Earlier this month the Libertarian Party of Colorado filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State to ensure the candidates in this hotly-contested recall election are given the time allowed by the state constitution for petitioning to be on the ballot.  

Well… they won! You can read the full statement on the LPCO website.

They have recruited a great candidate, Jan Brooks, to run for the Colorado State Senate.  However, the courts have given our party a very short window — only until this Monday, August 26th – to gather nearly 1,000 signatures to get her on the ballot. This, along with planning and running the campaign, is a monumental task. The Libertarian National Campaign Committee supported the lawsuit and is now fully committed to supporting Jan Brooks’ campaign.

With the lawsuit victory in hand, the LPCO called on us for help. And we had to act on short notice.  We committed ourselves to the campaign and the state party’s efforts, and we brought out the big guns. We flew in LNCC Executive Director Evan McMahon last night, arriving in Colorado Springs from Indianapolis to help organize and advise the local team.

Evan is scheduled to be there on the ground through September 5th. He is helping the Colorado team to train and task volunteer petitioners and lay out a quick-draw campaign strategy. This grassroots campaign is all about organizing very quickly, as the election will be held on September 10th … less than three weeks from now.  

More important than this one campaign, though, is the opportunity we have for Evan to teach the Libertarian Party of Colorado practical nuts-and-bolts campaign skills to help them with future campaigns. 

Of course, placing Evan in the field for this task comes at a price.  There are additional costs we bear to cover his transportation, room and board. Then there is the opportunity cost. While Evan is in Colorado, he has limited time to address the day-to-day tasks of the LNCC. 

We are here to turn the tide and change the course of America. And our ability to accomplish this depends on you. With your help we can make a dramatic impact on the liberty movement.

Colorado is just the first of many states to follow.  If you believe as I do that providing practical support for Libertarian candidates and local parties is needed for our success, I ask you to stand with me and our mission by underwriting our efforts.

Please click here to donate online today.

For over 15 years Evan McMahon has been a sought after professional political strategist and campaign advisor.  His experience includes advising hundreds of up and down ticket races across the country, organizing ballot measures and issue advocacy campaigns, statewide voter registration drives, developing the first ever responsive streaming online townhall for a campaign, guest lecturing at universities and actually getting candidates elected to office.

In just a few short years, Evan has earned the respect of Libertarians throughout the “big tent” and gained a solid reputation for his dedication, seemingly limitless campaign knowledge and his 90+ hour work weeks.

Over the next two years, Evan will be working day and night to help recruit, train, advise, outfit and fund Libertarian candidates across the country. All with one single minded goal — restoring liberty through the ballot box.

We are here to turn the tide and change the course of America.  And our ability to accomplish this depends on you.  With your help we can make a dramatic impact on the liberty movement.

I ask you to stand with me and our mission by supporting the LNCC, donate online today.

Very truly yours,

Mark W. Rutherford, Chairman
Libertarian National Campaign Committee

This time it’s a 3.5 percent tax on premiums from health plans sold on upcoming federal exchanges.

This latest Obama tax on the middle class was unveiled Friday during the release of 373 pages of new Obamacare regulations.

The tax will be imposed on insurers and paid by consumers.

It makes one wonder what other hidden tax, job-killing regulations and health-endangering meddling will be unveiled in a second Obama term.

Montebourg, a member of the Socialist Party, suggested Indian steel company ArcelorMittal should leave the country and the government take over control of their plants.  “The French government announced on Thursday that it could nationalize the factory in question, with backing from an unnamed businessman,” NBC reports.

“Barack Obama’s nationalized,” said Montebourg in reference to the Obama administration seizing control of General Motors.  “Nationalizing is a very modern step to take…It’s a way of making the economy work in the interests of industry.”

• 77 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the cost of health care in the U.S.

• 67 percent describe the U.S. health-care system as being in a “state of crisis” with “major problems.”

• 62 percent rate the actual quality of health care in the U.S. as good to excellent.

• 58 percent rate health care coverage in the U.S. as fair to poor.

