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Tag:

Rand Paul

Blog

PRESS RELEASE: Liberty Guard Scores All Candidates on Liberty Issues

by lgadmin December 7, 2015
written by lgadmin

PRESS RELEASE: Liberty Guard Scores All Candidates on Liberty Issues

 Cruz and Paul Top the List

 

December 7, 2015
(Atlanta, GA) – Liberty Guard is pleased to announce that its scorecard of the declared Democratic and Republican candidates competing for their respective party’s nomination for the 2016 presidential election cycle is available to create an informed electorate at such a crucial time.

Included in the scorecard are 17 candidates in total — 14 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The GOP candidates include: Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Former Governor Jeb Bush (FL), Dr. Ben Carson, Senator Rand Paul (KY), Senator Ted Cruz (TX), Governor Chris Christie (NJ), Governor John Kasich (OH), Former Governor Mike Huckabee (AR), Senator Marco Rubio (FL), Former Governor George Pataki (NY), Former Governor Jim Gilmore (VA), Former Senator Rick Santorum (PA), and Senator Lindsey Graham (SC). The Democratic candidates include: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-V), and Former Governor Martin O’Malley (MD).

The scoring model examined each of the candidates on public statements, announced platforms/plans, and their voting record (either as an incumbent or past political service). In each of the categories: healthcare, national security, taxation, immigration, electronic privacy, 2nd Amendment, cronyism, budget, education, and ethics; liberty-minded sub-topics were used as the judging criteria. Most notably (and unlike any other scorecard so far), Liberty Guard rated candidates on cronyism and ethics.

In releasing the scorecard, Liberty Guard Chairman Bob Barr emphasized, “The American people are tired of Beltway insiders and their cronyism. The scorecard is a reliable, unbiased way to see how the candidates stack up, issue by issue, on liberty-related topics.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) both outperformed their respective GOP counterparts by advocating and fighting for limited government and liberty-minded principles based on the Constitution. At the bottom of the list includes Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL).

“This scorecard is the first of its kind — ranking candidates on liberty matters, taking into account all a candidates’ past statements and positions as well as votes. This comprehensive effort will inform voters decisions as they sort out the wheat from the chaff.” Liberty Guard President Steve Thomas added. “The typical establishment candidates that would be flourishing in past elections are now suffering. Voters are making this ever more evident by citing their distaste for ‘career politicians.’”

Formed in 2009 by Bob Barr, and supported by over 115,000 Americans across the country, Liberty Guard is dedicated to making liberty work in the real world by restoring and strengthening liberty against intrusions by government at all levels. Liberty Guard remains committed to identifying and supporting policy, candidates, and causes that champion liberty and return our country to constitutional principles.

 

Contact:
Steve Thomas
President
Liberty Guard
703-819-0127
[email protected]
www.Libertyguard.org

 

2015 Scorecard

 

December 7, 2015 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

The Tory Party vs. Rand Paul

by Liberty Guard Author June 3, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

If John McCain, John Cornyn, Mitch McConnell, and the other Republican senators lashing into Rand Paul because of his efforts to force expiration of Sec. 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act had been alive and part of the debate back in 1775-76, they would have been blasting Patrick Henry for supporting Liberty. Colonialists McCain, Cornyn and McConnell would have been firmly in the Tory camp; defending the powers of the Crown to “protect” the colonialists through such tools as Writs of Assistance.

Today, in this 21st Century, the tools may have changed, but the foundational principle on which our independence was fought – a federal government of limited and defined powers — remains the same; yet it is in far greater danger today than 240 years ago.

To McCain and other defenders of the all-powerful and all-seeing national security labyrinth that has mushroomed in the last 14 years, Rand Paul’s stand against permitting the National Security Agency to continue exercising a power to electronically surveil American citizens’ private communications without reasonable cause – an abuse a federal Court of Appeals already has ruled to be unlawful — is “reckless” and a threat to America.

These modern-day Tories might as well champion the words of ol’ King George III, who characterized his benevolent tyranny thus: “I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel.”

And what has this “scoundrel’ Rand Paul done? Dismantle the NSA? Destroy the power of the Intelligence Community to monitor real threats? Take away the ability of the CIA to conduct legitimate covert operations? Hardly.

All Paul has done to earn the enmity of the “Anything-It-Takes-to-Make-Us-Safe” caucus in the Senate is to try and reform Sec. 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act to bring it in line with the law and the Fourth Amendment.

Moreover, it is not as if the federal government does not have, and would continue to have, a full arsenal of tools at its disposal to identify, monitor and thwart real terrorist threats. And already moves are afoot openly – and quietly – to ensure that during this interim period when Sec. 215 is at least formally in limbo, those communications that pose a threat and are worthy of monitoring, are in fact monitored.

