The second-ballot victory yesterday of Diana Waterman as state chair (really the Diana Waterman-Louis Pope Team) at the reportedly contentious Maryland GOP  Convention in Timonium gives little hope for the Old Line State Republican Party becoming an engine of conservatism. 

Do these two Republican sachems have any serious policy convictions?  Their chief  commitment appears to be supporting uncritically the incumbency of GOP state lawmakers, and following the lead of the Beltway GOP in Republican National Committee matters. (Readers may wish to revisit veteran Republican Morton Blackwell’s letter here.)

So What Is To Be Done? A Modest Proposal…

We suggest a new statewide non-profit conservative advocacy organization, a kind of (c)(4) non-profit civic league — as opposed to a public charity or (c)(3).

As a working label, call it Free Maryland.

It might have these elements:

• This organization would constantly be running inexpensive media and doing well selected “shadow hearings” (and local demonstrations) throughout the Old Line State.

• Free Maryland’s activities would not be limited to election years  or to supporting candidates (although it could include such efforts on a limited basis), but these efforts would also range from tracking collective-bargaining negotiations with public-employee unions, to highlighting questionable or failing taxpayer-supported education activities, to producing action papers on fiscal matters (including safeguarding property rights, and pension reform).

•  In our view, half of those folks (67,364) who voted for Brian Murphy in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary might come up with $100 apiece to kick off Free Maryland and would give more if they begin to see results. (One measure of the results of these activities would be the degree of outrage the movement evokes both from the Maryland legacy media and the Maryland political class.) In any event, most money should come from a large number of donors in modest and hopefully frequent packets.

What would be needed to start is a well-known Maryland conservative with sound judgment who would act as that movement’s public face.

We had fleshed out a few more details in a discussion paper (click here) we earlier presented to the Maryland Center-Right Coalition.

In it, our central point was –

“So-called ‘single-issue conservatives’ pursue a path to irrelevance, and help ensure that we shall all hang separately.”

 Angelo Codevilla expands in some detail on this concern in a February 2013 Forbes article (click here and scroll toward end) –

“There will be no alternative to all the country class’ various components acting jointly on measures dear to each. For example: since the connection between government and finance, the principle that large institutions are ‘too big to fail,’ are dear to America’s best-connected people who can be counted on to threaten ‘systemic collapse,’ breaking it will require the support of sectors of the country class for which ‘corporate welfare’ is less of a concern than the welfare effects of the Social Security system’s component that funds fake disability and drug addiction – something about which macroeconomists mostly care little – and vice versa. Similarly the entire country class has as much interest in asserting the right of armed self-defense as does any gun owner, because the principle of constitutional right is indivisible. Nothing will require greater unity against greater resistance than ending government promotion of abortion and homosexuality. Yet those whose main concerns are with financial probity cannot afford continuing to neglect that capitalist economics presupposes a morally upright people. ” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

Not Putting Conservatives’ Trust in GOP Princes . . .

Free Maryland’s endorsement (or lack thereof) would help conservative challengers and incumbents as the organization builds recognition and respect.
Such an organization  would not wait, however, for a (likely small) gaggle of self-styled ‘conservatives’ to be elected and then perhaps be co-opted by the Annapolis establishment.

Essentially its purpose would be to start to change the Maryland policy conversation on a grass-roots level by a variety of means from local demonstrations, “shadow hearings” on proposed legislation or for otherwise neglected investigations, to monitoring, then publicizing all kinds of state and local government-related missteps.

Free Maryland is not intended to be a new political party, but to put serious pressure on the Maryland political establishment — some Republicans as well as Democrats — to change course while there is still time.

But without strong and continuing and informed statewide conservative voices, GOP lawmakers are likely to hear only their masters’ voices – - their legislative leaders and perhaps even major donors.

Others may have their own good suggestions for a coordinated statewide conservative effort.  We would be happy to learn of them.

We intend this article simply to begin the discussion on ‘what is to be done.’

Yes, the Louis Pope-Diana Waterman team  may muscle their way to victory at the state GOP convention tonight and tomorow. 

That is, with Mr. Pope’s help, Mrs. Waterman may well be elected in her own right as Maryland’s next GOP chairman.

Consequently Mr. Pope will then remain on the key Rules Committee of the Republican National Committee. There he had been complicit in serious political mischief last August by helping ram through the Romney rules changes (click here and go to 2:27:54 on the CNN tape to hear John Sunnunu praise Pope’s role) in Tampa during the Republican National Convention. (See Glynis Kazanjian’s Maryland Reporter account of Pope’s incendiary reappointment to the Rules Committee here.)

We don’t pretend to have a crystal ball telling us this weekend’s outcome.

But we don’t need one to know that the cost of a Pope-Waterman victory could be an even more irrelevant state GOP.

And winning the loyalty and releasing the energy of the grass roots is not the strongest suit of these two Maryland figures.

But let’s look at this state election as part of the larger national context.

The goal of Establishment Republicans at all levels: keep control of the party “apparatus” at all costs — and avoid sharing power with Tea Partiers and other distasteful outsiders. 

The serial capitulations to the Obama Administration of the current House GOP leadership after the historic Tea Party victory of November 2010 are no secret. And the wiles of Mr. Boehner’s circle to keep power among House Republicans are a case study in how to maintain GOP Establishment control (and, of course, big-donor primacy) even after a national electoral victory in the House that would have been impossible without the populist grass roots.

As Angelo Codevilla wrote last January in a Forbes article (click here) –

“By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.” (Italics in original; highlighting Forum’s.)

