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Morton Blackwell in his “Conservative Republican Participation,” urges us to “build a new majority party which opportunists cannot cripple again by selling out conservative principles.” Read his fourteen “types of action” for strengthening conservatism in the Republican Party. Here is number 10. “Defeat the ambition of too many elected Republicans to subordinate to their complete control the Republican party committees in the state, district, or locality where those public officials are elected.”

Three elections of substantial interest to conservatives are rapidly approaching within Virginia’s 10th Congressional District.

Local Tea Partiers could greatly enrich these races by conducting candidate forums or debates to spotlight the underlying policy issues in these contests:

March 6: the chairmanship of the Loudoun County Republican Committee (LCRC)

May 22, 2010: the Republican chairmanship of the Tenth Congressional District.

June 8, 2010: the primary election for the Republican candidate for Congress.

The most imminent contest is between Candace Strother and Mark Sell for chairmanship of the LCRC, but the most imminent deadline is the filing date to become a Loudoun County delegate [”candidate”] to the May 22, 2010 Tenth District Republican Convention.

The Tenth District Convention deadline is 5 PM, Saturday, February 20, 2010 in Ashburn.

The Tenth District chairmanship race is between Howie Lind and David Schmidt. 

And the June 8 House of Representatives primary candidates are long-time incumbent Frank Wolf and newcomer Jim Trautz.

We shall likely be writing more about the Lind-Schmidt and Wolf-Trautz races later on. 

Already, Tea Partiers have been organizing and holding debates  in Virginia’s Fifth District Republican primary.

Here is what one debate moderator, Robert Tracinski, relates about his experience - -

“Which brings me to the debate I moderated on January 22. According to debate organizer Mark Lloyd, of the Lynchburg tea party group, he initially secured [Virginia state senator Robert] Hurt’s commitment for this date back in November, going out of his way to accommodate Hurt’s schedule in the General Assembly. But then later the Hurt campaign started to make sounds about backing out, which they did officially a few days before the debate.”

 * * * * *

“The Hurt campaign seemed to think he could skip the tea party event and no one would particularly notice or remember. Instead, everyone who even glanced at the front page of the local paper knows that Robert Hurt blew off the tea party movement. For a Republican politician running for office in the Year of the Tea Party, that’s a political debacle.”

* * * * *

The tea party supporters are people who want to support the Republican candidate—and boy do they want to defeat Tom Perriello. But they have been disappointed too often by Republican politicians who toe a small-government line in Farmville (and yes, that really is the name of a town in the fifth district) while voting for bailouts and big spending when they get to Washington. As candidate Mike McPadden put it, ‘We had a conservative movement in 1994, and it was over in six months. In twelve years, while the so-called conservatives ran our House of Representatives…look where we are after 12 years from 1994 to 2006. Are we better off?.’” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

No Policy Softball Exchanges in Candidate Forums

The Tea Partiers have no personal career investment in the current Republican structure. They expect no campaign funds which could be shut off if they cut too close to the bone in their policies. Few Tea Partiers will be heartbroken should they be denied “access” to the inner sanctums of the current Virginia GOP Establishment.

With our liberty and our values at stake nationally, what we need are probing and policy-oriented candidate forums among 10th District Virginia Republicans - - - without viewing our candidates either as celebrity white hats or villainous black hats; and with ad rem, not ad hominem discussions.

And our Tea Partiers are the best ones available to conduct these forums.

Next Tuesday afternoon, the House of Delegates Ways and Means panel is slated to hear HB 163, the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights or TABOR. 

TABOR proposes a constitutional amendment, the adoption of which would give the Maryland voter the final sign-off on state and local tax hikes, and would limit increases in much state spending to any population or inflation increases.

31 of the Maryland House of Delegates Republican Caucus of 37 are already co-sponsoring this essential step to restrain Free State taxes and spending!

Six delegates from the Caucus do not appear, however, on HB 163 as co-sponsors.

These members may not, inadvertantly, have been given an opportunity to co-sponsor when the measure was circulated during the beginning of the session rush. They would surely appreciate learning nonetheless of TABOR’s importance at this time.

They are delegates Charles Jenkins, Wade Kach, Wayne Norman, Steven Schuh, Nancy Stocksdale, and Donna Stiftler.

We did ask newly-appointed Republican delegate Charles Jenkins last Thursday whether he had later joined as a sponsor of this TABOR bill. (He is not listed as a co-sponsor.) The delegate from Frederick and Washington Counties did not return our calls or our email.

Getting every GOP lawmaker behind TABOR is a solid beginning to showing Independents and Republicans that the rank and file, not just a saving core, of House of Delegates Republicans are willing to get serious about restraining spending and taxes. 

Of course, as we wrote last Friday - -

As important as it is to get the TABOR on the Maryland ballot, Republican lawmakers don’t need to wait for legislation or constitutional amendments to follow the spending rules of the TABOR. The General Assembly Republican caucuses can resolve not to vote for budget increases that exceed growth in inflation (CPI) and population - - - no matter what the party label of the governor proposing such excessive growth.

Now that would really send a message to outraged voters that Republicans in the Maryland General Assembly mean business!

