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UPDATE JUNE 27! Yesterday we wrote about the possible decline of Beltway “center-right” empires with the example of the National Rifle Association’s facilitating the House passage of the DISCLOSE bill.  Today vigilant RedState chief Erick Erickson reveals “NRA Issues Gag Order to Its Board Members on Elena Kagan.” Erickson reports “Internal Senate emails confirmed by NRA Board Members are highlighting just how far the National Rifle Association has fallen….The gag order on board members is not limited to providing testimony, but it prohibits board members from coming out against Kagan in their individual capacity.” Readers should consider the entire piece. Stay tuned.

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The real question for the Senate Republican leadership:  is there any Obama initiative you will invoke Senate rules to the fullest to stop during the balance of this Congress? 

Last Thursday the House of Representatives approved a blatantly unconstitutional measure, H. R. 5175, the so-called DISCLOSE “Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections” bill. The outrageous measure is intended to cripple the political speech of the majority party’s likely critics between now and the Congressional elections on November 2.

Heritage’s top-flight election-law analyst Hans von Spakovsky who has been tracking this legislative menace explained - -

“Ignoring the First Amendment and trampling on the Constitution, an overwhelming majority of Democrats in the House passed the DISCLOSE Act this [Thursday] afternoon on a 219 to 206 vote. Two Republicans, Rep. Mike Castle (R., Del.) and Joseph Cao (R., La.), crossed party lines to vote in favor of government censorship. Thirty-six Democrats actually voted against the bill, including twelve members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were still upset over the special exemption given to the NRA. That exemption was weakened to include a couple of other organizations like the Sierra Club and the AARP, both staunch champions of liberal causes. Not only did the House approve the amendment sponsored by Dennis Kucinich that would plug the mouth of anyone who holds a lease on the Outer Continental Shelf, but it also inserted yet another exemption for unions.”

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) gives us chapter-and-verse on this House measure here and here.

Readers will want to consider the RSC’s paragraph on bloggers:

“Bloggers might be harmed. Despite RSC staff consultations with renowned campaigns and elections lawyers, it remains unclear to them and us the extent to which bloggers might be harmed by this legislation. Although the bill does include a provision exempting Internet communications from provisions regarding ‘general public political advertising,’ the exemption from coordinated communications affects news stories, commentaries, and editorials. Those are not general public political ads. And since the coordinated communications exception does not mention the Internet, it could open up bloggers who refer to a clearly identified federal candidate during a certain timeframe from coming under the coordinated communication definition—and thus under onerous federal regulations and prohibitions.”(Italics and underscoring in original.)

Carter Wood on the Manhattan Institute’s Point of Law gives us the full flavor of the House leadership’s attack on free political speech between now and election day November 2 - -

“If sponsors truly believed the bill’s restrictions are constitutional, they would have welcomed expedited judicial review. But in the House Rules Committee (vote 453) and, on the floor of the House, defeating the motion to recommit (208-217), Democratic supporters explicitly rejected the expedited review language included in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation.”

As Wood notes - -

“Sponsored by the head of the Democratic campaign committee for the House (Rep. Chris Van Hollen) and Senate (Sen. Charles Schumer), the bill is aggressively partisan. If it passes the Senate — no certainty — and President Obama signs it, the law will eventually be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional. In the meantime, the DISCLOSE Act will have achieved its goals: chilling criticism of Democratic incumbents before the November 2010 elections.”

We urge readers to take in Wood’s entire post  to see what we are up against.

The NRA’s Dishonorable Bargain –
The Decline of Some Beltway Center-Right Empires?

Compounding this attack on our ancient liberties, America’s largest “pro gun” organization, the National Rifle Association (NRA), bargained with the House Democratic leadership to exempt themselves from the bill.  To our knowledge, only one of the NRA’s board of directors publicly objected to that organization’s dishonorable deal.  In mid-June, we reported to you on how the NRA began losing its credibility in a post which linked to all that once-respected organization’s directors: “Standing Together-Hanging Separately”? NRA’s Bad Choice

The RSC Legislative Bulletin on H.R. 5175 elaborates - -

“As stated in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, ‘Creating a special exception for the NRA, and thereby assuring the Democrats ‘good grades’ on Second Amendment rights, eases the way for the bill to be passed. A failing grade on First Amendment rights is somebody else’s problem.’ The exemption is intended to make it easier for a bad bill to get the votes it needs to pass. The bill also prohibits independent expenditures or disbursing funds for electioneering communications by anyone with a government contract greater than $10 million. Originally, the threshold was $50,000, which was changed in mark-up. It was then changed to $7 million and then to $10 million because the NRA reportedly receives over $7 million in government contracts.” (Italics and underscoring in original.)

A badge of dishonor? Next time your favorite candidate or incumbent trumpets an NRA endorsement, ask your politician about NRA’s turning its back on the First Amendment for all Americans.

Does the Senate GOP Leadership Still Fear
Being Seen as “Obstructionist”?

Last June 11, we drew readers’ attention to Senate rules expert Mike Hammond’s recommendations to Senate Republicans on “The Way to Block Kagan.”

We wrote that the courage, and the tactics - - stopping the legislative trains  - - Hammond recommends to Senate Republicans to halt the confirmation of Dean Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court would seem equally appropriate to stop the other major Obama statist initiatives until the country has the results of what amounts to a national referendum on the president’s program next November.

We suggested the real question for the Senate Republican leadership:  is there any Obama initiative you will invoke Senate rules to the fullest to stop during the balance of this Congress? 

If the answer is no, it is hard to see this Senate Republican leadership in the next Congress fighting tooth-and-nail against already enacted programs including Obamacare.  Faithful readers will recall our compilation of the Senate GOP leadership’s missteps in our March 24, 2010 “Shaming a Faltering Senate GOP Leadership into Action”

Perhaps just as the conference report on the financial regulation bill (H.R. 4173) arrives in the Senate, the Republican leader might insist that it be read in its entirety. Faithful readers will recall our link to John Berlau’s May 21 Big Government post “Dodd Bank Bill: Brown Folds but Vitter’s Not-Everything’s-A-Bank Amendment Passes.“We need to find out what’s in the conference report before the Senate votes on it. Presumably the individual senators will want to find out as well.

As Carter Wood points out  - -

“Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) issued a statement hailing passage. Critics are noting this quote from the Senator as reported in The Washington Post: ‘No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.’”

Our current impression is still that too many Republican Congressional incumbents are wholly beguiled (and distracted) by a vision of a “blow-out victory” next November. Instead of relying on premature triumphalism, we need commitment to wage a stubborn, unrelenting fight in the Congress from now until November.

Below is our review of last year of that milestone publication “Blacklisted by History.”

The Left’s “Willful Blindness” About Senator Joe McCarthy

By Susan Freis Falknor

Conservatives have all seen first-hand the recent damage to truth and balance wrought by the Big Media in America.  Stanton Evans gives us an account of how the Big Media has, for fifty years, distorted important chapters in the history of Soviet penetration of the U.S.  As Victor Volsky in the American Thinker warned here last October with his “Enough Already” –  “The sooner the conservatives abandon their delusional belief in the innate goodness of the liberal heart and realize that the Big Media is their bitter enemy that has to be fought tooth and nail, the better their chances will be.” 

Readers will find this history of Joe McCarthy a gripping read. 

But as you dig into these national-security lapses, don’t forget Evans Law of Inadequate Paranoia:

No matter how bad you believe a situation is, when you investigate it turns out to be worse.