Bloggers Begone!

Michael Dresser (BaltSun) put it very well Thursday when he declared in his post “Maryland GOP lays down the law on bloggers” (click here) –

“It seems curious that an organization that struggles to get media attention in a Democratic-dominated state would try to limit coverage in any way, but, hey, those bloggers are in some cases renegade Republicans who have the temerity to think the party could be run a bit better. Anyway, here’s the memo.” (Highlighting Forum’s)

Read the entire post to see the Maryland GOP memorandum in question.

Savvy GOP operatives, on the other hand, would instead be reaching out to conservative and libertarian bloggers with ‘special blogger briefings’ – not shunning them – especially if these GOP apparatchiks wanted to market their differing point of view.

What Happened in Tampa Didn’t Stay in Tampa

Last August 29, we wrote in our “Tampa: Couldn’t They Wait Until 11/7 To Trample The Grass Roots?” about the Republican National Convention (click here) –

Freedom Works Dean Clancy in his “Romney’s ‘RNC Power Grab’: What Really Happened” concludes “The noes clearly had it, but the party bosses gaveled the dissenters down anyway.”

Here are a few excerpts from analyst Clancy’s post –

• “Yesterday, the Republican National Committee in Tampa adopted some rules changes that shift power from the state parties and the grassroots to the RNC and the GOP presidential nominee. Former Governor John Sununu of New Hampshire touted the new rules as providing ‘a strong governing framework’ for the party over the next four years. But in fact the the new rules should be very troubling and disappointing to conservative grassroots activists, because they move the national Republican Party away from being a decentralized, bottom-up party toward becoming a centralized, top-down party.”  (Underscoring Forum’s.)

• “The Romney rules effectively disenfranchise grassroots delegates, and will thus tend to weaken and splinter the party over time. They specifically represent a blow to the Tea Party and the Ron Paul movement, and force grassroots conservatives of all stripes to contemplate their future within the GOP.”

• “Party sage and long-time RNC member (and conservative activist) Morton Blackwell led a last-minute effort to stop the changes — an effort the FreedomWorks For America strongly supported, together with Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Phyllis Schlafly and RNC for Life also got involved, while Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh helped sound the alarm.  But the Romney camp and RNC insiders won the day, successfully imposing their will with the help of their control of the gavels and superior knowledge of the process, and perhaps some dirty tricks.” (Today we have added the highlighting.)

But let’s bring this lamentable account up to the present.

Last Monday veteran Virginia National Committeeman Morton Blackwell wrote members of the Maryland Republican Central Committee–

“Mr. Pope and Mrs. Waterman have made clear that they support the radical, destructive power-grabs that occurred at the national convention.  

You would be well-served to elect a principled Chairman who works in the interest of the conservative grassroots.  

Don’t you want a Chairman who will work to make the Republican Party about the grassroots ultimately telling the RNC how to operate, instead of the other way around?” (Underscoring in original.)

Readers should consider the entire Blackwell letter here.

We don’t mean to point to Mr. Pope and Mrs. Waterman as the sole authors of the Maryland GOP’s disarray. Other Party notables also bear significant responsibility for the catastrophic (in our view) failure of the Maryland GOP to secure, then spend significant resources to defeat the same-sex marriage law and the so-called Dream Act which were referred to the ballot — through extraordinary effort — last November. A major push to kill these two measures would have brought many independents and conservative Democrats into the Republican fold. (Here is our chart showing how much better the statewide opposition to these measures did — even with barely visible state Party support — than Mitt Romney.) Former governor Bob Ehrlich’s discomfort (to put it charitably) with conservatives and with smaller government (click here and here) hardly helped advance the Maryland GOP. And the bizarre support given to the 2009 Senate confirmation of the now-besieged Thomas Perez for assistant attorney general by the current House of Delegates GOP leader (click here) and by Mr. Ehrlich’s state chairman (click here) further muddied the Maryland GOP waters.

A visiting Martian anthropologist could reasonably ask exactly what this alien Republican tribe stands for?

As GOP state central committee members gather today and tomorrow to shape their Party’s future, they would do well to consider Angelo Codevilla’s counsel (click here) about the need for conservatives — what he calls the ‘country class’ — to fashion a party of  “disparate elements acting all [for] one and one for all.”

“There will be no alternative to all the country class’ various components acting jointly on measures dear to each. For example: since the connection between government and finance, the principle that large institutions are ‘too big to fail,’ are dear to America’s best-connected people who can be counted on to threaten ‘systemic collapse,’ breaking it will require the support of sectors of the country class for which ‘corporate welfare’ is less of a concern than the welfare effects of the Social Security system’s component that funds fake disability and drug addiction – something about which macroeconomists mostly care little – and vice versa. Similarly the entire country class has as much interest in asserting the right of armed self-defense as does any gun owner, because the principle of constitutional right is indivisible. Nothing will require greater unity against greater resistance than ending government promotion of abortion and homosexuality. Yet those whose main concerns are with financial probity cannot afford continuing to neglect that capitalist economics presupposes a morally upright people. All this illustrates the need for, and the meaning of, a political party: disparate elements acting all [for] one and one for all.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

Stay tuned.

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(Via Wikipaedia)

“I am not clear that it is good for a society that the persons in it become accustomed to being arrested. The dark aspect of this development is that we seem no longer to think much of it. George Orwell, of course, kept insisting that oppression comes on little cat’s feet, and that once it has happened it no longer seems like oppression.” – Daniel P. Moynihan 1966 (Highlighting Forum’s.)

