June 14, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement reacting to the shooting in Alexandria, Va.:

“The vulnerability of our nation’s leaders to a terrorist attack like the one in Alexandria, Va. makes it all the more clear that a national concealed carry law needs to pass to ensure all citizens are able to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The Bernie Sanders supporter who shot Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others was only prevented from committing a mass murder by the presence of armed Capitol Hill police assigned to Scalise. While it is particularly heinous that this was an attack on the very institution of government, it would be no less tragic if it had been against everyday citizens. Those citizens need to have the choice guaranteed to them by the Constitution to have the means to protect themselves. Congress needs to act now to pass national concealed carry legislation.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 12, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning issued the following statement urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to narrow the scope of the investigation currently being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller:

“Given former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony that there is no collusion between President Trump and Russia to do with the campaign, the scope of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation should be dramatically narrowed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to simply the leaks and the Obama administration unmaskings to led to this witch hunt in the first place. If Mueller refuses to investigate these leaks, which are one of the central reasons he was even appointed as Special Counsel, then the Special Counsel should be discontinued. It is not up to the Justice Department to choose who the President of the United States is. The American people already made that decision in 2016.”

Attachments:

“Can Special Counsel Mueller objectively handle the Russia, unmasking and leak investigations?” By Robert Romano, June 12, 2017 at http://netrightdaily.com/2017/06/can-special-counsel-mueller-objectively-handle-russia-unmasking-leak-investigations/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 12, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement announcing a new Americans for Limited Government video ad, “Crisis Point,” urging Congress to expand the electric grid with coal and nuclear power:

“For the first time in at least a decade, a new coal mine opened this week in Pennsylvania. Only one new nuclear power plant has come online in the past 20 years. In the meantime, the federal government has waged a war on coal with crushing regulations that is taxing our grid capacity, which has not grown at all in a decade even as residential use was increasing. We have reached the crisis point, where the economy cannot grow and enough new, good-paying jobs cannot be created without expanding the grid particularly in the industrial sector with coal and nuclear. If America wants to be a manufacturing powerhouse again, we need more power, and expanding the use of coal and nuclear to fuel this expansion just makes sense.”

Attachments:

“Crisis Point,” Americans for Limited Government, June 12, 2017 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9aDX3c8Px4&feature=youtu.be

“Infrastructure Requires Electrical Grid Expansion For National Security, Jobs,” By Ken Blackwell and Rick Manning, June 6, 2017 at https://townhall.com/columnists/kenblackwell/2017/06/06/infrastructure-requires-electrical-grid-expansion-for-national-security-jobs-n2336908

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 8, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

“James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was ultimately all about James Comey. The minute he acknowledged that nobody had ever been prosecuted for hoping something and that neither President Trump nor Attorney General Sessions had actually ordered him to stop any investigation with their words, any potential obstruction case against anyone in the Trump administration including the President ended. The rest of his testimony would have been better left for his memoirs.”

Attachments:

“No obstruction of justice by Trump in Comey testimony,” By Robert Romano, June 8, 2017 at http://netrightdaily.com/2017/06/no-obstruction-justice-trump-comey-testimony/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 7, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress to cancel the August recess and get to work:

“It’s time for Congress to get to work, and the first step is cancelling the August vacation. At a time when President Trump’s agenda is being stalled in Congress based on the calendar, it is time for Speaker Paul Ryan to cancel Congress’ paid vacation. What’s more, the House should be in session on Mondays and Fridays until they get all of the appropriations bills done.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 6, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement on the settlement reached by the U.S. and Mexico over Mexico’s illegally dumping of sugar on U.S. markets:

“We are grateful that Commerce Secretary Ross took Mexico’s sugar dumping on U.S. markets seriously as a precursor to the upcoming NAFTA renegotiations. The proof on whether this settlement is a success will be in if Mexico now complies with the agreement, and if the U.S. government follows through on its threat to immediately and aggressively impose further sanctions should they fail to do so. As the administration moves forward with the hard work of renegotiating NAFTA, Americans for Limited Government will be steadfast in our commitment to a future trade environment that reflects overall U.S. economic interests.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 5, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement on the impending settlement between the U.S. and Mexico on sugar dumping:

“The devil is in the details on these kind of agreements, and we will be taking a close look at any remedies proposed in the U.S.-Mexico sugar settlement to determine if they have any teeth or not to stop Mexico’s sugar dumping on U.S. markets.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 2, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) for insisting that the FBI, NSA and CIA provide all unmaskings that occurred by the outgoing Obama administration throughout 2016 all the way through Jan. 20, 2017, which he said on the John Batchelor Program on June 1 were “We’ve been waiting since March 15 for that information. The intelligence agencies have been slow-rolling this, which is what led to these three subpoenas being issued to the appropriate agencies” against former CIA Director John Brennan, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and former UN Ambassador Samantha Power:

“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is a hero and has absolutely done the right think in demanding that the FBI, NSA and CIA turn over all unmaskings that occurred by intelligence agencies in 2016 leading up to inauguration. There is no question his committee has an absolute right to that information, and to provide oversight to ensure that those powers were not abused in a safe, classified setting. These agencies’ refusal to comply with this request more than justifies the subpoenas that have now been issued.

“So far, these investigations appear to have not turned up evidence of Russia even hacking the DNC or John Podesta and posting emails on Wikileaks, let alone any collusion by Russian agents and the Trump campaign, leading to the question of just why it was that such a heavy-handed investigation was occurring. As Nunes stated in the interview, ‘at some point here, the Democrats are going to have to start to pull Russians out of their hats, because I can’t find them.’ It is up to Nunes and the House and Senate committees of oversight to find out what happened, and to see if these surveillance powers were abused, as they appear to have been.

