Jacob Chansley, the self-described "QAnon Shaman" who briefly shot to fame as the face of the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, has filed to run for Congress as a Libertarian.
November 13, 2023 - "The Libertarian Party warmly welcomed an infamous (and apparently remorseless) insurrectionist to its ranks on Monday, writing that the “QAnon Shaman”—who stormed the Capitol shirtless with a set of horns on his head—had the party’s support for his newly announced run for Congress.
"Jacob Chansley, 35, became the face of the Jan. 6 riot after scores of photos and videos showed him walking and bellowing inside the Capitol with red, white, and blue face paint on. Chansley was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison in Nov. 2021 but was released after 27 months and reportedly sent to a halfway house in March to finish his sentence. A request to reverse his guilty plea was shot down by a federal judge in June.... He still uses photos from the Capitol attack as his profile and cover photo on X, formerly Twitter, where his username is @AmericaShaman....
"Libertarian National Committee chair Angela McArdle insinuated in a statement to The Daily Beast that Chansley had joined the party because the GOP had unfairly “abandoned” rioters. 'It should be no surprise that the infamous "Q-Anon Shaman" is looking to run for Congress as a Libertarian instead of Republican,' she said. 'The GOP has clearly abandoned the people who rallied for Trump and bore the consequences.'
"Chansley filed paperwork Friday to run in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District—a district that includes wealthy Phoenix suburbs and is currently represented by Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), who announced last month she won’t seek re-election. Chansley is allowed to run for Congress as a felon, but it’s unclear if he will be able to vote for himself come Election Day....
"Chansley has given some insight into how he intends to run his campaign on social media. In response to someone asking where they could donate, he wrote that he wasn’t accepting donor money because 'BIG $$$ is a part of the problem in politics. 'I intend to run an ENTIRELY different kind of campaign,' he wrote.
"The Libertarian Party does not have any members in Congress. The first and only Libertarian to become a federal lawmaker was former Rep. Justin Amash (L-MI), who joined the party in 2020 and left the U.S. House in 2021 after choosing to not seek re-election. Despite having no presence in Congress, the party claims on its website to have more than 300 party members in public office nationwide—mostly at the municipal level.
"McArdle used the attention garnered by Chansley as an opportunity to pitch the Libertarian Party to other Capitol rioters — and other Republicans — who feel they were left behind by Trump and the GOP. 'The Libertarian Party is a home for any, and all, who have experienced aggression, and injustice, at the whim of the State, which is every living American,' she said.
The Trudeau government has extended the deadline to repay its small-business pandemic loans another year to the end of 2024, while the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says only 18% of its members who took loans have managed to repay them to date.
16 September, 2023 - "For the second time, the Trudeau government has extended the deadline for repayment on $49.2 billion worth of interest-free pandemic loans for small businesses, announced on Thursday. The loans, which were initially expected to be repaid by December 31, 2022, now have an extended repayment deadline of December 31, 2024....
"According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business [CFIB] estimated that only around 18% of its members who had taken loans had managed to repay them.
"Parliament in 2020 introduced the Canada Emergency Business Account program offering small businesses up to $40,000 interest-free loans with a quarter forgiven on repayment. Loan terms were later expanded by cabinet to $60,000 with a third forgiven on repayment due December 31, 2023.
"'The government has failed to address the most critical issue on outstanding loans, the loss of the $20,000 forgivable portion,' the Federation [CFIB] said in a statement.'The extension of the forgivable deadline by a few weeks will be of very little value to the thousands of small business owners who just don’t have money to repay now.' The Federation estimated 69% of its members who applied for loans were unable to repay what they borrowed.
"Businesses that applied for loans were typically small and indebted, according to a Department of Industry report. 'In general, loan recipients tended to be young businesses,' said the report SME Profile: Recipients of the Canada Emergency Business Account.
"Eighteen percent of the applicants reported they had resorted to borrowing from lines of credit, taking out second mortgages and increasing their credit card balances to keep their businesses going. The results were from a survey of 19,283 small business owners across the country.
"Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland previously stated the government was aware that borrowers faced risks and did not know the default rate on the loan program. 'Small business owners are resilient and our government will continue to be there to help them,' said Freeland."
The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons wants to take away a doctor's license over comments he made about Covid-19 vaccines on social media and his website, says the doctor's lawyer.
November 10, 2023 -"The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons may revoke the licence of an Ontario doctor for his comments on COVID-19 vaccines. An Oct. 6 Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal decision said that Dr. Mark Trozzi committed professional misconduct by 'failing to meet the standard of practice of the profession' in some of his statements about vaccinations and COVID-19 public health measures. They said the comments were made on social media, on his website, and in interviews.
