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For the fourth consecutive election cycle, the Libertarian Party of Arkansas has been declared a "new political party."

Secretary of State Mark Martin's office certified in a letter Monday that the party collected enough valid signatures to qualify for ballot access statewide.

The state Libertarian Party has never met a threshold set in Arkansas law to automatically retain ballot access -- as have the state Republican and Democratic parties -- and avoid a petition process.

Michael Pakko, chair of the Libertarian Party of Arkansas, would like to see the state's process change.

"As far as ballot access goes, we really haven't made much progress there," he said. "I think the weakest part of the whole system of ballot access is it's limited to one single office. If you don't get 3 percent of the vote at the top of the ticket, then you're not a political party."

In Arkansas, a party needs to obtain 3 percent of the total votes cast for the office of governor or nominees for presidential electors at the first general election after certification to retain ballot access.

In 2016, the party's candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, received 2.6 percent of the vote in Arkansas. In 2012, he received 1.5 percent of the vote.

So last month, the party submitted more than 15,000 signatures to the secretary of state's office to become a "new political party." The office's certification means that at least 10,000 were valid -- the requirement for starting any new political party.

Pakko said collecting the signatures through paid canvassers cost about $30,000 this year.

Nationally, the Libertarian party now has ballot access in 38 states. Among states bordering Arkansas, the party currently lacks access only in Tennessee, according to the national party's website.

Pakko said the national party had automatic ballot access in 35 states immediately after the 2016 election, but it failed to meet various requirements in 15 others, including Arkansas.

Libertarians won recognition as an official Arkansas political party for the first time in 2011 after collecting more than 16,000 signatures.

Now that the party is certified, Pakko said its attention will shift to recruiting candidates. The party plans to hold a convention in late February.

"We are a party that believes in limited government, that individuals should have the right to live their lives the way they see fit without interference of government -- so long as you're not imposing on someone else," Pakko said. "It's a very live-and-let-live approach to government. If people believe in that kind of outlook, well, we welcome them to join the Libertarian party."

Mark West, a pastor in Batesville, announced last month that he is running for governor as a Libertarian next year.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 07/12/2017

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Libertarians earn spots on '18 ballot, urge better access - Arkansas Online

SHERIDAN, Ind (WANE) Soon, Democrats and Republicans will review Indianas liquor laws, but theyre not the only political parties debating cold beer sales.

This weekend, a drink-in will be held at a Rickers gas station. A few weeks ago, the local Libertarian party held an event at the Columbus gas station.

This time, its the state party going to the Rickers in Sheridan. Those two stores caused an uproar during the 2017 legislative session.

The owner obtained a liquor license that allowed each location to sell cold beer carryout. Right now, Indianas law only allows restaurants, and liquor stores to do so.

Rickers got around the law by selling made to order food. We caught up with the Libertarian party chair Tuesday. A drink-in he said is a unique event that he hopes will help his party, and get Indianas alcohol law changed.

That was not on the top of my lists of something that we would be doing, but its a fun event, Indiana Libertarian Party Chair Tim McGuire said. Its a little tongue and cheek. Were excited to be doing it.

If youre interested in attending, the drink-in takes place at the Rickers Sheridan site, Sunday at 3 p.m. Libertarian Party members will stick around for a couple hours.

In a Facebook event, the party said the drink-in will essentially be a rally for change.

The Indiana Legislature is preventing your freedom to choose and protecting classes of businesses through legislation. Come to Sheridan, Indiana to show your support for your right to choose and fair business legislations. We will also be supporting the rights of Rickers Stores to be able to not only sell cold beer but sell it on Sundays as well.

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Indiana Libertarians holding 'drink-in' to promote liquor law changes ... - WANE

Recently, talk show personality Dave Rubin came out against his fellow progressives, claiming that he no longer identifies with them, saying that, Defending my liberal values has suddenly become a conservative position.

Rubin claims that the left doesnt believe in free speech or tolerance anymorethat the left has left him; but thats not a bug in leftism, its a featurea founding feature.

When the terms left and right first came about to identify political positions, they represented the sides in the French National Assembly. Those who supported the king sat on his right and those who supported the revolution sat on his left. Since its inception, the left has been about rebellion against the status quo.

Rebellion is fine if the status quo is tyrannical, but its a problem if the status quo is amazing.

Revolution was necessary to help civilization progress toward classically liberal ideals, but a political faction that identifies primarily with revolution will end up revolting from itself, which is what were seeing today in the most dramatic and rapid inversion of ideology that has ever been witnessed.

