Ann Curry to the rescue? Despite all that’s gone down between the anchor and The Today Show , that’s what NBC is hoping. Weeks after Curry was unceremoniously fired , sources tell Radar Online that the program will utilize her on-air more often than originally planned. ” Ann Curry reported for Today on Monday morning from the Syrian border, and she will be featured on a much more routine basis going forward,” a series insider tells the site. “Ann is truly doing what she loves the most now, reporting from war-torn countries and bringing viewers stories of people that are affected by the destruction in the region.” With ratings for Today remaining low and the series continually losing out to Good Morning America , executives are now banking on the woman they fired to save the long-running program. A few days ago, the Today producer took the blame for Curry’s ousting, absolving Matt Lauer from responsibility.
When the 2012 presidential debates kick off Wednesday, Gary Johnson will not be there. The often overlooked libertarian may still have an impact on the election, however. According to a new poll by Reason , President Barack Obama leads challenger Mitt Romney, but the Libertarian Party’s Johnson garners a statistically significant 6 percent. Johnson pulls votes from both major-party candidates, the survey found. A former two-term governor of New Mexico and before that a self-made construction businessman, Johnson has always been known for his low-tax views. He first sought the presidency via the Republican nomination last year, but after being excluded from those debates, launched his third-party run in 2012. While facing overwhelming odds against Democratic incumbent Obama and Republican nominee Romney, Johnson could still be a factor in next month’s election. Siphoning enough votes from one candidate could benefit the other in a number of closely-contested states, and many of his views are in line with the mainstream . Gary Johnson a Factor in 2012? About 61 percent of poll respondents said that wealth disparities are an acceptable part of the American economic system and not something the government can fix. “One of the reasons they may believe that,” explains Reason’s Emily Ekins, “is that 59 percent think that individuals have an equal opportunity to succeed in this country.” Also, 45 percent of Americans want the federal government to pass fewer laws, compared with around one-third who think it should be more active. “However,” she notes, “there is one law that voters overwhelmingly would like to see passed – and that’s a law to audit the Federal Reserve.” Somewhere, Ron Paul is smiling. And/or seething that he won’t be on that stage either.
Okay now he’s talking good sense. Just weeks after becoming one of the biggest punchlines of the colossal failure that was the 2012 Republican National Convention, Clint Eastwood is speaking out about his role in the festivities. Via US Weekly : “If somebody’s dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they’re going to have to take what they get,” the 82-year-old star told Extra earlier this week about his now-infamous August 30 Republican National Convention appearance, during which he addressed an invisible Barack Obama “seated” next to him. Eastwood explained himself further to Ellen DeGeneres during a Tuesday sit-down with the comedienne. “The Democrats who were watching thought I was going senile. And the Republicans knew I was!” joked the legendary actor and director. Eastwood also seized the opportunity to clarify his political views — he’s not a Republican or a Democrat, but a Libertarian. Explaining that fiscal responsibility is what matters most to him, the San Francisco native said his views also extend to social issues, too; Eastwood revealed he takes issue with any government interference in citizens’ personal lives, including attempts to define marriage, same sex or otherwise, through legislation. Said the Gran Torino star, “[It’s] a part of the Libertarian idea: Leave everybody alone!” Later in the show, DeGeneres and Eastwood took a break from talking politics to discuss Mrs. Eastwood and Company, a reality show focused on Eastwood’s wife, Dina, and daughters Francesca, 19, and Morgan, 16. When asked how he feels about the series, Eastwood said he “doesn’t feel much.” “If they want to do a reality show, that’s fine,” the notoriously private star shared. “My only request was to please leave me out of it as much as possible!” Sorry, but as much as good ol’ Clint got clowned for talking to a chair he was still probably the best speaker at the whole RNC. Which ain’t sayin’ much. Do you agree with Eastwood’s Libertarian views? Getty Images
Thanks to absolutist firebrands such as Rand and Ron Paul , laissez-faire economic sentiment has been gaining momentum in the GOP for some time. But with the nomination of deficit hawk wunderkind — and notable Ayn Rand devotee — Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate, movement libertarianism has officially been added to the Republican presidential platform. Regardless of whether Romney is elected and Ryan’s controversial budget proposals are made law, the rebranding has already created two decisive effects: first, it has excited the fiscal-conservative base enough to warrant representation at the penultimate level; and second, it has convinced swaths of more marginal voters, who vaguely recall skimming through Atlas Shrugged as undergrads, that they were ardent “objectivists” all along. In honor of the libertarian strain of Republicanism getting its RNC coronation this week, here are the top nine films that evoke a reverie for free markets and, in some cases, the dystopian nightmare that’s sure to follow if we ignore Rand’s literary prophecy. 