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Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said Sunday that he would not rule out running for president this year. Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team and is one of the shark investors on the ABC reality television series Shark Tank.

I would've never considered it prior to a month ago. Now things are changing rapidly and dramatically, Cuban said on the Fox News Sunday program. Im not saying no, but it's not something Im actively pursuing. Im just keeping the door open.

Cuban, who is worth an estimated $4.1billion according to Forbes, has previously described himself as somewhat of a libertarian.

"Not so much libertarian as much as I'd like to be libertarian, he told ABC Dallas-based affiliate WFAA in 2015. "When I think libertarian, it's 'as small of a government as we can get, right now you just cut right through it and you make it [smaller] right now.' That's not real. There's got to be a process. There's got to be a transition. As a country, we make decisions. We make decisions that we're going to provide healthcare, right? We don't just let people die on the street. You can go into any hospital and they have to treat you."

Cuban has also said that while he would be interested in joining the Republican party, he feels the party is too rigid.

"I'm a Republican in the respect that I like smaller government and I like less intrusion in some areas. But there's sometimes where I think we have to intrude. I think there's sometimes when you have to do things," he continued.

The November election will likely be a race between Republicanincumbent Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term, and Democratic rival former Vice President Joe Biden. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders exited the race last week, leaving Biden as the almost certain Democratic nominee.

Cuban and Trump have feuded since 2016. Cuba, who endorsed Hillary Clinton,had harsh words for Trump at a Clinton campaign stop in Pittsburgh.

"You know what we call a person like that in Pittsburgh? A jagoff," Cuban said. "Is there any bigger jagoff in the world than Donald Trump?"

Trump would later callCubandopey" andnot smart.

The ongoing coronavirus outbreak has canceled in-person campaign rallies, forcing candidates to resort to digital events. As of Monday at 2:15 p.m. ET, there have been560,891 cases and 22,681-coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S.

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Mark Cuban To Run For President? Billionaire Dallas Mavericks Owner Does Not Rule Out 2020 White House Bid - International Business Times

As the filing deadline ended Friday most seats had multiple candidates, meaning a campaign trail ahead. Two incumbents, however, ran unopposed; they will retain their positions. In the race for Pottawatomie County Clerk, Democratic Incumbent Raeshel Flewallen, 57, of Shawnee, garnered no challenger. Also, Republican incumbent Danny Sterling, 64, of Tecumseh, received no opposition for state Rep. District 27; he will retain his seat.

The race is on.

As the filing deadline ended at 5 p.m. Friday, most seats had multiple candidates, meaning a campaign trail ahead. Two incumbents, however, ran unopposed; they will retain their positions.

In the race for Pottawatomie County Clerk, Democratic Incumbent Raeshel Flewallen, 57, of Shawnee, garnered no challenger. Also, Republican incumbent Danny Sterling, 64, of Tecumseh, received no opposition for state Rep. District 27; he will retain his seat.

Other races shaped up as follows:

CITY

Up for election this cycle are Mayor and three seats on the Shawnee City Commission: Wards 2, 3 and 4. Those seats are currently held by Richard Finley, Ron Gillham Sr., James Harrod and Darren Rutherford, respectively.

Four area residents are running for mayor. They are

Ward 1 City Commissioner Ed Bolt; Shawnee resident Dean Hudlow; downtown business owner Theresa Cody; and Ward 2 City Commissioner Ron Gillham Sr.

Vying for the Ward 2 City Commissioner seat are Bob Weaver and Elliot Shuler.

Running for Ward 3 City Commissioner are incumbent James Harrod and Travis Flood.

Seeking to keep his Ward 4 City Commissioner chair is incumbent Darren Rutherford. He is being challenged by LaDonna Bryce.

COUNTY

Republican Incumbent Valerie Ueltzen, 37, of Shawnee and Libertarian Bud Jeffrey, 77, of Shawnee are looking to fill the seat for County Court Clerk.

In the race for Pottawatomie County Sheriff, three Republicans will go toe to toe: incumbent Mike Booth, 63, of McLoud; Jeff Griffith, 61, of Shawnee; and Ben Henderson, 44, of Shawnee.

Three candidates have filed to run for Pottawatomie County Commissioner, District 2. They are Republican Jason Evans, 45, of Tecumseh; Republican Incumbent Randy Thomas, 58, of Macomb; and Democrat Norman Smith, 68, of Macomb.

STATE

Two Republicans and a Libertarian are running for Corporation Commission. Republican candidates are Harold D. Spradling, 85, of Cherokee and Todd Hiett, 52, of Kellyville. The Libertarian candidate is Todd Hagopian, 40 of Bixby.

