At 7:08 am, Governor Johnson will be on WCHV (1260 AM and 94.1 FM) taking questions.  Call at 434.817.7653!  Try to mention Virginia Right (or Conflicted Libertarian) while you are at it!

From 1pm to 2pm, Governor Johnson will be the guest on the Rob Schilling Show (A great show by the way!) on WINA AM 1070 (see http://schillingshow.com)  Ask him a question!  Call 434.977.1070.  Don’t forget Virginia Right!

At 7pm that evening, Governor Johnson will speak at the Northside Library in Charlottesville.  I strongly recommend you go.  If I did not have a church meeting that night, I’d be there!

His first was about Ron Paul:

Still, the presidential race is eons in the distance, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a wide-open contest at the start. That is good news for libertarian Ron Paul, who, startlingly, finished just one vote behind Romney. His organizers are the most intense of all.

This may well be great news.  If Paul and former NM Governor Gary Johnson can make the deal and run together as a libertarian ticket, they may have a force to reckon with. 

Fineman’s OTHER observation concerns my other political hero:  Bobby Jindal.

Other than former Oklahoma congressman J. C. Watts and RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who spoke to the gathering, I don’t think I saw a single African-American at the event. I’m not sure I saw a Latino or Asian person there, either—except for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, of course: “Southern, white, Republican, conservative” is a quadruple redundancy. They have as much right to hold a meeting as any other group. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that, as amped up and potent as this crowd felt inside the ballroom, there is another, larger world—and another generation—rising elsewhere.

See what I mean about tone?  I would think there were many African-American, Latino and Asian attendees at the SRLC.  If you were one, write to Fineman.  But Fineman makes a point that if someone like Romney were to be nominated, he may well seek out Jindal and persuade him to be his running mate for demographic reasons.   There are better reasons.  I think the nation might be in for a surprise.

However, there is plenty to do.  The President can appoint Cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries, ambassadors, judges and United States attorneys.  He or she MUST have solid constitutionalists in those positions.  Cong. Paul did not directly speak to the issue but I would suggest that upon election, turn the office-seeking on its head.  Use the transition team to find solid constitutionalists from the private sector, academia and a few from government, to fill those positions.  Go to them and ask them to consider a short time of service to their Republic.  Few will without a good reason turn down a fellow constitutionalist President. 

The good news is the Senate usually gives the new President a pass (absent moral or ethical lapses) on Cabinet officials.  This is true for judges sometimes, especially in the lower courts.  The bad news is that the constitutionalist administration will have less of a pass than a liberal one.   

The short-term answer may be recess appointments.  Fill all the vacancies in the Federal judiciary with recess appointments with solid constitutionalists and then when the time comes, ask the Senate to confirm them.  There will be one or two bad apples but the vast majority should be confirmable.  There will be plenty of politics and lovers of liberty will have to be vigiliant. 

Cong. Paul in his manifesto says that any time a vacancy or retirement occurs in the Federal bureaucracy, he would apply the “snow day rule”:  if the position is non-essential, simply not fill it.  Paul also would use executive orders in a different manner than any of his predecessors: 

Executive orders are a useful management tool for the president, who must exercise control over the enormous federal bureaucracy. However, in recent years executive orders have been used by presidents to create new federal laws without the consent of Congress. As President Clinton’s adviser Paul Begala infamously said, “stroke of the pen, law of the land, pretty cool.” No, it is not “pretty cool,” and a conscientious president could go a long way toward getting us back to the Constitution’s division of powers by ordering his counsel or attorney general to comb through recent executive orders so the president can annul those that exceed the authority of his office. If the President believed a particular Executive Order made a valid change in the law, then he should work with Congress to pass legislation making that change.

I agree.  In fact, if a constitutionalist President (Paul or Johnson) is elected, I would be glad to serve as the assistant White House counsel in charge of reviewing all prior executive orders (I am an attorney and have some academic/scholarly credentials) for likely repeal!  I wouldn’t even have to move to DC.  I’d do my research from home and report to President Paul once a week or so with my results.  I’d only have to go back to FDR’s administration and I’d be done with humble service to the cause of liberty. 

