Posted by e rowe on 03/26/09

If you're a Ron Paul supporter then you would probably agree that John Hostettler would be a better senator than anyone currently in the Senate.

We're trying to draft him to run against Bayh.

Please go to the website and sign the petition to pledge your support:

http://www.hostettler2010.com

Posted 12/03/09 e rowe South Bend, IN

John Hostettler has decided to run for Senate. I think we should support him. He's a staunch conservative constitutionalist, a noninterventionist, and an advocate of abolishing the income tax and replacing it with nothing. He was in the House for 12 years and was one of 6 Republicans to vote against the Iraq War and also voted against Clinton's interventionism. And he voted for Chuck Baldwin for president in 2008. See his announcement here: http://www.youtube.com/johnhostettler And sign the petition here: http://www.johnhostettler.com

Posted by e rowe on 12/18/08
Last updated 12/18/08

Over the course of the presidential campaign I wrote a handful of notes on my Facebook account that other supporters might like to read. For the most part the timely aspects of them will be out of date, but they illustrate things that seem to be repeating patterns in politics, so they might be worth keeping around.

So my first several blog posts here will be those old notes presented in chronological order.

Posted by e rowe on 05/25/10

Here's a bill no sane person could oppose. I just got finished emailing my Congressman (Donnelly) urging him to support it. It's H.R. 5353, the War is Making You Poor act. Ron Paul is already a cosponsor.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h5353/show

Here's Alan Grayson introducing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0_TtYQEDTo

Let's all put some pressure on our reps and try to get them on board with this.

Posted 05/26/10 mr mrsbabcock soldotna, AK

HR 5353 stops anyone that makes less then $35,000 from paying any taxes. I fear that people that don't pay taxes will care little about how much those that do pay taxes pay. You'll have more people getting, "free" stuff and less people paying for it. If we want to lower taxes lets lower it across the board. Better yet lets eliminate the progressive income tax altogether.

Posted 05/26/10 justinb Oklahoma City, OK

mrsbabcock, it makes the first 35,000 you earn tax free if you make under I *think* 70k, or something like 130K for married. I'm sure I'm wrong on those numbers, but it's in that ballpark. This bill would make people kind of think about how much of our money goes towards war. If they see that kicked back as a tax break with extra cash in their paycheck, maybe people will be more likely to favor a rein in of the warfare state in favor of keeping more of their hard earned wealth.