"The tribunal also said Dr. Trozzi failed to meet professional standards when issuing medical exemptions from COVID-19 vaccines to patients....
"The college is looking to have his licence permanently revoked, Mr. Trozzi’s lawyer told The Epoch Times. But it’s something they are prepared for ... Michael Alexander said. He said they’ve set up the case so they can appeal to the court system..
"A penalty hearing was held on Nov. 10, but Mr. Alexander said they do not expect to hear back until sometime in December. He said that Dr. Trozzi is 'undeterred' by the turn of events. 'He’s a very positive person, and he is very passionate about the truth regarding the pandemic in COVID-19, and I would just say the truth generally,' Mr. Alexander said. 'He feels he's done the right thing and said the right things.'
"Mr. Alexander said that the case is an attack on the freedom of expression, calling it a “troubling development.' 'Colleges have now taken on the role of censors and doctors must toe the college's line and the government's line on public health and other matters of science. This is a really fundamental attack on freedom of expression, so it's a very troubling development.'
"The Epoch Times contacted the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons for comment but didn't hear back by publication time."
In the middle of Windsor, Ontario, lawyer Antoine d'Ailly's trial for allegedly violating the Reopening Ontario Act by not enforcing a mask mandate in his office, the Crown prosecutor abruptly withdrew all charges.
November 10, 2023 - "The Democracy Fund (TDF) has successfully defended Windsor lawyer Antoine d'Ailly against allegations that he failed to enforce provincial masking requirements in his law office. Mr. d'Ailly was charged in December of 2020 under the Reopening Ontario Act, which required businesses to enforce masking requirements, subject to numerous exemptions.
"During the trial of November 1, 2023, the prosecution withdrew the charge against d'Ailly after a brief cross‐examination of the Crown's sole witness by TDF. The cross‐examination revealed multiple inconsistencies in the evidence of the Windsor‐Essex County Health Unit's (WECHU's) enforcement officer.
"While Mr. d'Ailly implemented a policy of not demanding proof from members of the public who claimed a masking exemption, his policy was in compliance with applicable law at all times. Despite [his] being on the right side of the law, multiple complaints were made against d'Ailly, resulting in surveillance of his law office and other enforcement measures by WECHU officers.
"Mr. d'Ailly was defended at trial by TDF's Litigation Director, Alan Honner, who says the applicable regulation clearly states that a person need not provide proof of an exemption to the masking requirement. Honner insists that his client was legally and morally justified in not demanding proof of exemptions, and it was the enforcement officers who did not understand the law when they charged d'Ailly....
"Prior to the trial, TDF retained local paralegal Kristen Jarvis to bring a motion for particulars to insist that the crown identify the specific provision under which d'Ailly was being charged. Jarvis's success on that motion was critical to TDF's ultimate win at trial.
"TDF believes in standing up for persons who are wrongfully charged with breaching constitutionally‐ suspect masking laws. To help us in this fight, you can make a tax‐deductible donation on this page to support our work....TDF supports an access to justice initiative for Canadians whose civil liberties have been infringed by government lockdowns and other public policy responses to the pandemic."
"What sets Andrew Koppelman’s book apart from most critiques of libertarianism," says reviewer Marco den Ouden, "is that he actually knows what he’s talking about."
A review of Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed by Andrew Koppelman, 320 pages, Macmillan (Oct 2022)
September 12, 2023 - "Andrew Koppelman ... is a Professor of Law and of Political Science at Northwestern University, a civil libertarian, and the author of books on antidiscrimination law, gay rights, same-sex marriage, healthcare reform, and religious liberty. He declares himself to be 'a pro-capitalist leftist' and acknowledges that his 'embrace of that position here will make many of my friends on the left feel betrayed.' The thing that turns Koppelman’s crank is what he regards as a heartless, narrow, and blinkered understanding of liberty on the part of many libertarians....
"What sets Koppelman’s book apart from most critiques of libertarianism is that he actually knows what he’s talking about. He’s clearly read and researched libertarianism in considerable detail. And while he is sometimes harsh in his criticism, he clearly sees the value in many libertarian positions. His background in law and political science, as well as his writing on civil liberties, allows him to bring some fascinating insights to bear in his analysis. And he sometimes turns libertarian ideas on their head, using libertarian ideas to argue against what he sees as a perversion of libertarian ideas in the works of Rothbard, Nozick, and Rand. 'You ought to be a libertarian—of a certain kind, and only up to a point,' he writes. 'This book is not only a critical description of libertarianism. It aims to marry what is best about libertarianism with the agenda of the left'....