Getting every House of Delegates Republican to support TABOR by next Tuesday’s hearing is a concrete, achievable goal for Tea Partiers, Ralliers, and taxpayer and fiscal-watchdog voices throughout the Free State. We have already seen the moral force of these citizens focussed on Maryland politicians who support Obamacare and Cap-and-Tax on the national level.  This same moral force can now bring about tangible progress in Annapolis.

“In the short term, states can address budget gaps by eliminating wasteful ‘economic development’ subsidies and privatizing non-core functions. But even these steps in the right direction will be ineffective in fending off future deficits unless long-term reforms—such as enacting sensible tax and expenditure limits and reforming unfunded pension and health care liabilities—are also made.” - -  John Nothdurft  in “The Best And Worst Ways to Eliminate a Budget Deficit” (Underscoring Forum’s)

The latest iteration (HB 163) of the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR) will come before the House of Delegates Ways and Means panel next Tuesday.

TABOR proposes a constitutional amendment, the adoption of which would give the Maryland voter the final sign-off on state and local tax hikes, and would limit increases in much state spending to any population or inflation increases.  For details, see the Fiscal and Policy Note on last year’s TABOR.

For a good look at both parties’ responsibility for overspending, see the 2006 National Taxpayers Union (NTU) report “Maryland’s Fiscal Folly: The Taxpayer’s View” here.

Here (scroll down in link to Exhibit I) are some illustrations of potential money saved the Maryland taxpayer from Fiscal Years 2000 - 2005 had a TABOR been in place. These numbers appear in the Fiscal and Policy Note accompanying former delegate Herb McMillan’s 2006 TABOR.

As we pointed out last year here and here - -

“Former delegate Herb McMillan put years of effort into the TABOR effort, as did another Maryland TABOR pioneer, state senator Alex Mooney.  But in an administration where enacting slots legislation was the driver, TABOR was not at the top of any Republican agenda.”

This year, among the preeminent House of Delegates experts on TABOR are Warren Miller, Joe Boteler, and Ron George. In addition to lead sponsor Miller, the measure has 30 additional sponsors, all Republican, for a total of 31 delegates out of the House Republican caucus of 37 - - or over 80 percent.

Since HB 163 was filed early in the session, according to sponsor Warren Miller the six Republicans not listed as co-sponsors may not have had an opportunity to sign on the measure. 

We hope all six will express their support for TABOR, however, by the time of the Ways and Means panel hearing Tuesday.

Whether or not the TABOR legislation reaches the House of Delegates floor, the proposed TABOR amendment should be kept before the public eye as the standard of how to do it right.

As we have urged before here and here - -

As important as it is to get the TABOR on the Maryland ballot, Republican lawmakers don’t need to wait for legislation or constitutional amendments to follow the spending rules of the TABOR. The General Assembly Republican caucuses can resolve not to vote for budget increases that exceed growth in inflation (CPI) and population - - - no matter what the party label of the governor proposing such excessive growth.

In the face of next November’s elections, the Maryland Republican leadership needs to convince independent and Republican voters that they are against tax hikes and excessive spending by their own party — not just by Democrats. 

 

 

“Government should have this clear goal: Where opportunity is absent, we must create it. Where opportunity is limited, we must expand it. Where opportunity is unequal, we must make it open to everyone.” — Governor Bob McDonnell.

Virginia conservatives should be delighted with the fact our governor is Robert McDonnell.  The former attorney-general as governor, a newly-elected Republican attorney general, and more Republicans in the House of Delegates, are vastly better outcomes than the alternative.

But, as we always say, one wonders what the subtext was for the governor’s reply to the president’s state of the union on Wednesday.  Did the Party Elders intend Mr. McDonnell’s reply to be the foundation of a new national face of the GOP Establishment?

One major voice from the Other Team (Huffington Post via the Washington Post) declared - -

“Basically, McDonnell succeeded in showing up, being handsome, avoiding saying anything remotely teabaggy, and offering a generic and presentable face of the GOP to the public. It was nothing too terribly dramatic.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

We wouldn’t have minded a little “teabaggery,” however - - meaning, in this context, a more challenging conservative tone.  Along these lines, Trevor Loudon of NewZeal drew our attention to James Simpson’s post in the DC Independent Examiner (before the governor’s reply) recommending that “this cannot be a message of conciliation. It must be a message of truth.” But the content of the governor’s actual reply is our central concern.

Specifically, we were puzzled by the good governor adding to the Founders’ wisdom by setting forth these new aims of government - -

“Government should have this clear goal: Where opportunity is absent, we must create it. Where opportunity is limited, we must expand it. Where opportunity is unequal, we must make it open to everyone.”

If this is just a campaign-like bromide, the words will probably be lost in the the current noise surrounding this week’s State of the Union address. Little harm done.

Nor do we have a problem with advancing truly equal opportunity in employment or school admissions, for example, if the subtext is not (explicit or backdoor) admissions or hiring quotas, nor “equal outcomes.”

But if the governor’s words, however, are the basis for serious action, or even if the governor’s brain trust is toying with government “creating opportunity,” conservatives need to be vigilant.