Two Democrats and a Republican are seeking the stae Rep. District 26 seat. Republican incumbent Dell Kerbs, 46, of Shawnee will go head-to-head against whichever Democrat wins in their runoff: Bryce Barfield, 55, of Shawnee or Chris Odneal, 41, of Shawnee.

A Democrat and two Republicans are running for state Rep. District 28. The Democratic candidate is Yasminda Choate, 40, of Sasakwa. Republican candidates are Danny Williams, 70, of Seminole and Jerri Parker, 58, of Okemah.

Four Republicans and a Libertarian are running for state Senate District 17. Republican candidates are incumbent Ron Sharp, 67, of Shawnee; Brandon Baumgarten, 28, of Shawnee; Caleb Foshee, 39, of Choctaw; and Shane David Jett, 45, of Shawnee. The Libertarian candidate is Greg Sadler, 47, of Newalla.

To fill a vacancy left by Jason Smalley, three Republicans are running to represent state Senate District 28 Mike Haines, 49, of Stroud; Zack Taylor, 36, of Seminole; and Christian Ford, 24, of Chandler.

U.S. HOUSE

Two Democrats and nine Republicans are vying for the U.S. Congressional 5th District seat. Democratic candidates are incumbent Kendra Horn, 43, of Oklahoma City and Tom Guild, 65, of Edmond. Republican candidates are Janet Barresi, 68, of Oklahoma City; Charles Tuffy Pringle, 83, of McLoud; David Hill, 52, of Edmond; Terry Neese, 72, of Oklahoma City; Michael Ballard, 50, of Tecumseh; Miles V. Rahimi, 30, of Edmond; Shelli Landon, 62, Tulsa; Stephanie Bice, 46, of Edmond; and Jake A. Merrick, 38, of Yukon.

U.S. SENATE

Four Democrats, four Republicans, a Libertarian and two Independents are running for the U.S. Senate seat.

Democratic candidates are Sheila Bilyeu, 76, of Freedom; Abby Broyles, 30, of Oklahoma City; Elysabeth Britt, 41, of Oklahoma City; and R.O. Joe Cassity Jr., 76, of Ponca City. Republican candidates are incumbent Jim Inhofe, 85, of Tulsa; JJ Stitt, 46, of Kingfisher; John Tompkins, 63, of Oklahoma City; and Neil Mavis, 57, of Tulsa. The Libertarian candidate is Robert Murphy, 72, of Norman. Independent candidates are Joan Farr, 64, of Tulsa and A.D. Nesbit, 39, of Ada.

Filing, elections

Most of the races in the area drew opponents; they will face off in coming months.

Primary/Special elections are being held Tuesday, June 30. The last day to register to vote is June 5. The last day to request an absentee ballot is June 24.

Runoff Primary/Special Elections are being held Tuesday, Aug. 25. The last day to register to vote is July 31. The last day to request an absentee ballot is Aug. 19.

General Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. The last day to register to vote is Oct. 9. The last day to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 28.

For more election-related information, visit http://www.elections.ok.gov.

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Election filings Day 3: Two win unopposed; others gear up for runoffs - Shawnee News Star

After the coronavirus spread, left-leaning writers began declaringthat no one is a libertarian during a pandemic. We all need collective action to save us from this frightening health risk, they say.

But a funny thing happened on the way to big-government Nirvana, as officials try to ramp up testing and assure that we all have access to vital medical and other services.

The first thing that state officials did was grab various executive powers to order us to stay at home. Now, the federal government is pumping$2 trillionin taxpayer funds into the economy in the form of various bailoutssomething that might help ease the economic pain in the short term, but will cause more harm (exploding debt) in the long run.

These governmentresponsesgrab headlines, but offer little relief. Most serious approaches to the crisis, however, are decidedly libertarian. They involve reducing regulations that keep industries from responding rapidly in an emergency situation.

I recentlyexplainedhow the market economyand its sophisticated supply chainsis keeping us fed in these isolated times. Now we're seeing that government is more of an obstacle than a help. Pretty soon, we'll all be libertarians during a pandemic. The question is why more of us aren't libertarians the rest of the time, given what we're learning about the nature of government.

Let's start at the federal level. AsReason'sJohn Stossel recently explained, the Centers for Disease Control's COVID-19 tests were woefully inaccurate, but private companies were forbidden from developing tests unless they went through the long process of Food and Drug Administration approval. The Trump administration has temporarily waived those rules, but they left our country in a precarious position when a pandemic struck.

"The federal government regulates and monitors practically every activity that takes place in the US economy, from where and when truck drivers drop off their deliveries, to what tests hospitals and labs can use on patients," CNNreports. That's an eye-popping statement about the degree to which government controls everything. (So much for America being the land of unbridled capitalism!)