I also agree that necessary executive orders can be recommended as legislation.  Treaties should also be reviewed (perhaps by the new special WH counsel Paul hired who works at home) for revision, reservation and repeal. 

Cabinet secretaries can use their power to grant state waivers to implement liberty and encourage diverse thinking on policy, eespecially in the field of health, education and welfare (wasn’t there an agency called that?  ) Paul calls for pilots to be armed:

Perhaps the most efficient step a president could take to enhance travel security is to remove the federal roadblocks  that have frustrated attempts to arm pilots.  Congress created provisions to do just that in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.  However, the processes for getting a federal firearms license are extremely cumbersome, and as a result, very few pilots have gotten their licenses.  A constitutionalist in the Oval Office would want to revise those regulations to make it as easy as possible for pilots to get approval to carry firearms on their planes.

Agreed!  Most pilots I would suspect are veterans and have a clean record.  I trust them to handle arms in appropriate ways.  That is only one example of clearing regulatory underbrush without congressional approval.  Another is to issue directives to the US Attorneys not to prosecute medical marijuana cases, cases where states have laws in place to deal with it and are dealing with it, and cases based on unconstitutional statutes.  

For my final post, I’ll speak to monetary policy.

Yet a pro-freedom President and his legislative allies could make tremendous progress simply by changing the terms of the negotiations that go on in Washington regarding the size and scope of government.  Today, negotiations over legislation tend to occur between those who want a 100 percent increase in federal spending and those who want a 50 percent increase.  Their compromise is a 75 percent increase.  With a president serious about following the Constitution, backed by a substantial block of sympathetic representatives in Congress, negotiations on outlays would be between those who want to eliminate them outright – thus a compromise would be a 50 percent decrease in spending.

 The budget would be a manifesto.  Budgets tend to be wish lists anyway.  Let’s make it a liberty budget.  Paul suggests six items in any liberty budget:

1. Reduce overall federal spending

2. Prioritize cuts in oversize expenditures, especially the military

3. Prioritize cuts in corporate welfare

4. Use 50 percent of the savings from cuts in overseas spending to shore up entitlement programs for those who are dependent on them and the other 50 percent to pay down the debt

5. Provide for reduction in federal bureaucracy and lay out a plan to return responsibility for education to the states

6. Begin transitioning entitlement programs from a system where all Americans are forced to participate into one where taxpayers can opt out of the programs and make their own provisions for retirement and medical care

This budget would in all likelihood be declared DOA when it hit Congress by the leaders in Congress (barring a turnover of revolutionary proportions) and the mainstream media.  the forces of liberty must be ready to use its powers:  Our internet savvy, bloggers, local media, persuasion, town halls etc. to sway public opinion toward the liberty budget.  If necessary, President Paul must use his veto pen.  And be ready to shut down the government if need be.  The line should be: 

“I offered a reasonable compromise, which was to gradually reduce spending, and Congress rejected it, instead choosing the extreme path of continuing to jeopardize America’s freedom and prosperity by refusing to tame the welfare-warfare state.  I am the moderate; those who believe that America can afford this bloated government are the extremists.”

I’d also send Vice President Gary Johnson out to speak to the boss, so to speak:  the American people.  Huge “Call DC” rallies would be organized through folks like all those who got Ron Paul the attention in 2008, the Campaign for Liberty, the YAL, as well as Tea Party leaders.  The budget is the showdown.  President Paul may well resign and admit the USA is too far gone if he cannot get a liberty budget passed.  This might be a good idea to suggest exactly that.  President DeGaulle tried it once or twice (although he went to the well too many times and had to quit) and it was initially successful.

In the field of education, it is clear that the system has failed.  We’ll cover that in my next post.

