill Stein came the closest, at 44 states plus DC, and after Stein, Darrell Castle and Rocky de la Fuente were on the ballot in only about 24 states each, and Evan McMullin was only on the ballot in 10 states). Johnson/Weld also had a much larger campaign budget that Jill Stein, but a lot of that money for Johnson/Weld came from people who were not even really libertarians, and did not give a damn about the LP or libertarianism in general, as in they only donated to Johnson/Weld because they were hoping to sway the outcome of the race between Clinton and Trump. One of the donors to Johnson/Weld, and to the LNC while Johnson/Weld was running, and I believe to a Johnson/Weld Super PAC as well, was Christy Walton, who is a heiress to the Sam Walton of Wal-Mart family fortune. She is not a libertarian at all, and Wal-Mart is in fact one of the biggest corporate welfare recipients including in the form of land handed to them which was seized by government bodies via eminent domain, in the country, and Wal-Mart is also one of the biggest profiteers from food stamps/EBT cards in the country, and they even sent lobbyist into the halls of government to lobby against cutting the food stamp/EBT program. Wal-Mart is also a big supporter of the police state, and they also donated money to Top Two Primary ballot initiatives make it much harder for Libertarian Party candidates to make it to general election ballots. I know two people who did Libertarian Party fund raising off of the Johnson/Weld donor list, and they both told me that a lot of the people they called off of that list told them that they had zero interest in the Libertarian Party, and only donated because they were trying on influence the results between Clinton and Trump.

    Reality is that lot of the votes that Johnson/Weld received were merely PROTEST votes from people who did not like Clinton or Trump. Reality is that there was very little real enthusiasm for the Johnson/Weld campaign, and their campaign did not really result in any real growth in Libertarian Party membership (dues paying membership in fact TANKED within a year of 2016), or in spreading the libertarian philosophy.

  65. Jim said: “Oh, and also, Johnson underperformed. He could have gotten way more non-libertarians to vote for him, if he were a better candidate.”

    Yes, I do believe that Johnson under-performed in vote totals. The level of disgust with Clinton and Trump was so high, and overall discontent with the major parties, and the government in general was so high, that the potential off what a Libertarian Party ticket could have gotten a lot higher than what Johnson/Weld received.

    You act as though the goal is to get votes for the sake of getting votes. The Libertarian Party bills itself as being “The Party of Principle.” The Libertarian Party is NOT supposed to be like the Democrats and the Republicans, where principles do not matter, and the only things that matter are getting votes. Anyone in the Libertarian Party who thinks that getting votes for the sake of getting votes, principles be damned, should not be in the Libertarian Party. If that is your attitude, you might as well go join the Democrats or the Republicans.

  66. Andy gets it. He has principles.

    Robert Stock has no principles and would vote for Bernie Sanders in your hypothetical case. That tells you he is a fake libertarian.

    Brandon Lyon isn’t a libertarian either, only getting involved when fake candidates win the nomination. He supports the watering down of the party, and a corrupt LEC who pushes that.

    Sarwark was one of Weld’s biggest supporters.

  67. Brandon Lyon said: “Unfortunately there are still a lot of conspiracy theorists in the LP ”

    Using “conspiracy theorist” as a disparaging remark was actually concocted by the Central Intelligence Agency as a way to smear those who questioned the official government story about the JFK assassination and other issues of controversy.

    http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-how-the-cia-invented-conspiracy-theories/

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cias-invention-of-the-conspiracy-theorist-smear-campaign-to-discredit-dissenters/5403876

    I find it to be rather funny that a Bill Weld supporter who wants to water down the definition of libertarian to the point where it does no longer means anything is repeated CIA talking points. Funny but not surprising.

    A good translation here is, “Unfortunately, there are still critical thinkers in the Libertarian Party who don’t believe everything that the government tells them to believe, and who question authority, and unfortunately, there are still people in the libertarian party who think that the Libertarian Party should actually run candidates who actually have strong libertarian principles. These people are a acting as a roadblock to us infiltrators. saboteurs, and opportunistic con-artists, in our attempt to water down the Libertarian Party, and turn it into controlled opposition, and to play the donors for suckers and bilk them for money while we are at it. I wish these people who just go away because they are making our subversion efforts more difficult than they would be otherwise.”