Because of the delays these rules cause, the Department of Transportation now iswaiving restrictionson how many hours truck drivers can work. The Department of Health and Human Services is waiving privacy laws so more Americans can use telehealth servicesallowing them to access medical advice from home. During good times, few people notice the burdens. They are more obvious when the chips are down.

At the local level, police departments are suspending the enforcement of picayune infractions. Some cities, such as Philadelphia, are not making minor drug and prostitution busts. Los Angeles isreleasingsome low-level inmates from its jails. It makes you wonder why law enforcement focuses on such things during normal times.

California state officials, however, have been resistant to eliminating the nonsensical rules that are making it tough for hospitals to treat increasing numbers of coronavirus patients. The state already has a vastnursing shortage, caused largely by the bureaucracy's limits on nursing-school attendeessomething designed to reduce the numbers and boost salaries.

As The Orange County Register reported, a number of hospitals are discontinuing clinical rotations during the crisis, which will delay nursing graduations because students are required to spend 75 percent of their clinical education in a hospital. The other 25 percent is done through simulations. The schools are asking the governor to reduce that requirement to 50 percent. He has yet to give an OK, but relaxing that rule will reduce nursing shortages.

Meanwhile, California is in a minority of states that does not recognize nurse-licensure compactsagreements that allow qualified and licensed nurses from other states to work here. Licensing rules in general impose steep barriers to entryfor workersand mostly are about established industries artificially boosting pay by reducing competition. They unquestionably create shortages, which create real dangers in a health emergency.

Sen. John Moorlach (RCosta Mesa) has introduced Senate Bill 1053, which would include our state in a 34-state nursing compact. It's a sensible reform, especially in these dire times. If the Legislature were serious about assuring that we have enough trained staff to deal with coronavirus patients, they ought to pass this measure as soon as possible. Remember this when you hear lawmakers complain about healthcare shortages.

If the governor were serious about improving resilience during the current mess, he should immediately postpone enforcement ofAssembly Bill 5, which forbids many industries from using contractors as workers. The law impoverishes freelancers during a time of hardship, discourages people from working at home and imposes hurdles on those providing vital delivery services. It creates a real impediment.

Government has a role, but a lot of what it does isharmful. We need to suspend counterproductive rules nowand then think twice before we reinstitute them after the crisis has passed.

This column was first published in the Orange County Register.

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The Coronavirus Outbreak Is Exposing Government Follies on Many Levels - Reason

Hail! Hail, Freedonia!

The country of Freedonia has successfully fought off the COVID-19 virus successfully. This small European nation in the middle of the coronavirus maelstrom reportedly used free market forces to keep its citizens safe.

President Rufus T. Canard remarked on the remarkable story of laissez-faire economics and public health. Did you know the invisible hand of the market belongs to God? He is better than a legion of unelected bureaucrats telling you to put face masks on.

Once the government of Freedonia realized the pandemic was sweeping through its neighbors it took tough action nothing. Privately funded hospitals had all the respirators they needed because thats how capitalism works. The citizens of this nation whose motto isHail Freedonia, land of the Brave and Free!immediately engaged in complicated statistical analysis and realized they had all better start practice social distancing. And best of all no one hoarded toilet paper.

Unrestrained market forces do not create panics where people hoard items like toilet paper, remarked President Canard. You can look that up in any economics textbook.

Citizens of Freedonia are proud of their nations dedication to Ayn Rands ideals,Friedrich Hayeks economics, and a total disregard of reality. They point to how the Great Depression never depressed and their successful pay-by-the-minute education system. The world envies how each and every enrolled student has their own coin operatededu-meter,Canard quipped.

I dream of a world where people can do what they want whenever they want regardless of facts, President Canard said. And that will make the world a better place.

In related news, an American televangelist pays for a private jet with sperm bank donations.

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This Libertarian Country Defeated The Coronavirus With The Free Market - Patheos

In the absence of federal leadership, governors have become the public face of the effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Some of them, like New Yorks Andrew Cuomo and Californias Gavin Newsom, have risen to the media status of national hero, certainly in comparison to the deadly, daily clown show on display at the White House. Others have exposed themselves as unfit for office such as Georgias Brian Kemp, who this week expressed shock after learning a basic fact about the disease, namely that asymptomatic carriers can spread it.

Lost between the coasts, meanwhile, is the remarkable story of Kentuckys Andy Beshear, whose handling of the coronavirus crisis looks especially strong next to neighboring Tennessee. The two states are like a life-and-death experiment, showing the difference between governing and not governing in the face of a pandemic.