"Koppelman notes that the modern political Left is often more concerned with identity politics than with alleviating poverty. 'A right to be different,' he continues, 'pushes toward localization of power and away from central planning.' The people on the Left, who continue to malign capitalism, 'don’t grasp the anti-socialist logic of their present views.' And because Hayek was not a doctrinaire absolutist in his opposition to a role for the state in the economy, he 'thought redistribution to provide basic needs was an appropriate supplement to a free market. Such a supplement was not central planning, because it left the recipients free to make their own decisions'.... Ronald Reagan, Koppelman suggests, 'succeeded in shifting American politics—and American understandings of liberty—in a Hayekian direction.' Bill Clinton’s Democrats adopted these views and implemented some of the things Reagan could not....
"But while Democrats since Clinton have adopted a Hayekian approach to markets and regulation, Republicans have moved steadily in a more radical and fundamentalist libertarian direction, distilled from the later views of Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand. Before considering those views, Koppelman digresses with a chapter on the Lockean theory of natural rights. Hayek was lukewarm at best on rights theory, but it is the centerpiece of the Rothbard/Nozick/Rand approach. And of course, it holds a key place in the American Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The fundamentalist view of property rights holds that people work and the fruits of their labor is their property. They have a right to it. Such rights are absolute. And, as per the Declaration of Independence, 'to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' This does not give government carte blanche to do what it wants.... 'You must not spend money that’s not yours.' But, Koppelman notes, if this view is correct, 'it straightaway entails that most of what government does is illegitimate.' This, he continues, 'is the moral core of much modern libertarianism'....
"Koppelman identifies Rothbard’s 'core moral principle' as nonaggression, as expressed in For a New Liberty: 'No man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else.' Koppelman says that Rothbard adopts this principle because 'each man may only live and prosper as he exercises his natural freedom of choice,' thus 'if someone aggresses against him to change his freely-selected course, this violates his nature; it violates the way he must function.' Koppelman agrees that this 'axiom entails anarchism'. So how will justice be administered in an anarchist world? By private contractors—“multiple private police forces, with no central authority over them.” Koppelman compares this to a society of warlords, each trying to gain dominance. 'What actually emerges from networks of protective associations, all over the world, is some variety of hereditary aristocracy.' In other words, feudalism.... .
"Koppelman brushes Nozick off in a few paragraphs and moves on to consider the influence of Ayn Rand.... Koppelman seems to have mixed feelings about Rand. He clearly admires some of her writing and philosophy, and he appreciates her support for charity as expressed in her essay 'The Ethics of Emergencies'.... Elsewhere, he writes that, 'the most attractive aspiration in Rand is the independence of judgment, and faith in oneself, displayed by Roark, the hero of The Fountainhead. The book has surely helped many young people with its message that they should pursue their own deepest aspirations, and not care about impressing others'.... But in Atlas Shrugged, Rand 'offers a far cruder picture.' She argued that under capitalism, 'it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability—and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward.'This leads to the view that 'markets give people exactly what they deserve and any redistribution is unjust'....
"In Rand’s opposition to any relief by the state, she shared Rothbard’s position. But while she did argue in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal that 'without property rights, no other rights are possible,” Koppelman suggests that “at Rand’s core is, not a theory of property rights, but an ideal of reciprocity. That ideal is attractive. It is, I suspect, the source of her rhetorical power.” According to the Oxford dictionary, reciprocity is 'the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit'.... 'She has in fact captured an important ethical ideal,' Koppelman continues, 'the value of interpersonal respect between "men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value"'....
"Koppelman concludes with chapters on paternalism, discrimination, and how the lack of appropriate regulation has led to the aggrandizement of modern day moochers and looters....
|I was a doctrinaire libertarian/Objectivist from 1969 to 2000, and I came to my libertarianism through Ayn Rand. The first libertarian book I ever read was Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I was hooked and read everything Rand ever published during her lifetime and much of what was published posthumously. My drift away from orthodox libertarianism accelerated after I retired in 2014, started blogging, and returned to university. I became an admirer of Isaiah Berlin's value-pluralism—the view that genuine values can conflict, which is anathema to libertarians. Although I have read very little of Hayek, Koppelman's book makes me want to explore his thought in more detail. Koppelman presents a good case for taking the Hayekian approach with a work that is rich in detail and full of thought-provoking ideas. It is well worth the read, whether you ultimately agree with him or not."
Three people were injured and one arrested at Montreal's Concordia University after anti-Israel demonstrators tried to tear down an Israeli flag at a separate event.
November 9, 2023 - "In the weeks since the Oct. 7 massacres, Canadian academia has yielded no shortage of voices justifying the attacks and calling for Israel’s ultimate defeat. But on Wednesday night, a table at Concordia University draped with an Israeli flag and carrying pictures of Israeli hostages was all it took to provoke a crush of anti-Israel protesters screaming, making threats and ultimately resorting to physical violence.