Posted by e rowe on 04/18/10
Last updated 04/20/10

50 Reasons for Ron Paul supporters to donate $50 to the Hostettler money bomb, April 22, to help raise $50,000 in a day:

1) Ron Paul has endorsed John Hostettler for Senate.
2) Hostettler voted Ron Paul in the 2008 presidential primary and said he would do it again in 2012.
3) Hostettler, like Ron Paul, voted for Chuck Baldwin in the 2008 presidential election.
4) Hostettler voted against the Iraq War, and argued for that vote from the House floor in a speech that articulated a clear noninterventionist foreign policy.
5) Hostettler continued to stand up for that policy, writing a book against the Iraq war, which Ron Paul highly recommends.
6) Hostettler's record of noninterventionist foreign policy extends back into the Clinton years as well, when he opposed intervention in Kosovo.
7) Hostettler speaks against fear mongering about Iran and the popular belligerent talk against that nation. He was also one of only 6 Republicans in 2006 to vote against a resolution "To Hold the Current Regime in Iran Accountable for Its Threatening Behavior and to Support a Transition to Democracy in Iran."
8) Hostettler is against all foreign aid.
9) Hostettler voted against Medicare Part D. In fact, Ron Paul and John Hostettler are the only 2 Republicans to have voted against both the Iraq War and Medicare Part D.
10) Hostettler explicitly opposes all federal exercise of powers not among those enumerated in the Constitution.
11) Hostettler voted against No Child Left Behind.
12) Hostettler authored a bill to end federal income tax withholding.
13) Hostettler said while in office and continues to say that he supports total elimination of the federal income tax.
14) Hostettler sponsored bills to eliminate the Department of Education.
15) Hostettler sponsored bills to eliminate the Department of Energy.
16) Hostettler sponsored bills to eliminate the Department of Commerce.
17) Hostettler has stated publicly that he supports auditing and even abolishing the Federal Reserve.
18) One of Hostettler's first acts in Congress was signing on as a sponsor of legislation to repeal the Brady Bill and assault weapons ban.
19) Hostettler authored a bill to facilitate reciprocity of concealed carry permits between states that respected the 10th Amendment and did not include national standards.
20) Hostettler singlehandedly shut down a deal between the Clinton administration and Smith & Wesson that would have used the power of the Executive branch to bypass the legislature and impose regulations on the ownership and sales of guns by manipulating the market for guns in its awarding of government contracts. Hostettler did this by a series of amendments introduced into appropriations bills.
21) Hostettler has demonstrated that he shares Ron Paul's commitment to shutting down judicial activism by leading Congress to exercise its constitutionally enumerated power of making regulations and exceptions for the jurisdiction of the judicial branch. Ron Paul has done this with his We the People Act and Sanctity of Life Act, and Hostettler did it with the Public Expressions of Religion Act, which he authored and successfully got to be voted on and passed in the House of Representatives (later to be rejected by the Senate), as well as the Marriage Protection Act of 2003, and various amendments to appropriations bills over the years legislating that no funds be used in the enforcement of activist court decisions.
22) Hostettler is pro-life.
23) Hostettler supports repealing Obamacare.
24) Hostettler joins Ron Paul in supporting the use of earmarks.
25) Hostettler voted against warrantless wiretaps.
26) Hostettler voted against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
27) Hostettler opposes a national ID card.
28) Hostettler voted against every so-called free trade agreement that was brought to a vote in his tenure in Congress.
29) Hostettler sponsored a bill to withdraw from the World Trade Organization.
30) Hostettler led the fight in the immigration subcommittee of the House judiciary committee to keep the House from passing the amnesty for illegal immigrants that President Bush supported, after that bill had passed the Senate.
31) Hostettler cosponsored Ron Paul's amendments to appropriations bills for defunding the United Nations.
32) Hostettler voted against the $52 Billion Katrina aid package.
33) Even on issues where Hostettler disagrees with Ron Paul, he always gives clear, well-thought-out, principled, Constitution-based reasons for those differences. This can be seen in his interview with the Indiana state coordinator of the Campaign for Liberty. Ron Paul expresses his own appreciation for this quality of Hostettler's in his endorsement.
34) Hostettler has stood many times in defiance of the wishes of his own party's leadership.
35) Hostettler is recognized by friend and foe as a champion of the Constitution.
36) In the Senate Hostettler will vote on and question judicial nominees. He will be able to bring to bear in this questioning a level of seriousness about the Constitution that no current senator has.
37) In the Senate Hostettler will be able to exercise much more influence than what just one member of the House of Representatives can exercise.
38) Hostettler refused PAC money for all 7 of his House races.
39) Hostettler would make a great ally for Rand Paul in the Senate.
40) In 2008 Ron Paul had zero endorsements from any sitting members of the House or Senate. He could have at least two endorsements of sitting senators if we elect Hostettler.
41) Hostettler is polling neck-and-neck with the GOP establishment pick, Dan Coats.
42) Hostettler polls better than every other Republican candidate against Brad Ellsworth in the general election matchup.
43) It is widely believed that the reason Coats was recruited back to Indiana to run again was out of fear of the party leaders having to deal with an uncompromising constitutional conservative like Hostettler. The timing of the Republican leaders' recruiting of Mike Pence and then Dan Coats to run, right after a poll had shown Hostettler within the margin of error in a general election matchup against Evan Bayh, combined with the fact that every single general election poll shows Hostettler performing better than Coats against every possible Democrat opponent, suggests that this was the case.
44) Hostettler sponsored a bill allowing parents not to get social security numbers for their children without having to forego their tax deduction.
45) When most Republicans voted to end the government shutdown of 1996 by passing the unbalanced budget Clinton wanted them to (driven in part by the presidential aspirations of Bob Dole), Hostettler was one of only a handful of Republicans to vote against it.
46) Anti-war Republican congressman, Walter Jones says, "The president [Bush] was calling people as late as 1 or 2 in the morning to get them to vote for the Medicare prescription drug benefit, John voted his conscience first, not his party.... I admire him so much. He knows more about the Constitution than almost anyone in Congress."
47) The RNC member who was most active in recruiting Dan Coats, Jim Bopp, was the very same one who orchestrated the last minute rules change for the Indiana Republican state convention in 2008 that was used to prevent Ron Paul supporting delegates from exercising any influence on the delegate selection process there.
48) In legislation that Hostettler supports pursuant to his staunch socially conservative beliefs, he always takes an approach that is consistent with the 10th Amendment.
49) There were only 3 Republican senators who voted against the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. If Hostettler were in the Senate for that vote, he would have been #4.
50) There were only 17 Republican Congressmen who opposed all 5 bailouts of 2008-2009. If Hostettler were in Congress at that time, he would have been #18.

Donate here: http://www.johnhostettler.com

Posted by e rowe on 04/16/10

We're doing a money bomb for John Hostettler on April 22. I have been told on good authority that the campaign will have some kind of donation ticker up that day to track how much they make in contributions throughout the day, so people will be watching to see if it's a success or a flop.

Please donate that day if you can, whether it's $10 or $100 or more. And please spread the word as much as possible. Get this out to all of your networks of contacts, both in Indiana and everywhere else.

Hostettler was a supporter of Ron Paul's in 2008 and said he would support him again in 2012. He was an ally of Ron Paul's on many votes during his tenure in the House of Representatives. Ron Paul has endorsed him for Senate. And he is running neck-and-neck against Dan Coats, who has the support of the party leaders.

The campaign site where you can donate is http://www.johnhostettler.com