During Mr. McDonnell’s campaign for governor, we raised several concerns about promised spending that would “create” jobs. Let’s take “green jobs.”  We wrote last July - -

“So perhaps Bob McDonnell could explain, in free-market terms, the economics of his ‘green jobs zone’ proposal here and how it will help Virginia taxpayers, and independent Virginia businesses across the board? 

Does anyone believe that such a program, once enacted, would not continue to grow? And not link into similar Obama Administration subsidies?”

Tertium Quids’ Norman Leahy keeps an invaluable free-market eye on the new governor’s plans. 

Here is blogger Leahy’s “McDonnell as Terry McAuliffe” post of Wednesday commenting on William Flook’s Washington Examiner report “McDonnell: Plan will bring 29,000 jobs, $311M in revenue” - -

“Targeted tax credits?’Green jobs?’ Subsidies for Hollywood moguls?

Rather than aping the McAuliffe campaign platform, McDonnell could have chosen to embrace a repeal of the corporate income tax or even the much-despised BPOL tax. That he hasn’t tells me that the Big Ideas Bob once had on his shelf not only remained there, they passed away due to neglect.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Readers will want to eyeball the Tax Foundation’s January 14, 2010 report “Movie Production Incentives[MPI]: Blockbuster Support for Lackluster Policy” - -

“Based on fanciful estimates of economic activity and tax revenue, states are investing in movie production projects with small returns and taking unnecessary risks with taxpayer dollars. In return, they attract mostly temporary jobs that are often transplanted from other states. States claim to boost job training with MPIs, but these tax incentives often encourage individuals to gain skills that are only employable as long as politicians enact ever larger subsidies for the film industry. “

Richmond’s Bob Marcellus rightly urges the abolition of Virginia’s corporate tax which would give the Commonwealth a significant competitive advantage over nearby states.  Investor Marcellus explains - -

“Countries and regions that have cut the corporate income tax have experienced impressive increases in the rate of new jobs, corporate relocations, economic competition, and new investment. The evidence is overwhelming.

Abolishing this tax, with a date certain 12 to 24 months in the future, creates a ‘wow’ factor for growth while still building tax revenue until the actual implementation. This window buffers state revenue while building the base that culminates in a sustained growth of revenue created by an ensuing 0.5 percentage point to 1 percentage point expansion in the annual growth rate of Virginia’s GDP. This roughly translates (on the low end of expectations) to creating new jobs for the entire city of Bristol — population 17,000 — every year.”

Some General Assembly Republicans are pushing repeal, according to a January 12 Richmond Times-Dispatch report “Lawmakers propose eliminating corporate income tax” by Olympia Meola and Michael Martz - -

“Sen. Ryan T. McDougle, R-Hanover, said he’ll submit a bill to get rid of the tax effective in January 2012.

It would give Virginia ‘economic competitiveness that is just really unparalleled,’ said McDougle, who quotes estimates that revenue from new jobs should exceed the money lost within two years.

But the idea is getting a cool reception from state business organizations, which wonder about the need for the change and the cost to a state facing a potential budget shortfall of $4.2 billion.”

We cautioned last June (”Is the Virginia Republican Party Well, Conservative?”) that Mr. McDonnell

“suggest[ed] that Virginia pick winners and losers with space ports, film industries, and ‘green jobs.’ (Free-market economists call this approach ‘industrial policy’ or state central planning.)”

As the Tax Foundation explains,

“The MPI [Movie Production Incentive] experience demonstrates that a politically connected industry can grow if the state greatly reduces its taxes, but states should have a tax system that operates as a welcome mat to all industries, not just those politicians have picked.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

No, governor, the government cannot “create” opportunity, but it can make wide opportunity possible through lower taxes and lifting anti-competitive regulatory burdens across the board (in county, city, as well as in the Commonwealth government) thus further enabling the ‘messy’ freedom of the marketplace.  These steps may not endear you to Virginia chambers of commerce, but they are a more likely path to meaningful jobs and general prosperity.

This article has been edited since its posting on Friday, January 29, 2010.

Reviewed by Susan Freis Falknor

George Gilder, The Israel Test  (Richard Vigilante Books) 2009.

George Gilder contends in The Israel Test that the key advantage of the capitalist and technology-fostering West against impoverishing socialism, radical Islam, and barbarism is a much-unappreciated conflux of human and cultural capital known as the Jewish people.

Economic and social commentator Gilder sees the attitude towards Israel as a litmus test that sorts out countries and individuals along what he perceives as the greatest divide of our time:

“The prime issue is not a global war of civilizations between the West and Islam or a split between Arabs and Jews. These conflicts are real and salient, but they obscure the deeper moral and ideological war. The real issue is between the rule of law and the rule of leveler egalitarianism, between creative excellence and covetous ‘fairness,’  between admiration of achievement versus envy and resentment of it.”

In elucidating this profound split, Gilder ascribes a new significance to anti-Semitism today.