Mike Potemra’s National Review on Line (NRO) good post this morning  “Why Do They Hate Israel?” explains - -

“Mark Steyn recently reminded us of some European polling from a few years ago, showing that the public consensus was growing on the Continent that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace. The recent global rage against Israel over the Gaza flotilla incident suggests that the trend has not abated. But the American people are resisting it — a recent poll shows them supporting Israel over the flotilla activists by a margin of 49 percent to 19 percent.”

An additional answer to Potemra’s question is that the Jewish state’s possible moves to save itself from the Iranian peril could compel Europe and the U.S. to face actually taking concrete steps against the Iranian regime — something the chattering classes manifestly do not wish to do.

An historical parallel: we suggest that if Czechoslovakia in 1938 with its 35-division army and armaments industry (the large Skoda Works) had ignored the Munich negotiations and declared it would resist any German incursion it too would have brought international condemnation on itself from appeasers - - not just from the Chamberlainites in the United Kingdom, but from all manner of “progressive” intellectuals across Europe.

Tyrant Fascination Will Always Be with Us

The fascination that our intellectuals have for tyrants has been with us for some time. Historian John Lukacs reminds us that - -

“On the day of France’s capitulation Gandhi wrote in the Indian newspaper Harijan, on 22 June: ‘Germans of future generations will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more.’”

History-minded readers will recall that today, June 22, is the 70th anniversary of the signing of the French-German armistice in the early phases World War II.

But of course there are far deeper forces militating against Israel than merely anger at Israel for pushing the West to face the consequences of an Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.

Poterma continues - -

Part of the problem, in the United States at least, has to do with elitist contempt for Evangelical Christians: Those ignorant Bible-thumpers give Israel a free pass on everything because they think that Bible prophecies require unthinking support for today’s Israeli state. Now, I am myself an Evangelical Christian of a sort (I am nominally an Episcopalian, and harbor an undying affection for the Catholic Church I grew up in, but my ecclesiology is firmly in the free-church tradition of today’s U.S. Evangelicalism). Yet I do not view the current State of Israel as an object of apocalyptic concern. If its enemies manage to wipe it off the face of the earth, the Jewish people will endure; their role as God’s question to man — as Wiesel’s rabbi suggested — would persist, even after millions of them were slain (yet again). Or, to put it in an even more sobering way: The destruction of the State of Israel would not put an end to anti-Semitism.

Indeed.  The crushing of Israel by its enemies would ignite an explosion of anti-Semitism in the U.S.  Too many of our universities already nurture that malignancy.

Readers will want to digest Poterma’s entire piece.

The Folly of Coalition Stability - - A Suggestion of Corruption

The indefatigable (and invaluable) Caroline Glick today recounts a tale of fecklessness - - and worse - - in the Israeli political establishment in her post “The high price of coalition stability.” 

Columnist Glick asks - -

“A key question that needs to be considered is what makes policymakers like [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak advance such colossally stupid and dangerous policies time after time. Israel’s history since 1993, when then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and then foreign minister Shimon Peres opted to embrace Arafat and the PLO, bring thousands of PLO terrorists to the outskirts of Israel’s major cities and give them weapons and international legitimacy indicates that three factors come into play.

First there is the fact that many of Israel’s leading politicians are simply not that smart.

They are happy to be led by an ideologically radical media that have insisted since the 1980s that Israel must withdraw to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines.

Not only are they happy to be led by the media, they are loath to dispute its misrepresentation of reality. And so the second cause of serial bungling on the part of politicians like Barak is that they are, in the end, sheep, not leaders.

THE FINAL major cause of Israel’s strategic idiocy is corruption.”

Sometime war correspondent Glick analyzes the folly of “coalition stability” as an end in itself.

“Before heading to Washington,[Defense Minister] Barak reportedly gave Netanyahu an ultimatum: Either make massive concessions to Fatah that will allow Obama to claim victory in the peace process, or Labor will bolt the coalition.

 . . . . .

Netanyahu and his spokesmen defend both Barak’s primacy in the government, and their interest in bringing Kadima into the coalition by noting that the Left’s partnership ensures political stability. If Labor were to bolt from the coalition, the government would be less likely to survive until the next scheduled election in 2013.

. . . . .

This would be a decisive argument if coalition stability enabled Netanyahu to govern more effectively. But the opposite is true.

Netanyahu knows the folly of his decisions.

He recognizes Obama’s hostility to Israel. He also knows that the US president is not going to do a thing to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Stability should be a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Netanyahu did not seek the premiership to achieve the goal of overseeing a stable government. He sought to lead the country to secure and strengthen it. As his latest concession to Barak makes clear, the price of governing stability is the abandonment of his leadership goals.“ (Underscoring Forum’s.)

We are all understandably wrapped up in stopping the Obama Revolution here at home.

But we shall pay a very high price, both in human losses and monetary terms, if we neglect our national security and the president is allowed to keep trashing our allies from Honduras to Israel to Poland.

Had the policies of the U.S. isolationists just before our entry into the Second World War been adopted, ironically the United States might well have ended up a garrison state confronted with militarily and ideologically powerful nations extending their reach well into the Atlantic, much closer to our Pacific shores, and throughout South America. Among those isolationists were the House members who voted against fortifying Guam in 1939.

There are simply no cheap nor effortless ways of keeping the kind of freedom and prosperity the U.S. has - - whether at home or abroad.

But all of us who urge a prudent yet vigilant national-security policy should put securing our border zone with Mexico at the top of the list. The former president allowed this neglect of the southern border which has now become a scandal under president Obama.  If those of us who are strong defense advocates want to earn and keep credibility with the grass roots, we need to let people see us pushing hard to regain and keep our sovereignty along the Mexican border.

We believe that organized labor  - -  AFSCME, SEIU and others - - has for some time been carefully preparing to keep the Democratic majority in the U. S. House of Representatives.  They are already organizing in key districts.  Labor, we are told, is confident that they can succeed in keeping their majority in the House.

We rate this threat as serious.

One illustrative part of their plan is the legislative railroad they are running to rush the DISCLOSE bill to enactment.  Hans von Spakovsky tells us what is driving the DISCLOSE legislation - -

“The real effects of the DISCLOSE Act will be to deter political speech (including criticism of incumbents, such as its chief sponsors, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)) and political advocacy by corporations and associations that Democrats don’t want participating in the American political process. It includes both absolute bans on independent political advocacy and new, burdensome disclosure requirements. Schumer admitted when he introduced the bill that ‘the deterrent effect should not be underestimated.’ During a House Administration Committee hearing, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) made no bones about the fact that he hoped this Act ‘chills out all . . . I have no problem whatsoever keeping everybody out [of elections]. If I could keep all outside entities out, I would.’

Of course, the ‘deterrent’ and ‘chilling’ effect is meant to hit corporations — including nonprofit associations like Citizens United, the conservative advocacy organization that brought the original lawsuit — but not unions, which are exempted from most of the provisions of the bill. No surprise there, since unions support Democrats almost exclusively, with huge amounts of money. And the majority party is moving this bill at a breakneck pace through Congress to have it in place for the November elections, because Democrats fear November will be their election Waterloo.

The DISCLOSE Act would ban certain government contractors from engaging in any political speech, yet unions that represent government employees, and organizations like Planned Parenthood that receive large amounts of federal grants, would not be affected. American companies with American workers and American officers could be banned from speaking if a small minority of their shareholders are foreigners, yet unions with foreign officers and foreign members could spend as much money on political advocacy as they want. And many of the new disclosure provisions imposed by the act were made onerous and burdensome for the specific purpose of deterring political speech.” (Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

The Main Battle

It would be wonderful to take back the U.S. Senate, but that is unlikely. And winning governorships is also particularly important as states undertake post-census redistricting.