1. Top Gun (1986): Many conservatives credit Ronald Reagan with bringing down the Berlin Wall and ending the Cold War. Cineastes know it was Maverick and Goose. The recently deceased Tony Scott’s pop art masterpiece did for capitalism what Eisenstein’s innovation of montage did for Bolshevism. (Just substitute the jittery stomping of horses with more photogenic F-16 fighter jets. Today’s audiences smirk at the towel-clad locker-room romping and blue-jeaned volleyball homoeroticism , but the convergence of “Danger Zone” aerial balletics and the mega-wattage of a then 23-year-old Tom Cruise is still enough to raise long-dormant goose-bumps for American exceptionalism.) 2. Casablanca (1942) : Humphrey Bogart’s Rick runs the best casino-bar in town, traffics in guns for African rebels, and appeases the Nazi occupation just to keep it all in the black. He is the archetype of the cutthroat entrepreneur: “I stick my neck out for nobody,” he unhesitatingly declares. Randians will rejoice as Rick wheels and deals in dubious moral territory with the stoic confidence of a man who believes doing what makes sense for Rick is the only true imperative. Just make sure to tune out before the last act when Bogey’s iconic hero contrives a plot for the good of humanity capped with the ultimate act of altruism: saying goodbye to Ingrid Bergman. 3. The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Yes, Christian Bale as Batman selflessly gives nearly everything to save his fellow Gothamites in the concluding chapter of Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus trilogy – including an attempt to develop a MacGuffin fusion technology. Free socialized energy for the whole world! Yet, the politics of Nolan’s franchise are more inscrutable than Bane’s face mask-muffled line readings. A short list of the thematic evocations, in no particular order, include: 9/11, the subprime crash, Occupy Wall Street, kangaroo-court tyranny, class warfare and vigilante justice. Alas, none of these threads cohere into a mission-statement that that transcends the film’s deafening soundtrack, or its grimly self-serious hero mythology. Because the leftist aspirations of Bruce Wayne are so dwarfed by the narrative’s hodge-podge of political themes, avowed libertarians should simply enjoy this film’s spectacular set-pieces while delighting in the bleak vision of a militarized proletariat revolution. Hint: it mostly involves sending the “productive class” on a short-walk over a thinly frozen East River.
Young voters slowly trickle into polling stations in Boston, Columbus and Atlanta on Tuesday morning. By Andrew Jenks, Jacob Soboroff and Becca Frucht Outside of a Georgia Tech polling station on Super Tuesday Photo: Rya Backer/MTV News BOSTON — It’s cold. It’s early. And almost nobody is voting yet on the day that every pundit is saying could finally shake up this year’s Republican presidential race. Polls opened here at 7 a.m. for Super Tuesday voting and if the initial trickle at the Harbor Point Technology Center — the closest polling place to UMass Boston — is any indication, turnout ain’t looking good in the home state of GOP presidential front runner Mitt Romney. Boston’s NPR station, WBUR, reported this morning that only 300,000 voters are expected to show up today, 200,000 fewer than in the 2008 presidential primary, when both parties were engaged in vigorous races. To put things in perspective: almost one million young voters are eligible to vote in Massachusetts today. In the spacious first floor student lounge here, flags of the world’s countries hung over the room as 18-year-old Amanda Carey admitted she hadn’t voted yet but she would do so for the first time ever after school in a bid to support fiery Congressman Ron Paul. But by 8:30 a.m. only one voter, a 24-year-old Northeastern graduate named Ashley, had shown up to vote. She identified herself as a Libertarian and said she was voting to get President Obama out of office because, “I don’t believe he’s delivered on any promises he made in 2008.” Down the road at UMass Boston, students were trickling into the Campus Center. There wasn’t a polling place there, but there was a cafeteria. And for now that was a way bigger draw this morning. ( Jacob Soboroff ) ATLANTA — We’re at Georgia Tech and the Student Center polling station in the heart of campus is open! But so is the Chick-Fil-A right next door — and so far, it looks like more people are interested in biscuits than ballots. Maybe they’re just powering up for the big day? Michael, a grad student in electrical engineering, was definitely down to exercise his democratic duty. He’s also really passionate about Paul and credits the Libertarian Congressman from Texas with inspiring him to learn more about the economy. Michael believes former President Bush and now President Obama have “crashed the system” and the only one talking about the big changes we need to make as a country is the GOP’s oldest candidate. “It felt good,” he said about voting for a candidate he was passionate about. “I wouldn’t have come out today if Ron Paul wasn’t a candidate.” Some early birds were planning to read up and get their vote on in the November general election, but Mark Teal, a senior in civil engineering, is sitting Tuesday’s vote out because he’s a Democrat, even though