The 42-year-old son of former Gov.Steve Beshear, he won a contested Democratic primary against a more progressive opponent, and then went on to face the extraordinarily unpopular Matt Bevin in the general election in the fall. The Libertarian Party, which Bevin had tussled with, decided to field a candidate simply to undermine him. The libertarian pulled 28,000 votes, enough to swing the election; Beshear beat Bevin by just 5,000 votes.

Republicans in the state legislature immediately began calling the result illegitimate, with Republican Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers saying it was appropriate of Bevin not to concede and that the GOP-controlled legislature might end up choosing the victor. He specifically cited the libertarian vote, claiming the results werent a genuine reflection of support for the Republican incumbent. It felt like a dry run of the 2020 presidential election, which skeptics have warned Donald Trump may not concede even if he loses.

But instead of the quivering response the public has come to expect from Democrats a threat of a lawsuit, complaints about norms to the media Beshear plowed forward, talking and acting like the rightful winner of the election. He began naming cabinet members and setting up his government, and in the face of his show of force, the media recognized him as the winner of the election and the GOP crumpled.

Beshear was sworn in as governor on December 10, 2019, and immediately began wielding power. That day, he signed an order restoring voting rights to more than 100,000 felons. On December 16, he killed Bevins Medicaid overhaul, which had been designed to throw people off the rolls. Another key issue in the election had been anger from teachers at Bevin over a slew of assaults, chief among them his attempt to undercut their pensions. Bevin had been concealing a 65-page official analysis of that plan showing its cost to public workers and its ineffectiveness in the long term. Beshear spiked the plan, and, on December 20, publicly released the assessment, in all its gory details.

In February, Beshear, a deacon at his local church, became the first governor to appear at the Fairness Rally, an anti-discrimination event organized each year by LGBTQ leaders.

A photo he took with a group of drag queens launched a local scandal, and one Republican lawmaker lashed out at him for defiling the state Capitol. Beshear again fought back, calling the lawmakers attack homophobic and demanding he apologize personally to everybody in the photo. Beshears aides, and the state party, called on the man to resign, transforming the scandal into one about Republicans and their backward views on social issues.

Days later, on March 6, Beshear became one of the first governors in the country to treat the coronavirus pandemic with the seriousness it deserves, declaring a state of emergency when he announced the states first confirmed case a day before New York state.

Trump was still laughing the pandemic off as no worse than the common flu. That same day, March 6, Trump toured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, declaring himself a natural expert. Anybody that wants a test can get a test, Trump lied from the CDC. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, How do you know so much about this? Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.

Trumps expertise had led him to conclude, on March 2, the pandemic would be less of a problem than the flu. Were talking about a much smaller range of deaths, he said. Two days later, he told Fox Newss Sean Hannity, Its very mild. The day after Beshear had declared a state of emergency, Trump said, at a dinner with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his entourage (who all went home with the virus) at Mar-a-Lago, Im not concerned at all. On March 10, he was still full of bliss. It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away, he said.

Tennessees Republican Gov. Bill Lee followed Trumps lead, telling his states residents no emergency declaration was necessary, even though Tennessee has more large urban centers than neighboring Kentucky. He finally switched course nearly a week later and declared an emergency, citing new information.

By that point, Beshear had already ratcheted up his warnings, urging Kentuckians to take the crisis seriously and to avoid large gatherings. By March 11, he announced the coming closure of schools. Beshear began 5 p.m. daily press briefings that have become appointment TV for a nervous public, even as Kentucky has one of the lowest spreads of the virus producing endless memes celebrating the governors empathy and authoritative style.

Less than two weeks later, Beshear began warning Kentuckians not to travel to Tennessee, where cases were exploding. Here in Kentucky, we have taken very aggressive steps to try to stop or limit the spread of the coronavirus to try to protect our people, he said. We have made major sacrifices such as shutting down bars and restaurants, nail salons, all these forward-facing businesses. But our neighbors from the south in many cases have not. On Sunday, the U.S. Army restricted travel to Nashville from nearby Fort Campbell in Kentucky, as well.

Tennessees mistakes couldnt be allowed to harm Kentuckians, he warned. I cannot control that Tennessee has not taken the steps that we have, Beshear said. I need you to be strong in your pride in this state, and I need you to make sure that you dont take someone elses lack of action and ultimately bring it back to Kentucky to harm us.

Beshear, by choosing to govern, has gradually risen to his own hero status, and, like Cuomo, become an unlikely sex symbol. A Reddit thread titled Govern me, daddy, became a Salon headline and a T-shirt.

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A Little-Known Democratic Governor Is Breaking Out in Kentucky - The Intercept