    The nature of government is that people in it lie and engage in conspiracies on a regular basis. Look at the recent situation with the mysterious death of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Anyone who says they believe the official government story about his supposed suicide is either extremely naive and/or uniformed or they are a liar.

  68. “to the point where it does no longer means anything is repeated CIA talking points. ”

    Should read, “to the point where it no longer means anything is repeating CIA talking points.”

  69. “I don’t except any candidate to be perfect”

    Should read, “I don’t expect any candidate to be perfect…”

  70. Brandon Lyon said: ” they are a distraction from people that want to advance the Libertarian message. They and are only interested in holier-than-though competitions of their libertarian ‘purity’ and proclaim anyone challenging their view to be a puppet of the government or an infiltrator without even listening to what their message is”

    I have done plenty to advance the cause of liberty, both in the Libertarian Party, and in the greater libertarian movement. When Ron Paul ran in the Republican primaries for President, I played a big role in getting some Ron Paul delegates elected. Ron Paul was more libertarian, and ran a more libertarian campaign in the confines of the Republican Party, than anyone who was on the last three Libertarian Party presidential tickets.

    I am willing to work with people with whom I have disagreements, and I in fact do so on a regular basis. I also do not think that everyone who I have a disagreement with on the finer points of libertarian philosophy, or on political strategy, is a plant/infiltrator. I am also not naive enough to think that everyone out there is “on the up and up” either, especially given that it is a documented fact that the governments and other entities spy on and infiltrate and sabotage groups that seek political and/or social change. It is esepcially suspicious when you see people popping up in the Libertarian Party who had no prior backgrounds as libertarians, immediately running for high level positions in the party, especially when some of these people had backgrounds with the CIA (bob Barr) and the Council on Foreign Relations (Bill Weld) If I were Spiderman, my “Spidey” senses would be tingling.

  71. “Andy and me” There is no way in hell that Bernie Sanders would ever join the Libertarian party. Your arguments are ridiculously absurd. There is no way in hell that the Libertarian party convention would ever be flooded with phony delegates who intend to select Bernie Sanders as the Libertarian Presidential nominee. You want the Libertarian party to be a cult. The Libertarian party has never been a cult and never will be.

  72. “Andy and me” After thinking it over I have decided to stop trying to justify myself. According to your definition I am a fake Libertarian. So what? This fake Libertarian goes to conventions, engages in convention business and votes. I am especially looking forward to this October when this fake Libertarian will attend a convention to organize my county as an affiliate of the Oklahoma Libertarian Party. I think I will have a tee shirt made saying, “Kiss me. I’m a fake Libertarian”.

  73. I am sure they never thought Bob Barr would ever join the party. They never thought he would win the nomination. Guess what? The convention was flooded with Barr supporters and he won.

    It would not shock me if Bernie Sanders supports try the same thing. The communist infiltrators of the party (and you know they are out there-one ran for party chair) would certainly support that.

  74. “Brandon Lyon isn’t a libertarian either, only getting involved when fake candidates win the nomination. He supports the watering down of the party, and a corrupt LEC who pushes that.” – I was wondering how long it would be for the person who left the party to say I wasn’t a “real” Libertarian.

  75. Like me said above, at one time, most people thought Bob Barr would ever join the Libertarian Party, much less get put on the LNC within one or two days of joining the party, much less win the presidential nomination, but this happened.

    Most people never thought open CFR member Bill Weld would ever join the Libertarian Party, much less end up being the party’s nominee for Vice President, much less after his previous foray into the Libertarian Party 10 years prior to this ended with him breaking his promise to the LP of NY and screwing them over, but this happened. Even after Weld ran AGAINST the party’s platform on multiple issues, gushed over how great one of his opponents, Hillary Clinton, was, and donating money to the Republican candidate for Governor of New Hampshire, who was far from being a libertarian, and who was running against a Libertarian Party candidate, there were people in the LP who were still taking Weld seriously as a contender for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

    The LP had an outright communist run for National Chairman in 2018, and this person made it to the debate stage at the convention while wearing a Karl Marx t-shirt, and he proclaimed such Marxist nonsense as “Rent is theft” and “Medicare for all,” and even though he did not win, there were actually people at the convention who voted for this outright Marxist clown.