But for conservatives and the center-right in general, taking back the House is the main battle - - and the Tea Partiers will have to be part of the assault forces.

Should the House remain in Democratic hands in 2011, there will be no check on the Obama Administration.  Their operatives will wreak “vengeance” on our side and in particular on by-then-demoralized Republican members of the Congress.

On this blog over the last few years, we have taken second place to no one on the center-right in our detailed conservative criticisms of the GOP Establishment and of the records of a number of incumbent House and Senate Republicans.

But both we and the Tea Partiers have had our strong say - - and Deo volente, we all can make that continuing scrutiny of US House Republicans a priority again after Tuesday November 2. 

Tea Partiers Must Weigh In For GOP Challengers
( and for GOP Incumbents )

In Maryland, Dr. Andy Harris must replace Representative Frank Kratovil in the U. S. House.  In Virginia, entrepreneur Keith Fimian must replace Representative Gerry Connolly and state senator Robert Hurt must replace Representative Tom Perriello.

Tea Partiers should not underestimate the planning and organizing ability of organized labor nor the manpower available to them.  Keeping the House in Democratic (labor) hands is vital to their vision of where they want to go as well as keeping their rice bowls filled. 

Remember - - theirs is not our limiting goal to get the government “off our backs” or to downsize it so we can get on with our traditional lives. Their drive is to reshape all our lives under their rules.

In their view, they are very close to the prize. If they win in November, they are not going to be magnanimous to those they saw as obstacles.

Tea Partiers will have to work out locally how they help these GOP challengers.  It is not for nothing that the Republican leadership has been called the stupid party (in contrast to the Democratic leadership, whom some call the evil party).  Based on what we saw in 2008 and later, Republican House campaigns can be inept. 

GOP challengers who are very good on policy may be less adept in local political fighting. 

This year, some challengers who have been somewhat content-light in the past will have to work with Tea Partiers some of whom are almost content zealots.

Other challengers may fear using “politically incorrect” messages, even if they are persuasive and well-grounded.

Our suggestion for Tea Partiers would be to help as independently as they can in getting out the vote in the key Congressional districts and getting out the word through their own means to the voters on what Tea Partiers see as the central weaknesses of the Democratic incumbents.

But make no mistake. As we learn of the number of foot soldiers and grasp the ideological commitment of organized labor in battleground Congressional districts, we don’t see how our GOP challengers can prevail without the people and the smarts of the Tea Partiers.

UPDATES JUNE 16, 17 AND 18!   Red State’s Erick Erickson draws our attention to the Wall Street Journal editorial “Guns and Free Speech: The NRA sells out to Democrats on the First Amendment”which explains “Cutting a special deal at the expense of the First Amendment with lawmakers who have decided for now to stop gutting the Second Amendment reveals an NRA that is unprincipled and will be weaker for it in the long run.” Adds Erickson  “This is about the NRA securing an earmark of constitutional protection for itself to turn itself into a monopoly. That is,in fact, the key. This provision gives the NRA a monopoly that they are perfectly happy to use to shutdown other freedom loving, pro-second amendment groups that should be viewed as their allies, but instead are viewed as competition.” The NRA’s 2008 990 IRS Form (see p. 7– registration required) lists members of their then-board of directors.  Do such board members - - a number of whom can fairly be classed as belonging to America’s center-right - -agree with this special “carve out” for NRA ?  Readers may wish to pursue the matter with board members they know. Go here for a quickly accessed list of 2008 NRA directors. And NRA Board member Cleta Mitchell has already disavowed the NRA “bargain”. Yesterday, June 17, Virginia’s besieged freshman Democratic Representative Tom Perriello appears in a Washington Post report defending the NRA’s redolent bargain on First Amendment rights with speaker Nancy Pelosi. Today, June 18, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel asks in her “The NRA’s Political Sellout: Why is the gun rights lobby helping Chuck Schumer help unions?” The good news is that the Pelosi leadership has pulled the offending DISCLOSE bill from a House vote today.  Stay tuned for DISCLOSE bill developments in the coming days!

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“Members of the NRA need to understand that an internal Tea Party may be in order to right the ship.” - - RS Insider

Veteran national-capital watchers know that the Washington-area staffs of trade associations and even those of some conservative advocacy groups can be almost as condescending to their members across the country and indifferent to member wishes as Federal bureaucrats are to their agency’s clients. (Sometime even more so, as many Federal clients can appeal to friendly members of the Congress.)

These association staffs really want to be part of the Permanent Government - - “we have to live here,” they can argue, so don’t make us take hard-line stands sure to offend politicians and bureaucrats and even jeopardize our future prospects.  Or more frequently, they say quietly to themselves, we will just cut deals that give us the scent of bi-partisanship while getting our organization the promise of a special deal for anther few years.

The National Rifle Association this week appears to have exemplified this shameful approach - -

Erick Erickson goes to the heart of the matter - - Yet Again the NRA Sells Out Freedom to the Democrats

“There are few organizations purportedly on the side of freedom that aggravate me more than the National Rifle Association.

In fact, these days I cringe when I see good conservatives with their lifetime member sticker from the NRA on the back of their cars. I support Gun Owners of America, which is a consistent and uncompromising defender of the second amendment, not a weak little girl of an organization protecting itself while throwing everyone else under the bus.

But that’s what the National Rifle Association is doing. You and I are willing to stand together because we know we either stand together or hang separately. The NRA legislative strategy in the past few years has been to hang everybody else so they can be the last man standing — more interested in maintaining the veneer of bipartisanship than actually standing up for the second amendment.

The Democrats are trying to come up with a new law to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on campaign finance rules. The NRA had objected to the Democrats’ proposal, but then secured a carve out for themselves from the legislation and have dropped their objection.

Here is Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky on National Review on Line (NRO) yesterday - -

“Just as opposition was building in the House to the unconstitutional and burdensome DISCLOSE Act, which is intended to help Democrats in the November election by stifling the political speech of corporations and many non-profit advocacy organizations (but not unions), the NRA has apparently sold out.

Politico and others are reporting that the NRA has reached a deal to withdraw its opposition to the bill in exchange for an exemption for the NRA from its disclosure provisions. The exemption would apply to ‘organizations which have qualified as having tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code for each of the 10 years prior to making a campaign-related disbursement, that had 1 million or more dues-paying members in the prior calendar year, that had members in each of the 50 states, that received no more than 15 percent of their total funding from corporations or labor organizations, and that do not use any corporate or union money to pay for their campaign-related expenditures.’

There aren’t too many organizations that will fit within this exemption, but I understand the NRA thinks it is one of those that will. This exemption will not apply to small, less powerful 501(c)(4) organizations, which will be hit the hardest by the onerous, burdensome, and expensive disclosure requirements of the DISCLOSE Act, but it will apply to the large, well-funded and well-connected NRA.

So, the NRA may end up providing the lobbying grease that allows this noxious and partisan piece of legislation to slide through the House, something that I seriously doubt most of the individual members of the NRA (who are strong believers in the First Amendment as well as the Second) would agree with. (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Myron Ebell of Freedom Action declared - -

“’The NRA has proved itself to be part of the ‘arrogant elite’ it denounced just a few months ago,’ said Ebell. ‘Unfortunately, the only conclusion is that Mr. LaPierre is a hypocrite and the NRA is just another powerful special interest seeking special treatment.

‘The new word from the NRA is, it’s OK to deny free speech to Americans as long as the NRA gets a carve out,’ Ebell said. ‘Groups from every part of the political spectrum should vehemently oppose this plan that will chill free speech and participation in American elections.’”