It would be naïve indeed to think the massive surveillance apparatus at the NSA is at a true standstill after years of abuse justified by the government’s broad interpretation the USA PATRIOT Act’s provisions. Already, there are attempts to weaken the USA Freedom Act – which passed the House last month and places at least some limits on Sec. 215 abuses. For example, Senate surveillance hawks want to keep secret the rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that has, unshackled by public knowledge or input, shaped how and what information the government collects on American citizens. Other proposals include extending the time the government is allowed to collect bulk phone metadata before handing over control of databases to telecom companies; and requiring the companies to give government advance notice of any changes to their retention policies. This latter provision would give Congress time to enact legislation prohibiting such changes if believed to hamper the government’s snooping efforts.

Of course, even such moves by McConnell and other Rand Paul-bashers do not soften their disdain for the junior Senator from Kentucky. McConnell continues to fume at Paul’s refusal to “play nice”; and he stopped just short of naming Paul directly when accusing the opposition of leading “a campaign of demagoguery and disinformation launched in the wake of unlawful actions of Edward Snowden.”

McCain – never one known for congeniality or subtlety — has taken an even lower road, in accusing Paul of putting “a higher priority on his fundraising and his ambitions than on the security of the nation.” Not that McCain would ever use “national security” as a fund-raising theme.

Threats to American freedom are nothing new. And our Founding Fathers understood that if Liberty was to have enduring life, limitations on government power must be made permanent and not allowed to fade depending on the nature of a particular threat. Thus, our Founders chiseled the Fourth Amendment into the bedrock of our young nation even as we faced a very real and present threat from our former master, Great Britain – an enemy far more powerful than modern-day terrorist organizations.

It is depressing in the extreme that these lessons – this history – have now been forgotten and blithely discarded by so many of our political “leaders” more concerned about restoring the powers of the Crown than protecting the Liberty of the individual.

Originally published here on townhall.com

June 3, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Court Declares NSA Spy Program Illegal, Senate GOP Leaders Respond, “So What?

by Liberty Guard Author May 13, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

In March 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sat before the Senate Intelligence Committee when Sen. Ron Wyden asked him if the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper’s unequivocal response: “No, sir.” It was a lie; but it was not until months later that Clapper finally offered a tepid apology for what he claimed was a “mistake.” His excuse — delivered with all the sincerity he could muster and still keep a straight face — was that he “simply didn’t think about Section 215 of the Patriot Act” when he delivered his earlier, unqualified denial.

Clapper moved on to other endeavors, as did the Senate; and his bald-faced lie largely faded away. Thankfully, just last week, a federal Appeals Court panel in New York showed it was not so willing to “let bygones be bygones.” In an opinion that was unusually blistering in its tone and wording, the Court stated that the manner in which the National Security Agency (NSA) has been using Section 215 to scoop up so-called “metadata” on virtually all cell phone and other electronic communications, is simply illegal.

The Second Circuit opinion comports clearly with both the language and the intent of this section of the Patriot Act. I should know; I was a member of the House Judiciary Committee that debated the legislation in committee and on the floor of the House back in the immediate aftermath of the 911 attacks. More broadly, of course, the Court recognized that the government’s absurdly expansive reading of the section would, if allowed to continue, make a mockery of any reasonable expectation of privacy enshrined in and protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Sadly, but true to form, many Republican Senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, remain steadfast in support of the surveillance program now clearly found to be unlawful. They vow to bring legislation to the floor that would continue the program without any limitation. This doubling-down strategy is accompanied by the usual cries that “the sky is falling,” and that “Lone Wolf” terrorists will run rampant in the streets of American cities, if NSA is reined in to the slightest degree in its zeal to gather metadata.

The manner in which some of these surveillance supporters convey their support has been misleading, to say the least. Sen. Rubio, for example, recently encouraged his Twitter followers to let him know if they agree that “now’s not the time to end NSA.” No one, of course, is moving to close down NSA; critics are simply asking that the Congress limit the Agency’s surveillance powers over law-abiding Americans to lawful means. But, in senatorial or presidential politics, accuracy often is the victim of hyperbole.

Last week’s ruling is a refreshing reminder that there still are judges in America who understand the Constitution, who can read and abide by the common sense meaning of legislation, and who are sufficiently courageous to stand up and say so. It is true that there are individuals in the Congress who hold similar views; but unfortunately at least on the Republican side, they appear to be in the minority.

One Republican who clearly “gets it,” is Sen. Rand Paul, who is threatening to filibuster the effort by his Party’s leadership to kick the NSA can down the road and thereby permit it to continue at least for the time being to operate outside the law. All Americans – inside the Congress or elsewhere – who believe in constitutionally-based governance, should energetically support Rand Paul’s effort.

Originally posted here via townhall.com

May 13, 2015 0 comment
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