The New Media Militia

Crisis breeds opportunity and opportunity breeds massive legislation filled with liberty destroying details voted for by scores of liberal legislators who’ve sworn to uphold the constitution (with fingers crossed behind their backs).  These same hooligans said they’d defend their respective constituencies, except when it interferes with the agenda of the democrat party or their grasp on federal power.  And now, left to their own sinister devices, the donkeys have taken to their proverbial word processors again—like an infinite number of monkeys trying to recreate the perfect socialist super-state—to produce another freedom killing piece of legislation, inappropriately named the DISCLOSE act; inappropriate because they will never admit or disclose what it is this thing does to the first amendment in their willy-nilly free for all to get political advertising they object to back under their jack-booted hooves. 

Before I further incite a riot of curses and claims of ‘fear-mongering’ from the leftista’s about the nature of their assault on free speech (their standard dodge is fear mongering) let me first clarify my perception of the liberal-democrat conundrum—the true motivation for their objection to the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United v. FEC. 

First, money and politics cannot be separated and to suggest otherwise is a populist, pandering lie told by people who already have plenty of it.  As long as you need to spend money to get a message out to get elected to office no one will campaign successfully for—particularly in a state wide race—without a few big bags of money, independent support from people who have them, or someone else willing to expose incumbants when the need arises.  And you need money.

The same problem applies with issue advocacy.  Mailers, radio, television, even internet advertising is expensive—so much so that most of us are limited to the free parts of the internet or to pooling resources in a feeble effort to get any message out or (heavan forbid) to contradict the message of the people in power–a process the government is forever complicating to dissuade us from doing just that.  The DISCLOSE act is the next evolution of that oppression.  

Second, people are inclined to accept the evil they know instead of the one they do not if no one is able to tell them different, so messaging is extremely important.  Politicians—incumbents—have a signifcant built in advantage here.  They are already in office.  They have exclusive access to deep pocketed corporate lobbyists, their PAC’s, and all the congressional PACs who incestuously share that wealth between them.  They have a free bully pulpit in the press, in print, in radio, on TV, on their government web sites, and anywhere else they want to show up, while collecting a generous salary they do not need to give up to go sell themselves and their stupid ideas.  And all the while they are benefitting from the fixed nature of their relationship to power, influence, and a home court political speech advantage.  With these odds even the worst legislator can secure a long and healthy political career short of a wave or something really bad happening that they can’t hide or hide from with any amount of money. 

Finally, allowing anyone whom they do not have a cushy relationship with—or permitting those they may have mislead or rubbed the wrong way (thats’ screwed in the vernacular)—the same unfettered access to the same free speech-well they drink from, (or one in remote proximity) is simply a risk they are not willing to accept.   Speech is money and power to the elites so they have applied their natural inclination to control everything including your objections the same way they control and distribute your earnings—from the top down, at their direction, and through cumbersome regulation that only lawyers understand, and always in the manner they deem fair and equal to themselves. 

So when the supreme court pulled the little Dutch boys finger out of the dyke known as McCain/Feingold, the left blew a gasket.  Seizures were epidemic as the elitists flopped about like fish on dry land at the thought of defending their arrogant, insulated, incumbent stupidity in an environment where they could no longer dominate the narrative,  control the debate, or anticipate what attacks would come from where and by whom.   It is almost impossible to disguise your malfeasance with other people buying up ad time to point out to the couch potatoes what a piece of crap they think you are and why.  Incumbents would constantly be on the defensive, wasting their own valuable horde of insider corporate cash to fend off free “political speech” attacks from all directions, and the Party would be just as helpless to defend them.

Poor babies. 

Paul Hodes response to this constitutional threat to his DC trench digging was to drop his “insiders-only “gold-plated shovel long enough to suggest we just alter the entire US constitution to protect elitist political power; an arrogant move if genuine, but more likely fashioned so as to make an excellent blurb on his campaign web site—which it does.  Hodes even goes so far as to suggest that…

“”The Supreme Court wrongly allowed corporations, including foreign corporations, to infiltrate and pollute one of our most sacred places—the voting booth””

Hodes is full of um…”himself.”  Rules for foreign corporations were not affected by the ruling at all, so this demonstrates for us that Mr. Hodes is either willing to lie without fear of being caught which is arrogant, or repeats whatever he is told without bothering to determine its veracity, which is what we’ve suspected all along.  Arrogant, ignorant, parroting, you decide–it’s more choice than Hodes or the democrats will give you on political speech.

Unlucky us, we don’t need to rely entirley on the bumbling incompetence of the gentleman from New Hampshire to fix the fix, the entire caucus is looking for a way to make sure the system remains gamed in their favor so they came up with the DISCLOSE act.