“In countries where Jews are free to invent and create, they pile up conspicuous wealth and arouse envy and suspicion. In this age of information when the achievements of mind have widely outpaced the power of masses and material force, Jews have forged much of the science and wealth of the era. Their pioneering contributions to quantum theory enabled the digital age. Their breakthroughs in nuclear science and computer science propelled the West to victory in World War II and the cold war. Their bioengineering inventions have enhanced the health and their microchip designs are fueling the growth of nations everywhere. Their genius has leavened the culture and economy of the world.”

As to the importance of Jews to the United States, Gilder writes:

“Virtually all Americans who have achieved anything important in the twentieth century have had crucial Jewish colleagues and collaborators. Virtually none of the significant technological feats of the twentieth century would have been possible without critical contributions by Jews.”

Marxists  impugn capitalism as a zero-sum game in which one small group prospers only through the expropriation of the wealth of the many. To the contrary, Gilder argues, capitalism is a “positive-sum game,” that is “based on an upward spiral of gains, with no essential limits to the creation of wealth.” It is, in fact, he writes, the only system that can build wealth broadly while making democracy work.  By contrast, the “crippling error of zero-sum economics” is the “chief cause of poverty”

Gilder documents the economic damage that anti-Semitism exacted from the many twentieth-century European countries which fell victim to it. 

Several chapters probe the futility of what he ironically refers to as a “land for war” bargain with Palestinian voices - - as well as the great human tragedy of the profoundly anti-Semitic Palestinian economy and political culture.

Gilder also tells the story of the recent emergence of Israel as a world financial center, spurred by a series of tax cuts beginning in the 1980s.

Gilder recounts the work of John von Neumann and others Jews whose discoveries in theoretical mathematics and physics underlie the signature applied sciences of today - - from the atomic bomb to modern computing and optics.

Many of his chapters are in themselves contributions to the recent history of science. Interviewing many of technology’s contemporary heroes, he highlights the pioneering computer work of holocaust survivor Dov Frohman, of physicist and Biblical scholar David Medved, and of Saifun Semiconductors‘ Boaz Eitan, to name just three. He traces the careers of these original thinkers in the U.S. and Israel, showing how they brought Israel “Inside the Internet.” 

Gilder tells the story of the emergence of Israel as a technological innovator, which has made the “tiny country” today a “global center of microchip, telecom, optics, software, biotech, and medical-devices research, the country’s development and entrepreneurship rivaled only by its partners in Silicon Valley.”

Here is Gilder’s succinct review –”Silicon Israel: How market capitalism saved the Jewish state” - - of the Israeli IT industry. “Many of Intel’s key products could be stamped Israel Inside,” Gilder explains. But market and technology commentator Gilder also reminds us in this article of the transformation of a country which “[upheld] a philosophy of victimization and socialist redistribution that could only impede its progress” to “accomplish[ing] the most overwhelming transformation in the history of economics . . . .”

In closing, the 70-year-old Gilder recounts his own personal “Israel Test,” which he underwent as a young man attending the Phillips Exeter Academy, a national New Hampshire-based school founded in 1781. Descendant of an old, intellectual New England family, Gilder abruptly found himself crowded out of a coveted spot on the Exonian editorial board by a group of classmates that he sneeringly identified to himself as “New York Jews.”

Gilder recalls how sorely he was tempted to give in to the same passions of envy and anger that have always driven anti-Semitism.  But an “intelligent and beautiful” tutor from Radcliffe College, by confessing herself also to be a “New York Jew,” brought the young Gilder to a better mind:

“To this day I recall the moment as a supreme mortification and as a turning point. Rather than recognizing my shortcomings and inferiority and resolving to overcome them in the future, I had blamed the people who had outperformed me.”

The Israel Test is a challenging book which is both an eloquent  polemic and a collection of well-crafted essays. Yet, the wide-ranging chapters are not so much digressions from his main theme as enriching perspectives on it.

 

 

SCROLL TO BOTTOM  FOR UPDATES FROM EXPERT BRADLEY SMITH! 

” . . .[T]he FEC has created a regime that allows it to select what political speech is safe for public consumption by applying ambiguous tests. If parties want to avoid litigation and the possibility of civil and criminal penalties, they must either refrain from speaking or ask the FEC to issue an advisory opinion approving of the political speech in question. Government officials pore over each word of a text to see if, in their judgment, it accords with the 11-factor test they have promulgated. This is an unprecedented governmental intervention into the realm of speech.” - - Justice Anthony Kennedy (2010)

. . . . .

“The federal election campaign laws, which are already (as today’s opinions show) so voluminous, so detailed, so complex, that no ordinary citizen dare run for office, or even contribute a significant sum, without hiring an expert advisor in the field, can be expected to grow more voluminous, more detailed, and more complex in the years to come–and always, always, with the objective of reducing the excessive amount of speech.” - - Justice Antonin Scalia (2003)  (Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

Last Thursday’s Supreme Court holding in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a step forward for grass-roots organizations with limited funds, and a check on unaccountable incumbency for members of both parties. Here is a birds-eye view of the Court’s action by National Review on Line’s (NRO) Ed Whelan.

The Weekly Standard’s Mary Katharine Ham guides us to Politico’s Ben Smith “Ginsberg et al.: A drastically altered landscape”.  Smith declares - -

“Leading Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg and four colleagues at Patton Boggs are circulating a memo today with the clearest outline I’ve seen of the consequences of a ruling that, they write, will ‘drastically alter the landscape for candidates and political parties.’”