Yesterday, NRO’s Charles C. W. Cooke posted “Texas Soldier Arrested for ‘Rudely Displaying’ Weapon,” click here.

The Blaze’s Erica Ritz again posted today “‘Shocked and Horrified’: Glenn Beck’s Gripping Interview With Vet Arrested After ‘Rudely Displaying’ His Gun,” click here.

NRO’s Cooke makes several salient points after watching the video of Grisham’s arrest:

• “Note the officers’ ignorance of the rules they are there to uphold, the suggestion that the law doesn’t apply in this ‘day and age,’ and the persistent claim that American citzens are presumed to have their weapons illegally unless otherwise demonstrated.”

• “Note the officer’s claim that merely owning a gun makes someone dangerous.”

• “Note the conflation of a soldier in a war zone with a citizen in rural Texas.”

• “Note the persistent refusal to explain what law Grisham has broken.”

• “Particularly chilling is the officer’s telling Grisham that a police officer is ‘allowed to’ carry a weapon, but that Grisham is not — despite Grisham’s having a permit.”

Cooke (who today pens another NRO post  “Don’t Let Logic Ruin a Good Law” ) pursued his inquiry –

• “Does this happen to soldiers a lot? I ask. ‘Yes, this has happened several times in this area. To Staff Sergeant Nate Samson, for example. He had to fight these guys for ten months. The charges were dropped, but he has no justice. He doesn’t have a lot of money to fight them. I have a pretrial hearing on May 29. The police are dragging their feet, not releasing the video. They’re waiting as long as they can — playing hard to get. . . . The reason I’m aggressive on this is that, in the military, if this happens, they initiate a flag that halts your career.’”

Click here to read in local paper,  “Charge reduced against man hiking with gun in Temple.”

Tracking the Right Use and Misuse of SWAT Teams

“Many of the older cops I interviewed for [my] book told me that sense of sacrifice — really the public service aspect of the job — has been lost over the last few decades.” — Radley Balko

In our post of this name last month on this date (click here), we revisited some SWAT use in Maryland and Virginia and highlighted enhanced SWAT-reporting legislation in the Maryland General Assembly (SB590, and HB1178 and HB 1520) that extended the life and broadened the scope of Maryland SWAT reporting.  The Maryland state senate passed SB590 unanimously; HB1178, the principal House bill, died in committee. Neither a senate Republican nor a house Democrat, authoring or co-sponsoring this legislation, responded to our requests to tell us what members or organizations blocked final enactment of these bills in this session.

As we wrote in August 2008 about SWAT misuse –

“The security of one’s family and property against gross misuse of state power must always be a central conservative concern.”

 The challenge is to preserve our individual freedoms in a time of violent jihadists and a serious gang menace in our cities. We need unpoliticized and savvy professionals to combat both. But we don’t need militarized cops in our communities.

UPDATES APRIL 12!

• “Boehner: I Don’t Need GOP to Pass Gun Law…” Ben Shapiro (Breitbart) Click here. “On Thursday, in the midst of ongoing national debate over prospective gun control and comprehensive immigration legislation, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said that he didn’t need the approval of a majority of his own party to move forward with legislation.”

• A seasoned Second Amendment defender writes:  “Short answer is ‘yes.’ We have known since January that the other side never figured on getting gun control through this year. It is all about getting it through the NEXT congress after the house flips blue, the result of Bloomberg bucks hammering poorly-led republicans who were divided by the rhetoric of this calendar year’s media circuses and, as a result, defeated. The GOP is playing the other side’s game. And losing.”  

* * * * * * * * * *

Do Anti-Gun Forces Have the GOP Establishment on the Run?

This is the week that conservatives in the Senate Republican Conference were effectively ignored, as they fought for the crucial constitutional right and ancient tradition of an armed citizenry. It is truly alarming.

Sixteen Republican senators voted with Democrats to move the Reid anti-gun legislative vehicle (S.649) forward. (Click here.)

This initial vote – requiring the approval of 61 senators — was the best point where this dangerous measure could have been stopped in a Senate of 55 Democrats or allied independents, and 45 Republicans.  The gun bill S. 649 — tarted up by seeming improvements – may soon pass the Senate by a majority vote — although Gun Owners of America is cautiously optimistic (click here) about stopping gun control in the Senate.  

Of the sixteen Republican media figures or media hopefuls who voted to move S.649 forward, some  may vote against S. 649 on final passage. But their thumbs-down final vote on guns will merely be political theater, as well as deceptive.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell — sensitive to a Kentucky reelection fight — did vote against moving S.649 forward.  But the Kentucky lawmaker failed in his Senate leadership role to get his Conference to come up with the requisite 41 votes to stop the bill. We doubt, however, that his heart was in blocking such a major administration initiative.  As former senator John Kyl and then-leadership-team second man described the McConnell Team’s philosophy in 2009 (click here) –“not our strategy to somehow slow things down.”  This was just before the Senate passage of Obamacare.

If the Senate approves a likely ‘enhanced’ version of the Reid bill, it will come to the House floor where it will be passed by Democrats and a rump group of Republicans – unless the speaker does not bring this gun-control initiative to the floor.

Unfortunately the House leadership apparently does plan (click here) on bringing it to the floor. We just don’t have confidence in their mixed signals: click here on yesterday’s Daily Caller post by Alex Pappas.

It is up to us to fight to ensure that the House leadership does not do so.

Unless conservatives are comfortable living in an increasingly and punitively disarmed (for law-abiding citizens) United States, they will have to prevail on House GOP members right away to stop the speaker from bringing this or a similar measure measure to the floor.