The DISCLOSE act will not only try to limit political speech the way McCain-Feingold did, it goes even further by altering critical definitions in federal law.  “Communication” as it applies to public speech would no longer exclude the internet, and the bill intentionally re-classifies written political speech (like this blog post) as equivalent to a paid campaign contribution if it is written within a certain defined number of days before an election and in a way that a “reasonable person” could view it as such. (as equivelant to a contribution) 

Do I need to repeat that? 

This bill would view any political commentary within a certain time frame before a primary or election as in violation of federal law if a ‘reasonable person’ (that’s the federal government) decides that the speech represents issue or candidate advocacy that could work as the equivalent to a cash donation.  That’s regulating political cash—without the need for cash using political speech, by writ at our majesties convenience.   Want to scare some people away from the debate?  Want to gag your opponent?  Want to ensure that only deep pocketed well connected incumbents dominate the messaging and political narrative in the waning weeks of a contested race?  Then pass the DISCLOSE act.   

Some people will actually think a) this is Ok, and b) they’ll stop regualting speech here.  They’d be liberals or idiots or both.

I’m immediately reminded of Chaz Proulx’s response to my post in October 2008 about the impending “thugocracy” of an Obama administration and a liberal majority, and how it will move to silence speech that opposes it’s agenda.  I expressed an idle concern for free speech in places like NH Insider, and the lefts obsession with ending the dominance of right wing talk radio.  Chaz had this to say.

Steve

Good try, but your scare tactics don’t pass the smell test.

The only reason NH INSIDER will suffer under Obama is it’s writers,

As you know I’ll be leaving after the election.

The rest of you can rant on to each other all you want.

Obama and I could care less, frankly.

October 21, 2008 |  Chaz Proulx

Funny but I smell something.  Smells like democrats trying to censor political speech when it would have the most impact on their ability to remain in power.

Can’t say I didn’t try to warn you.  The DISCLOSE act would limit liberal Blue Hampshire as well regardless of who was in power.   Suck on that for a while and get back to me.

H/T Erik Erikson–Red State

I must confess to a feeling of near bi-partisan enthusiasm when I glanced at the headline to Kathy Sullivan’s Tuesday morning UL Column—“Why Municipal executives records must be kept public.”  Without having yet read it thoughts of typing up one of the rarest of blog posts, one in which I can say without reservation that there was something Dame Sullivan and I could both agree on, danced like aisle-crossing sugar plums in my head.  I actually thought, “Wow, what are the odds?”  Then I found time to read it. 

Her treatise is simple. Allowing the legislature to further water down the necessary transparency afforded by 91-A will allow Republicans (in this case Mayor Gatsas) to continue gaming the system to get away with their dirty manipulative tricks. She frames this argument by pointing out any number of meetings the Mayor had on specific dates with Manchester Alderman, and various committee members, in groups and at times that eliminated the requirement to announce the meetings to the public or reveal the content of discussions held in them. She is quite thorough in her recollections, for which I applaud her, except for one. 

Manchester has one Republican Alderman. So almost every Alderman who participated in these suspicious meetings was a Democrat. So Dem Sullivan, in her enthusiastic quest to create suspicion about the meeting behavior of one (maybe two) Republicans, has forced us to suspect a baker’s dozen of elected Manchester Democrats in the same “potential” impropriety. I say potential because Kathy is cautious enough to couch her suspicion in the obvious–being purposefully non-public gatherings of elected officials we have no way of knowing what was discussed–but her intentions is clear. To smear Gatsas and demonstrate the habitual nature of his “potential” to abuse his power. But if that is the case, then Democrat Alderman who attended these meetings are equally suspect of the same habitual abuse of power. That’s a lot of Democrats abusing power Kathy.  WTF?

So this is a cause to celebrate. Manchester has elected a super-duper-pooper-scooper-majority of Democrat Alderman who repeatedly hold non-public meetings with the mayor to hide what Kathy suspects could be the people’s business. And while we’re toasting Kathy’s intentional double standard we should take the time to remind everyone that the Democrat majority legislature in Concord is responsible for passing the legislation that would allow this kind of tom-foolery by law, and which can only become law if our little Democrat governor signs it. 

Does Sullivan really want to protect 91-A? It’s hard to say. This, like most everything else she has to comment on, started out with a ray of hope but turned into just another excuse to spin an important issue into backhanded partisan politics. And while I can thank her for suggesting that something is not right in Manchester, she could better serve the interests of the people by holding everyone equally accountable instead of hiding her own parties complicity–not that anyone should be surprised by this.

NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen has not yet announced her plan to return $663,000.00 dollars in campaign contributions from the financial/Insurance industry, or more specifically, $22,250.00 from Fidelity Investments or $17,500.00 from Citicorp, or money from any other big bank or wall street connected firm she is trying to regulate, she is however happy to milk the other teats on that cow for political points. 

This month’s edition of the Shaheen Times, a Reader’s Digest condensed email version of a “hey Mom look what I just did” communiqué (Called the Shaheen Report) alerts us to Jeanne’s continuing commitment to taking down the big guy, while protecting the little guy—in the banking industry.  She’s working hard on her campaign war chest (currently at eight million) to make sure everything is fair and equal, except where it’s not to her political advantage.  Jeanne boasts about her commitment to insurance/financial reform (they are inseparable in my opinion) while having already secured $700,000.00 from the industry for her next Senate bid in four years from now.

You know, I’m reminded of how Jeanne took down the big Health insurance companies in New Hampshire when she was a State Senator.  Oh, wait.  That actually killed off or scared off all the little guys and left us with a powerful entrenched and influential few, higher rates, and fewer choices–which is exactly what the big Insurance companies wanted.  So history repeated itself with Health Insurance “reform,” and now she’s moved on to big banks? 

Lucky them

Not long ago the Merrimack School board made an unprecedented move.  In the shrinking shadow of declining enrollment, they decided to cut staff.  That’s right teachers.  But in the intervening weeks since the plan was submitted there has been a change of heart.  Call it “Budget Cutter’s Remorse.”  Or more likely, the union and the towns’ grow government first lobby applied enough local pressure to convince the weak links on the school board to put the teachers back in the budget. 

It doesn’t end there.  The school budget committee I am told was rife with hi-jinks designed to work the money back into the budget and get the teachers back on the payroll for next year.  But by a vote of 7-6 that effort failed.  I’m still looking for more specifics, but it demonstrates a full court press to avoid any reductions in dues payers. 

The Merrimack school budget is already bursting compared to similar towns.  The per pupil cost against the total budget was up over 14k the last time I looked.  Comparable towns spend thousands less per student with similar results.  So with an expected decline in student population, news of a staff cut was sweet music to my ears.  But that’s changed. 

The union and administration will be at the March Second School Board deliberative session with a mission to get those cuts erased, and keep the staff where it was, despite declining numbers of students.  Proof that it’s not about enrollment numbers, or class size, or the quality of education, it’s about protecting union jobs taxpayers have to pay for, and leaning on the public’s representatives to protect those jobs even in a declining economy. 

It is imperative that the residents of Merrimack get to the March 2^nd meeting and make their voices heard.

Whenever I see Republican’s offering up “creative” ways to collect revenue I get suspicious.  Their first inclination—particularly given the recent liberal spending binge in Concord—should be to get rid of the spending not find ways to justify it.  So SB 385 struck me more as an excuse rather than a reason, and when you come right down to it it’s just another tax.  But then a little bird asked an important question.  What if it was free market driven? 

SB 385 would attach an additional fee on low digit plate holders, from $250.00 to $2000.00 dollars annually, just for the privilege of keeping a State license plate with four or fewer numbers on it. 

261:89-d Low Digit Number Plates. Holders of number plates bearing one, 2, 3, or 4 digit numbers shall pay an annual low digit number plate fee, which shall be in addition to any other registration or plate fees. The annual low digit number plate fee shall be $2,000 for a one digit plate, $1,500 for a 2 digit plate, $500 for a 3 digit plate, and $250 for a 4 digit plate. 

It’s a limiting, and terminally declining source of income to the treasury.  It can never get any bigger than the math allows, and it’s a tax.

So I’m against that.  I think it’s unfair and overly selective, and it prices people out of their possession of such a plate if they don’t happen to have the money.  But, that does not mean there are not opportunities. 

Delaware has a program run through a website called lowdigittags.com. It is state sponsored eBay like exchange for specialty plate holders, where they offer to sell their low digit plate for whatever the market will bear.  The state helps these folks meet up, assists them in the proper transfer and registration process, and collects a registration transfer fee on each transaction.  I’m not sure if Delaware also taxes the retail value of the sale as well, but I would not encourage that here.  But in this model, the original plate holder can make some cash, the plate buyer has parted with their money willingly, the state makes some “revenue” on the transaction, through a free exchange of commerce overseen but not over regulated by force of law. 

But I’m thinking, why limit it to low numbered plates?  There are plenty of vanity plates that might be appealing to people when someone no longer wants it.  It might also inspire a rush on requests for new vanity plates moving forward with an eye towards a lucrative resale later on, which would also add money to towns and the state by using public incentive and a free market process that uses existing law to add revenue, instead of a new top down onerous tax on a small sliver of the population. 

