So, our (VA-05) Congressman has, in response to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision, introduced legislation to: (from his press release) "ban such activity by corporations whose shareholders include any foreign nationals." Tom Perriello introduced H.R. 4523, the Save Our Democracy From Foreign Influence Act of 2010, to close a dangerous loophole that “would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans,” as stated in Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent.


For this post, I'll skip the obvious questions regarding George Soros and skip to the more troubling proof in this; Tom believes that the citizens of the United States are too... shall we say, unsophisticated... to avoid being manipulated by a glossy mailer (Of which HE sends many. Paid for by you and me.) or a salacious TV/radio/newspaper ad (Like the one that told voters that Virgil Goode wanted to raise your taxes 23%). This is a genetic trait of the despotic statists that are all the rage in the Democrat party.

What, I might ask, would have happened to Al Gore had this law been on the books when he made those late night visits to that Buddhist monastery and collected all that Chinese campaign money for him and Bill? What we are short of is not judicious citizens who cannot be swayed by jazzy ad campaigns. We are short of elected representatives with the strength of will to stand up against contributors who's agenda is to curry favor with the decision-makers to make themselves more money. But, if you REALLY want to end that, then you want a truly Constitutionally-Conservative government. You see, these influence peddlers thrive on centralized power and money (Charlottesville's own Tommy J. said a thing or two warning us of these dangers, I believe.) and if we return our governance to a bottom-up system, they cannot possibly bribe enough people to have even a fraction of their current pull. Help us decentralize and the corruption/influence-peddling/pork peddling dies.

Maybe Tom will see the sense in this, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm hanging my hopes on the "Class of 2010."

What's truly ironic is, that it's abundantly obvious that these people like Tom Perriello are all for protecting you from these ads when they might be used against THEM.

"So long, and thanks for all the fish!"
Joe
42

"The pot (Tom Perriello) calling the kettle (Constitution) black.

I warn you all, Congressman Tom Perriello follows my 'tweets' and each new blog entry sends one out to all my 'followers' so presume that he'll see this and any comments you post. (Like THAT will do anything but encourage more vitriol)

The following press release, regarding the Supreme Courts ruling on campaign finance of earlier today, just arrived here at the WCHV World News Headquarters:

Washington, DC—Congressman Tom Perriello released the following statement in response to today’s Supreme Court decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturns long-held limits on corporate and union contributions in campaign financing.

 “When I worked in West Africa, companies would give money to public officials for private gain and we had a simple word for it: corruption. I’m dismayed that the Supreme Court has further opened the floodgates for corporate capture of our democracy, taking our government away from Main Street and surrendering it to the insurance companies, oil companies, and big banks that foot the bills for 30-second spots. Does anyone really think that unlimited corporate campaign spending won’t undermine the voice of the people? The Supreme Court’s divided opinion is also a highly unusual break from precedent that the same body set just a few years ago, displaying the kind of judicial activism earlier courts worked hard to avoid.”

Perriello is a co-sponsor of the Fair Elections Now Act, H.R. 1826, bipartisan legislation that would create a voluntary public financing system for federal elections. Today, he sent a letter to the Speaker of the House with other co-sponsors urging that H.R. 1826 be included in any legislation that is considered as a result of the Citizens United decision.
 
This sat on my computer screen as my mind tried to comprehend what I was reading. Was this the same Tom Perriello that went along with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when they intervened in the VA-05 race in Summer of 2008 and bought and produced $1.2 million worth of ads against Virgil Goode that misrepresented his support of the 'Fair Tax' to make it look like he was going to raise our taxes 23%? If it was, how could he write: "...companies would give money to public officials for private gain and we had a simple word for it: corruption." Or: "I’m dismayed that the Supreme Court has further opened the floodgates for corporate capture of our democracy, taking our government away from Main Street and surrendering it to the insurance companies, oil companies, and big banks that foot the bills for 30-second spots. ?" Check me on this above. He DID write that, didn't he? I thought so.
 