Maryland has one GOP member, Virginia eight, and West Virginia two. 

It is simply a question of how much political sturm und drang –  and local political theater –the conservative rank-and-file wants to put forth to keep their traditional liberties embodied in the Second Amendment.

Are the current Tea Party organizations up to mobilizing their resources to dissuade the House speaker from bringing any-Second Amendment-restricting legislation to the floor?

Or have these organizations ‘evolved’ to the point of not confronting sitting House GOP members, in the way they did a few years ago with sitting Democrats who were passing Obamacare?

                                         The Perils of the Proposed Gun-Control Provisions                     

Michael E. Hammond of Gun Owners of America lists chapter and verse in his post, “Ten Really Important Problems with the Toomey-Schumer Sell-out (Many more to follow).”

“Although Toomey, Schumer, and Manchin have understandably tried to conceal their legislative language until it was too late to respond, the following [ Click here] addresses what was represented to us to be the Toomey-Schumer-Manchin sell-out.”

Readers will want to take in “The Toomey-Manchin Proposal Will Allow Doctors to Block Your Right to Guns” Click here.  Erick Erickson (RedState).

“Activist mental health providers will probably be overly aggressive in adding people to the list. Give it five years in liberal areas and people who believe in the physical resurrection of Christ will probably get automatic entry onto the list.”Tthe Perils of GOP Deal Making with Senate Democrats

The Perils Of GOP ‘Deals’ With Senate Democrats

Marylander Daniel Horowitz of the Madison Project tells how “16 Republicans Give Cover to Dems on Gun Bill” Click here.

Horowitz further describes the GOP Congressional failure in “Taxes, Guns, and Chuck Schumer as GOP Leader” Click here.

“It’s only Republicans who are willing to shred every leg of the Reagan stool to cut a deal with Democrats.  And now, the last two holdouts – taxes and guns – are no longer untouchable.  Marriage and an insane immigration policy will be next. It’s hard to imagine that conservatives donated to Republican candidates so they can go to Washington and play follow the leader with Democrats on guns, taxes, and amnesty.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

Lawless State Officials Now Acting As Anti-Gun Activists

 It is not looking good on the state level, either–

“MO Highway Patrol Contradicts Gov Nixon On CCW Leak” Click here. Dana Loesch (RedState)

“A Form of Gun Confiscation Has Reportedly Begun in New York State — Here’s the Justification Being Used,” click here. Mike Opelka (TheBlaze)

GOP Members Should Give Anti-Gun Proposals More Than A Quick Read

Two additional questions you should put to GOP members of the Congress: 

• Why would you even consider giving this Attorney General and this Department of Justice additional powers, especially over guns? 

• Have you thought about the wider implications of denying law-abiding citizens ownership of guns on the basis of unadjudicated reports from physician consultations? (“See a shrink; lose your guns,” click here and scroll down.) A law-abiding citizen is added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by a physician who believes the patient’s views are so outlandish, i.e., traditional, constitutional, religious, that the patient shouldn’t have access to guns. What happens to that citizen’s ability to earn a living after appearing on the NICS? What a splendid opportunity for the ruling-class therapist community to exercise their muscle by marginalizing that and similar citizens?

   

UPDATE AFTER PRESS TIME!  RedState’s Ben Howe reports “EXCLUSIVE: McConnell to Filibuster Reid Gun Control Bill”

* * * * * * * * * *

“In a profound twist of irony, the Senate will be considering a new gun bill which seeks to regulate ‘undocumented guns’ at the same time the Gang of 8 releases its amnesty plan for illegal aliens.  We are living in absurdastan.  Through the worst eras of big government Republicanism, the party has always stood strong on taxes and guns.  Now, after the McConnell tax hikes and the impending gun control cave, there is nothing left of the GOP.” — Daniel Horowitz

Today Marylander Daniel Horowitz gives us chapter and verse on why it is necessary to filibuster this dangerous Reid gun control proposal right away.

Madison Project (MP) blogger Horowitz reveals (click here)–

“As early as this Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to bring the most sweeping gun control bill to the Senate floor since the ‘90s.  The Senate Judiciary Committee has passed a slew of gun control measures in short order without bothering to submit a committee report.  Reid, with the help of Chuck Schumer and Pat Leahy, has combined many aspects of those bills into one single bill – S.649, which is given the Orwellian name ‘Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013.’  Reid will attempt to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed early this week.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

What must be done now?

Horowitz explains –

“Republicans must pledge to block it from the floor and use every dilatory tactic to ensure that the train never gets rolling.  Senators Cruz, Rubio, Rand Paul, Lee, Inhofe, Crapo, Moran, Burr, Johnson of Wisconsin, Enzi, Risch , Crapo, Coats, and Roberts have already pledged to filibuster the motion to proceed.  We need 29 more commitments, including a willingness on the part of Mitch McConnell to lead from the front on this issue.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

Truth time for Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell?

“Call Mitch McConnell’s office and ask if he plans to lead the filibuster against this terrible piece of legislation.”

Read the entire MP post to understand what GOP senators are working against the Second Amendment, what GOP senators are defending it, and what GOP senators are just dithering. Click here to see all U S senators.

Maryland and Virginia conservatives can reach out to fence-sitting or even hostile GOP senators in other states through their business and professional colleagues in those states, and by getting in touch with local Tea Parties.

And get your message to the House leadership via your House GOP member!

Our March 11 post (below) details the urgency of doing so.