he could still cast a ballot in the open primary. He predicts whoever wins the Republican nomination may give Obama a good fight, but is confident the current president will see another term. Brent and Chase, two seniors majoring in electrical engineering, weren’t eligible to vote because they didn’t get absentee ballots in time, but they’re on the Newt Gingrich train and are confident the former House Speaker will win in his home state. Finally, I chatted with Mehran, a 22-year-old Industrial Engineering major, who says it just too early for him to get involved — and he wasn’t even aware that it was Super Tuesday, or that the Republicans were duking it out to take on Obama. ( Becca Frucht ) COLUMBUS — It’s 6:30 a.m. and I am walking around The Ohio State University campus trying to find the polling site. I ask five to six students and nobody knows where it is. I finally find an information booth and they laugh and tell me I have actually been on site the entire time and the station is just 20 yards away. The polling site, in the student union in the center of campus, is pretty quiet around 7:30 a.m., when I was expecting a morning rush as students cast their ballots on their way to the day’s first class. Plenty of young people are going to class/work, but all zoom right past the polling site. Not even a glance. I didn’t see one person under the age of 30 exercise their power to vote in the 90 minutes I hung around in the cold dawn. Finally, I found Andrei Rhakovic, 25, who was in a hurry, but stopped for a minute to speak his mind. “It’s just bulls— overall,” he said. “I voted for Obama four years ago … but these past four years have really shown how f—ed and corrupt the system still is.” If anyone could get us out of this jam he describes, he thinks it’s Paul, but, well, let’s just say Rhakovic doesn’t trust his judgment either. Oftentimes when I speak with young voters it feels like they’ve experienced a “bad breakup” with government and politicians and this year’s election. But for Andrei, he is feeling much more than that. This is a bad — real bad – divorce. When I ask what it would take for him to re-engage all he can say is, “I don’t know. That’s a good question.” It’s the first time he was speechless. ( Andrew Jenks ) MTV has Super Tuesday covered, with reporters on the scene in Georgia, Ohio and Massachusetts! Check back for up-to-the-minute coverage on all the primaries, and stick with Power Of 12 throughout the presidential election season.
As Colorado and Minnesota caucus today (educated expectations have Ron Paul doing not so well in the former, probably second in the latter), a Reuters/Ipsos poll has the libertarian leaning congressman second place. Extra special good for the rest of the campaign, if and when it gets to just Romney and Paul, Romney is dropping (while Santorum also gains a lot). Details : Romney was backed by 29 percent… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Reason Magazine – Hit & Run Discovery Date : 07/02/2012 06:54 Number of articles : 2
Tallahassee, Fla. —Costco cashier Daniel Saindon’s flea market booth stands out like a sore thumb. Surrounded by vendors hawking discount DVDs, buck knives, and cheap memory cards, Saindon’s booth champions the presidential candidacy of the libertarian Texas congressman. The 31-year-old, wearing a Ron Paul baseball tee, regrets not setting up the booth sooner but says he just didn’t have time. “It’s… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Reason Magazine – Hit & Run Discovery Date : 28/01/2012 19:27 Number of articles : 2
Thanks to solid support from caucus voters under the age of 30, Paul finished a solid third in Tuesday’s primary. By James Montgomery Ron Paul Photo: Getty Images Mitt Romney may have edged Rick Santorum to take Tuesday’s Iowa caucus, but Ron Paul’s third-place finish gives his campaign plenty of momentum heading into next week’s New Hampshire primary … and new data indicates he owes much of that showing to the support of young voters in the state. According to the
Can reality show popularity translate into success at the polls? Rupert Boneham hopes so. The former Survivor star, who won $1 million in 2004 when he was voted that show’s fan favorite, announced this weekend that he’s running for governor of Indiana under the Libertarian Party. Arguing that he’s “not beholden to any special interests,” Boneham said at a news conference yesterday that he’s the right man to replace Mitch Daniels in office. “I have only one interest: Empowering Hoosiers to give back to their communities. If the government puts up roadblocks, then they should be repealed,” Rupert said. “Hoosiers have consistently voted in professional politicians and look at the results. Hoosiers should have a different choice in 2012.” The aspiring politician runs Rupert’s Kids, a charity that provides mentoring and job-training to at-risk youths. But the real question remains: what will the tribe of Indiana residents decide when it speaks next November?
Welcome to Ask a Libertarian with Reason’s Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. They are the authors of the new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America. Go to http://declaration2011.com to purchase, read reviews, find event dates, and more. On June 15, 2011 Gillespie and Welch used short, rapid-fire videos to answer dozens of reader questions submitted… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Reason Magazine – Hit & Run Discovery Date : 16/06/2011 00:47 Number of articles : 2
