Climate unintended consequences: The Olympic Games, which start at the end of this week in Paris, were supposed to be some of the most environmentally friendly in the organization's history. The organizers had opted out of supplying air conditioning for athletes' rooms in the Olympic Village as a means of reducing the event's environmental footprint. Just one issue: Nobody wanted that, and many of the teams will in fact be bringing their own A.C. units.

The event organizers had constructed an Olympic Village equipped with geothermal in-floor cooling systems. But highs in Paris at the end of July/beginning of August average about 79 degrees Fahrenheit during the day; most major competitors have decided the in-floor tech won't cut it and that their athletes need real A.C.

Earlier this month, The Washington Post compiled a list of the top 20 largest competing nations; of the eight that replied to this inquiry, all of them planned on bringing their own portable A.C. units for their athletes. One of the nations that has not responded yet—China—is likely to follow suit, as roughly half of the world's total A.C. units are used in China.

"According to the International Energy Agency, fewer than 1 in 10 households in Europe has air conditioning, and the numbers in Paris are lower than that," reports NBC News. "The study said that of the 1.6 billion AC units in use across the globe in 2016, more than half were in China (570 million) and the United States (375 million). The entire European Union had around 100 million." So it's a bit of a cultural difference. But it's still incredibly rich that the organizers' environmental efforts will be sabotaged to such a degree, and you have to wonder what the total environmental toll of shlepping massive A.C. units halfway across the globe to use temporarily in the Olympic Village will be (though some teams do intend to procure the units in France).

"It's a pity," said Georgina Grenon, the Paris 2024 director of environmental excellence, in response to The Washington Post's question about other countries making less environmentally conscious choices. Still, organizers touted their plan to transform the Olympic Village into apartments for some 6,000 Parisians following the games and say the geothermal cooling tech will be used for years to come.

Locked out of the debates: The first presidential debate will be this Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite high polling, will be excluded from the stage.

Normally, the Commission on Presidential Debates hosts the presidential showdowns (and chooses which candidates qualify for inclusion). This time, however, CNN is hosting, moderated by anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. As is tradition in American politics, which seems so frequently filled with antipathy toward non–major party candidates, the highly polling third candidate—RFK Jr.—will be excluded from the stage, per CNN's rules.

The network set a requirement that a candidate's name must appear on enough ballots nationwide to plausibly be able to win 270 electoral votes. The candidates must also reach 15 percent in four national polls selected by CNN in order to qualify.

RFK Jr. does not qualify for the first (having secured ballot access in just California, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Utah so far, though another dozen states could also end up putting his name on the ballot) yet comes quite close to the second: He's been hovering at around 9 or 10 percent, even cracking 15 in some polls (including one of CNN's very own).

By keeping Kennedy off the debate stage, CNN is depriving viewers of the opportunity to see both Donald Trump and Joe Biden taken to task for the COVID-19 policies they supported—lockdowns that deprived kids of their educations, mask mandates that ended up being almost entirely pointless, funerals and weddings conducted via Zoom, padlocked playgrounds and skate parks filled in with sand, not to mention stunning levels of government spending that sank our economy into deep inflation from which we still haven't fully recovered. We need more people challenging the political duopoly, not fewer. But leave it to the major parties and major networks to fear competition; all incumbents fear competition when they can sense they're in decline.

Scenes from New York: The weed crackdown is underway. Unauthorized dispensaries and bodegas have, for the last year or so, outnumbered licensed shops 20 to one, but New York's law enforcement and regulators have now decided to take action. Signs like these are commonplace, and represent a stunning admission on the part of the pot regulators: They totally botched the legal weed rollout by doling out a paltry number of licenses to applicants on the basis of "diversity" and "equity" but disallowing the vast majority of shops to obtain legal licenses. (More from Reason's Jacob Sullum.)