The left used to think that people should be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Now its the direct opposite.

The left used to promote scientific inquiry. Now they ridicule people who dare inquire incorrectly.

They used to be against segregation but now demand it.

They used to preach open-mindedness. Now the only thing thats open is their mouths.

The left used to believe in tolerance, freedom, and civil rights. Now it is the most intolerant, anti-freedom, and anti-civil rights political faction on Earth.

Its no coincidence that the epicenter of this implosion of logic is the modern American university system; where the students are veterans of the participation-trophy purgatory that is elementary and secondary education across the country.

Economically, they havent earned anything, not to mention they enjoy the absolute lap of luxury that is American college life.

An increasing number of students in these monuments of Western wealth are there not because of extraordinary achievement but because of the color of their skin, and these are the people who have the audacity to complain about someone elses privilege?

Their rebellious predecessors in the 1960s at least protested actual evils in the world. They fought against the governments drafting people into unjust wars and releasing police dogs on innocent people because they werent the right skin color.

Todays crybabies, however, throw shrieking, public, temper tantrums because they got their feelings hurt.

Sometimes, when no ones feelings got hurt, the professional complainers had to hurt their own feelings. This was the case when a racist note directed at a Minnesota college student sparked protests before it was discovered the note was fake.

A violent hate crime against a Muslim in Louisiana was also found to be completely fabricated.

Another hate crime against a North Dakota gay man was shown to be a hoax too.

It would seem that there are more fake hate crimes than actual hate crimes in this bizarre Twilight Zone episode called America.

But thats what happens when your socio-political ideology demands that you protest and theres nothing left to protest.

This is the state of rebellion in the age of awesome.

Eventually, if these overgrown toddlers dont destroy the system that gives them their privilege to destroy it, they will destroy themselves.

As a pop song once put it, When theres nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

You already see it happening in the insanity of the social justice Hunger Games that pit various leftist groups against each other in a race to see whos the most oppressed. This is what happened when Black Lives Matter protesters shut down a pride parade in Toronto, claiming Pride Toronto had engaged in anti-Black racism by reducing the visibility of gay people of color in the march.

This was the case when paleo-leftist professors at Yale were run out of town by neo-leftist students for not being leftist enough.

In a shocking exchange, students demanded an apology from their faculty-in-residence Nicholas Christakis for hurting their feelings. He eventually did exactly what they wanted and apologized, but he didnt apologize hard enough evidently he was gone six months later.

That burlesque was recently upstaged by the witch-hunt at Evergreen State College in Washington, where students disrupted one self-professed deeply progressive professors class, surrounded him, cursed at him, screamed at him, called him a racist, and protested for him to resign or be fired.

What evil did this professor commit? Not going along with a day of race-based segregation that another professor had organized.

The quintessential case though, is Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who claims to be black using the same arguments that transgendered people use to claim to be another sex.

For some reason, this is heresy to the cultural Marxists and when Hypatia, a Journal of Feminist Philosophy, published a Defense of Transracialism, the claws and the explosive-tipped arrows came out.

Basically, women, though oppressed in their own right, arent oppressed enough to have an opinion about race or trans issues if theyre white and cis-gendered.

Evidently, you have to have at least two badges of oppression to really be oppressed nowadays.

No wonder reasonable people like Dave Rubin are speaking out against the left. They realize that revolution is just a means, albeit a necessary one at times. It is not an end.

What were seeing in the left today is the inevitable self-destruction of an ideology predicated on the means of revolution. It cannot last. It will not last. All we can do is pray that the tornado of illogical self-destruction doesnt take the entire civilization down with it.

This post was written by JSB Morse.

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

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The Inescapable Self-Destruction of the Left - Being Libertarian

WASHINGTON Senate Republicans are still moving ahead with a vote on their health care bill next week, but barring some sudden changes of hearts, it looks like they will fall short of the votes and no one seems to have a real idea of what to do then.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to release the text of a revised bill Thursday, along with an amendment drafted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would dramatically undermine protections for people with pre-existing conditions in the name of lowering costs for healthy people. On Wednesday afternoon, Cruz suggested, but did not directly state, that he would vote against the motion to proceed on the bill if his amendment was not attached.

If there are not meaningful protections for consumer freedom that will lower premiums, then the bill will not go forward, Cruz said.

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Pressed on whether that meant he would vote against a motion to proceed, Cruz said the bill would not have the votes to go forward.The Cruz amendment would allow insurers who offer at least one health plan that complies with Obamacare regulations to offer other, cheaper plans that dont.

