**** Watch this space **** Our first “official” blog post drops tomorrow morning! But we wanted to give people a sneak peek into what this is all about and the people who have come together to be a part of it.
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Welcome to Pocket Full Of Liberty! This blog was born out of an idea that I wasn’t even sure was going to take off. I’ve been blogging for over 10 years, much of it about politics. Blogging, despite all of the “blogging is dead” pronouncements, is still alive and well.
So why this one?
I won’t pretend this blog is going to change the world. But what I wanted to do was bring together a group of people that wanted to express ideas that were conservative and/or libertarian in nature, that didn’t resort to accusing people of being RINO’s because they weren’t “truuue” conservatives, or claimed to be libertarian but whose sole focus seemed to be whining about the GOP and sniping from the sidelines.
The bottom line is, I wanted to create a place where smart people could write intelligent (and funny) blog posts that would give people something to think about. The common goal here is winning. We want to defeat liberals and Democrats. And that means conservatives and libertarians have to unite behind the common goal of advancing liberty. From that, all else flows. It means we can applaud Rand Paul for standing up for liberty with regard to drones and push to get Obamacare repealed. We can respect that some people are not pro life and support gay marriage.
People actually can walk and chew gum at the same time.
So who is a part of this crazy bunch?
Jay Caruso – Editor in Chief (or Lead Goof) – By day I am a supply chain analyst for a Fortune 50 company in the Atlanta area. I live in Canton, GA with my wife Sylvia, our two teenagers, Michael and Ally and our idiotic dog, Lucky.
I’ve been following politics closely since 1992 when I was a moderate Democrat. It was Bill Clinton’s lie about a middle class tax cut that pushed me over the edge to conservatism and celebrated when the GOP gained control of Congress entirely in November 1994. I also love photography. You can see that work at Caruso Photography. You can follow me on Twitter at @jaycaruso.
I knew I could not do all of this editing and management work by myself, so I thought I would enlist two people smarter and better looking than me:
Beth S. – Managing Editor – Beth is a professor and scientist who heads a research lab at a major university in the Southeast. She is an associate editor for several scientific journals and the author of numerous scientific papers and book chapters. She is a vocal advocate for open access publishing of taxpayer-funded research and is interested in improving communication between scientists and the public.
When not in the lab, Beth spends her time running, cooking, and following conservative politics. From February to October, she avidly follows all baseball, especially the Baltimore Orioles.
Woo hoo! She’s a scientist, a university professor, and a conservative! She’s also a baseball fan. It was an easy decision to ask her to be aboard. Find her on Twitter at @dicentric
S.R. Mann – Managing Editor – Mother & aspiring philosopher. More libertarian than conservative. Best described as a right-winger who marches to the beat of her own drum. Analytic, passionate, pragmatic, and often irreverent.
She also likes to curse a lot and she’ll live tweet Star Wars. She’s also an academic. Another easy decision for me to make. You can find her on Twitter at @sevenlayercake
Kevin Boyd – Contributing Editor & Social Media Director – When I said I wouldn’t have time to handle social media for this effort, Kevin stepped up. Hired! For free (for now!)!
Louisiana born and bred, Kevin is a late twenty something self-described conservatarian writer who brings a passion for individual liberty and a love for his country to his work. Kevin also has political experience having worked professionally on numerous state and Congressional campaigns. His writings have been featured at the popular libertarian site United Liberty, the popular conservative site Conservative Daily News, and he was a co-founder of The Liberty Papers, a group classical liberal blog.
When he’s not writing, he enjoys his beloved New Orleans Saints, Manchester United, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, and LSU Tigers. Plus in addition to sports, he enjoys fine whiskeys, beers, and wines, reading anything good, his truck, owning and shooting anything on a proposed gun ban list, and short women. You can find Kevin on Twitter at @kevinboyd1984
Rick – Contributing Editor – Rick has literally been involved in GOP politics since he was in diapers coming from a very political family who was seemingly always helping conservative candidates get elected to public office. Phone banking and door knocking local and state wide races as a teenager led to a fantastic opportunity the summer Rick graduated college of traveling on a multi-city bus tour with Young Republicans for George W. Bush for President in 2000.
That campaign internship shaped a lot of Rick’s political theory and ideology today. Rick is a fiscal conservative and a small business owner who began blogging two years ago out of concern for our nation’s solvency and the significant financial hit small business owners have realized since 2008. You can find Rick on Twitter at @strokesofcandor
Bill O’Keefe – Contributing Editor – Every group has their own resident crazy person. That’s Bill. I connected with him through SR Mann and against my better judgment, I asked him to be a part of the team. Think I am kidding? When I asked people to submit a bio, this is what he sent:
William “Bill” O’Keefe is the real name of Twitter miscreant DefendWallSt a life long Liberal-Democrat turned Conservative Libertarian (“Conservatarian”). Bill is an unrepentant lover of iPhones, capitalism the Constitution and is currently married to three different women. Over nine thousand percent of what Bill writes for us is inspired by sugar packets he founds on the bathroom floor at work or directly plagiarized from Seth MacFarlane’s plagiarism of The Simpsons.
Who wouldn’t want a guy like that around?
Amy Otto – Contributing Editor – I didn’t just add two intelligent and pretty women to the team. I asked three to come aboard and Amy agreed. Amy resides on the left coast in California. She loves wine and capitalism as well as liberty. She describes herself as one who “believes American exceptionalism is a direct result of our founding principles. Lover of innovation. Loathes paperwork and bureaucracy. Those who assume that government knows best have proven they cannot make assumptions.”
Amy has a BS in biochemistry and an MBA (Again, smarter than me. See how it works people?). She’s a Mom and a a West Coast Transplant. She grew up outside of Philadelphia and as such is a long suffering Eagles fan.
Not only is Amy writing for this blog, but you can find her on The 405 Radio every week talking politics. Find her on Twitter at @caamyo
Neal Dewing – Contributing Editor – Neal writes for his own amusement, and if by some happy coincidence he also writes for the amusement of others then he is glad of it. His views are chiefly conservative with libertarian impulses. He’s Catholic and tries pretty hard to live that way. He enjoys most brown liquors, but in summer gravitates toward middling gin. Find Neal on Twitter at @neal_dewing
Mike – Contributing Editor – Mike hails from New York City, where he practices law. He has an interest in advancing conservative and libertarian-leaning causes, which in his view have significant overlap.
Mike spent his law school years in Texas, where he was instrumental in founding a chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Mike has also served as the president of an international youth organization, where he was involved in lobbying American elected officials in support of various not-for-profit philanthropic causes. Find Mike on Twitter at @thepantau
RB Pundit – Contributing Editor – His home is The Right Sphere and even though I bribed him with an offer of $500,000, he said he couldn’t do it because First Team Tommy would ruin the place. But he will be writing for our little blog from time to time. Find RB on Twitter at @rbpundit