Here (on page 7 of the 2008 form 990 - -registration required) is the NRA’s Board which seems to include a number of Beltway GOP luminaries.

In an interesting discussion of the dynamics of the NRA, RS Insider’s post on Red State National Rifle Association’s First Amendment Sellout reveals - -

“For the NRA, a group who is fighting to protect the rights of all Americans to exercise their constitutionally recognized natural right to ‘keep and bear Arms,’ to sell out on another constitutionally recognized right is an outrage.  It also destroys their credibility on Capitol Hill.  Why would the NRA cave on the natural right of people to participate in the electoral process?  It is because they are insiders and part of the illness plaguing Washington, D.C. elites.

The most recent actions of the NRA is enraging so many principled conservatives.  It is shocking that David Keene, a veteran of the conservative movement and head of the American Conservative Union, would not have put a stop to this madness in the lobbying arm of the NRA.  Wayne LaPierre’s is Obama-like in his propensity to take actions that are contrary to his public statements.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

It is often easier to start a new school or help build one that is a going concern than to try to fix a failing school. Similarly there is an alternative Second Amendment organization Gun Owners of America headquartered in Virginia.

“Tea Party affiliates, and most conservatives, know that we must stop the Democrat spending spree in D.C. before we can make any substantial inroads into taking back the GOP. It follows that we need to help the GOP take back the House and Senate as quickly as possible. We must get the House in the hands of the GOP and only then worry about removing the good-old-boy GOP incumbents. For this reason (and only this reason), I will be voting for my incumbent congressman.” - - Larrey Anderson

The verdict is hardly complete on the effectiveness of Tea Parties . . . either in Maryland and Virginia, or nationally.

But several analyses and reports from around the U. S. should be helpful to Maryland and Virginia Tea Party organizers and our grass-roots conservative leaders.

Today’s American Thinker includes Larrey Anderson’s “Some Advice for the Tea Party: Take Your Time and Learn from Your Mistakes.”

“I will use the example of my own congressman, Mike Simpson, here in Idaho. (I have known Mike for years. Before he was elected to Congress, I served in the state legislature with him . . . . Congressman Simpson has been in office for over a decade and has become the epitome of the good old boy network.)

Simpson had three primary challengers this year. All of them were lousy debaters and mediocre campaigners. They all had the same message of getting back to the Constitution — but none of them had any reasonable, workable, and detailed proposals for how to get there. The incumbent creamed them in their debates. And although the final reports are not in, the incumbent outspent all of his challengers combined by about 300%. He easily won the primary on May 25.

Simpson’s opponents had plenty of ammo to use against him, had they known where to look and how to use it . . . .”  (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Editor Anderson’s advice is practical and well-worth taking to heart.  He cautions - -

“This means that the Tea Party will have to carefully pick and choose its fights in the GOP primaries . . . . It will have to become more organized. It will have to learn that the RNC is not, and has no intention of, changing its long-standing tradition of supporting GOP incumbents.

The fight is just beginning. It will take at least two more election cycles (after November) before we can really take back our country. Let’s be smart about it.”

Sharron Angle: Nevada’s “Accidental Politician”

National Review on Line (NRO)’s Robert Costa yesterday interviewed Tea Party candidate Angle:

“On her primary win: ‘It became focused with the Tea Party Express endorsement,” she says. “The first endorsement that we got that was of great consequence was from Gun Owners of America. We knew that was of great consequence because it reached across party lines in Nevada. We’re pretty much a 90 percent Second Amendment state. We knew that we were now reaching into constituencies with independent voters as well as Democrat voters. Then this tea-party movement, that was moving across party lines. Then we got Phyllis Schlafly, and she was moving across party lines for us. Same thing with Mark Levin, the talk-show host. When those four really solidified, now we had conservatives from every passionate voter base.… That’s when we thought this thing was really doable.… I give God a lot of credit. Most everything has a providential side in American history.’

From The Left Coast

A Tea Partier’s analysis from California (after the June 8 primary) is both challenging and  illuminating. Jane Jamison in her blog uncoverage.net from California asks - -

“Is there hope for the California ’sheeple’?

No. From my own experience with my two children in public schools in California, young liberal “skulls  of mush” are being molded like Playdoh and  cranked out of California schools.  The teachers’ unions are peopled with political ideologues who use the classrooms to push global warming, population control, LGBT lifestyles, Reconquista and socialism.  After 30 years of this, we have 3 generations of self-absorbed, high self-esteem, over-sexualized, know-nothings who have no concept of history or what it takes to work and make money. A lot of them are voting or holding office somewhere.

The answer I always get when I ask native Californians if they are worried about the state is ‘yes.’ But when I ask them what they think we should do about it, they shrug. There is a sense of ‘inevitability.’ Then they almost always say something to the effect of, ‘but the weather is so nice, you can’t leave.’

Granted, there are plenty of tea party people in California who have worked hard all year to wake people up and get them activated.  But, judging by the small number of votes the conservative candidates got, there are not enough conservatives in California to make a difference. Conservative Senate candidate Chuck DeVore received only 16% of the vote. Conservative governor’s candidate Steve Poizner scored only 26% support to Meg Whitman’s 64%.

After all the work of the tea party groups in California–rallies, calling, emailing, faxing –the Secretary of State’s office shows 23 million possible voters, but only 16 million registered voters.

At yesterday’s election, the turnout was one of the lowest ever, barely 25%. Four million-odd people voted in a state of 30 million.

I would say, based on that, the California ’sheeple’ have spoken.  They get what they deserve, because they don’t vote in great numbers and they vote for liberals when they do vote…liberal Republicans and very liberal, nut-job Democrats.”

We asked ourselves whether there is a practical lesson from California Tea Partiers for the rest of America?  Should the California Tea Partiers have focussed on their own get-out-the-Tea Party-vote campaign for their preferred candidates and thereby possibly changed the primary outcome? Or are there simply too few Tea Partiers and grass-roots conservatives in California to do so?  Even in the diminished turnout of a primary?

The Scope of the Threat

Too few Tea Partiers and grass-roots conservatives fully grasp the magnitude of the threat from the Organized Left.   American Thinker’s Mark J. Fitzgibbons March 16 “Wake-Up Call for the Tea Party” spells the danger out - -

“Tea Partiers who think they’re on to something special are right. In terms of competing with the organized left, though, Tea Partiers are light-years and hundreds of millions of dollars behind.

The New Organizing Institute put together RootsCampDC for February 20-21 of this year. This list shows who and what the Tea Party volunteers are up against. (Read this and think not only about the quantity of organizations, but the money behind all of them, including taxpayer money.)”

A sample from the February RootsCamp program speaks for itself - -

 ”Stories 2.0: Exploring the Government’s new media role in playing on America’s heart strings.”“As the Obama Administration’s largest-scale legislative accomplishment thus far, the Recovery Act is the first major example of how we re-define the government and re-invigorate the country. At the Department of Energy, we have made it a priority to use new media to communicate the Recovery Act to the American public through personal success stories. Folks that got hired, CEO’s about taking their busineseses to the next level, and field experts/stake holders geeking out over the new opportunities for innovation - all values of the Obama Administration. Is the goverment the right medium to tell this story? For those that worked on the campaign, how must we use new media differently now? Is it worth it? Do people care? All these questions and more as we explore this topic.”