There are certainly issues I’ve not imagined, but I view them (for the moment) as being better than the tax that is SB 385.  

The current bill is estimated to cost about $78,000.00 to implement programming changes to the existing state system with no clear idea how much revenue could be expected.  A different system would probably cost more, but why not try to incentivize a private company to do the heavy lifting in exchange for a small per transaction fee? 

Whatever the answer, I think it’s probably better than what SB 385 offers us now. But if there is no reasonable free market solution, or the mechanics of the plate transfer idea show no promise, then I think we should kill the bill.  It is the selctive taxation of a few to justify spending we never really needed.  Just cut the spending instead.

The default response by the Liberty-deniers on the left to the suggestion that we need to cut taxes is that education and public safety will be hurt by any effort to return the peoples money to the people.  It is chapter and verse for liberals to pry at the soft edges of the electorate with words of warning about how Republican efforts to shrink government will hurt their children, the elderly, or the disadvantaged.  And if you happen to disagree, they treat you like idiots for failing to be as smart as they think they are.  Just look at Chairman Buckley’s response to the public beating taken by Jeff Goley yesterday.

“While Democrats are focused on moving New Hampshire forward, Republicans are pursuing a reckless, radical right-wing agenda and are not offering any solutions to the significant challenges facing our state or country.”

Ray left some words out.  Liberals are moving “reckless spending” forward, and avoiding” the significant challenge” of running a government without fiscally raping the people in it.

How come democrats have no ‘solutions’ that answer the challenge of letting people in this state keep more of the money they earned when they need it most, or allows them to invest more of it in their local businesses without left wing wind bags making them feel guilty about it?   Why can’t they keep that money in their town where they can vote and contribute to how it works for their own community?

Why? They don’t want you to have control of your own money because then you have control of your government.   So he’ll whine and cry and make up stories to scare you into parting with it.

The whining is abundant, shrill, and constant.  And they will be rolling out more of the canards as we approach November.  But facts are troubling things and here’s one.  The liberals in Concord increased spending by 23%, (in a recession with historic job loss) but they did not increase education and public safety spending by 23%.  It is therefore not only possible, but probable, for a pro-taxpayer majority to roll back spending at the state level without harpooning the big white liberal whale of education or public safety.  And if they can roll it back, they won’t need more revenue to pay for it.

Having said that, I am not suggesting that those areas (education and public safety) will not need cuts as well.  Over-administration from top to bottom in every aspect of government wastes millions.  Budget writers are also spenders, and they know that any unspent dollars in one year, could result in some bureaucrat or legislator looking to cut their budget by at least that much next year.  So the default setting for the spenders of public dollars is to spend them all, and then see if they can get more every year.   But if pressed, every one of them could easily cut back and return that money to the people who earned it, by simply reducing the scope of government waste.

Grow government first Liberals have no desire to do this.  

So if the people of New Hampshire believe that their state has done them an injustice they will need to replace the government they have with one that will find the cuts, and pull back the role of government at the state level, (kicking and screaming if necessary) returning the money and the power that goes with it back to towns and cities, and the people in them, where it rightly belongs.

That’s what the right wingers want for New Hamshire.  Lower taxes.  More local control.  More power in your hands, less in theirs.

In a district that is 36% Republican, 32% Democrat, and 32% Independent, Jeff Goley and the NH Democrat party, if I’m reading this right, spent close to $60K (maybe more by the final report) to turn a 4% registration deficit into a 16% loss.  Talk about bad ROI. 

Dave Boutin took every town, and every Ward, including Jeff Goley’s own Ward in a 58% to 42% sweep.  Boutin collected 3796 to Goley’s 2756 with what looks like less than 17% of registered voters casting a ballot. 

All that money and the liberals could not turn out voters, nor could they sway independents.  They had glossy mailers that lied about Goley’s record.  There were even little stickers on the paper that tried to make Goley look like a low tax/no tax candidate.  But nobody bought it?

It’s almost like Ray Buckley has created a microcosm of what plagues the larger liberal spending policies.  Bucket loads of money, and no results.

I guess all that’s left to do is blame George Bush, or maybe global warming
 

For those considering a limited government approach to their Congressional district 2 candidates, a short trip across the internet, I like to call it Bass Fishing in this instance, can be very revealing. 

But before I share the results, let me preface by saying this.  This is about Charlie Bass’ actual voting record, not Charlie Bass.  And I think the Record speaks for itself.

