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About the Republican Liberty Caucus

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Are you concerned about the direction our country is going? We are!

Rather than sit back and let our liberty be whittled away, we’re working to shift the Republican Party and American politics back to adherence to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

At Republican Liberty Caucus we believe that less government means more liberty. We advocate the principles of individual rights, limited government, and free enterprise. We work in the Republican Party because we believe it is the best vehicle for bringing about the political changes we want.

The RLC is working to build a grassroots network of citizen activists who champion our country’s Founding principles. By empowering grassroots activists across the country via our national network and state/local affiliates, the Republican Liberty Caucus works to move Republican Party policies and candidates in the direction of liberty. At the same time, we are able to help transform concerned liberty-loving citizens into party leaders and elected citizen-legislators.

With activists in every state, a prominent Board of Advisers, and many elected members working to enact our vision for a free America, The Republican Liberty Caucus recruits and endorses select candidates who support individual liberty and limited government. In doing so, we are able to change the direction of the Republican Party — and shift American policies and politics to once again value our cherished Founding principles.

As you know, the Republican Party is in rebuilding mode. The time for concerned citizens to step up to the plate and join us on our journey to return the Republican Party to the most fundamental tenets of American governance — most importantly, that each of us owns our own life and must have the fundamental right to make our own decisions.

Over the past eighteen years, the Republican Liberty Caucus has endorsed and contributed financially to principled pro-liberty candidates and has encouraged its supporters to become active in their campaigns. In 2008, the RLC endorsed over 230 liberty Republican candidates and launched its new blog.

The Republican Liberty Caucus is leading the Republican Party home, but we cannot exist without your generosity. Please review how you can become involved with our organization as well as ways to support our growing caucus.

All of the RLC’s support stems from individuals who believe that our principles can be implemented through the political process. Unlike other organizations, all of our activity at the national and state levels is through the voluntary actions of our supporters. Please consider joining the RLC or renewing your membership today. You can also contribute to the Republican Liberty Caucus PAC, which directs funds to help elect limited government candidates each election cycle. Thanks for your interest.

After decades of New Deal and Great Society social activism, combined with the rapid decline in civics and American history education in government schools, and mixed with a growing population of ill-informed and apathetic voters, government at every level in this country continues to be too big, too intrusive, and too expensive.

Founded in 1991, the Republican Liberty Caucus exists to promote individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise within the Republican Party by:
(a) promoting these ideals among Party officials and its various organizations,
(b) identifying and supporting candidates sympathetic with these ideals, and
(c) promoting Caucus membership among Republican Party registrants, officials, and officeholders.

While rolling back decades of government “nannyism” will require a great deal of public education and grassroots lobbying, the most important means of changing public policy is to change public officials. Therefore, the Republican Liberty Caucus works to elect pro-liberty Republicans to offices at all levels, partisan and non-partisan, in both primary and general elections.

The Republican Liberty Caucus is a 527 political organization. You can learn more about our origins and history. Our program and activities are outlined below. Membership in the Caucus is based on commitment to the Statement of Principles and Positions of the Republican Liberty Caucus. Anyone who agrees with our Statement of Principles should strongly consider joining the Republican Liberty Caucus. We encourage you to contact us and get in touch with your local chapter.

Programs and Activities

The Republican Liberty Caucus has a growing list of projects and programs that enable us to pursue our mission. Through education and outreach for liberty, changing the Republican Party from within, forging relationships with elected officials, and forming coalitions to advance our principles, the RLC has been able to achieve solid results. Here is a brief listing of just some of the activities our Caucus engages in:

• State Affiliates: The heart and soul of the RLC is its members in the states. RLC members, many of whom are grassroots activists, come together to form state affiliates of the organization. Chartered state affiliates develop their own strategies to advance liberty within the Republican Party. Learn more about the charter process here and view a listing of our chartered affiliates here.