    Given that the above things all happened, I do not think that the scenario of Bernie Sanders joining the LP, running for the presidential nomination, flooding the convention with delegates, and winning the nomination, is as far fetched as Robert Stack makes it out to be. I am not saying that this is going to happen, I am just saying that given the above incidents, it could happen, and it is an example of why the “my party, right or wrong” mentality is unprincipled and misguided.

  76. Andy “who gives a damn how many votes Gary Johnson got”

    You said he only got that many votes because he ran under such favorable circumstances. You then invited a comparison to other 3d party Presidential candidates.

    Andy “Should the Libertarian Party run Bernie Sanders for President?”

    Unlike Bernie Sanders, Gary Johnson self-identifies as a libertarian. And a lot of long time libertarians agree that Gary Johnson is a libertarian. There were draft efforts to recruit Gary Johnson to run for President on the LP line in both 2000 and 2004. Johnson spoke at several LP state conventions in 2002 (Massachusetts and Wisconsin for sure), and he won a county LP Presidential straw poll in 2002 (in Missouri.) I believe that Gary Johnson has won every state Libertarian Presidential primary in which his name has appeared on the ballot. He certainly did in 2016, I don’t know about 2012.

    There was obviously long running and nationwide support within the LP for Johnson.

  77. Johnson self identifies as a libertarian, but he’s not really much of a libertarian, if he is really one at all, and I lean toward the latter.

    Bob Barr self identified as a Republican, and he was never a libertarian up until he joined the LP, and within one or two days of joined the party, the LNC selected to fill an LNV vacancy that just happened to pop up at that time, and then about a year and a half later he jumps in the LP presidential race about two weeks prior to the National Convention, somehow managed to flood the convention with delegates, and win the nomination.

    How about Bill Weld? He was a Bush family loving Republican for years, joins the LP of NY in 2006, screws them over, goes back the the Republican Party, then 10 years later pops up in the LP two weeks prior to the 2016 National Convention, claiming to be a libertarian again, even though 9 months earlier he endorsed Jeb Bush for President, and 3 months earlier, after Jeb was eliminated, he endorsed John Kasich for President, and yet he still won the LP’s VP nomination, with Gary Johnson saying he’d drop out of the race if the delegates did not give him Bill Weld, then after being nominated, he spent the campaign urinating on the LP’s platform and gushing over how wonderful Hillary Clinton is.

    So I do not think my hypothetical of Bernie Sanders joining the LP and winning the presidential nomination is as far fetched as you are making it out to be. I am not saying it is going to happen, I am just indicating that given the events I already described which did happen, is that it could happen.

  79. Bill Maher also calls himself a libertarian and he is anything but. Glenn Beck calls himself one depending on the phase of the moon.

  80. Bill Maher did call himself a libertarian for several years, but he never really was one, and fortunately, he did stop calling himself a libertarian several years ago.

    Glenn Beck sometimes calls himself a libertarian, but I do not believe that he has ever really been one.

  81. “Darrell Castle, the Constitution Party’s candidate for President, received over 203,000 votes, which was the most raw votes for a Constitution Party candidate ever,”

    Just to clarify this statement, this was the most raw votes, as in not percent of the vote, but rather in terms of number of votes, for a Constitution Party candidate for President ever, and Castle did this while being on the least amount of state ballots for which as Constitution Party candidate for President had ever appeared. Also, I am pretty sure that the Constitution Party has had candidates that ran for other offices who received more than the 203,000 and something votes that Castle received. I am pretty sure they have had candidates for Governor and US Senate, and maybe some other statewide offices, who received more raw votes than Castle got for President.

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