Life? Charlie’s voting Record favors human embryonic stem cell research, and would not prohibit cloning for that purpose.  It also would not prohibit the transport of minors across state lines for abortions.  Charlie’s Record is pro-abortion except for partial birth abortions, and yet NARAL calls him pro-choice.  Pro Choice?  As in, how does your underage daughters “favorite” “uncle” choose which state line to take her across to get that abortion with the gift certificate she got for Christmas from Planned Parenthood?

Next up, energy.  Mr. Bass’ Record is not a big fan of domestic energy or of local control of how energy is used.  His Record favored passing the Kyoto protocol and (presumably) all the fun and so far useless but economy crushing restrictions that would come with it.  (No word on how he feels about it now that the wheels continue to come off the AGW bus).  Mr. Bass Record was also against domestic drilling, and offshore drilling.  But in a fit of contradiction, the Record did favor more refineries. To refine more and more oil we had to buy from foreign countries, I have to assume.  Given these facts it is not a stretch to imagine him supporting more ethanol subsidies, the wind farm boondoggles, and the green jobs myth.  But being pro-refinery we can expect that in that event the environmentalists would brand him anti-environmental.

Charlie’s Record did not like the idea of Photo I.D.’s for national elections, and wanted to restrict independent grass roots political action committees.  The Record also favored Mc Cain/Feingold which restricted campaign speech by assuming money had nothing to do with political speech.  But anyone who has ever tried to effectively communicate political speech to a large number of people (without the gobs of out of state money the NHDP has at hand to lie about its’ candidates) knows that it is impossible to do it effectively without bags of money, and that it is critically important to do it right up to election day, not some date chosen at random by entrenched incumbents who could stand to benefit from the speech restrictions prohibited by the first amendment.   

Your money?  Charlie’s Record spent an awful lot of your money.  So much of it, that even tax and spend liberals looked like a better deal.  Talk about an expensive mistake.  Those tax and spend liberals tripled the spending from Charlie’s Record.  So is his Record running in 2010 to get us back to the more responsible pre-2007 profligate republican spending, or some other variety?

Now to be fair, Charlie’s Record got some things right.  It did well on national defense and immigration.  It also did well on tax cuts, and eliminating things like the marriage penalty, estate taxes, and taxes on capitol gains.  It did supporting working to keep families together if in fact the smallest unit of ‘family’ managed to survive his stance on abortion, and if they were gay married families, and if those are things you happen to think the government can or should even actually be involved in.

But on the whole, the Record is not exactly as conservative as we might like, or as much as some moderates would have you believe.   Charlie is to the left on life, on spending, on energy, and on the environment—which makes him in favor of big government to a degree that should frighten almost anyone who is offended by the current course of government.  His stance on campaign finance is myopic and unconstitutional unless you jump through hoops the founders never erected but warned us about.  Charlie’s Record does not appear to have taken issue with earmarking which in 2005 set a new world record, beaten only recently by congressional democrats in 2009.   And the Bass Record’s continues associations with groups like Republican Main Street and GOP Choice, show he has not drifted away from his moderate stances. 

So he’s a Blue Dog Republican.  Plain and simple.  And that’s fine if that’s what you want.   And I encourage you to defend these stands, and support your candidate.  I’m sure there is a perfectly good explanation for them.  But if you can’t, maybe you are supporting the wrong kind of Republican. Particularly in the current political climate. 

Now this does not mean that Charlie’s Record can’t have had an epiphany.  With age comes wisdom.  But right when the power of the ‘Just like Bush’ rhetoric seems to have lost its ability to drive opposition to republicans, is resurrecting the real thing the best we can do?  Shouldn’t we be taking this historic opportunity to refresh the kind of legislators we have in DC instead of recycling the old ones?

Sure he can raise money.  Yes, he’s beloved by the Fergus Cullen/Rich Ashooh moderate establishment Republicans who helped trash the brand and banish us from power in every state office. (His top 2006 campaign contributor was BAE, if that matters, and I should because we know what a dead weight moderate Ashooh is.) So shouldn’t those be negatives in this political climate?  Can Charlie successfully separate himself from his record?  Does he even want to?  And if not, why would anyone complain about my airing it out in public?  

I suppose only time will tell.   For now, Charlie’s Record has a lot of explaining to do to small government, pro-liberty independents, and the bulk of a growing conservative movement, all of whom have shifted the political landscape enough that anyone with a fever for the flavor of a congressional seat is putting their big toe in the water.  But if they are as informed as they claim to be, how can Charlie’s record still stand a chance?

Links

http://www.issues2000.org/House/Charlie_Bass.htm 

http://www.gopchoice.org/chapter_affiliate.asp 

http://www.republicanmainstreet.org/ 

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00000423&cycle=2006