Here are two extracts from the January 21, 2010 Ginsberg memorandum - -

501c4s and 501c6s: Likely to emerge as the biggest players in the 2010 and 2012 elections, ideological groups and trade associations also have been granted the ability to engage much more robustly in the political process. Meager disclosure requirements of their donors will make them a favorite repository of funds for independent expenditures.

. . . . .

Vendors: The opinion should drastically increase the number of voices singing in the First Amendment choir. This is very good news for those who assist those efforts.
(Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

Readers can view the entire memorandum here as it appeared in Ben Smith’s Politico article.

Last week in our own post “High Court Boosts Free Speech, Curtails McCain-Feingold,” we drew readers’ attention to Bradley Smith’s “The Myth of Campaign Finance Reform” here.

If there is a “magic bullet” to deconstruct so-called campaign-finance-reform schemes, former Federal Elections Commission (FEC) chief Smith has invented it in his National Affairs post and his earlier writings - -

“Considered in detail, each step in the effort to limit campaign spending turns out to advantage the party that sought it. If its own numbers are insufficient to pass the legislation (as was the case with McCain-­Feingold in 2002), then it seeks to broaden its base by adding incumbent-­protection sweeteners to attract enough members of the opposing party to create a bipartisan majority. John Samples notes that McCain-­Feingold drew most of its support from Democrats — who, he argues, saw long-term electoral disaster in the growing Republican fundraising edge, which was increasing after Republicans won the presidency in 2000. But to gain a legislative majority, the minority Democrats had to gain Republican votes; Samples finds that the Republicans who supported McCain-Feingold were, by and large, those most in danger of losing their seats. For them, the incumbent-benefit protections of the law made it irresistible.

Samples makes the Madisonian observation that ‘politicians use political power to further their own goals rather than the public ­interest….Campaign finance laws might be, in other words, a form of ­corruption.’ Noting that ’scholars date the largest decline in congressional electoral competition from 1970′ and that the Federal Election ­Campaign Act — the foundation of modern campaign-finance law — was passed in 1972, Samples points out that ‘the decline in ­electoral competition and the new era of campaign finance regulation are virtually conterminous.’ ”
(Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

When chairman Smith resigned from the FEC in 2005, his letter doing so to then president Bush warned that - -

” . . . [T]he trend toward greater control of politicking–online and offline–may eventually have grave consequences. ‘Political activity is more heavily regulated than at any time in our nation’s history,’ he wrote. ‘For example, in accordance with the law, during my tenure the FEC has assessed penalties against parents for contributing too much to the campaigns of children; against children for contributing to the campaigns of parents; and against husbands for contributing to campaigns of their wives,’ he wrote. ‘We have required citizens to respond to complaints for the display of homemade signs supporting a candidate. These are just a few examples: The commission’s regulations take up nearly 400 pages of fine print.’”

If there is any doubt that incumbency protection motivated many of the supporters of McCain-Feingold (the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act), Justice Scalia gave us chapter and verse in his dissent in McConnell of December 2003 - -

 “But let us not be deceived. While the Government’s briefs and arguments before this Court focused on the horrible ‘appearance of corruption,’ the most passionate floor statements during the debates on this legislation pertained to so-called attack ads, which the Constitution surely protects, but which Members of Congress analogized to ‘crack cocaine,’ 144 Cong. Rec. S868 (Feb. 24, 1998) (remarks of Sen. Daschle), ‘drive-by shooting[s],’ id., at S879 (remarks of Sen. Durbin), and ‘air pollution,’ 143 Cong. Rec. 20505 (1997) (remarks of Sen. Dorgan). There is good reason to believe that the ending of negative campaign ads was the principal attraction of the legislation. A Senate sponsor said, ‘I hope that we will not allow our attention to be distracted from the real issues at hand–how to raise the tenor of the debate in our elections and give people real choices. No one benefits from negative ads. They don’t aid our Nation’s political dialog.’ Id., at 20521—20522 (remarks of Sen. McCain).”      (Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

Readers may see who in the Congress voted in 2002 for this free-speech-restricting act here and here.

In our view, the faith-based groups (along with many other voices on the center-right) erred in not going to the mat with president George W. Bush over his March 2002 signing of the McCain-Feingold legislation.  Neither pro-life nor pro-free-market nor immigration-enforcement nor defense advocates can do their jobs if their political-speech freedoms are continually curtailed. We all finally ended up having to do our part, spectacularly, more than three years later in October 2005, fighting the president’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. (The force of the Miers pushback arose from a culmination of conservative frustrations with the Bush Administration.)  Presumably by now we have all learned a great deal from the current and the previous administrations.

Grass-roots conservatives, Tea Partiers, Ralliers, and other center-right activists need to keep tracking and exposing the governmental and institutional efforts to limit free political speech. As Mark Levin writes, “[I]t took the Statist nearly eighty years to get here, and it will take the Conservative at least as long to change the nation’s direction.

UPDATES HERE AND  HERE FROM BRADLEY SMITH! 