UPDATED! House GOP Leadership Seen Bare; Will The Grass Roots Now Push Back On Immigration & Gun Control?

Honor Margaret Thatcher’s legacy of fighting for freedom by blocking these imminent assaults on the Second Amendment.

Last week we tweeted a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Steve Moore and Mary Kissel video on the explosion in the food stamp program – click here.

As of last December, 47.8 million Americans were on food stamps costing close to $75 billion!

A ‘robust’ work requirement would cut the food-stamp participation in half, Moore believes.

Ann Corcoran in her Refugee Resettlement Watch has been following food-stamp fraud with special reference to immigrant-run convenience stores for some time.  

Today Corcoran declares –

“One of the driving forces is the large corporations who benefit from each and every additional person who signs up for the taxpayer handout.”

Could we be talking about the agri-business? Click here for an informative if tendentious July 2012 Time article listing some major agri-business participants.

We visited the website of the House Agriculture Committee here to see what kind of oversight and investigations hearings they have been doing to prevent fraud with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards used by food-stamp recipients. (Click here for a dismaying Breitbart report on likely EBT fraud.)

We see no pertinent House Agriculture oversight and investigative hearing since December 1, 2011 — click here.

Nor do we see the Committee raising the broader issues Steve Moore raised about the importance of a work requirement.

Explained Emily Moore (Heritage Foundation) last July here–

“While the House Agriculture Committee’s recently passed farm bill does take a step to get food stamp spending under control, the proposal misses a very crucial element of reform: work requirements.

While the farm bill may sound like it focuses on farm policy, about 80 percent of the funding for the massive bill goes to food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP). SNAP is the fastest growing government welfare program, and today, about one in seven Americans participates in SNAP.”

Heritage experts Robert Rector and Katherine Bradley made six reform recommendations last July which we have listed below–

1.     “Return food stamp spending to pre-recession levels and cap future spending. Transfer control over food stamps from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) .

2.     Eliminate application loopholes that permit food stamp recipients to bypass income and asset tests.

3.     Reduce fraud.

4.     Prohibit food stamp payments to illegal immigrant families.

5.     Convert food stamps into a work activation program.

6.     Require drug testing of food stamp recipients.”

Click here to read their entire Heritage Foundation brief explaining these reforms.

Why Is The Mexican Government Helping Shape The Administration of SNAP?

On the House floor last month, Republican Representative Diane Black here (video) expressed concern over the Obama’s administration’s energetic efforts to increase food stamp participation.  The administration contends that the program helps the economy.

Consider Mrs. Black’s revelations below. (Highlighting Forum’s.)

 “The USDA created an aggressive outreach program that has grown under the Obama administration, particularly through the President’s stimulus package. These expanded initiatives include the collaboration between the USDA and Mexican Government officials to promote participation in targeted communities, which teaches recruiters how to convince working class families into public assistance and dependence.

   The Obama administration has conducted over 30 meetings with the Mexican Government personnel since he took office. Since this program began in 2004, the United States taxpayer has funded this participation with the Mexican Government to promote the SNAP program by holding 29 health fairs and traveling to 19 cities.

   The USDA, in coordination with the Mexican Government, has conducted an aggressive campaign issuing guidance to State and local agencies with a record 91 meetings focusing on growing the outreach program to expand enrollment in SNAP. None of these new meetings were used to point them in the direction of jobs training programs or employment searches that would offer much greater opportunity than whatever the Federal Government would have to offer.

   I recently read through this 55-page document put out by the USDA, entitled, `SNAP, Guidance on Non-Citizen Eligibility,’’ that essentially explains every possible scenario for avenues of going about receiving SNAP assistance.”

(For background, see senator Jeff Sessions exploring the “USDA’s effort to increases non-citizen enrollment in food stamps and 14 other USDA public assistance programs” here; Dan Halper (Weekly Standard) relating here “Non-Citizens on Food Stamps Quadrupled Since 2001”; and Veronique de Rugy describing here “The Great Bush-Obama Food Stamp Expansion.”)

But Mrs. Black withdrew her guidance amendment, obviously at the bidding of  House agriculture committee chairman, Oklahoma Republican Frank Lucas. He pledged the issue would be addressed again in the next farm bill, and declared it had been part of the 2012 version.

For a sample of how conservatives viewed the 2012 version of the farm bill, however, which was not enacted, click here.

Wrote Marylander Daniel Horowitz –

“Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) proposed an amendment to cut an additional $35 billion from food stamps.  These cuts were actually already approved by the committee in the spring as part of the House GOP effort to replace the sequester, pursuant to the reconciliation instructions prescribed in the Ryan budget.  Nevertheless, this effort was defeated 13-33, see how Republicans voted here).”

Coincidentally, last December the House GOP leadership removed Mr. Huelskamp — “a top agriculture expert from a major farming district” –from his position on the agriculture committee. Click here for details.

Reviewing his 2011-2012 voting record, the Madison Project(MP) awarded agriculture panel chairman Lucas a place in their Hall of Shame. Click here for the particulars of this MP analysis.

The WSJ’s Mary Kissel in her video interview with Steve Moore asked “are we Europe”?

We are certainly getting close to being Europe; and if the GOP leadership in the House of Representatives doesn’t rise above mere “deal making”,  we shall be clinging to the cliff’s edge.

* * * * * * * * *

Readers who wish to delve into the history and scope of the SNAP program may wish to visit The Heartland Institute’s very helpful September 2012  “Research & Commentary: Food Stamp Reform” by Matthew Glans.   Click here.