QUICK HITS

• "New polling from Fox News shows a seven-point swing in President Joe Biden's favorability among independents: They prefer Biden by 9 points, a reversal from May, when they favored Trump by 2 points," reports Politico.
• "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said intense fighting with Hamas will soon be paused and some forces redeployed to the north of the country, where violence is escalating with Lebanon-based Hezbollah," reports Bloomberg.
• "Did anyone ever hear of Dana White?" Trump asked, referring to the UFC president, during a speech at a conference in Washington on Saturday. "I said, 'Dana, I have an idea. Why don't you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters, and then you have the champion of your league—these are the greatest fighters in the world—fight the champion of the migrants.' I think the migrant guy might win; that's how tough they are. He didn't like that idea too much." He also talked up how he would "begin the largest deportation operation in American history" if elected to a second term.
• Over 1,300 people died this month while attempting to complete their hajj to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.

The post BYO A.C. appeared first on Reason.com.

Donald Trump was not the first celebrity presidential candidate who could reasonably be accused of insurrection against the United States. Many decades before Trump, another best-selling author and charismatic leader in a rowdy movement to upend dominant American political mores aimed for the U.S. presidency—Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panthers' minister of information and the author of Soul on Ice.

Unlike Trump, who this year overcame challenges from Colorado, Maine, and Illinois about his eligibility due to the Constitution's Insurrection Clause, Cleaver couldn't be caught up by the 14th Amendment, Section 3, since that explicitly only bars insurrectionists who had already been government officials. But Cleaver faced his own eligibility hurdles.

In 1968, as the first presidential nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party (PFP), formed mostly by antiwar radicals disenchanted with Lyndon Johnson's Democratic Party, Cleaver was below the constitutionally mandated age of 35 and would have been so still on Inauguration Day in 1969. At least three states did eliminate his name, if not his party, from the ballot for this reason.

Many states, however, allowed someone absolutely constitutionally disqualified to remain on their ballot; in Iowa, as reported in the Davenport Times-Democrat, the secretary of state "ruled that he must accept the certification in the absence of positive proof that Cleaver is not of eligible age."

While the various charges haunting Trump during his current campaign involve less violent crimes, Cleaver, four months before receiving the PFP nomination with 74 percent of the delegates' votes, engaged in a firefight with Oakland police that resulted in another Panther's death. He was thus campaigning while out on bail, pending trial for three counts of assault and attempted murder.

As the PFP's candidate, Cleaver certainly sounded like an insurrectionist, not that there was anything (constitutionally) wrong with that. In a campaign speech, as printed in a 1968 issue of the North American Review, Cleaver said: "What we need is a revolution in the white mother country and national liberation for the black colony. To achieve these ends we believe that political and military machinery that does not exist now and has never existed must be created."

The PFP, aligning with the Panthers, pushed Cleaver as its presidential hopeful with a dual agenda, as expressed by member Richard Yanowitz in an online memoir of PFP history: "immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and support for black liberation and self-determination."

During the PFP's inaugural California convention, Cleaver said that he regarded black members of the PFP as "misguided political freaks," but he eventually embraced the alliance and accepted the PFP's national nomination, saying on the campaign trail that "we believe that all black colonial subjects should be members of the Black Panther Party, and that all American citizens should be members of the Peace and Freedom Party." The Panthers' intention, he said, was to "use our papier-mâché right to vote to help strengthen the Peace and Freedom Party and to help it attain its objectives within the framework of political realities in the mother country."

The leftist political tumult out of which the PFP arose in 1968 had many elements that echo modern-day political dynamics. Debates raged about whether black activists should have influence above their numbers and whether the movement should explicitly oppose Zionism. The same sorts of petition barricades to getting a new party on the ballot existed then, though the PFP's campaign in California in particular was a huge success, with 105,000 signatures gathered when only 66,000 were needed.

But rumors persisted about how clearly petitioners informed signers that they were officially registering with the party. PFPers insisted they let signers know they could change their registration back after the PFP got ballot access and before the election. And indeed, the PFP got over 70 percent fewer votes for the presidential race in California than it did petition signatures.

Despite his patent ineligibility and being knocked off the ballot in a few states, Cleaver's PFP campaign garnered over 36,000 votes nationwide. In late September, he polled at 2 percent in California but received far fewer votes on Election Day—a common fate for third-party candidates. Shortly after his electoral defeat, Cleaver fled the U.S. rather than face trial for the Oakland incident, not returning until 1975, after which he served less than a year in jail along with lots of probation and community service.

The cases of Trump and Cleaver illustrate a persistent American theme. Whether because they are mad at the perverted communists dominating the Democratic Party (as per MAGA) or the colonialist and imperialist white power structure (as per the PFP), a segment of American voters want insurrectionist candidates. Who are election officials to deny them?

The post The Black Panther Who Was Banned From the Ballot appeared first on Reason.com.

Chase Oliver, who secured the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination on Sunday night, says "there are few better examples of 'bad government' than the overly complex current laws and regulations involving immigration."

"If we can allow peaceful people to be peaceful, we can more easily and effectively end actual crimes at our border and make our communities, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, more safe and prosperous," explains a statement provided by the Oliver campaign.

Neither President Joe Biden nor former President Donald Trump has an immigration platform—or record—that is a clear fit for supporters of free migration and a less intrusive federal government. Oliver's campaign argues that he offers a different approach, calling out the use of eminent domain "to build permanent walls or structures on properties that do not wish to have them" and the "arbitrary caps" that are prevalent in the U.S. immigration system.

"What Chase offers is a way for peaceful people to move freely, safely, and lawfully," continues the statement.

The Libertarian candidate proposes that the U.S. "return to an Ellis Island style of processing immigrants," which would involve simplifying the immigration process "for those who wish to come here to work and build a better life." It shouldn't take "months or years" for those immigrants to receive medical and criminal checks and work authorization, but days "at most."

Oliver also supports creating a path to citizenship for the country's undocumented immigrants. Millions of undocumented immigrants are "doing essential jobs, paying payroll taxes, and contributing to our economic growth," reads his platform. "Formalizing this arrangement" will "allow them to further contribute to the economy by meeting critical labor demand and reducing inflationary pressures" and save "taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement costs," Oliver's website says.

The platform outlines a pathway to citizenship for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the policy enacted by President Barack Obama that defers deportation action and offers work authorization to immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as kids. Oliver's platform also includes a pathway to citizenship for the children of long-term temporary visa holders, a class of legally present immigrants who must self-deport at 21 if they can't secure legal status before then. There are currently over 200,000 dependent visa holders waiting for relief.

The last point is a unique one. Dip Patel, founder of Improve the Dream, an organization that advocates for solutions for those visa holders, noted that it may be the first presidential platform to outline that relief explicitly.  "It is great to see this common sense idea to allow children raised and educated in America with lawful status be [explicitly] mentioned on a presidential candidate's immigration platform," Patel tells Reason. He hopes that all future candidates' platforms will "include this and other nuanced solutions affecting so many who have spent their entire lives in America."

Oliver wants to expand the H-1B visa program, a nonimmigrant visa pathway for highly skilled, highly educated workers. He also supports a startup visa, noting that 55 percent of American startups valued at over $1 billion or more were founded or co-founded by immigrants. This was the conclusion of 2022 research by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), which also found that almost 80 percent of those billion-dollar companies have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership position.

"It was great to see the Libertarian Party advocate for a startup visa and a higher level of H-1B visas for high-skilled professionals, particularly since Democrats and Republicans often try to coopt ideas from third parties," says Stuart Anderson, NFAP's executive director. "Our research shows making it easier for highly skilled individuals to remain in the United States, including as entrepreneurs, leads to more jobs, innovation and cutting-edge products for Americans."

Oliver's views on immigration have proven somewhat controversial among some in the Libertarian Party, including members of the Mises Caucus (which "advocated this year in an internal strategy document" to "rid references to…free immigration" from the party platform, reported Reason's Brian Doherty). Quizzed on Reason's Just Asking Questions podcast this week about whether he considered himself "an open borders libertarian," Oliver called it a "very ambiguous term" and reiterated his support for a "21st century Ellis Island."

"If you're there for peace, you just go right on in and get to work and contribute to the economy. You get a job," he continued. "And that will get 99.9 percent of the people quickly filed through the process so they can get to work and contribute to the economy instead of being stuck on welfare or charity programs as they are right now."

The post Libertarian Candidate Chase Oliver Wants To Bring Back 'Ellis Island Style' Immigration Processing appeared first on Reason.com.

No Labels says it's about to jump into the 2024 presidential race.

