news 8.29.2012

 

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people. -- Cornel West 

 

“Watch the Gov. Gary Johnson speech that has Ron Paul fans raving over the Johnson Presidential campaign.”

Gov. Johnson Addresses P.A.U.L. Fest in Tampa

Friends,

This week, the Liberty Movement is at a critical juncture. 

The Republican Establishment gathered in Tampa for its convention is doing two things:  Obviously, they are coronating their chosen nominee for President, Mitt Romney – who promises to deliver to America a continuation of big spending, big government, and war. 

But while the coronation of Mitt Romney takes place on the stage, the Republican are trying to shut down Liberty at their convention and in their party. 

As reported in the New York Times, “Delegates from Nevada tried to nominate Mr. Paul from the floor, submitting petitions from their own state as well as Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Oregon, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. That should have done the trick: Rules require signatures from just five states. But the party changed the rules on the spot. Henceforth, delegates must gather petitions from eight states.”

At the invitation of supporters of Congressman Ron Paul, Governor Johnson traveled to Tampa in the days before the Republican convention to address the P.A.U.L. Fest. Anyone who was in the room – and there were about 2,000 Liberty advocates in attendance – can assure you that the Liberty Movement is not to be denied!

They can change the rules to keep Dr. Paul from being nominated. They can send their Washington, DC, lawyers to Iowa and file challenges in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma to try to keep Gov. Johnson off the November ballot.  But they CANNOT silence the Liberty message that Governor Johnson and Congressman Paul are taking to every corner of America. It is a message that Governor Johnson will keep delivering at every opportunity –  with your help today.

When the media learned that Governor Johnson was in Tampa over the weekend, he didn’t have enough hours in the day to do all the interviews they requested.  Why the attention?  They had heard about Gov. Johnson’s reception at the P.A.U.L. Fest – and they were talking to Republican delegates who are saying Congressman Paul’s treatment at the convention is causing them to take a close look at Governor Gary Johnson.

We MUST seize the momentum this week’s events have created.  We have a few short weeks to reach millions of Americans via email, advertising, phone calls and social media.  When those voters face the reality that the Republicans and Democrats are offering them Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, they will be looking for the choice Gov. Johnson provides – and they need to hear from us.  Your contribution today atwww.garyjohnson2012.com will make that possible.

Please go to www.garyjohnson2012.com and ensure that the message of Liberty continues to spread.  Never before has the opportunity been so great.  Your contribution is the key to grabbing that opportunity.

Thank you for your friendship to Gov. Johnson, and your support.  It is happening!

Ron Nielson

Senior Adviser

P.S.  Don’t forget.  Right now, we are fighting legal battles all across the nation to fulfill Gov. Johnson’s pledge to be on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Your contribution will help us win!

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New York Times reporter leaked colleague's column to the CIA

Published: 29 August, 2012, 20:00

The New York Times headquarters building (Ramin Talaie/Getty Images/AFP)

When The New York Times took on Barack Obama in an op-ed last year, the paper called out the president for relying on Hollywood to help boost his image — only, however, after delivering a draft of the diatribe to the CIA before firing up the presses.

Just 12 months after Times columnist Maureen Dowd drew up an op-ed attacking US President Obama and his administration, an email has been unearthed that suggests that the somewhat scathing opinion piece was not published without the involvement of America’s top-secret intelligence community. Judicial Watch has obtained emails between New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti and a CIA spokesperson dated last year that shows that even one of the nation’s more liberal — and arguably reputable — resources for news was weary of coming down on the commander-in-chief, and specifically his office’s ties with America’s spy sector.

In her August 6, 2011 column, ‘Downgrade Blues,’ Dowd dissects the president’s first term up to that point, reveling in Obama’s inability to follow through with the campaign promises he pushed on voters before the 2008 election.

“Barack Obama blazed like Luke Skywalker in 2008, but he never learned to channel the Force. And now the Tea Party has run off with his light saber,” Dowd writes in one paragraph. “The dissonance of his promise and his reality is jarring.” 

Elsewhere, Dowd attacks the White House for working hand-in-hand with movie producers to help research "Zero Dark Thirty," the upcoming Kathryn Bigelow-Mark Boal flick about the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani compound that left the former al-Qaeda leader dead.

“The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration,” Dowd writes. “ It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president’s image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a CIA ceremony celebrating the hero Seals.”

Now it’s been discovered that, even before Dowd’s final draft was published in the Times, Mazzetti made sure a copy was sent to a CIA spokeswoman named Marie Harf.

In an email dated August 5, 2011, Mazzetti forwards a copy of the op-ed before it was published, adding, “this didn’t come from me… and please delete after you read.See, nothing to worry about!”
Other emails obtained by Judicial Watch shine more light onto just how updated Hollywood was kept with the bin Laden raid details that the American public were not privy to. In one correspondence, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Doug Wilson writes to Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Benjamin Rhodes that the film’s producers were being brought up to snuff with insider CIA info with the “full knowledge and full approval/support” of Leon Panetta, who at the time headed the agency.

In another internal email, Harf acknowledges that both Boal and Bigelow had worked closely with personnel that were directly involved in the raid, including the translator that was on the scene
“These new documents provide more backing to the serious charge that the Obama administration played fast and loose with national security information to help Hollywood filmmakers,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton says of the emails. “No wonder we’ve had to fight one year of stonewalling from the administration. These new documents show there is no doubt that Obama White House was intensely interested in this film that was set to portray President Obama as ‘gutsy.’”

New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet has downplayed the discovery of the emails, telling POLITICO that the truth to the matter isn’t as rough as reporters are making it seem.

"I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing," Baquet says. "I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing."

"The optics aren't what they look like," he continues. "I've talked to Mark, I know the circumstance [sic], and given what I know, it's much ado about nothing."

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy has since issued a statement as well. “Last August, Maureen Dowd asked Mark Mazzetti to help check a fact for her column. In the course of doing so, he sent the entire column to a CIA spokeswoman shortly before her deadline. He did this without the knowledge of Ms. Dowd. This action was a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards,” Murphy writes.
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Dear MoveOn Member,

Polls show that our efforts to redefine Mitt Romney as the candidate of the 1% have been effective, but at this week's Republican Convention, Mitt's got one more chance to re-introduce himself to the country.¹ He's running a three-day advertising campaign, with prime time media coverage, to convince voters that he's actually concerned about the average citizen.

But that's a lie we're not going to let him tell.

This Thursday, we're releasing "The Man from Bloomfield Hills," a hilarious mini-doc based on the true story of Mitt's hardscrabble upbringing in one of the wealthiest towns in the U.S. The "mockumentary" is in the style of other candidate biographies shown at conventions, and is told from the perspective of the people who know Mitt best, including his wife Ann Romney.

To celebrate the release, and to coincide with Romney's acceptance of the Republican nomination, we're having an online watch party Thursday evening. Will you watch with us? Click here to view the trailer and RSVP for the online watch party.

 

Thanks

Source:

1. "Poll: Mitt Romney better for the rich," Politico, August 27, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=279545&id=50069-23675519-s3cA7Ux&t=1

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