“President Wrong on Citizens United Case ‘This is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demagoguery of the worst kind.’”

. . . . .

“What Citizens United actually does is empower small and midsize corporations—and every incorporated mom-and-pop falafel joint, local firefighters’ union, and environmental group—to make its voice heard in campaigns without hiring an army of lawyers or asking the FEC how it may speak.”

 

(Larry Helminiak, successful independent businessman and former chairman of the Carroll County Republican Committee, is perhaps the most seasoned voice in the Maryland conservative base. -ed)

On January 19, the Republican Party won a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts, shortly after winning the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. 

Really?

Was it a victory FOR Republicans or AGAINST the status quo, regardless of which party is in control?

Remember that in 2006 voters kicked the Republicans out of control of the Congress.  In 2008, they gave the White House to the Democrats.

Now they are kicking out Democrats.

Today it should be clear that voters are casting their ballots AGAINST out-of-control and unresponsive government rather than FOR any party, and the future winner will be the party that hears them.

The president has promised us:  C-SPAN transparency, bi-partisanship, no taxes on those who earn under $250,000, no overweening special-interest influence, unemployment under 8%, to name a few pledges in his endless campaign.

But on every issue, the president is giving us the opposite.

The Federal government controls much of the auto industry, many banks and insurance companies, education, the mortgage industry, and now makes us get naked at airports or get groped by Transportation Safety Administration workers.  Then they take Play Doh away from six-year-olds “for our safety.”   And of course the voters are angry.

Tea Parties, Town Halls, and the 9/12 events brought out people who have never been involved in political activities before - -showing up to demonstrate against the many current and planned government intrusions into our lives.

The only favorable placards were for Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, or Representative Joe Wilson.

The Republican Party tells us to focus on November.

But the action will be in the primaries, and these contests, from Florida to New York to California, have already begun.

To take the Congress back, we have to convince the frustrated voters that we can run candidates who are against bigger government and higher taxes and more regulation and for personal freedom. 

The most common signs at demonstrations were LEAVE US ALONE and GIVE US OUR COUNTRY BACK.

If we fail to field genuinely conservative candidates in the Republican primaries — whether on the state or Federal levels, we will see a surge of “Third Party” faces, which will hand the election to the Democrats, as it did in 1992 when Bill Clinton won with only 43 percent of the vote.

How important is winning the House of Representatives back?  

We know that it would kick Nancy Pelosi out of the Speaker’s chair. But we should also point out that our win would take key committee leadership away from John Conyers (Judiciary), Barney Frank (Financial Services), David Obey (Appropriations), Charles Rangel (Ways and Means), and Henry Waxman (Energy & Commerce).

Winning the House would enable Republicans to restrain the so-called (but dangerous) progressive voices until 2012, when we can elect a new president.

If we fail in 2010, the “progressives” will have two more years of strong control, and it will be impossible to undo much of what they will have done.

What’s at stake?  The United States of America.  That’s what.

Remember, your children and your grand children will either thank you or blame you for the country that you gave them in 2010.

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“’This Supreme Court decision is a welcome victory for freedom of speech and democratic participation,’ said [Republican Study Committee] Chairman Price. ‘Some may characterize today’s decision as a win for unions and corporations, but it’s really a win for the Constitution and all those who want their voices heard by their elected officials and the American public.’”-  - - Representative Tom Price

Paul Sherman of the Institute for Justice sums up today’s crucial Supreme Court holding on National Review on Line (NRO) in his “Citizens United Decision Means More Free Speech” - -

“First, some background. During the 2008 election,the nonprofit group Citizens United wanted to make a film available on cable-on-demand that was critical of then-candidate Hillary Clinton. But because Citizens United is organized as a corporation, its speech was banned under the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. Citizens United challenged this ban, and on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling, striking down this provision of McCain-Feingold and reversing a previous ruling — Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce — that permitted the government to ban corporations and labor unions from promoting or opposing political candidates.

The ruling represents a tremendous victory for free speech and a serious blow to proponents of campaign-finance ‘reform,’ who have roundly denounced the ruling and have all but predicted the downfall of the Republic as a result. But the reformers’ rhetoric is just that; the Court’s ruling will simply result in a more diverse mix of political speech, and that is a good thing for American democracy.”

Here is the text of the Court’s holding.

NRO’s Ed Whelan highlights some extracts from Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion - -

“These passages (emphasis added; citations omitted) from Justice Kennedy’s excellent majority opinion . . .in the 5-4 ruling starkly illustrate what was at stake:

‘The law before us is an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations—including nonprofit advocacy corporations—either to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. Thus, the following acts would all be felonies under §441b: The Sierra Club runs an ad, within the crucial phase of 60 days before the general election, that exhorts the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests; the National Rifle Association publishes a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U. S. Senator supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate’s defense of free speech. These prohibitions are classic examples of censorship.’ “

Also from NRO is Steve Hoersting’s question - -

“. . . [W]hether corporations brave enough to take advantage of the opinion, and go against the Democrats, will risk audits or the nationalization of their businesses.”