It is a good question and it should be resolved.  For both to run splits the libertarian vote and causes an establishment candidate to win.  On the one hand, Gary Johnson has youth and is similar to the ideas of Paul without the social conservatism that turns off some from supporting the Texas congressman.  However, Cong. Paul is clearly the number one movement libertarian, has tremendous name recognition and can raise  money and supporters.  One site dedicated to the internet sites dedicated or supporting Paul, has about 265 pro-Paul sites registered.  (Your blogger just registered THIS site there this weekend.)  Paul is also on the opinion shows almost every night and is a frequent guest on foreign media as well.  It will be hard for Johnson to overcome that.  He would have to establish all of that exposure Paul has now.

Ron Paul and Gary Johnson agree on virtually all of the top issues that are relevant in a nationwide election. The differences come in the emphasis placed on the different issues. Johnson tends to focus more on civil liberties and a non interventionist foreign policy than sound monetary policy and the Federal Reserve.

I agree.  The simple solution is one the author does not state but implies:  Both of them run together as a team.  Let Paul/Johnson be the 2012 ticket for the libertarian movement.  Paul brings the enthusiasm and money; Johnson brings the future voice of the movement.  If they win, Paul would probably only serve one term and then campaign for Johnson as his successor.  If they lose, Johnson would inherit most of Paul’s support and take up that mantle.  He would be the TV king that Paul is now. 

Let Paul and Johnson run together – no drama on running mates BUT two campaigners to stump a state or nation.  Paul/Johnson 2012 is the libertarian dream ticket. 

Somebody might ask:  What about Jindal?  I am conflicted.  Jindal is very intelligent and very much an over-achiever.  He’s been a success in every job he held.  He’s trying to clean up his native state – no mean feat.  I believe he will be a great President and I hope I can help him.  The Conflicted Libertarian is truly nonplussed.

However, I believe 2016 (or 2020) is Jindal’s year after eight years as Governor of Louisiana.

The most striking result in the NBC/Journal poll is that the Tea Party movement has a net-positive 41 percent to 23 percent score. The American public is in a populist/conservative/libertarian mood. Republicans need to adopt that mood, channel it into sound policies, and learn to trust the people, without worrying that they haven’t all yet signed up to GOP orthodoxy.

That sounds like find and support Ron Paul/Gary Johnson candidates.  We’ll see if we see Kristol out stumping for Rand Paul or Peter Schiff.

Here is Gary Johnson’s official Our America web site.  His positions are similar to Cong. Paul’s web site.  Thanks to tajitj for this news tip!

Here’s another comment that excites me and will send tajitj to new heights of rhapsody!  This is a quote from Bill Kauffman in the American Conservative cited in GOP 12:

At breakfast the morn of the rally, I sat across the table from a friendly dude wearing a peace-sign T-shirt and looking like an affable old surfer. He introduced himself as Gary Johnson, the former two-term governor of New Mexico. Over the next day, I spent a fair amount of time chatting with Governor Johnson: mountain-climber, triathlete, vetoer of 750 bills.

He told me that he may take a shot at the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 as an antiwar, anti-Fed, pro-personal liberties, slash-government-spending candidate—in other words, a Ron Paul libertarian.

This is small potatoes compared to this next story.  Dick Morris suggests in Newsmax that former Massachusetts Mitt Romney is out of serious 2012 running due to his healthcare “solution” in his home state.  I would seriously consider anything Morris says about politics.  You might not agree or feel confortable with Morris but he is a brilliant politico on the level of Machiavelli.  I respect anything he says. 

Morris also says that former Alaska Governor Palin has a way to go to be the GOP front runner:

“I think that Sarah Palin’s book sales are doing well, and I think she’s an incredible woman, but a lot of people were concerned when she resigned from the governorship of Alaska. Right now there is no front-runner…”

I think this has been a good two weeks for Governor Jindal.  He is quietly not making mistakes but being a good, competent governor of an important state.  I know he wants to run for re-election but i also know he listens to the Lord and if He says, it’s time, thne it’s time.

