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Sen. Rand Paul. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Sen. Rand Paul, my former boss, made me proud this week. He has become a one man wrecking crew in the Senate Republican leaderships attempt to bail out Obamacare with a bill that neither repeals nor replaces President Obamas destructive health care law.

Sen. Paul wrote earlier this week in Breitbart about the bill, which is titled the Better Care Reconciliation Act: I miss the old days, when Republicans stood for repealing Obamacare. He went on to make the case that now too many Republicans are falling all over themselves to stuff hundreds of billions of taxpayers dollars into a bill that doesnt repeal Obamacare and feeds Big Insurance a huge bailout. Obamacare regulations? Still here. Taxes? Many still in place, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. Paul points out the many flaws and proves this Republican bill doesnt replace a destructive health care law thats pushing America toward a single-payer health care socialist system.

Bloomberg News describes the bailout provision in the bill: The $50 billion market-stability fund is intended to protect insurers that cover large numbers of customers with more costly health problems from having to raise their premiums for the next four years. This provision is nearly identical to the Obamacare risk corridors provision that many Republicans rightly called a bailout. Yet, now its okay because Republicans are the ones proposing a bailout. The stated goal of the fund is to incentivize insurers to take on high-cost enrollees. In fact, this direct subsidy to insurance companies is better termed a massive bailout that will benefit insurance companiesnot average Americans.

This is reminiscent of a Bush era fumble by the Republican Party in 2008 when they fully supported a bailout of Wall Street with the now infamous Troubled Assets Relieve Program (TARP). Many consider the TARP bill the spark that created the Tea Party and helped get members like Sens. Paul, Mike Lee and Ron Johnson into the Senate and Congressmen like Thomas Massie and Justin Amash into the House. The current health care bill may cause the Republican Partys liberty minded base to respond with Tea Party-like activism and the recruitment of new Republican candidates who keep the promise of a full repeal of Obamacare.

The so called Troubled Assets Relieve Program (TARP) was a massive $450 billion bailout of investors during the subprime mortgage crisis. The Bush administration loaned billions of dollars to our nations biggest banks and investment companies. The goal was for the Federal Reserve to stabilize markets, but in January 2009 the New York Times reported, An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future. The same will happen with insurance companies. They will not use the money to help keep high-risk people on plans; they will use it as if it is a windfall with few strings attached.

Sen. Paul followed up his Breitbart piece with another in the Washington Examiner.In this piece,he argued that the Senate version of the Republican health care reform bill was the embodiment of cronyism. Paul wrote, I remember a lot of outrage about two things when I first ran for office: Obamacare and the bank bailouts. Unfortunately, the Senate health care bill combines the worst of those twothis time, were bailing out the big insurance companies. Why? Partly because of the crony capitalism that pervades the culture in the swamps of Washington. Sen. Paul is spot on. Its outrageous that more conservatives in the Senate arent joining Pauls crusade against Obamacare-lite.

In June, health care expert Mike Cannon of the Cato Institute made the case in the New York Postthat this bill has put off cuts of some Obamacare spending in a way that makes it unlikely that the cuts will ever happen. Cannon wrote, The Senate bill wouldnt even repeal the parts of Obamacare Republicans claim it would. On paper, it would repeal Obamacares expansion of Medicaidbut not until 2024. There will be three federal election cycles, three new Congresses, and potentially a brand new president between now and then. It is almost certain Democrats will control at least one of those Congresses and could then rescind this repeal as if it never happened. Even this bills cuts are illusory and unlikely to ever happen.

Sen. Paul, thank you for being the one member of the Senate who is standing up against cronyism and a bill that fails to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Brian Darling is former Sr. Communications Director and Counsel for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). He can be followed on Twitter @BrianHDarling

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Rand Paul on Obamacare-lite Bill: It's a Bailout for Insurance Companies - Observer

Welcome to this weeks installment of In Case You Missed It,a weekly news roundup that focuses on some of the biggest news stories from around the globe every week. So, in case you missed it, heres your week in review:

An angered Augustus Invictus, former Libertarian candidate for United States Senate in Florida, called his now-former partyan organization fanatically devoted to losing, in a livestream today.

The one time they came to win something at the federal level, it was to stop me to from challenging Marco Rubio for the United States Senate in Florida, Invictus explained.