Some Revealing History of Attempts to Control Political Speech

NRO’s Yuval Levin points us to Bradley Smith’s “The Myth of Campaign Finance Reform.”

“March 24, 2009, may go down as a turning point in the history of the campaign-finance reform debate in America. On that day, in the course of oral argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,United States deputy solicitor general Malcolm Stewart inadvertently revealed just how extreme our campaign-finance system has become.

The case addressed the question of whether federal campaign-finance law limits the right of the activist group Citizens United to distribute a hackneyed political documentary entitled Hillary: The Movie. The details involved an arcane provision of the law, and most observers expected a limited decision that would make little news and not much practical difference in how campaigns are run. But in the course of the argument, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Stewart and inquired: ‘What’s your answer to [the] point that there isn’t any constitutional difference between the distribution of this movie on video [on] demand and providing access on the internet, providing DVDs, either through a commercial service or maybe in a public library, [or] providing the same thing in a book? Would the Constitution permit the restriction of all of those as well?’ Stewart, an experienced litigator who had represented the government in campaign-finance cases at the Supreme Court before, responded that the provisions of McCain-Feingold could in fact be constitutionally applied to limit all those forms of speech. The law, he contended, would even require banning a book that made the same points as the Citizens United video.” Read more . . .

We have frequently written about the dangers of the McCain-Feingold legislation (the “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002″) restricting free political speech which a Republican president with the support of many in his party here and here wrote into law, and about Justice Antonin Scalia’s scathing comments here on that foolish and anti-constitutional measure.

Maryland and Virginia conservatives will want to keep in mind Republican incumbents in the Congress, notably Virginia’s Representative Frank Wolf, who voted for what Justice Scalia called - -

 “. . . [A] law that cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government. For that is what the most offensive provisions of this legislation are all about.We are governed by Congress, and this legislation prohibits the criticism of Members of Congress by those entities most capable of giving such criticism loud voice: national political parties and corporations, both of the commercial and the not-for-profit sort. It forbids pre-election criticism of incumbents by corporations, even not-for-profit corporations, by use of their general funds; and forbids national-party use of ’soft’ money to fund ‘issue ads’ that incumbents find so offensive.”

As we said after the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, it will be a long slog to turn around the excesses of the administrative state - - whether at the Federal or the mega-county level. All of us, Tea Partiers included, must not lose patience and must do our homework on a variety of seemingly “insider” issues that are crucial to our freedom and prosperity. 

* * * *

UPDATE! MORE GRASS-ROOTS CONNECTIONS

Hans Von Spakovsky from Heritage here: “Almost every one of the many associations we have in this country (no matter which side of the political aisle they are on), from the NAACP to the Sierra Club to the National Rifle Association, are also corporations. Yet those corporate associations were prohibited under penalty of criminal and civil sanctions from expressing the views of their members in the political arena over which particular candidates should be elected to uphold the positions on important issues of public policy that their members believe in unless they complied with certain very restrictive, complex provisions.”

Richard Viguerie from ConservativeHq here: “Today’s Supreme Court decision: Good Riddance to Incumbent-Protection Censorship; Hello Insurgents” - - “The dirty little secret about all campaign finance laws passed by Congress since 1972 is that they were designed to protect incumbents by stifling competition. This ruling is especially important for advocacy causes and organizations, which may now more freely express opinions about incumbents.”

. . . . .

“The Supreme Court decision today will increase the number of incumbents (Republican and Democratic) who will decide not to run for reelection this year so as to ’spend more time with their family.’”

Who are the authors of tonight’s victory?

The Tea Partiers, the conservative grass roots, those independent citizens who simply had enough of government intrusion into matters where the government should not tread, and of government incompetence in doing the basic things a government should do, and a candidate of exceptional ability.

While senator-elect Scott Brown’s triumph is a setback to president Obama’s hard-left goals, it is also a signal to the Beltway GOP and their own lobbyist and consultant circles that it is long since time for a changing of the guard.

Thus we draw readers’ attention to this post today from RedState - -

“The real credit for a possible Brown victory today goes to thousands and thousands of everyday Americans in Massachusetts and across the country who have had it with Washington’s spending and takeovers, people that donated money and volunteered to help on the ground. The NRSC making a last-minute attempt to claim credit because they sent some checks in the last week, money that was a drop in the bucket compared to what the grassroots gave Brown, is laughable and pathetic. This was anything but a party effort. This was an uprising by the people, and a movement that will continue all across this country. And the people will do it without the permission of Washington GOP elites, thank you very much.”

As Winston Churchill said after the 1942 Desert Victory at El Alamein,

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

It will be a long slog to turn around the excesses of the administrative state at home, to purge the culture of political correctness, and to bring our defenses back to the minimum levels of safety for us and for our allies.

Americans have shown tonight that they are up to mobilizing quickly against a grave threat to our way of life.

Let us pray that we have the patience for the long battle as well.

TEA PARTIERS: We are adding some heartfelt remarks (scroll to end of this post) from an indefatigable liberty-oriented activist in Maryland who has never let his career as a successful independent business man stand in the way of sign-waving in all weather, testifying, organizing our kind of events, giving money, and building charter schools.  His message, we believe, should be heard by all traditional Republicans in Maryland and Virginia. 