“As bureaucrats and teachers’ unions disempowered neighborhood school boards, while the governments of towns, counties, and states were becoming conduits for federal mandates, as the ruling class reduced the number and importance of things that American communities could decide for themselves, America’s thirst for self-governance reawakened.”–Angelo Codevilla

There can’t be much doubt that key elements of the curricula and practices of American schools from kindergarten through at least college graduation are the major long-term threat to the survival of conservative views — and to self, as opposed to “expert” government.

And many conservatives also understand that this is a concern, however serious, on which the national or state GOP establishments have not spent much time.

Academies for Statism

Below are just a few of many recent examples of schools and colleges running wild as Seminaries of the Left  - -

• Stanley Kurtz (Fossil-Fuel Divestment — Part 3 NRO) –
  

  “Millennials, meanwhile, are in a bit of a haze. Their support for an expanded entitlement state and an end to fossil fuels threatens to render their employment woes permanent and their tax burdens unsustainable. Yet they have barely considered what is at stake. How could they, when the press won’t cover the conflicts? With a monolithically leftist faculty, and conservatives viewed as either dangerously uncool or outright genocidal, campus debate over such issues has all but disappeared.

Conservatives rightly want to win back the culture, especially among the young. The problem is that many millennials aren’t waiting to carefully consider earnest arguments from both sides about what sort of society we should want. They’ve swallowed the Left’s caricature of the Right, more out of the need for a secular religion or as a matter of fashion than from due consideration of the issues. That will be tough to reverse.

The fossil-fuel divestment campaign will test the capacity of our politics, our press, our universities, and our young people for thoughtful debate on serious issues. The results so far are disappointing.”

• Eliana Johnson (NRO) on Bowdoin College where Joshua Chamberlain was once president- -

“The school does not offer a single course in American military, political, diplomatic, or intellectual history.”

• Mary Grabar in “Common Core: Leftist Historians Profit”- –

“What Common Core promoters ignore is the fact that states and localities will cease to have control over their curricula.  Books will be aligned to tests.  The test questions may be open-ended and ‘creative’ (as promised), but you know that they will be asking seventh-graders about J. Edgar Hoover’s sexuality, and more about Malcolm X than James Madison.”

• Todd Starnes (RedState) in “University Compares Pro-Life Students to White Supremacists” –

“The Student Government Association at Johns Hopkins University compared pro-life students to white supremacists and denied them official club status at the school.

‘They were denied status because the students on the student council felt being pro-life violates their harassment policy,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America.’

Hawkins told Fox News the student group, called Voice for Life, is searching for an attorney and they plan on fighting the ban.

The SGA at Johns Hopkins voted March 12 to deny Voice for Life the right to become an official student club. That vote was affirmed on March 24 by the SGA’s senate.

SGA representatives did not return calls seeking comment.”

Faithful readers will recall that Johns Hopkins University, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), is –

“A red light university [one that] has at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.”

What Should Conservatives Do?

Most important, spend some time with like-minded friends and colleagues carefully to review opportunities to fix K-16 (kindergarten through college) malpractice.

Parents will want to be alert for questionable K-12 textbooks on American history and government and recommend good alternatives; or, if nothing on American government is currently taught, recommend sound readings. 

See what is taught in your state’s schools of education where those seeking to be teachers are ‘prepared.’ Click here and here for two chilling accounts.

If you are a college or university graduate, pay attention to the current level of freedom on your alma mater’s campus by checking with FIRE here.

Also follow the tone of your alumni magazine which typically markets its college’s latest ‘green’ or ‘diversity’ schemes. 

Don’t fall into the sunk-cost syndrome:  just because you went to Ruling Class U and paid them all that tuition, doesn’t mean you now have to respond to their money-raising calls with donations if you don’t like what they have become. If RCU is no longer your kind of school, man up — tell them why and to take a walk.

Some larger undertakings, and questions:

• Mapping, then turning off the faucet on Federal and state money that goes into turning your state’s K-16 schools into Seminaries of the Left;

• Can today’s undergraduate colleges be turned around to provide solid learning and a real diversity of faculty opinion? Or do we need new institutions to provide the right value to America’s undergraduates?

We solicit readers’ ideas. 

Stay tuned.

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Readers may wish to re-visit some of our closely related posts – -

Maryland Imposes Green Statist HS Graduation Rule

A Sobering AEI Report on Teaching Civics

Radical University Empires vs. Clueless State Lawmakers

Losing the Culture Struggle Means Losing Our Freedom

Virginia Tech Backs Off From New “Diversity” Rules BUT . .

To Keep Faith, We Must Teach Our History

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In weaving their story that Obama alone is the catalyst of our crisis, the Republican establishment counts on the constitutional illiteracy of the electorate. The inescapable fact, however, is that all taxing and spending bills enacted by the federal government must originate in the House. The GOP’s all purpose abdication mantra, ‘We’re only one-half of one-third of the government,’ would be laughable if our straits were not so dire. When was the last time you heard the left-leaning bloc of Supreme Court justices say, ‘We can’t impose our policy preferences on the country. After all, we’re only one-half of one-third of the government’? When was the last time President Obama restrained himself from issuing executive orders conferring, say, privileges on illegal aliens, by explaining that he is only is only one-third of the government (a third, mind you, with zero constitutional authority to confer anything).” – Andrew McCarthy (Highlighting Forum’s)

Conservatives nationally don’t have much time to begin a serious effort to turn the House GOP leadership around.

For the House of Representatives is in recess only until early next week when the GOP leadership will return to push their agenda.