• The Liberty Index: The Republican Liberty Caucus maintains a liberty rating system, The Liberty Index, to track and identify the pro-liberty voting records of Members of Congress. The Index began in 1991 and is compiled and distributed annually by the RLC. The Index rates Members’ votes on key pieces of legislation annually from both a social and economic liberty perspective. It is compiled by Dr. Clifford Thies, Professor of Economics and former National Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

• Public Outreach for Liberty: The Republican Liberty Caucus sponsors efforts at state and national GOP events to educate our fellow citizens about our guiding principles and to recruit new members to join the Caucus. RLC members have reached out at numerous Republican Party state conventions, various Young Republican National Conventions, and at local Republican Party meetings. The RLC often uses the World’s Smallest Political Quiz to identify new members of our caucus while educating Republicans about liberty principles.

• Candidate Promotion and Recruitment: The Republican Liberty Caucus has a Political Action Committee, RLC-USA PAC, which provides direct financial assistance to RLC-endorsed candidates. When appropriate, the RLC-USA PAC makes independent expenditures on behalf of endorsed federal candidates. Our members also offer opinion and analysis of elections within the Republican Party (such as elections at GOP state conventions), in contested Republican primaries, and in General Election contests.

• Issue Advocacy: Throughout the country, Republican Liberty Caucus state/local affiliates and members are engaging their legislators on the issues of the day. By forging relationships with legislators, we are able to have our agenda discussed in legislative bodies across the country.

• Liberty Compact: The Republican Liberty Caucus sponsors and distributes The Liberty Compact, a pledge signed by local, state, and national candidates to identify those who support the mission of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

• Monthly Newsletter: The Caucus publishes a national newsletter and works with local activists in all 50 states to restore core Republican principles that we cherish.

• Political Training: The Republican Liberty Caucus hosts, presents and sponsors various training programs for state/local chapters of the Caucus, grassroots activists, party leaders, and candidates across the country. These seminars focus on a variety of topics including voter identification, candidate training, volunteer recruitment, and political messaging.

Additionally, many of our members serve actively in their local Republican Party organizations and several of our members have been elected and re-elected to political office.

Drupal Accessibility Statement

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    As an inclusive community, we are committed to making sure that Drupal is an accessible tool for building websites and that Drupal helps you create websites that are themselves accessible.

    This initiative started with advancements with Drupal 7 accessibility. We have committed to ensuring that all features of Drupal core conform with the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines: WCAG 2.0 and ATAG 2.0. Where possible we will also update the previous version of Drupal core, version 6, to enhance its accessibility.
    Accessible Features in Drupal

    If you rely on a screen reader or other assistive technology, you will be glad to know that we have built Drupal to encourage and support the proper use of semantic markup. For example, you should be able to use headings reliably for page-level navigation.

    The accessibility team has worked to identify barriers to accessibility with Drupal and worked to resolve them. We’ve identified and resolved a number of issues in the core code of Drupal 7 and raised awareness within the community. We’ve added some additional support for Rich Internet Applications by adding some WAI-ARIA support. There have been many improvements to both the visitor and administrator sides of Drupal, especially:

    • Search engine form and presentation
    • Drag and Drop functionality
    • Color contrast and intensity
    • Adding skip navigation to core themes
    • Image handling
    • Form labeling
    • Removing duplicate or null tags

    History of the Druplicon logo

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      After Drupal was initially developed, thoughts turned to the creation of a logo. Of course the concept would have to include a drop, or water in general.

      The initial idea was simple: a drop within a circle. It was conceived as an “O” in a fluid “drop”.

      Somewhat later there was an idea to use a cartoon-like drop with a face. Steven Wittens (UnConeD) created a 3D version, but the idea didn’t get too far, mainly because 3D is difficult to work with.

      When the logo issue came up again, Kristjan Jansen (Kika) came up with the idea of putting two sideways drops together to form an infinity symbol. When placed inside a filled circle, it resembled a face. After more work by Steven Wittens, the Druplicon was created: a stylised drop with the “infinity” eyes, a round nose and a mischievous smile.