The Tea Party insurgency against big-government Republicans (and Democrats) continues in the Old Dominion.

Yesterday the Washington Post’s Amy Gardner in her article - - “Virginia Tea Party leaders want Virgil Goode to run again” - - reports

“Goode, who lost the seat in 2008 by fewer than 1,000 votes to Democrat Tom Perriello, was unavailable for comment this evening. But Tea Party activists said they met for several hours today to figure out how to block Hurt, a state senator backed by national Republicans but not viewed as sufficiently conservative by others — and drafting Goode was a major piece of the discussion.”

. . . . .

” . . . [T]he possibility of Goode candidacy traveled quickly through Virginia political circles today and intensified the perception that the 5th District is fast becoming another national battleground over the direction of the Republican Party. Conservatives say Hurt’s vote for a billion-dollar tax increase in 2004 effectively disqualifies him as a credible conservative candidate; they also say they resent state and national Republican intervention on behalf of Hurt. Earlier this week, House Minority Whip Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) disclosed that his leadership PAC and congressional committee had donated $7,000 to Hurt’s campaign.”(Underscoring Forum’s.)

Norman Leahy, in the Tertium Quids blog last week, commented on Republican House Whip Cantor’s intervention in this primary here, and on the Richmond-area member’s views on repealing Obamacare here - -

“Cantor won’t seek repeal of Obamacare

Oh, really?:

‘Whip Eric Cantor has said GOPers will not campaign on a platform of completely repealing the bill, carving out a few of the reforms to keep and discarding the rest.’

One shudders to think what establishment Republicans believe is worth keeping in the bill.“

Mr. Cantor’s murky position on repealing not-yet-passed Obamacare will hardly help the campaign against that pending legislation - - or the Virginia Republicans who are running against Obamacare-supporting incumbents in the House.

Faithful readers will recall our articles about Representative Cantor’s positions in 2009 and 2008:

• Insurgency Now? Conservatives vs. GOP Governmentalists - - “Many of the top Republican Congressional chieftains just aren’t happy with the visibility and force of Tea Parties, Recess Rallies, and the powerful voices of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.”
  

• Taxpayers Would Pay Bundles for Cantor’s High-Speed Rail

• “Carbon Emissions” What Does GOP Whip Cantor Believe?

• Will the New Republican ‘Listening Tour’ Hear the Base? 

• A Bonus of Nonsense From Too Many Republican Solons - -  “Mr. Wolf, the venerable appropriator of taxpayer monies, and Mr. Cantor, the Republican Whip, seem to lose their fiscal way by first voting for the October bailout which kicked off this perilous TARP scheme, then voting for a ‘retroactive tax punishment bill.’”

Where is the Virginia sense of urgency in defeating the Obamacare legislation?

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate meets again for business.  Last week in our “Obamacare: Getting a Virginia US Senator To Vote ‘No,’” we wrote - -

“Unless the House accepts the Senate version of Obamacare in its entirety, the Senate at some point will have to muster 60 votes again for this freedom-erasing measure.”

Tomorrow, in Richmond, there will be a “Virginia 10th Amendment Revolution Lobby Day/Rally . . . in support of 10th amendment [ Virginia] legislation to challenge the powers of the federal government not delegated to it by the states.”

Do the Virginia Tea Party leaders privately believe that the Congressional fight against Obamacare is already lost? Or there is another explanation for their big Richmond focus on state legislation, however worthy the proposal, just before the final votes in the Congress on Obamacare? 

Should not tomorrow’s Tea Party participants in Richmond also descend on the McDonnell Administration to ask them to pull all the stops to try to get a least one of Virginia’s U.S. senators to come to a better mind on Obamacare?

* * * * *
COMMENTS FROM A SEASONED, LIBERTY-ORIENTED ACTIVIST

Richard, I attended a rally yesterday [Sunday] for Charles Lollar [running against incumbent Steny Hoyer for the House of Representatives]. It was in Dunkirk, Maryland in Calvert County. Virtually an all white crowd: Mykel Harris [chair of the Prince Georges County GOP Committee), Ron Miller [running against Maryland Senate president Mike Miller], and Charles were the only African-Americans. Charles gave a good talk. Ron Miller also.

Over all it was a good event. About 40 to 50 people showed up. 

I had to laugh at a fellow who just about lost it when I mentioned that Obama was given a gift by Bush - - that Bush had greased the skids for Obama as Hoover had done for Roosevelt.

He got his dander up and told me that we no longer have Bush, and we don’t have to talk in a negative way about him. I ran off the prescription drug bill, the campaign-finance-reform bill, the stimulus bill, and his doubling the national debt during his time in office. Also noted that Bush had not vetoed any spending bills until the end.

He said why are you so eager to condemn this man?

I said because if we don’t face the past we will continue to make the same mistakes.

I also heard a few people say they hoped Bob [Ehrlich] would run for governor. At the Wednesday Tea Party rally in Annapolis, Bob was there but declined to speak. I had hoped he would so we could boo him. He has already stymied the conservative Republicans by stalling, and this will make it harder to build up a winning team.