Since I'm a charitable man, I'll presume that Tom isn't aware that, according to "opensecrets.org" the top contributors to the DCCC in 2008 were: 1) Goldman Sachs; 2) JP Morgan Chase; 3) Duetche Bank AG; 4) Susman Godfrey; 5) Time Warner. Among the other biggies were: Citigroup (7), Lehman Bros (9). Interesting how ALL the stars of the Wall Street meltdown and bank bailout (save AIG who are ironically the one's these guys all whine about the 'bonuses' about) seem to be represented on this list, and this is just 2008! Should I go back to 2007 when they were gathering their pocket "change?"
 
I think I know what I'll be asking Tom about when he visits my show on February 1st.
 
"Thanks for all the Fish"
J.T.
1/21/10

"School Daze"

I agree with Barack Obama. There, I said it. Of course so does Bob McDonnell and his new Secretary of Education, Gerard Robinson. We agree that parents needs school choice. There are a myriad of studies that show that vouchers not only help the kids that utilize them, but also the "Public Option" (intentional reference to 'Obamacare', which I disagree with, but I digress...) schools they leave behind.

One such set of studies comes from Robinson's previous employer; The Black Alliance for Educational Options. From the 2009 edition of "The ABC's of School Choice": Citing the Friedman Foundation's work; "A Win-Win Solution, the empirical evidence on how vouchers affect public schools" - "The first empirical study on the Milwaukee (voucher) program was conducted by Carolyn Hoxby, then of Harvard University, and released in 2001. She compared schools that were at least 66% eligible for vouchers." Her findings were that in a school year, students in the "more exposed to vouchers" schools out performed their fellow students by 3 percentile points in math, language and social studies and 5 percentile points in science. That's the kids still in the "public option schools." NOT the ones who used the vouchers to pay tuition to a private or parochial school.

Print this report to hand out, or at least be ready to reference it, the next time someone tells you that voucher programs and school choice drains and diminished the Government schools.

"Steele-ing ourselves"

Like the old comic Eddie Lawrence used to ask; "What's the matter, bunky?" You say that you're not happy that the RNC Chairman didn't tell Sean Hannity that he thought the party could re-take a majority of the House of Representatives in 2010? You say that you're confused because he used to seem like a real 'go get em' kind of guy before he was elected? You say that you'd have liked to hear a little more "Mike London" and a little less "Al Groh"? (ask any UVA football fan what that means...)

Lost in this brouhaha is a qualifying statement that Michael Steele made right after the ill-fated, poorly received; "No, I don't think so." He said that he felt this way because he; "didn't know all the candidates, yet." I hate to say this to the faithful (But, I have been saying this to my radio show audience for some time before Mr. Steele's comments...); He's right. As Pete Townshend once wrote (in the Who's "Join Together"); 'It's the singer, not the song, that makes the music move along."

Can you name (without checking Wikipedia) the GOP chairman in 1979? Or the Democrat chair in 1959? Or even 1991? It was the CANDIDATE that inspired the community, not the party leadership. (BTW, the answers are; William Brock, Paul Butler and Ron Brown.) At a recent meeting, a local contractor said that he knew many young co-workers that are "prime candidates" for party membership; hunters, fishermen, Constitutional Conservatives, who showed little interest in joining the GOP. This is not an indictment of local chair Christian Schoenewald (who I count as a close friend, and a great party leader) or even Michael Steele (who I've met and thought he was much more inspiring than he's become lately), it just makes Steele's point about not knowing the candidate yet.

For example, here in my Virginia home there are 7 people, all with really interesting and diverse backgrounds, running for the GOP spot on the ballot to face Tom Perriello for the 5th District seat in the Virginia delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. I bring them all on to my radio show every Friday to answer three questions and, more importantly I hope that their visits will inspire some of the citizens to 'join together' so I put all of their contacts out on my website so that listeners can volunteer to help.

Which one is MY favorite? Though I run the risk of being lumped together with Michael Steele, I don't have one, yet. I'm hoping that one will, by the June 8th primary, become that person that inspires Constitutional Conservatives like myself up and down the 5th District and sweep into the house with the new majority leadership. Maybe that's more like what Michael Steele should have told Sean Hannity.

For now, though, let's do what we can to help the Haitians.

"Thanks for all the Fish"
JT