Led by: Andy Oare, Recovery Team at Department of Energy”

The Challenges in Maryland and Virginia

The northern Virginia Tea Partiers have done well to date:  confronting Obamacare advocate Representative Gerry Connolly on the one hand, and effectively supporting a changing of the guard as new party chairmen take over the Loudoun County Republican Committee and the 10th Congressional District. And Keith Fimian must give some credit to the Tea Partiers for his re-nomination as the Republican candidate against freshman-Democrat Connolly in the 11th Congressional District.

In Maryland, the Tea Partiers have weighed in on national issues and against at least one errant Maryland Congressional incumbent - - Representative Frank Kratovil - - but have been largely silent on some crucial state issues.  They have of course loudly denounced governor Martin O’Malley’s administration right along with the Maryland Republican Establishment.  But they have done little or nothing to push that Establishment and its tame incumbents and candidates to develop plans for coping with a variety of grave state and local perils: underfunded and overpromised public pension programs; Green Statism; reining in public-employee unions; legislative transparency and the related problem of bi-partisan pork. This list is hardly exhaustive. There are some Maryland exceptions:  the Baltimore County chapter of Americans for Prosperity at least raised the issue of pensions for elected officials. Baltimore County delegate Pat McDonough has been trying to advance a Maryland-adapted version of the Arizona anti-illegal-immigration law. 

Time will tell whether the Maryland Tea Party organizers will get behind talk-radio-voice McDonough’s effort without some first seeking “permission” from Party Elders to do so. By way of contrast, the northern Virginia Tea Partiers are quietly working to make the local and regional leadership of the Republican Party more conservative friendly.  But the Maryland Tea Partiers must take pains to keep their independence from the state Republican Establishment - - or how can they help the cause of party reform? Maryland is also waiting to hear the accents of a Chris Christie . . . not the platitudes of a state party too long without conservative content.

“Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless. Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic.”

. . . . .

“Republicans are good at keeping the seat warm. A bigtime GOP consultant was on TV, crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass Obamacare because it’s so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November. OK, then what? You’ll roll it back – like you’ve rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago?  . . . Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus: ‘Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?’” - -  Mark Steyn

Yesterday the pro-freedom, pro-prosperity, pro-energy forces in the U.S. Senate were unable to muster the votes to stop the EPA from regulating our economy to combat the questionable threat of greenhouse gases.

Today’s Washington Examiner declares “Senate surrenders to the EPA” - -

“Fifty three of the Senate’s 59 Democrats gave unelected, overpaid bureaucrats at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a green light yesterday to do pretty much whatever they choose in their quixotic crusade against global warming. All 41 Republicans and six brave Democrats voted for Alaska Sen.Lisa Murkowski’s resolution nullifying the EPA’s recent usurpation of authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate the U.S. economy to combat greenhouse gases. Thankfully, this craven surrender of congressional authority isn’t the last word on the issue, assuming that the November elections produce a Senate with enough backbone to reassert the legislature’s rightful power.

In the meantime, it’s vital to understand how bureaucracies function. Whatever else they may do, leading bureaucrats always do two things, regardless of which party controls the White House or Congress: They limit choices available to the rest of us by imposing regulations that increase government power and thus justify expanding their budgets and staffs; and they protect themselves and their turf by suppressing internal dissent, often at any costs.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Freedom Action explained yesterday that “Senate Democrats Vote to ‘Turn Out the Lights on America’”.

“Washington, D.C., June, 10, 2010 – The Senate today defeated by a vote of 47 to 53 the Murkowski Resolution of Disapproval that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Six Democrats and all 41 Republican Senators voted for the resolution. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) offered S.J. Res. 26 under the special procedures of the Congressional Review Act, so that the resolution needed only 51 votes for passage.

 

Supporters of EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions had to resort to high-pressure tactics to defeat the Murkowski Resolution.  The White House issued a sternly-worded veto threat.  Environmental pressure groups spent millions of dollars on advertising.  Even that was not enough. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had to promise to hold a vote on a bill that would delay EPA regulations for two years in order to peel several Democratic votes away.

 

‘During today’s debate, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, said that he was voting for the Murkowski Resolution because he didn’t want EPA turning out the lights on America.  Unfortunately, 53 of his fellow Democrats disagreed with Senator Rockefeller and voted to allow EPA to proceed with their regulations to turn out the lights on America,’ Myron Ebell, Director of Freedom Action.

‘Every one of the 53 Democratic Senators who voted against the Murkowski Resolution has now taken full responsibility for the economic consequences of the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations,’ Ebell continued.’These 53 Democratic Senators are responsible for the higher energy prices that will make American families poorer.  They are responsible for every factory that won’t be built and for every job that will be lost.’”

Faithful readers will recall our September 27, 2008 post “The Other Economic Menace: Green Statism” where we pointed out - -

“Lamentably, the Bush Administration allowed this ANPR [Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on regulating carbon-dioxide emissions] to go to the Federal Register. Reportedly, the White House wanted to avoid conflict with Democrat-controlled Congressional committees and an ‘environmentalist’ MSM.”

We also included a handy list detailing how the greenhouse-gas regulation could affect lawn mowers, string trimmers, portable power generators, recreational marine spark-ignition vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, and snowmobiles.

The Obama Administration is pushing very hard to get its statist priorities into law or operation (or both) by 2011.

Last month conservative Senate rules expert Mike Hammond explained “The Way to Block Kagan“ for Senate Republicans - -

“If the 41 Senate Republicans agreed to oppose cloture (the mechanism through which filibusters can be stopped with 60 out of 100 votes in the Senate) on anything, says Hammond, ‘they could bring the Kagan nomination and a lot of other things to a screeching halt.’”

. . . . .

“Statements that signal a bipartisan approach must stop. That will send a very clear message of ending the policy of ‘business as usual’ dealing with the White House.”

. . . . .

“The late Sen. Helms once observed that when working in tandem with then-Democrat colleagues (and fellow Senate rules experts) Robert Byrd (W.Va.) and James B. Allen (Ala.), legislation and other Senate business could be stalled for more than a month.”

The courage, and the tactics - - stopping the legislative trains  - - Hammond recommends to Senate Republicans to halt the confirmation of Dean Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court would seem equally appropriate to stop the other major Obama statist initiatives until the country has the results of what amounts to a national referendum on the president’s program next November.

In the instant case, bringing such united Senate Republican pressure to bear on the White House by asking the president to sign a two-year legislative deferral on carbon-dioxide regulation would save the economy enormous pain

The real question for the Senate Republican leadership:  is there any Obama initiative you will invoke Senate rules to the fullest to stop during the balance of this Congress? 

If not, it is hard to see this Senate Republican leadership in the next Congress fighting tooth-and-nail against already enacted programs including Obamacare.  Faithful readers will recall our compilation of their missteps in our March 24, 2010 “Shaming a Faltering Senate GOP Leadership into Action”

Our current impression, moreover, is that too many Republican Congressional incumbents are wholly beguiled (and distracted) by a vision of a “blow-out victory” next November. Instead of relying on premature triumphalism, we need commitment to a stubborn, unrelenting fight in the Congress from now until November.