Governor Johnson, who caused not slight controversy in calling for the legislation of marijuana while serving as his state’s chief executive, is a fine libertarian candidate in the Ron Paul tradition.  I am not sure he is as socially conservative as Cong. Paul (although he may be one of the first so-called pro-choice politicians that was endorsed by National Right to Life!), but he is a principled politician who has something to say.

Here is Evertts first blog entry:

A few TRILLION dollar nails in Americas fiscal coffin.

$1,000,000,000,000 dollars. A thousand billions. A million millions. About $3,400 dollars for every man woman and child in the United States of America. 34 million times what I made last year. You could buy 15 million houses like mine.

In the last 8 years our Federal Government has (or is a few weeks from passing) with a few yeas and nays, passed four things that will cost that much or close to that much. None of them are Constitutional, really needed, or would allocate that trillion dollars better than the people.

• The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
• TARP bank bailout
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Obama stimulus)
• Very soon to be healthcare bill.

Lets compare the national debt and Federal budgets to average American finances. Receipts (taxes brought in) were 2.52 trillion and the national debt was 10 trillion dollars at end of fiscal 2008. So, our Federal governement owed 3.92 times what they brought in through taxes.

Lets say you and your wife bring home $50,000, around the median American income. If you owed 3.92 times what you made in a year, you’d be $196,000 in debt. That is getting bad, way too much for me personally, but Americans if employed and being thrifty can live like that. By the way, you have ZERO savings just like the government, which means your future is very very bleak.

The three programs, purchases, boondoggles, whatever want to call Washington’s expenditures, that already passed equal around 158% of 2008’s tax receipts. For you and your family that equals to adding $60,000 in new debt over last 8 years. You’re even telling your wife you absolutely need a new  boat (healthcare bill) for another $19,500 price tag.

You were doing ok, but now you can barely afford them, I guess you wanted a few perks. Even though your perks might be renovating the kitchen, getting a nicer car, or giving the kids a real big Christmas, while the governments perks are killing thousands of people in the Middle East, paying off old buddies who run huge banks, giving every lobbyist their dream pet projects, and trying to force the whole country onto an already bankrupt Medicare system.

2010 is looking much much worse, those little projects are coming back to bite you. The deficit is expected to be $1.75 TRILLION by end of fiscal 2009, the national debt is estimated to be 12.7 TRILLION. Meaning you would now have over $250,000 in debt. Something has to give. Either you have to sell your house(reform social security), get rid of a car(cut the empire), get another job(raise taxes), or you will go bankrupt. It has to give now, you will not be able to keep this going for another year. The bank (China) is not going to give you anymore money because they see what is going on. No different for our government.

They could have keep right on going with the status quo, racking up yearly deficits of a few hundred billion dollars. We could have taken care of Osama and his gang in Afghanistan, got through the housing bubble, took care of needy Americans, and fixed Medicare all without bankrupting America. Washington lost its mind in the past decade. Only now people are wising up to what is going on. They could have kept right on being corrupt as any institution in the history of the world, but they got greedy. We needed a bigger empire, the banksters needed more of our money, lobbyists needed more influence, and the entitlement system needed expanded.

In a Gary Johnson administration, there will be people looking to the future. Short term fixes and pleasures will be out the window and the American peoples interests will be fought for. Not big business, big union, big bank, big military. Women, whites, poor, black, gay, atheist, wealthy, young, southern, catholic, healthy, hispanic, rich, sick, old, it does not matter. All Americans will equally benefit by the executive branch of government doing less. The alternative is the end of the American dream for everyone.

This is well said.  I would only add that the debt to PRC will make us subject to their persuasion on policy issues.  Better not discuss persecution of Christians or Tibet or Taiwan (Taiwan is the most mistreated nation in the world – the Republic of China is not allowed to enter the Olympic Games with their national flag or name.  They are also not in the United Nations) or we’ll not be happy!  The PRC debt should be retired first.

MORE from tajitj in a few days!  Go eat turkey and dressing and remember the important stuff:  The SAINTS will win Monday night!

Sandy the Chief Blogger