(Virginia has eight GOP House members including the GOP majority leader. Maryland has one; nonetheless, some Marylanders have national professional networks that have already touched GOP members in many states on matters such as defunding Obamacare.)

But first, let’s review the strategic situation. 

• The House has the central role in controlling the public purse which is the way the founders designed our government — based based on centuries of struggle by the House of Commons to gain fiscal ascendancy. Again, as Andrew McCarthy points out–
  

  “In constitutional law, the pertinent issue is never what percentage of total power is allocated to a branch. The question is: Which branch is given supremacy over the relevant subject matter. On the subject matter of taxing and spending – including the task of setting the parameters of the government’s authority to borrow and spend – Congress is supreme and the House has pride of place.”

• The current House GOP leadership is, and has been, conflict averse (to put it charitably) in dealing with the Obama administration.  They have made it clear since the Tea Party election of November 2010 that they don’t wish to “shut the government down,” whatever that self-serving slogan means in practice. What is worse, many House conservatives who were outspoken just last year are inexplicably silent.
  

• It is clear that the House GOP leadership is seriously contemplating bringing to the floor gun-control and immigration (amnesty) bills where, with a small core of GOP leadership loyalists, and nearly all Democrats, these measures may well pass.

• The House GOP leadership has not seriously challenged this administration’s usurpation of constitutional powers.  This is clearly seen in the administration’s ignoring the immigration laws without consequence.

• The House GOP leadership apparently only knows (and certainly sees) as their highest national role, “deal making.” Consequently they cannot articulate an alternative national narrative to counter that of the president.  They were hoping for the election of a GOP (big-government) Caesar to replace the revolutionary Caesar now in office. Presidential Caesarism seems to be what they are comfortable with — relieving them of the pain and hard work of proposing alternative or improved paths no matter who is chief executive.

• The House GOP leadership is not planning to defund Obamacare and prosperity-killing EPA regulations. They may well try to pass amnesty and gun-control legislation. But what chance will there be to roll back this growth of Leviathan if conservatives deferentially wait until 2015 — presuming the election of yet another Republican-majority House — or until 2017, when a newly elected Republican president may take office who may (or may not) try to uproot these enormities?

What must be done? 

The first step is to bring home — promptly and effectively — to House GOP members that they should be as responsive to their conservative base as they are to their leadership and to the campaign contributions to which the leadership gives them access if these members do as they are instructed.

That GOP leadership still believes “the base has nowhere else to go,” and tries to comfort rank-and-file GOP members with that hoary maxim.

Conservatives must quickly find ways to disabuse them of that notion.

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Readers may wish to re-visit some of our current related posts:

UPDATED! House GOP Leadership Seen Bare; Will The Grass Roots Now Push Back On Immigration & Gun Control?

A New Party? How GOP Leaders ‘Orphan’ Conservative Voters

New Appropriator Andy Harris:Next ‘Cardinal’? Or Tea Party Hero?

Ash Wednesday: Mark Levin, Andy McCarthy, Roy Beck, Jeff Sessions

(Via Wikipaedia)

Blair Lee (GazetteNet) points (click here) to the habitual excesses of the tax predators of Annapolis with his lively “Your 86 percent Gas-Tax Increase”–

“But then, at the last moment, O’Malley came out with a new tax that’s larger than any of the other 32 tax hikes he’s put into law during his seven-year tenure.”

Tax and Tax — Spend and Spend

Conservatives understand governor Martin O’Malley’s zeal to grow government and his eagerness to show the Hard Left kingmakers what a fine national candidate he would make in 2016.

But Montgomery County’s Democratic sachems are not going to be left behind in the political dust. They have been pushing for local projects to be paid for with statewide taxpayer money — which projects will warm the hearts of at least the Soft Left.

Here are some illustrations.

Bethesda’s Writer’s Center

Click here to see this proposed $250,000 slice of scribblers’ pork.  Click here to see how much the Writer’s Center got from the state in the past, as well as how much they plan to get from Montgomery County.

Silver Spring’s Pyramid Atlantic Art Center Space

Click here to see this proposed $500,000 slice of  pork for artists. Click here to see how much the Silver Spring Arts Center Space got from the state in the past.

Renovating Playgrounds, Adding Patios at West Fairland Park

Click here to see this proposed $330,000 slice of pork –with taxpayers across Maryland footing the bill –  for one of Montgomery County’s 400-plus parks.  Get the details here of how much the Montgomery County parks have received from the state in the past.

Staunching the Olney Theater’s Craving for Bacon?

Click here to see the proposed $500,000 slice of entertainment pork for the Olney Theater — relatively modest compared with what (click here) that theatrical enterprise has received from Maryland taxpayers in the past.

The Carving of the Pork

Last Friday March 22, the House of Delegates Appropriations panel reported (click here for vote) their version of the capital budget (click here, do a search for “Montgomery” or your own county).  The Olney supplicants had to settle for $125,000 in the House version, and Silver Springs’ Art Center for $100,000. West Fairland seemed to disappear. West Fairland appears to have been included for $100,000. But – have no fear – - other park users are not neglected:  Bohrer Park in Gaithersburg will receive $100,000 for a miniature golf course.  The Writer’s Center apparently gave way to the Maryland Youth Ballet ($100,000) in the House distribution.  Do not lose hope – - the Senate Budget and Taxation panel will complete its work on the capital budget at the close of his week.  Perhaps some of these other vital Montgomery County initiatives will be included – and those already included might get even more state help!

