Civil Discourse (NICD). The institute was created at the University of Arizona after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Simpson is an honorary board member of the humanitarian organization Wings of Hope. Simpson is also the co-chair for the advisory board of Issue One, a nonprofit organization which seeks to reduce the role of money in politics. In 2016, he joined the advisory board of American Promise, a national, cross-partisan organization that advocates for a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution that would allow the U.S. Congress and states to set limits on campaign spending in U.S. elections. Presidential Medal of Freedom On July 1, 2022, the White House announced that Simpson would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In popular culture The June 7, 1994, edition of the now-defunct supermarket tabloid Weekly World News reported that 12 U.S. senators were aliens from other planets, including Simpson. The Associated Press ran a follow-up piece which confirmed the tongue-in-cheek participation of Senate offices in the story. Then-Senator Simpson's spokesman Charles Pelkey, when asked about Simpson's galactic origins, told the AP: "We've got only one thing to say: Klaatu barada nikto". This was a quotation from a classic science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), in which an alien arrives by flying saucer in Washington, D.C. Simpson also played himself in a cameo appearance for the 1993 film Dave. In December 2012, Simpson filmed a "Gangnam Style" video for a campaign, with a man in a tin can costume. The video, aimed at young people, is called "The Can Kicks Back," a reference to the tendencies of members of Congress to forever "kick the can down the road" in order to avoid making difficult decisions about lowering the national debt. In the video, Simpson admonishes younger Americans to make better use of their social media than "instagramming your breakfast and tweeting your first-world problems." He advises younger people to use their social media skills and resources to rally their friends to join The Can Kicks Back. If younger Americans do not take heed, Simpson says, "These old coots will clean out the Treasury before you get there." Works Right in the Old Gazoo: A Lifetime of Scrapping with the Press (William Morrow & Company, 1997, ) Recognition In 1998, Simpson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member General