UPDATES  JUNE 21: Last Friday June 18 veteran Mid-East correspondent Ken Timmerman revealed that “Left-Wing Lobbyists Orchestrate Gaza Campaign.” Author Timmerman explained how - - “An American communications firm best known for shaping the liberal Moveon.org into a national movement has tackled a new project: orchestrating an international anti-Israel campaign aimed at breaking the blockade of the Gaza strip. Fenton Communications, which has offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco, signed two contracts last year with Qatar to develop ‘a communications action plan for an 18-month campaign’ aimed at delegitimizing Israel and generating international support for the Hamas-run Gaza strip, documents filed with the Department of Justice show. The campaign, known as the ‘Al Fakhoora Project,’ has a very visible Web presence that boasts of rallying 10,000 activists ‘against the blockade on Gaza.’ Fenton signed the contracts, worth more than $390,000, with the Office of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the Qatari ruler, and a separate foundation she chairs.“

Marylander Timmerman adds chilling details about conduct of the “activists” on the Turkish ship during the Israeli boarding of the Mavi Marmara: “Testimony one of the commandos released later described how the ‘activists’ shot this commanding officer in the leg and stabbed him in the stomach before tossing him off the deck. Other ‘activists’ on the lower deck then dragged the officer inside, taking a knife to expand the wound in his stomach. ‘They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out,’ the soldier said. ‘When they finished, they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commanders’ body so they will be demoralized and scared,’ the soldier said. ‘Luckily, when they walked him on the deck, a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non lethal bullet that didn’t kill him. My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved. The activists that did this to him are alive and now in Turkey and treated as heroes.’” (Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

  * * * * *

Video: Cliff May of The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies June 20 posted on National Review on Line (NRO) “[a] video about the Gaza flotilla incident, ‘Maritime Martyrs: The Truth about the Mavi Marmara’ . . . produced by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for internal uses. A copy has been made available to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and can be viewed here.”

* * * * *

 

Radicals, Islamists and Longshoremen blockade Israeli ship in Oakland reports Zombie also on June 20 (h/t Power Line) - -  “An Israeli cargo ship arriving in Oakland today was forced to sit idle and not offload its containers when longshoremen joined forces with a coalition of communist and Islamist groups who picketed the port in protest against the recent violent incident off the coast of Gaza. The ship, owned by Zim Lines, was not carrying any controversial cargo, nor is Zim involved in politics in any way; it was targeted simply because the shipping company is based in Israel. The planned protest and blockade were organized by The Free Palestine Movement (one of the same groups which organized the Gaza ‘flotilla’ in the first place) as well as a rogues’ gallery of nearly every communist, anti-Israel and radical Islamist group in the Bay Area:”

* * * * * 

The current avalanche of verbal attacks on Israel over their response in the recent Mavi Marmara incident (the “Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla of terror supporters”) reminds us of similar attacks on American military and diplomatic policy during the “Bush 43″ years. The former president seemed to lose heart during his second term. Mr. Bush’s obvious reluctance to rebut his noisy critics seemed to incite them to even more outrageous attacks which, when not vigorously and widely countered, began to take on some veracity in the public mind. 

Were the U.S. to pursue (or perhaps resume) a course explicitly based on American Exceptionalism celebrating individual liberty and property rights and free-markets as well as closely guarding our national sovereignty and giving explicit priority to our national-security needs — the United States, like Israel, would again be under a constant barrage of denunciation on any pretext from Old Europe including the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

It would be the “Bush 43″ years revisited without Bush as a target. 

Some “mainstream” critics of Israel, like some “mainstream” critics of the Bush foreign policy, fantasize that there exists an even-handed international establishment to which we should pay attention that will give Israel credit if it shows “restraint” or will applaud the U.S. if it refrains from acting like a “cowboy.” This is, of course, wholly delusional.  Any such international consensus wants Israel to fade away at best - - if not sent on its way “to Poland.” It certainly wants a U.S. following the foreign and military policy that president Obama has now crafted:  cordial to leftist governments, chilly to long-time allies, and effectively on a path to diminished military power.

“America Alone” is where we were on January 19, 2009 together with some stalwart and tested allies.  The new president subsequently (we should not have been surprised) trashed these allies.

Our friend Caroline Glick helpfully reminds us - -

“As for the US, in the year and a half since Obama took office he has fundamentally restructured US foreign policy in a manner that rewards US enemies at the expense of US allies. From Honduras and Colombia to Britain, Poland, and the Czech Republic, to Japan and India to Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama has treated US allies with contempt and hostility. At the same time, his repeated bids to woo US adversaries have rewarded the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, Russia and others for their aggression. 

Israel of course is the US’s most threatened ally. And Obama’s treatment of Israel has been uniquely shabby–and dangerous. Guided by his ideological worldview which argues that US support for Israel is the root of the Arab and Islamic world’s animus towards the US, Obama has advanced a policy of punishing Israel and wooing its worst enemies that has radically changed the Islamic power calculus. By seeking to appease Iran and Syria for their aggressive behavior and by courting an ever more radical Turkish regime, Obama has humiliated Egypt and Jordan that signed peace treaties with Israel. In so doing, he has convinced the Arabs that the only way to retain and expand their power is by attacking Israel.”(Underscoring Forum’s.)

Conservatives and Israel: “The World Turned Upside Down”

Perhaps for American conservatives, the underlying forces moving the current attacks on Israel are better understood in a larger context. Melanie Phillips whose new book “The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth, and Power” explains - -

“In what we tell ourselves is an age of reason, we are behaving increasingly irrationally. More and more people are signing up to weird and wacky cults, para-psychology, seances, paganism and witch-craft. There is widespread belief in ludicrous conspiracy theories, such as the 9/11 terrorist attack being an American plot.

The basic cause of all this unreason is the erosion of the building blocks of western civilisation. We tell ourselves that religion and reason are incompatible, but in fact the opposite is the case. It was Christianity and the Hebrew Bible that gave us our concepts of reason, progress and an orderly world-the foundations of science and modernity.

The loss of religious belief has meant the West has replaced reason and truth with ideology and prejudice, which it enforces in the manner of a secular inquisition. The result has been a kind of mass derangement, as truth and lies, right and wrong, victim and aggressor are all turned upside down. In medieval-style witch-hunts, scientists who are skeptical of global warming are hounded from their posts; Israel is ferociously demonized; and the United States is vilified over the war on terror — all on the basis of falsehoods and propaganda that are believed as truth.”
(Underscoring Forum’s.)

According to a May 10 summary of her briefing for the Middle East Forum in New York,

“the secular ideologies that [Phillips] outlined all have a common hostility to Jews and Jewish culture. Even ‘Green’ ideology condemns the book of Genesis because it calls for man’s dominion over the world.”

Republicans and Israel

Power Line’s Scott Johnson draws our attention to his “Joel Mowbray reports: Rise of the Jewish Republicans?” where Mowbray finds - -

“Of all the people to whom President Obama has given hope in the past year and a half, perhaps the most surprising is the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Even though American Jews have been stalwart Democrats since the days of FDR, candidate Barack Obama was expected to win a lower majority of the Jewish vote than past Democratic nominees. He defied expectations, however,winning a commanding 78 percent of the Jewish vote, despite a lack of a strong history with the Jewish community and his own Muslim father and stepfather.

It looks as if those earlier expectations might have been right after all — just a little later than predicted.

At the annual RJC Summer Bash in LA this weekend, attendance was more than double than last year’s, from 300 to an at-capacity of almost 700. Not only was the room packed, but it was buzzing. A number of people this journalist met proudly stated that this was their first time at an RJC event — and each person, unprovoked, said Obama was the main reason.”

But lawyer and Claremont Institute fellow Johnson has adds a caveat:

“As an active member of the Minnesota chapter of the RJC, led by the indomitable Mark Miller, I would like to believe that American Jewish concern for the security of Israel is about to trump American Jewish liberalism. I certainly hope so, but I remain skeptical and have therefore taken the liberty of adding the question mark to Joel’s heading. Readers interested in considering the questions raised by Joel’s report from a variety of perspectives will want to check out Commentary’s June symposium — “Obama, Israel & American Jews: The challenge” — just posted online.”