Invictus went on to cite a number of reasons why he left, including baseless attacks by fellow libertarians. Over the course of his campaign he was called a devil worshiper, a genocidal maniac, a fascist neo-Nazi hate monger, a white supremacist, and a hundred other things. Invictus was a victim of attacks from LP members, all the way up to the former Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Florida, and the national party chairman.

He continued with his statement trying to provide constructive advice about how to fight against statism and fight for liberty. He suggested that libertarians should fight to win, and that if a party is going to exist, that it should play to win. He sees his party switch as a move from the collegiate level, to the big leagues, joining a party that likely will not welcome [him] with open arms but is at least playing to win and fight against the tyranny of the left.

You can watch his full statement here.

President Trumpsignedan executive order Wednesday to begin pulling the federal government out of K-12 education.

This order, dubbed theEducation Federalism Executive Order, follows through on his campaign promise to bring education back down to the state and local levels.

According to The Washington Times, a 300-day review of Obama-era regulations and guidance for school districts will soon begin. The order will direct Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to modify or repeal measures she deems an overreach by the federal government.

This order is a huge move for the Trump administration in terms of advancing the principles of liberty and small government. Getting the federal government out of national education standards leaving it up to the state and local jurisdictions is an amazing advancement for liberty.

Human Rights Watch reports that at least 37 people accused of petty crimes in Rwanda have been executed rather than given a trial, between the times of July 2016 and March of 2017.

According to BBC News, most of the alleged victims were accused of theft in one case stealing bananas. Others were accused of smuggling marijuana, illegally entering the country, or using illegal fishing nets.

Human Rights Watch believes that the executions are part of a plan by the Rwandan government to spread fear, enforce order and deter any resistance to government orders or policies.

The Rwandan government denies that any of the killings took place.

If true, this is an awful display of disregard for human rights by the Rwandan government.

Thats all for this week. Check back next Friday for another weekly news round up, in case you missed it.

Photo Credit: The Miami Herald

This post was written by Nicholas Amato.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

Nicholas Amato is the News Editor at Being Libertarian. Hes an undergraduate student at San Jose State University, majoring in political science and minoring in journalism.

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Originally posted here:
In Case You Missed It: Augustus Invictus, Education, Rwanda - Being Libertarian

Nonetheless, pro-Russian (or at least anti-anti-Russian) arguments have become fairly common not just among conservatives but among a contingent of libertarians, such as former Rep. Ron Paul and Antiwar.com Editorial Director Justin Raimondo. The new Republican affection for Russia is largely a matter of political polarization: Since Putin is the Democrats boogeyman du jour, he cant be all bad. But quite a few conservatives also genuinely see Putins Russia as a Christian ally against Islam, a perspective recently endorsed by Ann Coulter in a March column trollishly titled Lets Make Russia Our Sister Country.

That view manages to ignore not only Russias coziness with Iran but the fact that one of Putins staunchest domestic allies, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, runs a de facto sharia state within the Russian Federation. This spring, Kadyrov was in the news for throwing gay men in prison camps and threatening a fatwa on Russian journalists who exposed the persecution.

Meanwhile, Ron Paulstyle libertarians are inclined to see Russia as a check on U.S. foreign adventurism and Russia hawks as hardcore proponents of the American imperial leviathan. Unfortunately, there is a small contingent who fall victim to the fallacy that the enemy of the enemy is my friend, and if the Kremlin is the enemy of my enemy, then it must be my friend, Palmer says.

See the rest here:
Russia's global anti-libertarian crusade - Hot Air

Net neutrality allows smaller businesses to rise in the ranks of the current ISP market without having to compete with strong monopolies that dominate society. Net neutrality as a concept is inherently libertarian, as it ensures freedom from censorship, as well as ensures that one can do whatever they want on the internet without fear of being stopped or throttled.

Net neutrality is loosely defined as the principle that internet service providers shouldnt be allowed to restrict or throttle internet access. As well as preventing the restriction of internet access, net neutrality put ISPs (internet service providers) into Title II communications group, precisely the common carriers category. Putting ISPs into this category allows for bandwidth to be regulated, or allows it to not be throttled based on internet usage. Net neutrality also ensures that ISPs are held accountable for the things they do, and doesnt allow ISPs to secretly do things.