Pork has long been an expected item on the legislative menu in Maryland. Back on April 13, 2009 in our Is A New Pork Express Just Leaving the Annapolis Station? we declared–

“Some projects may clearly be defensible for public funding. But it is a stretch, during perilous economic times, to burden Maryland taxpayers with debts for undertakings far removed from the core roles of state and local government.”  (Highlighting added.)

In 2008, we made some suggestions for adding transparency to the process here.

Certainly we enjoy well-manicured picnic areas and good theater as much as anyone. But Montgomery County lawmakers should not be asking Maryland taxpayers in other parts of the Old Line State to pay for the tastes of their political class nor to support their park amenities.

And scribblers should know better than anyone that taking government subsidies for writing is a path to losing writers’ independence. The Center’s writers risk devaluing their contributions to our common life by doing so.

Readers may wish to revisit some of our earlier articles (below) on the bi-partisan chefs of Maryland pork.

• But in Annapolis, GOP Notables Still Bring Home the Pork

• Pork – Or Urgently Needed Maryland Infrastructure?

• Is A New Pork Express Just Leaving the Annapolis Station?

• Thirteen Delegates Say”No” to This Maryland Capital Budget

• Last 2009 Chance for Annapolis Republicans to Fight Pork?

• Maryland State Spending: Porking as Usual This Session?

• Local Spending: Ranking Free State Republican Senators

• Is the Maryland capital budget becoming the pork express?

• Republicans who don’t mind your tax dollars going to CASA

UPDATE MARCH 23! “MPAC [Muslim Public Affairs Council] Congratulates Obama’s New Appointees – Perez & Rogers” (click here) “Perez is currently the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. Under Perez, the Civil Rights Division has successfully upheld the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act in several cities where mosque development projects came under public attack, including Murfreesboro, TN, and Lomita, CA.” via Bill Gawthrop. But click here to read Discover the Networks’ take on MPAC.

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NRO’s Katrina Trinko declared today –

“If a prior Senate vote is any indication, Thomas Perez, President Obama’s labor nominee, may have a tough path to confirmation.

When Perez was appointed assistant attorney general for the civil-rights division in 2009, the confirmation vote was 72 to 22.”

This time, the likely vote for the upcoming Perez confirmation look less favorable, according to Trinko.

And John Fund (NRO) counseled last week –

“a Perez nomination should be fought by Senate Republicans with every weapon at their disposal, including a filibuster.”

We wrote about this “prior Senate vote” on October 7, 2009 in our Puzzling MD GOP Supporters of Questionable Perez Pick  –

“Yesterday the U.S. Senate, not unexpectedly, confirmed by a vote of 72-22 former Montgomery County councilman and sometime Casa of Maryland board president Thomas E. Perez to be Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice.

What is surprising are the letters of support for Mr. Perez from two Maryland Republicans who played prominent political roles during the late Ehrlich administration. Former Maryland Republican Party chairman John Kane endorsed Mr. Perez; so did House of Delegates Republican leader Tony O’Donnell.”

Click here to read our entire 2009 post on that Perez Senate confirmation.

Why A Continuing Wall of Silence from Tony O’Donnell and John Kane?

We followed up here on September 25, 2010, asking –

“Will Republican leader O’Donnell bring into the “full  light of day” his purpose in sending a letter on House of Delegates letterhead (and thus implying that he was speaking for the House of Delegates Republican Caucus) to the chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the confirmation of Mr. Tom Perez? Mr. O’Donnell submitted this confirmation support in the face of opposition to Mr. Perez from Republican U.S. senators and Judiciary Committee members Jeff Sessions and Tom Coburn.

After all, Mr. O’Donnell’s communication was not a personal letter to, say, the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman and ranking Republican endorsing for confirmation a long-time friend from childhood for some plain-vanilla position like, maybe, an assistant agriculture secretary for county extension work and practical research.

Mr. O’Donnell endorsed a major Obama Administration player.

Coincidentally or not, former Maryland state chairman (and husband of Mary Kane, GOP lieutenant-governor nominee) John Kane wrote an effusive letter around the same time to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking Republican member urging the confirmation of Mr. Perez. Both Kane and O’Donnell were prominent members of governor Bob Ehrlich’s team when he was in office (2003-2007): O’Donnell was House of Delegates Republican Whip (Republican leader since 2007); John Kane was Maryland GOP chairman.”

Mr. O’Donnell’s 2009 testimonial to the U. S. Senate in behalf of Tom Perez was signed as “Minority Leader”.

Do we then conclude he was speaking for many, if not all Maryland House of Delegates Republicans in 2009?

But if not, why did the House of Delegates Republicans not disavow the letter? 

Nonetheless, we are great believers in redemption! Will Maryland GOP sachems now — in 2013 — counsel the U.S. Senate against Mr. Perez’ confirmation as Secretary of Labor?  Stay tuned.

* * * * * * * * * *

Faithful readers will recall our earlier posts (below) relating to the O’Donnell and Kane endorsements of Tom Perez, and may wish to revisit these reports.

UPDATED! Scary: Perez’ Overreaching, Missteps; Maryland GOP Endorsers Stay Mum

MD “Prosperity Pledge”: Transparency Begins Yesterday

The ‘Politicized’ Justice Department Civil Rights Division

A Frightening Mindset Behind the Black Panther Dismissal

Time to Examine the Perez-John Kane-Tony O’Donnell Link

“Haven’t you guys been listening to the Tea Party folks?”

More Today on Tom Perez, and His Two Maryland GOP Fans

Puzzling MD GOP Supporters of Questionable Perez Pick