      You can find more versions of the logo in the marketing section.

      The Drupal Cookbook (for beginners)

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        The Drupal Cookbook (for Beginners) helps Drupal “newbies” by providing a walkthrough of a common Drupal Setup. You might also be interested in this whirlwind video.

        Background

        This handbook was originally written for Drupal 5. While the information is generally transferable to Drupal 6, some buttons, links, and menu items have been renamed or moved. Every attempt is made to keep these handbooks current.

        The intent of the Cookbook is to help the new Drupal user create a typical site. At that point the user will be better equipped to diving deeper into more advanced features.

        Terminology

        This cookbook requires a basic understanding of the General Concepts of Drupal. Additional resources for understanding terms used in Drupal include:

        • Terminology (Terms).
        • Drupal Jargon.

        Conventions

        The Cookbook and other documentation on drupal.org uses the following standard for indicating site navigation:

        Administer >> Access control >> User management >> Roles.

        The above example tells the user to click on “Administer” in the navigation menu, then “Access control,” then “User management,” and then “Roles”.
        Working with Drupal

        Here are some general recomendations:

        1. Use a test site that uses the same Drupal version and modules as the target site. Use a copy of the live database. Avoid development on a live site.
        2. Don’t try to make the “perfect site” on the first attempt. Muddle through for a while. Stressing over the perfect solution can lead to frustration.
        3. Start by learning the basic functionality of Drupal. Find out what Drupal can do before working towards a specific goal. Once comfortable with the “core” features and behavior, move on to more complex contributed modules such as Views, CCK, and Organic Groups. These modules and some others require a good bit of understanding to master. The power and flexibility of Drupal and its modules will become apparent over time.
        4. If you need a custom theme, customize one of the default themes before creating starting from scratch. Refer to the Drupal 5 theme guide or Drupal 6 theme guide.
        5. Limit the number of blocks, images, and graphics that clutter the page.
        6. Participate in the forums, the Documentation Team, and IRC.

        Things to keep in mind

        A common mistake when approaching a solution to a problem in Drupal is to make an assumption about how Drupal works. Drupal is a unique and powerful platform that is probably quite different from other solutions you may have encountered.

        Start simply by making something visible, then celebrate what you have accomplished. Taking one small step at a time will lead to a better site. Don’t indiscriminately add many contributed modules right away. Get comfortable with modules one at a time. Modules that are not appropriate or used should be disabled and uninstalled.

        As with most things worth mastering, there is a learning curve with Drupal. But there is lots of support available as well.

        Invitation to Present at the CT Film

        I’m the Director for New Media Programming at the CT Film Festival in Danbury, CT and I wanted to see if any Drupal demonstrators would like to teach a workshop at his/her discretion. We have a speaker doing a Social Media 2.0 Workshop as well as a CMS overview with Drupal, Joomla and WordPress.

        First off, our independent festival is 6 years old and quickly growing. We are unique in that we are an 8-month traveling festival within the state, providing weekend and weekday performances at universities and theaters and then ending with a weeklong series of events in early May (over 300 films, workshops, performances and parties).

        Of course, we have the most comprehensive film tax credit in the nation (films, commercials, new media, video games) and our Education Director is the head of the state-funded Film Industry Training Program.

        The focus for New Media programs this year is Free Software, Web/New Media, Animation, Music and Advocacy. We are further sharing 1/3 of our curriculum with Film and Education.

        Please email and/or call me if you are interested in helping us. The festival is May 4-9 and ours is May 6-9. I will know more at our next meeting about exact scheduling.

        We aren’t a rich festival, therefore we cannot pay anyone, but we are only 65 miles from NYC on Metro North and we can cover your hotel room as long as you wish to stay as well as give you an All Access Pass for the week.

        Looking forward to chatting.

        Dave Bonan
        Director of New Media Programming, CT Film Festival
        www.ctfilmfest.com
        203.770.8304