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Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for president of the United States, held a rally Saturday evening in Cincinnati.

Johnson, who served two terms as governor of New Mexico, reiterated that there is a third choice for the presidency. Despite his countless differences with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and the Republicans’ choice, Donald Trump, there is one thing he agrees with them on.

Watch the full rally: Part 1 // Part 2

“I agree 100 percent with Donald Trump’s No. 1 issue in this campaign, and I agree with Hillary Clinton 100 percent on her No. 1 issue this campaign. Don’t vote for Clinton, and don’t vote for Trump … They’re horrible.”

Johnson said that voting for a third-party candidate was not a throwaway choice, saying that the country cannot afford a Clinton or Trump presidency.

“It doesn’t take a crystal ball to realize that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she is going to be under federal investigation, something unprecedented,” Johnson said. “The next four years is going to be filled with impeachment smoke.”

“On the other side, you’ve got Donald Trump, who I thought was toast.”

Johnson said he strongly disagrees with Trump’s push to build a wall on the country’s southern border, saying America should support job-seeking immigrants.

“We should embrace immigrants; we are a country of immigrants. We should make it as easy as possible for somebody who wants to come into this country and work get a work visa,” he said, saying that instead of walls, America should build bridges across the border.

Johnson pushed his vision of a sharing economy, suggesting businesses like Uber and Airbnb are the way of the future for the country.

“I really believe that the model of the future is the sharing economy,” he said. “It’s eliminating the middle man. It’s allowing for you and I as the director of goods and services to directly give those goods and services to the end user, who will end up paying less because of no middle man.”

Full article: Gary Johnson in Cincinnati: ‘There is another choice’

If I were a Democrat, then I’d be as furious with my fellow partisans for nominating Hillary Clinton as I am at my fellow Republicans for nominating Donald Trump.

Once again, Clinton is in hot water because of her reckless decision-making. Her original sin was setting up a home-brew server. Her second sin was deciding to delete thousands of emails under subpoena. Defenders act perplexed as to why the Democratic nominee set up this email system. I assume she had many, many things she wanted to hide — which is why she lied about the whole arrangement.

The GOP nominee lacks conviction, character and self-control. Trump didn’t keep his promise to release his tax returns. He trash-talks women and minorities. In all my years of covering politics, I’ve never seen a campaign where supporters actively blame the candidate’s lack of self-control — not his advisers or pollsters — for the harebrained things he says. Even his most enthusiastic fans say Trump is his own worst enemy.

Clinton or Trump? I truly have no idea which candidate would be worse. Either nominee would take the oath of office in the face of angry partisan foes itching for payback. Either nominee has ample self-destructive impulses likely to empower an army of detractors.

That’s why I’m voting for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson. The former GOP governor of New Mexico had the right stuff to win election and re-election in a purple state. Johnson believes in small government. He was not afraid to challenge federal mandates. In his first term, he cut the state workforce by 1,200, capped state budget increases at 4.2 percent (down from 10 percent) and vetoed 388 bills, according to the Almanac of American Politics. When he ran for re-election in 1998, he won 55 percent of the vote.

When I tell people I’m voting for Johnson, wags invariably respond: “You mean the guy who doesn’t know where Aleppo is?” (When an MSNBC talking head asked Johnson what he’d do about Aleppo, Johnson responded, “What is a leppo?”) My quick rejoinder: Running mate Bill Weld, the former GOP Massachusetts governor who won re-election in a blue state, can be in charge of foreign policy.

My more serious answer: Johnson doesn’t answer snap questions well in part because he doesn’t have a staple of canned sound bites he endlessly repeats. When I interviewed Johnson this summer, I asked him to name the first three regulations he’d work to eliminate. He drew a blank — he couldn’t name three. He instead said, “I’ll bet that we’re able to do away with hundreds of regulations in a matter of weeks.” Later he mentioned he would get rid of the federal Department of Education and Department of Housing and Urban Development. He’s not afraid to push for smaller government. He has been a strong critic of the failed federal war on drugs. He supports legalizing recreational use of marijuana. That is, he understands where the federal government should pull back.

Gary Johnson doesn’t like being called an isolationist; he sees himself as a “non-interventionist.” He told me he believes U.S. troops should work to defeat the Islamic State because “ISIS has attacked us.” I fear that he will reduce America’s military footprint abroad, but at least he has little appetite to send U.S. troops in harm’s way for unclear objectives.

Full article: Why I’m Voting for Gov. Gary Johnson | RealClearPolitics

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has a big idea: smaller government.

Johnson’s campaign is founded on the principle that smaller government will mean greater freedom for citizens, both economically and in their personal lives. It’s the policy glue that holds together his fiscally conservative, socially liberal and noninterventionist message.

BALANCE THE BUDGET

Johnson predicts that the United States could face hyperinflation if it doesn’t balance its budget soon. He proposes to shrink the federal government by about 20 percent, which would be a historic reduction. But it’s something Congress has not been able to pass under Democratic or Republican control.

He calls for reductions of up to 20 percent in military spending, raising the Social Security retirement age to 72 and eliminating the federal departments of Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development and Homeland Security. (Some tasks by those departments would be redistributed to other agencies.)

Johnson’s experience as governor of New Mexico in the 1990s shows how hard it is to cut government. Despite a record 700-plus vetoes, he was unable to shrink the size of the state budget, which was larger when he left office than when he came in. In this campaign, Johnson stresses that some government functions, such as environmental protection, are essential.

ALLOW MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION

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He says that, if elected, he’d take marijuana off the federal government’s list of illegal substances. This wouldn’t automatically make the substance legal but would allow individual states to legalize it.

Johnson says he wouldn’t legalize other drugs like heroin or cocaine. He would give states more leeway to experiment on drug treatment programs.

REDUCING MILITARY FOOTPRINT

Johnson describes himself as a skeptic of interventions overseas. He opposed the Iraq war and says the U.S. should have withdrawn from Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Today he says the United States should reconsider some of its overseas bases in areas where allies may not need military protection, such as Japan. Johnson says he would not seek to abrogate treaties like NATO, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested doing. This smaller overseas footprint is one way that Johnson would meet his goal of reducing military expenditures by one-fifth.

GREATER LEGAL IMMIGRATION

In a year when Trump rode a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to become the Republican nominee, Johnson has fiercely defended the value of immigration. He’s mocked Trump’s proposal for a border wall and selected as his running mate Bill Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts who was once nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

Johnson proposes making it easier to work in the United States legally, which he argues would cut down on illegal immigration and improve the economy.

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A SINGLE TAX

Johnson advocates a single, simple consumption tax of the sort that most other industrialized nations use. This would replace the progressive federal income tax as well as the complex corporate tax code. Johnson has not released a detailed tax proposal and acknowledges a consumption tax is a distant goal given the complexity of the tax code and political obstacles to a tax overhaul. Consumption taxes tend to burden the poor more than the wealthy because lower income groups spend more of their money on basic goods and services. Johnson would seek to put safeguards in place to prevent any family from paying more in taxes on basic necessities.

He wants to close what he says are special interest loopholes and to simplify business taxes. Johnson was a strong advocate of lower taxes as governor, even vetoing efforts to increase government fees by a few dollars in various remote New Mexico municipalities.

Source: How Gary Johnson wants to transform America – The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram