Friday, March 8, 2013

Gary Johnson: Taking Liberty on the Road

 
Friends,

Traveling the country over the past couple of years, I have been amazed -- and heartened -- by the response I, and more importantly, the ideas of smaller government and greater freedom receive on college campuses.

Young people get it.  The $16 trillion (and growing) debt our government has racked up will land on their shoulders. The individual liberties destroyed by laws like the Patriot Act and NDAA are their liberties.  And the consequences of decades of foreign intervention will fall on their generation.

A large part of the success of the Our America Initiative and the larger effort to mobilize Americans who share our principles will be reaching out to these young people and giving them a role in the liberty movement.  To that end, on April 1, we are kicking off the first phase of our “Live Free” campus tour.  Throughout April, the tour will take us to campuses from Ohio to New Mexico.  The full schedule is below -- or can be accessed here: Facebook.com/GovGaryJohnson

The time has come.  This week, we saw a handful of Senators hold up the confirmation of the CIA Director until they received some small measure of clarification from the Attorney General that it is NOT acceptable to let the President assassinate American citizens with no due process. It is truly disturbing that such clarification was even necessary, and even more alarming that it took a filibuster in the U.S. Senate to get it.  Nevertheless, for a couple of days, even the mainstream media had no choice but to acknowledge such a fundamental issue.

I am proud that thousands of our followers on Facebook and Twitter joined in the public outcry that prompted that filibuster.  It was a small victory, but a great example of what can happen when the liberty movement mobilizes and speaks up.

In the months ahead, the politicians will be making many more decisions about our rights, our economic freedom, and whether the Constitution really means anything.  It is critical that we be heard as those decisions are made, and our Live Free tour is a great way to tap the energy and enthusiasm I have found on our college campuses.

Of course, taking the Our America Initiative to all these schools, and to many more in the months ahead, is a major undertaking.  Advertising, logistics, travel, publicity -- they all require funding.  I hope you will lend your support to this exciting effort by going to Our America and making a contribution that will help cover our expenses.  Large or small, your financial support is essential to making the Live Free Tour a success.

And, obviously, I hope to see you somewhere along the tour.  In addition to our campus rallies, we will be having informal gatherings at each stop, and it would be great to see you, to exchange ideas, and talk about what we are doing to put liberty and freedom back on the national agenda.

Stay tuned for more announcements about special guests, additional events and other updates about the Live Free tour.  And, please, take a moment to go to
Our America and help make the tour as exciting and successful as possible.

As always, thank you for your friendship and support.


Gov. Gary Johnson
 

Honorary Chairman
Our America Initiative

P.S.  I want to hear from you.  If you have ideas and suggestions for the Our America Initiative, please do not hesitate to be in touch with me.  We have much to do, and your input is important!

West Wing Week: "Jedi Mind-Meld"

This week, the President urged Congress to resolve harmful budget cuts and reduce the deficit in a way that helps grow the economy and strengthen the middle class -- invoking both Star Wars and Star Trek while he did it. President Obama also held his first Cabinet meeting of the second term, announced three key Cabinet nominations, and signed the Violence Against Women Act.

Watch this week's West Wing Week.


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

CPAC’s big, gay headache



CPAC has a GOProud problem.

The small, but outspoken, gay conservative group just won’t go away, despite the best efforts of some of the conservative leaders behind the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

The American Conservative Union (ACU), whose board grants access to the annual summit, began barring GOProud as a co-sponsor in 2012 — after welcoming the organization in 2010 and 2011.

But why was GOProud barred from CPAC sponsorship in the first place? That depends on who you ask.

ACU Chairman Al Cardenas addressed the question in a radio interview on Friday, attributing their exclusion to “over-the-top” behavior…


Source: Daily Caller

Rand Paul Leads Filibuster of Brennan Nomination

By Ashley Parker
 
4:59 p.m. | Updated Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, began an old-school, speak-until-you-can-speak-no-more filibuster on Wednesday just before noon, and was still going strong hours later.
 
Mr. Paul, who opposes the nomination of John O. Brennan to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, had previously said he would filibuster President Obama’s nominee after receiving a letter this month from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that refused to rule out the use of drone strikes within the United States in “extraordinary circumstances” like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
 
On Wednesday, Mr. Paul did exactly as promised, taking to the Senate floor to filibuster Mr. Brennan’s nomination.
 
“I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the C.I.A.,” Mr. Paul began. “I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court...
 
 
Source: The Caucus (New York Times)

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Washington Post report confuses one prostitute with another in bid to debunk Menendez allegations

The Washington Post mistook one prostitute for another Monday in a report that initially seemed to debunk a November 2012 Daily Caller exposé of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.

While the Post said it had an affidavit from a woman in the Dominican Republic admitting she fabricated claims Menendez paid her for sex, that woman was not one of the two prostitutes TheDC interviewed for a Nov. 1 report.

The Post identified the woman as 23-year-old Nexis de los Santos Santana.

The Miami Herald similarly reported that de los Santos “was one of two women who appeared in videos” published by The DC.

De los Santos claimed she was “surreptitiously taped,” the Post wrote.

The Miami Herald noted, however that “in The Daily Caller video, in which she is allegedly the woman wearing green whose face is blurred out, she appears wearing an earpiece and answering questions.”
 
Source: Daily Caller
 
 
 

Hardest College Course Ever? 6,000 pages

Maybe there are some tougher classes out there. But you have to admit, the reading load for this one is pretty intense:
Poet W. H. Auden was a professor at the University of Michigan during the1941-42 academic year, teaching “Fate and the Individual in European Literature.” His syllabus required over 6,000 pages of reading including Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” Dostoevsky’s “The Brother’s Karamazov” and Melville’s “Moby-Dick.”