Regardless of whether Cruzs amendment is included, a vote on the motion to proceed may be going down anyway. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told Politico on Tuesdayshe was not optimistic that this would be a bill she could support, and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) famously expressed a number of issues with the bill in a high-profile news conferencein June issues that would largely be exacerbated or unaddressed with the addition of Cruzs amendment.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also strongly suggested he would vote against a motion to proceed on the revised bill no matter the status of Cruzs amendment. He called it the same as the old bill, except worse, and, should a motion to proceed fail, he would push Senate GOP leaders to hold a vote on a straight repeal.

I ran on repealing Obamacare, Paul told reporters Wednesday. It doesnt repeal Obamacare. It creates a giant Obamacare superfund. I cant be for that.

If they lose on this vote, Im giving them an alternative, Paul said. The alternative is two bills: clean repeal, and a big government spending bill that they can work with Democrats on for big government-spending Republicans.

Republicans seem to acknowledge that they will, at some point, need to stabilize Obamacare markets. Even in their bill replacing the Affordable Care Act, there are funds that would reimburse insurers for the cost of their most expensive patients, allowing them to hold down premium increases.

But without their bill, many Republicans concede they should do something to bring more certainty to insurers offering plans in 2018.

At a minimum, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has suggested Republicans could fund the so-called cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), which subsidize the cost of Obamacare plans for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level. President Donald Trump has threatened to end those payments, and, in response to that uncertainty, insurers have offered more expensive plans or simply not offered plans at all.

Funding those CSR payments would be a small step that Republicans could take with Democrats to reinforce the Obamacare insurance markets. But that move would almost certainly draw the ire of conservatives, and its unclear what legislative vehicle Congress could use for CSRs.

A budget deal or debt ceiling increase with Democrats would be an obvious choice, but theres little impetus to pass one of those bills at this point, and Republicans would functionally be giving up on their repeal efforts and removing the one negotiating chip they may have to force Democrats to the table on a bipartisan health care bill.

A more likely scenario the actual bare minimum is that Republicans do nothing. The Trump administration could continue to make the CSR payments or could end them and truly throw the Obamacare exchanges into chaos. Trump has the CSR payments as leverage to extract concessions on other priorities, like his wall along the Mexican border in an omnibus spending deal, and he could make the subsidies contingent upon an item like that funding.

It would then be up to Democrats whether they would give in to Trumps demands or gamble that voters will just blame Republicans for the collapse of the insurance market and, perhaps, a government shutdown.

That potential showdown is all the more reason some Republicans are floating the idea of working with Democrats on new legislation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) claims to already be working on a bipartisan health care bill a strategy endorsed by more moderate Republicans, such as Collins and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) but his idea of a bipartisan measure at this point sounds less than half-baked and far short of bipartisan.

Were trying to find consensus among ourselves and at the same time reach out to some Democrats who would be open-minded to the solutions being at the state level, not necessarily in Washington, Graham said Wednesday.

If that sounds like like something Democrats might resist, it probably should. Grahams idea of Democrats jumping aboard seems more aspirational than real.

It is a concept, he said. I hope it can get bipartisanship.

Asked about the basic tenets of his health care bill, Graham declined to provide any real details until Republicans had either passed or dispensed with their current legislation. (Graham said he thought the bill coming to the floor next week would fail.)

But the GOPs best hope of getting a bill through still seems to be this weeks revised legislation. While the health care plan continued to appear short on support Wednesday, McConnell still has more than $400 billion in savings he can dole out to win over reluctant Republicans. Many of Murkowskis concerns for Alaska could be addressed with that money, as could some concerns of other Republicans over the phaseout of the Medicaid expansion and high premiums for low-income seniors, though aides and senators have indicated that the new bill will mostly preserve the current provisions on ending the Medicaid expansion.

McConnell could also get a helping hand from the Senate parliamentarian, as shell have to rule on whether Cruzs open-ended language on coverage options is actually allowable in a reconciliation bill, which requires only 50 votes to pass but limits what senators can do in order to reconcile spending with their budget. While striking down the Cruz language could be the death blow for the health care bill, it could also convince Cruz and other conservatives like Mike Lee (R-Utah) to accept a more incremental approach.

At this point, McConnell seems to need a shakeup, and a parliamentary ruling could be what shifts the current dynamics.

The idea, however, of Republicans going back to the drawing board, perhaps seeking out some Democrats to support their measure, doesnt look like a winning strategy. Republicans are already split over a health care bill for both repealing too much of Obamacare and not enough, and Democrats appear completely united in their opposition to anything resembling the Republican plan.