But despite all that:

• 54 percent say it is not the responsibility of the federal government to ensure all Americans have health care

Source: A Gallup poll of 1,015 U.S. adults conducted Nov. 15-18, and reported by The Washington Times’ Jennifer Harper.

In fact, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent election night calling unsuccessful candidates to tell them to not stop campaigning — because the next election is just 24 months away.

“Literally on election night 2012, I was calling candidates who fell short and urging them to run in 2014,” the DCCC chairman, Congressman Israel, told BuzzFeed. “We literally started recruiting before the election was over.”

While some political parties and groups spent the morning after the election clucking about things on websites, just hours after the polls closed Israel was already “holding the first in a series of recruitment meetings designed to replenish his ranks.”

“The game’s not over until the bottom of the ninth, and even then you go for extra endings,” Israel says, “If you grew up like I did, even if you’re up 20 runs you don’t stop man.”

Have you started yet?

Are you contacting Libertarians urging them to run in local, state and federal elections next year and in 2014?

Are you calling your friends and family asking them to make a major donation to a Libertarian candidate?

Are you going door to door to identify potential new Libertarian voters?

Will you be greeting voters as they leave the polls during the upcoming local elections in 2013?

Her margin of victory was only 45 votes out of more than 12,000 cast, winning 6,153 votes to opponent Bill Kroonen’s 6,108.  That’s only around one-third of one percent.

And it’s proof that putting in the hard work of knocking on doors, making phone calls and running a professional direct mail campaign to find, dig out and turn out votes can be the difference between victory or defeat.

The Libertarian National Campaign Committee congratulates City Councilwoman-Elect SusanMarie Weber.

The government study, conducted over four years through interviews with more than 11,000 American adults, claims that while soda and other sugary drinks are responsible for six percent of the average adult’s calorie consumption, alcoholic beverages account for a nearly identical five percent.

‘We’ve been focusing on sugar-sweetened beverages. This is something new,’’ said Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a study author, tells the Associated Press.

The “Center for Science in the Public Interest,” a special interest group dedicated to expanding governemnt controls on food consumption and other private behavior, is already using the findings to agitate for new government controls on alcohol labeling.

Anti-calorie activists like the CSPI are already using the study to push for federal regulations mandating calorie labeling on alcohol, along with punitive taxes on those who drink an alcoholic beverage.

“Health officials should think about enacting policies to limit alcoholic intake…said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest,” the AP reports.

‘‘In New York City, it was smart to start with sugary drinks. Let’s see how it goes and then think about next steps,’’ Wooten crowed.

The federal government outlawed alcohol entirely in 1919 through a constitutional amendment, but repealed it in 1933 after prohibition led to a violent and bloody black market.

But as with most government prohibition efforts, bureaucrats are finding it easier to control behavior through punitive taxation than criminalization.

In 2009 the Obama administration proposed a federal tax on calorie-loaded beverages as part of an effort to socially engineer the nation’s health.  It was dropped after heated citizen opposition.

Electricity, running water and a road allowing people to reach it.

For $29 million dollars the American people got “mostly just a big hole in the ground, local radio station KUCB reports.

Usually the federal government will not fund port construction if there is no infrastructure to support the port, the Army Corps of Engineers tells KUCB.

“Yes. It’s not normal. And it has prevented the construction of harbors in the past, when that supporting infrastructure is not there,” says Steve Boardman, head of the Corps’ civil projects division.

Building a road to reach the port won’t happen for at least another two years, and that will come at a cost of $11 million per mile.

Even if the Obama-funded port is ever connected to a road, or to electricity, or to running water, there’s no guarantee anyone will even want to use it.  The harbor will have 58 slips.  But locals only own five boats.

If the Court agrees to hear the case, it will decide whether states can protect the rights of gays and lesbians to marry.

Proposition 8 was struck down by a federal judge who ruled it violated the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, a ruling upheld by a 2-1 vote of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

While it appears a majority of justices may be interested in hearing an appeal it does not appear a majority would rule to overturn it, clouding the possibility of the Court taking up the case.

Like most Americans, Libertarians believe government should not define, regulate, license or tax marriage, leaving it up to people, businesses and other parties who to treat as married couples.