“Because, if these intelligence agencies refuse to be subjected to oversight when there is a real question about their surveillance powers being used by an administration against the opposition political party in a presidential election year, then under no circumstances should Congress reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. If you have ever had concern for civil liberties — left, right or middle — you need to listen to what Chairman Nunes is saying here. These abuses are chilling and they have to stop.”

Attachments:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, the John Batchler Program, June 1, 2017 at https://audioboom.com/posts/5978272-how-many-obama-officials-unmasked-american-citizens-what-is-to-be-done-devinnunes-marykissel?t=0

NUNES: “Every American is masked. All of the intelligence agencies are bound by law to mask all American citizens that get picked up in foreign collection. What has to happen then if you want to find out who that American is, there’s a process and procedure in place for that, it’s actually very uncommon in most cases and seldom happens.

“But the concern that I have had that I expressed publicly – quite publicly, actually – a couple of months ago was that it became excessive, that Obama administration officials were unmasking people in the Trump transition and it made me quite uncomfortable. We requested that we see all unmaskings that were done for the past year. We’ve been waiting since March 15 for that information. The intelligence agencies have been slow-rolling this, which is what led to these three subpoenas being issued to the appropriate agencies…

“[T]hose three individuals [John Brennan, Susan Rice and Samantha Power] that we named are ones that we have a particular interest in, but I can say that those are not the only ones that we have an interest in, but look, we want to work with the intelligence agencies. We didn’t want to have to subpoena them, but the process was moving way too slowly, so we picked these three individuals who we have a particular interest in and hopefully they are expedient. They have until next week [June 7] to give us the unmaskings that these three individuals have. I think they know now that we are serious…

“The big problem here is that the people that run these programs are protecting the United States, they’re protecting U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks, from other adversaries that we have around the globe, and we have to protect the American citizens from being picked up in these types of foreign intelligence collection. However, what clearly has happened here, at a minimum, I don’t know that it’s illegal, but it’s clearly an abuse of power that senior Obama administration would unmask someone, but also, what is illegal and I can’t say that it was the Obama administration officials who did this but we know that names were unmasked in intelligence products and if you believe the Washington Post and the New York Times and NBC News, you know that names were unmasked and intelligence was leaked and Americans were picked up in intelligence products were leaked out to the media… which is, what? A crime. It’s a crime to do that.

“So, we’re trying to get to the bottom of these crimes if in fact they were committed and to date, it’s the only crimes that we know have been committed and all this other Russia collusion stuff, you know, I keep looking for Russians, I know yesterday Hillary Clinton said that a thousand Russians [helped Trump]… She said that intelligence sources had told her that, that was news to me. You know, at some point here, the Democrats are going to have to start to pull Russians out of their hats, because I can’t find them. So if there’s a thousand Russian agents that were helping Donald Trump, I’d like to know who they are so that I can rush those down to the Department of Justice… but we don’t have that yet. But what I do know is that stories have been leaked to the newspapers that involve American citizens who were supposedly picked up in intelligence and unmasked and leaked to the press, that’s what I know, that would be a crime…

“I think it would be very unusual for any ambassador under any circumstance at any level to unmask names of American citizens no matter where they were serving, whether at the UN or in the UK or in Germany or China. I think it would be very unusual for an ambassador to request an unmasking so I’m not going to get into what I know at this point but I can tell you that we would not be asking this if we didn’t have probable cause to suspect that there was an abuse of power here…

“We will see whether or not the FBI produces the unmaskings that were done by these three individuals. If the FBI continues to not provide the information to Congress, or the NSA or the CIA, for that matter – look the bottom line is that these programs are really important to protecting the American people and everybody that works in the intelligence agencies, you know that they want to protect the American people, but I will tell you that these programs are in jeopardy.

“Right now, there’s no possible way we could reauthorize the foreign intelligence programs, we wouldn’t have the votes today. I mean, Democrats don’t typically give us the votes, and I can tell you that most of my Republican colleagues wouldn’t give us the votes to extend these programs. So at the end of the day, America will be left… less safe, because people expect the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to be able to inspect and provide oversight over names that senior administration officials unmask. If they unmask American citizens, people expect the Congress to know who they were unmasking…

“This is only the beginning, there are many more officials that we have concerns about abusing the intelligence programs.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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June 1, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump for withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord:

“Today, the American people owe a debt of gratitude to President Trump, for putting America first and telling foreign powers no more. No more concessions. No more kowtowing. No more economic suicide pacts. A new day has come of prioritizing American interests on the world stage, and President Trump will be remembered decades from now as setting the U.S. on a new path of prosperity — by leaving the Paris agreement on the ash heap of history where it belongs.”

“In exiting the Paris Treaty, President Trump has made good on his campaign pledge to put America first. Obama’s bad climate deal endangered the future growth of the U.S. economy and millions of jobs that Americans need to provide for their families, and in leaving the agreement, President Trump has established his own doctrine, that the federal government’s first responsibility is to the American people, not to foreign interests.  The consequence of the Paris agreement was to simply shift production, growth and jobs to emerging markets overseas when there too many working families that are hurting here at home.

“Fortunately, President Trump has not forgotten that it was working families — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and across the country in our industrial base — who depend on there being real, good-paying jobs in order to make ends meet.  These workers supported him in 2016, and the President’s commitment to pull out of the Paris climate accord was one of the most important promises made to the American people, a part of his very reason for being President, which was to stop the bad deals that are killing the American economy.

“Under Paris, the jobs we need to create cannot exist here. Under Paris, we cannot increase manufacturing here and we cannot get coal miners back to work.  Under Paris, we cannot expand our power grid and rid ourselves of these self-inflicted regulatory wounds. Paris was an obstacle to getting Americans back to work, and for that reason alone it had to go.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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