Which would be awesome, were it not required for a single college course.
The syllabus (first unearthed by the blog “more than 95 theses“) identifies the reading list as being for the “first semester…”

Nevertheless, 3,000 pages of Shakespeare and Sophocles in four months still sounds dense.
Sounds like a fantastic reading list!

Full story at The New York Daily News.

Source: College Fix

Gov. Gary Johnson upcoming event

 
"I Am A" 
on Reddit, Tuesday, March 12.
 
 
Reddit
 
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 3 p.m. PST / 6 p.m EST, Gov. Gary Johnson will host a Reddit IAma "I Am A." 
 
In an IAmA post, Gary Johnson will post what he is, and other people will ask Gary Johnson about himself and about the important issues of the day. 
 
 
The 60-minute on-line event will give participants a chance to ask the former New Mexico Governor and Honorary Chairman of the Our America Initiative questions via the popular website, Reddit.com.

To ask a question, visit www.reddit.com at 3 p.m. PST / 6 p.m EST, Tuesday, and just search "Gov. Gary Johnson".  Governor Johnson is anxious to hear from you!

Please join us!
 
 
LIVE FREE TOUR!
 
Coming this Spring: Governor Gary Johnson will be kicking off the Our America Initiative Live Free Tour.
 
Visit Gov. Gary Johnson's Facebook page for updates on his spring tour across the country. Keep liberty alive!
 

Attack of the Robosquirrels


Dear friend of liberty,

This week, the House of Representatives will vote on a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through September.

Reports indicate the House is already looking for funding tricks so they can cheat on their sequester diet less than a week in.

And, of course, the CR still doesn't cut a penny of actual spending.

It's vital you sign C4L's "Real Cuts, Right Now" fax petition, but first allow me to explain why.

While the Republicans maintain a numerical majority in the House, voting in the 113th Congress shows that a minority of squishy, Big Government Republicans have proven themselves willing to vote with the majority of Democrats to pass unconstitutional legislation.

For years, the GOP leadership adhered to a rule that they would only bring a bill to the floor if it had the support of "a majority of the majority."

This rule worked fine for them when the majority of the GOP caucus were establishment Republicans or fiscal conservatives willing to betray their principles to "go along to get along."

But now, thanks to the hard work of Campaign for Liberty members like you, the GOP establishment can no longer count on lockstep support when they try to pass big spending bills, so they are working with liberal Democrats to pass their statist legislation.

They have already done this three times this year!

First it was the fiscal cliff, then the pork-laden Sandy "relief" bill, and most recently, reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act.

On all three bills, the majority of the GOP was against the legislation for fiscal or constitutional reasons, and in all three cases, a minority of establishment Republicans teamed up with Democrats to pass these bills over their objections, while using scare tactics to get their way.

Zachary, if this continues, I'm afraid it's going to be a long two years of coalition rule by the statists in both parties.

You and I both know there are plenty of cuts to be made in the federal budget.

But since Washington can't seem to figure things out, here are some suggestions:

**** First, the House GOP should not cave in to support ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank (which deepened the government's involvement in the financial system).

This CR funds implementation of both ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, and a vote for it is as bad as a vote for these bills themselves!

**** Second, every year, Senator Tom Coburn publishes a "Wastebook" - a thorough study of government waste at the federal level.

Last year's "Wastebook" identified $18 BILLION in savings just by eliminating wasteful and duplicative government spending!

One example is a research grant to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for $325,000 to create a robotic squirrel named "Robosquirrel." Apparently, version 2.0 will give us a "weaponized" varmint capable of pelting rattlesnakes with stones.

This highlights an important issue often ignored in Washington: the federal government has no constitutional authority to fund science and technological research!

It's not popular to say things like the NSF are unconstitutional and shouldn't exist, but when Washington, D.C. is running trillion-dollar deficits annually, we need to reexamine government's priorities.

As Coburn's report concluded, "paying $325,000 for a robot squirrel seems a bit squirrelly."

**** Third, Senator Paul's past budgets and legislative proposals show plenty of fat on the federal budget that could be trimmed.

In fact, the first bill Senator Paul introduced last Congress would have cut $500 BILLION in one year!

You should have seen the faces on the political elite in Washington when he brought that up...

Even though cutting $500 BILLION would have only taken care of 1/3rd of the federal deficit!

I can't think of a better example to highlight the disconnect that exists between Washington, D.C. and Main Street, U.S.A.

From the establishment's perspective, every dollar spent by Washington is sacred.

Outside of Washington, however, the reality of the damage out-of-control government has created is settling in more every day.

So please click here to sign your Real Cuts, Right Now petition now and help turn the American people's desire for reform into action.

And if you can, please consider going further by chipping in $10 or more to help Campaign for Liberty reach even more people with the Real Cuts, Right Now message.

Please Turn On Your Images

You and I sure do have our work cut out for us.

A large minority of House Republicans has shown they are eager to support the status quo on spending.

Even worse, they've proven a willingness to team up with Democrats to continue spending us into oblivion.

You and I must show them doing so will be quite costly.

That's why it's vital you sign your Real Cuts, Right Now petition to urge your representative and senators to find real savings in the budget.

And if you can, please consider chipping in with a donation of $10 or more after signing the petition to help Campaign for Liberty promote Real Cuts, Right Now.

Not next year, not ten years from now - RIGHT NOW!

Allowing the increased spending reductions from sequestration to take effect is just a head nod toward fiscal responsibility.

But it's also a smokescreen for reformers to hide behind and say, "See, we tried!"

Our legislators must be reminded that the $85 billion drop-in-the-bucket cuts are not a stopping point.

It's time for Congress to wake up and end the status quo cycle of tax-and-spend.

The first step is getting the House of Representatives to adopt amendments to the CR that enact REAL Cuts, Right NOW!

In Liberty,

John Tate
President