Organizations such as Netflix were strong supporters of net neutrality when the topic first arose, but as of recent have been relatively quiet, one can assume that they realized it could harm them. Net neutrality would prevent businesses from being able to create a monopoly on certain websites as they could prevent ISPs from being paid out to throttle websites that rival places like Netflix, Google, and others. With this in mind, small businesses would be snuffed out because they couldnt hold a place in the market due to larger businesses holding such strong monopolies.

Rolling back net neutrality would only open the door for more crony capitalism, and would allow businesses like ComCast to legally prevent internet access for any reason they choose. ISPs would legally be allowed to put premiums on anything they deem necessary, and would have no legal repercussion for making it difficult for one to continue watching their favourite porn, watching things on their favourite small time streaming site, or reading things on their favourite independent news sources like Being Libertarian. Not only would it make it more difficult, but would make it so that the things they can access would cost a fortune.

The main argument against net neutrality is that it is the government attempting to regulate more of ones life.

At the moment we are looking at government or private organization controlling us, and in this case government looks more promising. Having zero regulation on ISPs allows them to lie, throttle, and be generally sly without repercussion. Allowing the government to have minor control over ISPs would merely prevent the ISPs from hiding and abusing power as easily, and would help break up monopolies on the current market. Net neutrality isnt suggesting that the government should have a significant amount of control over the market, but that ISPs shouldnt be able to determine the market.

Net neutrality prevents ISPs from being paid out by big businesses, prevents them from shortening bandwidth because they deem it necessary, and prevents them from putting premiums on internet services. Net neutrality isnt the perfect choice, but is the much lesser of two evils in this situation, and would help ensure freedom.

* Rhys Boekelheide is 16 years old and runs the podcast Your Opinion Sucks. Hes been interested politics for years, and has been writing about them for almost as long.

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Why Net Neutrality is a Necessity - Being Libertarian

On Thursday morning, Gerry Cohen, a former special counsel for the General Assembly, made an interesting observation on Facebook: both the Democratic and Republican parties of Wake County missed the statutory deadline to nominate candidates for the county Board of Elections this year.

And that, he wrote, meant that if Governor Cooper was successful in his effort to overturn a law passed last year reconfiguring the structure of elections boards, the Wake board would consist of two Libertarians and an unaffiliated voter. (Cooper has so far been rejected by the courts, but he is appealing.)

Heres why: the old state lawthe one Cooper wants reinstatedallows each party chair to nominate up to three registered voters for each county board. The state board, which is controlled by the governors party, then selects the members of each county board from the nominees presented by the parties but cannot appoint more than two members of the same party to the three-person board.

The law also sets a deadline; this year, it fell on June 12. The Wake GOP submitted its nominations on June 19, a week late; the Democrats on July 10, almost a month tardy.

This sluggishness would be unimportant if it werent for two more key factors: an ongoing legal battle over the structure the N.C. Board of Elections after the legislatures power grab late last year and the fact that, for the first time in history, the Wake County Libertarian Party submitted nominations for the Wake County Board of Electionsand managed to do it a month early.

Cohen says hed been following this closely because he was hoping to earn a spot on the Board of Elections and was surprised to see that the Dems missed the deadline. And since the Libertarian nominees are the only candidates who fulfill all the requirements of the old law, they might be the only candidates available for consideration. (The Libertarians, thinking ahead, also nominated an unaffiliated voter for the third spot.)

If Governor Coopers legal challenge fails, the county board would be made up of two members of the political party with the most registered voters and two members of the party with the second most registered votersi.e., Democrats and Republicans. This would render the candidates put forward by the Libertarian party ineligible.

Of the Libertarian nominees, Jeff Harrod and Amy Howard, both of Raleigh, are registered Libertarians, and Jon Byers, also of Raleigh, is independent. In a press release immediately following the nominations, Libertarian Party of North Carolina Chair Brian Irving stated, We included independents because statewide they represent nearly a third of North Carolina voters.

Byers says via email that the structure put forward by the state legislature would only weaken the power of an already anemic governor and, despite being billed as bipartisan, would really just shut out third parties and independents more than they already are. Byers says he feels representation of independent voters, who make up a third of all registered voters in Wake County, is an important step toward a democracy that reaches beyond party politics.

The state and Wake County Democratic Party offices did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the governors office. The Wake GOP referred the INDYs request for comment to the state party, which did not respond.

Excerpt from:
If Governor Cooper Wins His State Board of Elections Lawsuit, Will Wake Dems Lose? - The Independent Weekly