A day prior to a secret delegate meeting that's not a convention, the centrist nonprofit that isn't a political party indicated Thursday that the members whom it won't name are almost certainly going to agree with the backers it refuses to disclose that a non-existent unity ticket to be chosen via undetermined process should nonetheless be green-lit to enter a presidential contest that No Labels swears it can plausibly win and definitely not tip to Donald Trump.

"We expect our delegates to encourage the process to continue," No Labels Chief Strategist Ryan Clancy told The Wall Street Journal.

The Joe Lieberman–chaired organization remains convinced, all contrary evidence notwithstanding, that what disgruntled voters most crave as an alternative to Beltway politics as usual is a centrist coalition of establishment office-holders who can out-hawk both major parties on foreign policy.

"The far left wants to abandon Israel," former Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings warned in an awkward March 5 No Labels State of the Union prebuttal that had 2,600 views in its first two days on YouTube. "And the far right wants to abandon Ukraine."

Is Rawlings a potential candidate to leverage No Labels' ballot access, currently tabulated at 16 states plus the District of Columbia on the way to a projected 32 (with the eventual candidate expected to go after the remaining 19)? Who knows!

"The right candidate is out there," group founder Nancy Jacobson insisted in The Dallas Morning News on February 29. "That's the last piece we need."

What we do know is that the list of politicians rebuffing No Labels' advances grows almost as fast as the organization floating candidate names to the press: former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Sen. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.), vanquished Republican contender Nikki Haley, and steamrolled Biden-challenger Dean Phillips (D–Minn.).

On Thursday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal reported that "One candidate the group is interested in, according to a person familiar with its discussions, is Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I., Ariz.), a former Democrat who said this week that she wouldn't run for re-election." Less than three hours later, Sinema ruled it out.

Why wouldn't a brand-name politician jump at the chance to mount a longshot entry into a polarized, razor-thin White House race? Besides the persuasive cooing of good cops (like Bill Clinton) and out-and-out threats from bad cops like the Lincoln Project ("If you have one fingernail clipping of a skeleton in your closet, we will find it…We are going to come at you with every gun we can possibly find"), there is the cruelty of electoral math.

Manchin, one of the best-known names associated with the organization, appeared in presidential polls in December and January. The showing both times: 3 percent.

Third Way, a center-left think tank playing point on anti–No Labels agitation, released a national poll Thursday testing a name-recognition best-case scenario for the unity ticket, Nikki Haley and Dean Phillips. The duo came in fourth place in a four-way race, at 9 percent, behind Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 13 percent.

Now imagine that instead of a high-profile former governor and United Nations ambassador who had been campaigning for the past year, you had at the top of the ticket one of the last whispered names that hasn't yet said no, like…former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. Brutal.

For nine years running, the establishment centrist hawkish lane for presidential politics inside the GOP has been narrow and littered with bones, from Haley's to Bill Weld's all the way back to Jeb Bush's. Attempts to assemble a new "common sense" coalition in the patriotic center—Evan McMullin, Howard Schultz, Michael Bloomberg—have largely exploded on the launch pad in a conflagration of dollar bills.

While I may prefer this category's comparative sobriety and willingness to prioritize the long-dead project of tackling America's looming entitlements catastrophe, a decent respect for the opinions of the electorate requires facing that voters just aren't into stentorian Problem Solvers who fret that Washington isn't interventionist enough. And those voters who do finally break free of the two-party grip tend to gravitate toward candidates, issues, and parties that represent a clean break from the recognizable Washington past.

Though No Labels, ever opportunistic on public relations, is expected to formally announce after today's post–Super Tuesday Zoom call that the organization is finally in it to win it, one of its officials' many contradictory quotes about the quest gives a possible future way out.

"If the rank and file of No Labels says to us tomorrow, 'Go for it,'" Lieberman told Newsmax Thursday, "we'll do some last polling to see whether we can actually win, and then we'll choose the best ticket we can."

It's hard to imagine even the most skilled masseuse making any such poll numbers look viable. But the underlying political weirdness of 2024 has yet to manifest in the presidential campaign, and you should never underestimate the intoxicating force of visualizing oneself at the vanguard of power.

The post No Labels, With No Candidate, Says Yes to a 2024 Presidential Campaign appeared first on Reason.com.