We looked at some of the perspectives appearing in the June Commentary and found these two compelling:

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: “But my own sad prediction is that among non-Orthodox Jews, the real divide will be between activists (whether leaders of community organizations, synagogue officials, major donors, or regular synagogue goers) and the broader majority of Jews. The activists will dump Obama; the rest will not, for their commitment to Israel and, for that matter, to Judaism is simply less powerful than their secular religion—liberalism as represented in the Democratic Party. Whatever excuse they supply themselves (for example, the Republican candidate for president, or even vice president, will undermine ‘a woman’s right to choose’), they will be displaying their priorities. Israel is simply not near the top of their list.

For which reason, more committed Jews can only thank God for the greater commitment of so many evangelicals—whose party loyalties have not become a religious faith and who will indeed dump Obama if he abandons Israel in a time of peril.”(Underscoring Forum’s.)

MONA CHAREN: “Israel has better friends in America than American Jews. A 2008 poll found that 82 percent of American Christians believed they had a “moral and Biblical” obligation to support Israel (including 89 percent of evangelicals). A 2010 Gallup survey found that 85 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians. The figure for Democrats was 48 percent. The notion that America’s support for Israel is the result of sinister manipulation by Jews is risible. Millions of Americans of all faiths (and none at all) feel a warm attachment to a fellow democracy and an ally in the war on terror. If Israel’s relationship with its most important ally depended only on American Jews, a frightening situation would be even worse.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Avoiding Isolationism and Its Human Costs: A Flashback

Republicans themselves have had some troubling splits on national defense between the two world wars of the last century. Here is Time Magazine in March 1939 recounting how the House of Representatives Republican Leader Joe Martin from Massachusetts and, according to Time, 140 of his Republican colleagues, managed to stop the initial fortification of a United States territory in the Pacific called Guam. A Massachusetts man from an earlier time, seafaring hero of the Barbary Wars Edward Preble, would have been appalled by Joe Martin’s action.  (Guam was captured by the Empire of Japan on December 10, 1941 and retaken by the United States at a cost of 7800 casualties in the summer of 1944.)

The “reasoning” for opposing the fortification of Guam in 1939 seems eerily similar to those voices opposing almost any really effective U.S. defense measure today - -

“‘Improvement’ of Guam would, in the present state of U.S.-Japan relations, be tantamount to fortification of Guam. It would be a provocative gesture even if excused by Japan’s alleged fortification of islands in the absorbed mandate groups (Caroline and Marshall)—and particularly when viewed in connection with the British desire to control Japan’s approach to the Netherlands Indies and British Malaya (oil, coal, rubber, food). More provocative, Guam is only 1,356 miles from Yokohama. New York’s professionally loud Hamilton Fish cried: ‘A dagger at the throat of Japan!’” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Isolationism among Republicans may have been officially dead by the time of the inauguration of president Dwight Eisenhower, but it reappears occasionally as a kind of knee-jerk reaction during periods of international uncertainty.  We need to be sure that Republican politicians do not contribute to that uncertainty but rather are explicit in spelling out prudent foreign policy and defense goals. 

Mark Steyn, as he often does, says it best - -

” . . . [Y]ou can’t be in favor of assertive American foreign policy overseas and increasing Europeanization domestically; likewise, you can’t take a reductively libertarian view while the rest of the planet goes to pieces. Someone in the GOP needs to do what Ronald Reagan did so brilliantly a quarter-century ago — reconcile the big challenges abroad with a small-government philosophy at home. The House and the Senate will not return to Republican hands until they do.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

The Conservative Grass Roots and Tea Partiers 

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Caroline Glick sums up Israel’s current situation - -

“In our times, when Jew hatred has become acceptable and strategic blindness and madness are presented as nuanced sophistication, it is essential to maintain a firm grip on the truth. And that truth is that love the Jews or hate us, the US’s alliance with Israel has been and remains America’s most cost-effective national security investment since World War II.”

Of course, the defense of Israel is not our only security-policy priority. Others include securing our southern border; discouraging China’s expansion into the Pacific; supporting Japan and South Korea; disarming Iran in the Middle East; modernizing our rusty nuclear deterrent; building active and passive defenses against missiles; keeping an eye on Chavez, Castro and their circle in Latin America; rebuilding our intelligence community; and repairing our broken alliances.

If Elliott Abrams and Mona Charen are right that many non-Jewish Americans including evangelicals and other Christians are a mainstay of support for Israel (and we believe Abrams and Charen are correct), then where are the expert voices on Israel visiting the conservative grass roots?

Defense advocates need to be a regular feature of grass-roots and Tea Party gatherings. These meetings are typically concerned with right-sizing and restraining government overall as well as with lower taxes and less spending.  But national defense and immigration enforcement are also among their key concerns.

The conservative grass-roots and the Tea Partiers need current facts and informed recommendations on key defense goals regularly if we are to turn around the damage this administration has been doing.  Nor do we want to leave the isolationists a clear field at the grass-roots level.

As we wrote last month citing Jane Jamison’s analysis, conservatives may be able to learn from the missteps of Tea Partiers and grass-roots conservatives in the Golden State — while there is still time here in the mid-Atlantic.

Readers understand that California, our most populous state, is still the eighth-largest economy on the planet and has been a trend-setter not just for our chattering classes but for many other (often younger) Americans as well.

Yesterday Jane Jamison rang more alarm bells about Tea Partiers and the California governor’s race. But first Larry Sabato gives us some basic facts on the race - -

“On the Democratic side, state Attorney General Jerry Brown is unopposed for the party nomination and is running for a third, definitely nonconsecutive term as governor. He was first elected to the post in 1974 and 1978, and if successful in 2010, Brown would attain the status of having been California’s youngest and oldest governor. The main Republican contenders are ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, with the nominee to be determined on June 8th.” 

What’s at Stake

Bay Area voice Jamison sets out the perils in her “California’s ‘Angry’ Tea Party May Elect Democrat Jerry Brown as Governor” - -

“It is arguably the most important election since Proposition 13 to cap property taxes was passed in the 1970s. There is a choice, in two major statewide races, between making a step toward liberty and restoring financial security to California, or continuing down the slope to bigger government run by government unions and fiscal insolvency. Those races are the GOP campaigns for U.S. Senate of Chuck DeVore and for governor of Steve Poizner. 

The problems of the state are so serious and so systemic that to ignore them another election cycle that the state as we know it, might not be here in 4 years. Without true decision-makers and leaders being elected, decisions may be made for Californians, by the federal government, the courts or the credit agencies.”

. . . . .

“Here in California, it is clear that there is deep distrust of the two political parties among some Tea Party activists. With just a few days to go before California votes in its primary, there is a nasty gash in the Tea Party movement. It is quite likely that what will happen is, a hard-right wing faction of unknown size will vote for one or more ‘fringe’ or write-in candidates. If they do so, they may sink Steve Poizner’s chances to win the nomination and be the next governor.”

. . . . .

“It is my opinion, that if Meg Whitman is elected the GOP nominee for governor, she will not be successful in a general election against Democrat Jerry Brown. She has no experience in Sacramento, and has not displayed in her expensive, isolated primary campaign that she has the toughness and people skills to survive in the hostile political climate in Sacramento.”  (Underscoring Forum’s throughout.)