If the revised bill fails, GOP senators have little idea what Plan B is. Ill leave that up to the leadership to decide what to do, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Wednesday. Youre going to have a health care system that implodes.

As it happens, that part isnt entirely true. The markets appear to be in better shape than Burr and his allies concede or perhaps even realize. Just this week, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released a study of insurer financial performance that concluded the individual market has been stabilizing and insurers are regaining profitability.

Premiums or out-of-pocket costs remain a lot higher than many people feel they can afford, and insurer pullouts have left some areas, particularly rural ones, with few or even no choice of insurers. But some carriers are expanding their options, filling in gaps others are leaving, and many industry officials say the biggest source of uncertainty isnt the underlying market weakness that plagued the program in its first few years; its the neglect and sabotage from hostile officials, including the ones working out of the White House.

With a little more money, or at least some assurances that the existing money will continue, the worst outcomes of an Obamacare market collapse could be avoided.

But Republicans dont look all that interested in that white flag approach at least not until theyve demonstrated they cant pass a bill of their own. And even then, Republican leaders see big problems if they cant muscle through this health care legislation.

Asked on Wednesday what Republicans would do if they couldnt pass their bill, GOP Conference Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) suggested Republicans didnt have a backup plan.

That would be highly problematic, Thune said.

Jonathan Cohn contributed to this report.

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Republicans Stare Down Failure On Health Care With No Real Plan B - HuffPost

Leadership vows to cut off recess are a staple of congressional theater, used as a ploy to force lawmakers to address an issue or face the prospect of seeing their overseas fact-finding trips canceled. But the threats usually produce some action and are very rarely acted upon. The fact that Mr. McConnell felt compelled to actually abbreviate the recess, just days after Republicans were snickering at the very idea, underscored the seriousness of his partys plight.

Republicans had other motives for acting. Some anticipated that President Trump would happily whack them on Twitter if they fled as previously scheduled in a couple of weeks without first completing a health care bill. He had foreshadowed that possibility earlier this week with a tweet across the bow: I cannot imagine that Congress would dare to leave Washington without a beautiful new HealthCare bill fully approved and ready to go!

The recess also made for miserable optics given the scant list of achievements Republicans have posted in what is often the most productive time for an empowered new president and his allies in Congress. Skepticism abounded in the Capitol on Tuesday as to whether the extra two weeks would be all that worthwhile, but it seemed to Republicans to be a better option than returning home or heading off on vacation.

I dont know how you go on a full-month recess without getting it done, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said of the health care bill.

In addition, reducing the recess also provided Republicans a way to inflict some punishment on the Democrats they see as a significant source of their problems. In conceding their lack of achievement, Republicans sought to direct much of the blame for the shortened recess and the poor Republican showing to the opposition, led by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.

I think it is admission of the fact that Senator Schumer has been very effective at slowing things down to a crawl and blocking the confirmation of President Trumps cabinet and other sub-cabinet level officials and making it hard to get things done, said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. I think it is important we demonstrate we are productive starting next week with the health care bill, and that is what Im focused on.

Mr. Schumer was having none of it. He said the Republicans problem wasnt the calendar, it was the substance of their health care bill.

And by the way, I have sympathy for the Republicans, Mr. Schumer said. If I were them, I wouldnt want to go home and face the voters either, because theyre not getting a very good reaction when it comes to this bill.

Mr. McConnell said the early August agenda would extend beyond health care, which Senate Republicans still hope to finish off next week. He ticked off a few other measures, including an always contentious debt limit increase, a usually bipartisan Pentagon policy bill and an important piece of legislation for the Food and Drug Administration.

Not to mention all of these confirmations that are backlogged, he said. We intend to fully utilize the first two weeks in August.

Even if they make significant progress in their additional weeks of work, which remains an open question, Republicans face continued difficulties.

For instance, House Republicans on Tuesday rolled out a Homeland Security measure that would provide $1.6 billion in physical barrier construction along the Southern border. In other words, it would fund the wall sought by Mr. Trump but vehemently opposed by Democrats in the House and Senate as well as by some Republicans.

That dispute could start a spending impasse, which could lead to a government shutdown after Sept. 30. Such a result would put many federal workers on an unwanted recess of their own, no matter how long senators stick around in August.

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A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2017, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: A Short Recess, And Long Faces.

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Republicans Reluctantly Acknowledge a Failure of Governing - The ... - New York Times