"'Go back to Poland, sharmouta!' says one man in a widely circulated video of the incident; 'sharmouta' is an Arabic slur for 'whore.' He was later identified as Yanise Arab, a humanities professor at the University of Montreal specializing in 'dominance and resistance in the Arab world.' Another video with 2.4 million views shows a woman screaming a string of obscenities at Jewish students.... A video with 1.1 million views shows a crowd of several dozen chanting 'ceasefire now' at the Jewish students. And another with more than 1.4 million views shows the moment just before police arrived, with demonstrators from the pro-Palestinian side seen crawling over security guards and attempting to tear an Israeli flag. Police said a 22-year-old female student was arrested for assaulting a security guard....
"'Police were called after two members of our Campus Safety and Prevention Services team who had tried to intervene were physically attacked and an ambulance had to be called,' said Concordia University president Graham Carr in a Wednesday statement. He added that the violence occurred around the same time as swastikas were found graffitied on school property. Carr also said that 'a student group issued a social media post that could reasonably be construed as inciting violence' — although it’s not clear what he was referencing.
"According to The Suburban — a Montreal English-language community newspaper — the table was a permitted display organized by the campus Jewish groups Concordia Hillel and Chabad Concordia. The students had set up a Shabbat table. On a table draped with the Israeli flag, they put out place settings of plates, napkins and plastic utensils to represent the approximately 240 civilians missing after the Oct. 7 massacres and still believed to be held as Hamas hostages. Empty Shabbat tables have been a common mourning symbol throughout the Jewish world in the wake of the massacres....
"But the Concordia Shabbat table was reportedly met by a rival table set up nearby by the group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. This is the same group that has publicly released statements justifying the Oct. 7 massacres and calling for similar attacks to continue until the Jewish state is destroyed. 'We hold the Israeli regime fully responsible for the current violence,' they wrote in an Oct. 11 statement, adding that Gazans had 'no option but to resist.' The statement even seemed to suggest that such 'decolonization' attacks should be visited upon Canada — which they refer to as 'Turtle Island.'
"In a statement after the disturbance, the group blamed the incident on 'Zionist' provocateurs and said they would continue to advocate for a 'Free Palestine, from the river to the sea' — a slogan meant to explicitly reference Israel’s total eradication.
"An edited three-minute video uploaded by The Suburban shows the escalating encounter as demonstrators in keffiyehs — a black and white scarf associated with Palestinian nationalism — and holding Palestinian flags surround the table, eventually coming to fill much of the surrounding lobby. 'You came and invaded my land, your land is in Europe!' says one man. Several Concordia University security guards can be seen forming a line in front of the Jewish students, who are holding aloft Israeli flags and wearing shirts with images of Hamas hostages....
"Concordia ... has been a centre of overt anti-Israel sentiment for at least the last 20 years. Most notably, pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a riot at the school in 2002 in opposition to a scheduled speech by Israel politician Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now Israel’s prime minister. Rioters broke a window and began hurling furniture from an upper mezzanine, which ultimately led to the speech’s cancellation."
November 8, 2023 - "Ohio voters have approved a measure to legalise adult recreational marijuana use. It will take effect in 30 days. Voters supporting the new law, known as Issue 2, defied the will of the state's Republican controlled legislature. The measure was first introduced in 2022, but was stalled by Republican lawmakers, triggering a lawsuit to get legalisation on the ballot....
"'Marijuana is no longer a controversial issue,' said Tom Haren, spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. 'Ohioans demonstrated this by passing State Issue 2 in a landslide.'
"The new law will allow adults over 21 to purchase and possess up to 2.5oz (70g) of cannabis and to grow up to six marijuana plants at home. Buyers will pay a 10% tax imposed on sales going mostly toward addiction services, communities with cannabis facilities and social equity and jobs programmes.
"The drug is illegal at the federal level despite a number of US states having passed laws legalising its use in some form. Cannabis is legal for adult recreational use in 23 other states, including all west coast states and in Washington DC. It is permitted for medical use in 38 states.
"The Ohio law is a citizen-initiated statute and not a constitutional amendment, which means state lawmakers have the power to easily adjust or even repeal the law. Ohio Republicans who remain opposed to Issue 2 are already calling for changes.... Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action President Kevin Sabet ... called on state legislators to remove parts of the law that enable commercial and advertising sales. Others have voiced their concerns regarding the limits of THC, the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high.
"Since voters approved the law, it will be tricky political ground for Republican lawmakers looking to make tweaks without upsetting their constituents."