What Tea Partiers Need to Bear in Mind: Governing

Blogger Jamison declares - -

“The California Tea Party movement will either learn how to become a potent political force by joining with the GOP and helping to frame issues and elect candidates by  next Tuesday, or it will be relegated to a ‘fringe’ crackpot movement by imploding with infighting and dissension.  Time to choose. Be adults and compromise or stay petulant children and be sent to your ‘rooms,’ because your ‘ideology’ is preventing you from being able to ‘govern.’  Governing takes leaders who actually have the experience to do something if they get into office.   I do not see any of the ‘third party’ or ‘fringe GOP’ candidates in the California governor’s race who have the breadth of experience and ability of Steve Poizner. They are waving their Constitutions, they had their chances to ‘catch fire’ with voters this past year, but they have not. It is long past time for these candidates and/or their supporters to fold in support with the rest of the Tea party activists and get behind Poizner.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

What can we learn from the insights of California Tea Partiers?

Maryland and Virginia Tea Partiers should focus on achieving their objectives with plans for governing.

Right-sizing and reforming state and local governments take thought and study. We need to review closely what Maryland and Virginia state legislators and chief executives (of both parties) have been doing over the last decade and have been proposing more recently.  Readers may wish to revisit our posts here and here which have some specifics.

Maryland and Virginia cannot count on unlimited future Federal money as the U.S. budget continues to explode.  How will, for example, the states and local governments come to grip with public-employee pensions?  How will they make the best use of limited money for relieving traffic congestion?  Can they reform their Medicaid budgets?  Can they bring good sense to taxpayer-supported education from K through 16?

It is all very well to wave the U.S. Constitution (don’t forget the Maryland and Virginia Constitutions).  But Tea Partiers and the conservative base generally need to think through how their favored candidates should govern - - yes, the state and local “details” - - and how well they are likely to govern.  And what should their priorities for governing be for state and local incumbents whom they would support?

Not least important, Tea Partiers need to come to a common position next November vigorously supporting GOP candidates for the U. S. House of Representatives - - on the success of which elections our liberty may depend.

“The left’s civilized elite are still living a delusion, gliding through toga world, while the more unstable elements, the SEIU trash, the anarchists, the ACORN hirelings, are starting to lose it. It will get worse as the Obama dream continues to shred under the pressure of reality. The American left has begun to crack — deterioration has set in, and it is beginning the long slide into goonhood.” - - J. R. Dunn

The Service Employees International Union staged protests Sunday May 16 at the homes of two Montgomery County, Maryland bank executives.

Unfortunately for them, a journalist, Nina Easton, was the neighbor of one of the executives.

Easton reports in her “What’s really behind SEIU’s Bank of America protests?”  - -

“Now this event would accurately be called a ‘protest’ if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be ‘mob.’ Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might ‘incite’ these trespassers.”

. . . . .

“SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers — and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank’s image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union’s lender of choice — and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.”

. . . .

Sunday’s onslaught wasn’t designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.

Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union’s leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.”

The blog Big Journalism has followed the outrage from the beginning.  Archy Cary on May 21 emphasizes The blog - -

“So, let’s sum this up:  A caravan of SEIU buses receive a Metropolitan (D.C.) Police Department escort to a private home in Maryland where the protesters, from all appearances, violate Montgomery County law by engaging in a stationary protest.  The Montgomery County police were not informed by their cross-jurisdictional colleagues of the impending, unusually large protest pending in their jurisdiction.

What’s up with that? Had the mob decided to torch the house, the D.C. police would not have been authorized to intervene. Not their jurisdiction. They’re just escorts. Meanwhile, a teenage boy is home alone, frightened by what’s happening outside his front door.

There’s something very wrong with this picture.”

Big Journalism’s Frank Ross declared on May 27 - -

“This clip of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly interviewing representatives of the D.C. Metropolitan Police and the Montgomery County Police Department will make your blood boil . . . .”

 “DC Bank Protest: So, SEIU Now Owns the Cops Too?”

Big Government’s Mike Flynn asks some hard questions - -

“There are a few points to be made. First, the DC police official says emphatically that their police officers did not cross into Maryland…except when they did. It seems one of their officers, according to their official, made a wrong turn and didn’t fully understand the DC/Maryland border and may have ‘briefly’ been inside Maryland. A wrong turn and a brief excursion through the Maryland suburbs is hardly worth mentioning if that is all that really happened. No one would notice, nor remark on, an errant 30 second diversion through Maryland streets. This story has the classic feel of a diversion; a pat, simple excuse to cover up any other behavior that comes to light. Any future eyewitness accounts of DC police cars at the scene? Yeah, that was that one cop who didn’t know her jurisdiction’s borders and was ‘lost’.

Second, the Maryland police official says, contrary to other statements made by his department, that they were immediately notified by DC police that the protesters were entering their jurisdiction. According to the official, Maryland police met with DC police at the border to get a situation report and then proceeded to the protest. When they arrived, the official claims, the protesters were already dispersing.

Remember that the official says that the site of the protest is ‘one or two blocks from the DC border.’

Fourteen buses start crossing the Maryland border (at which point we’re supposed to believe the Maryland police were immediately notified),they find parking on residential streets, unload their protesters, assemble 500 people on a private lawn, engage in threatening verbal abuse long enough to force a 14 year old boy to lock himself into a bathroom…and the Maryland police get there as they are dispersing? Is their police headquarters in Delaware?

Thankfully, I don’t live in Montgomery County. This is the kind of public safety and police protection for which they pay ridiculously high property taxes? They get a ’situation report’ that 500 protesters are targeting a private citizen’s home and they send 3 police officers? Really? They could only spare 3 officers on a Sunday in Montgomery County?

I hate to say this, and I will no doubt be attacked for it, but stories like this make one feel that the police are not on our side. A few weeks ago, police in Quincy, Illinois deployed a full contingent of riot police to deal with a couple hundred tea party protesters who where singing patriotic songs on public property. In Maryland, 3 police officers . . . watched as 500 union thugs stormed private property in an act of intimidation and did nothing because, as the police official notes, there weren’t any ‘no trespassing’ signs at the property. (I wonder if he has ‘no trespassing’ signs at his home.)

Sometimes it is the small story that illuminates the overall narrative. Let’s dispense with all the semantics and timelines and legalese. Last week, 500 union thugs descended on a private home and terrorized a teenage boy. They violated someone’s most personal space, their home. And they attacked their most precious gift, their child. The police in two jurisdictions knew about this. They did nothing.”

The Washington Examiner pulled no punches in an editorial  “No more police escorts for union thugs UPDATED: Police union responds, DC Police deny.”

The lamentable tale was picked up by bloggers across the US - - Sound Politics in the Pacific Northwest reports “Local SEIU Chapter Refuses To Condemn Actions in Maryland — And threatens to call police!”

Perhaps — before Maryland became a one-party state — there was a time when Montgomery County public officials would promptly order a full-scale inquiry into this frightful affair. There are simply too many unanswered questions relating to Maryland public safety.

Of course, Montgomery County still has an Inspector General who could review electronic and paper police records - - and take sworn testimony.

What is even more disheartening is that Maryland state and local incumbents and challengers of both parties seem to lose their voices when it comes to cops and goons. (If we have missed any Maryland state or local politician’s questioning of the police handling of these protests, we would welcome receiving such a statement.)

When will “organized labor” descend on a Maryland home near you?

But be careful if you videotape Maryland police in action - - the Maryland State Police, apparently believing they are law unto themselves, ridiculously invented a charge of felony eavesdropping for ” recording [a] trooper without his consent.” As Reason’s Radley Balko explains  - -

“For a recording to be illegal, one of the parties being recorded must have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A cop,acting as a cop, with his gun drawn, while standing alongside a public roadway, has no such expectation. On April 15th, Graber was released and the charges against him were dropped.”

ADD-ON:  These videos give us the face of SEIU here and here.