McMahon: Free Speech Be Damned

June 25, 2010

My Dear Fellow Patriots;

Yesterday, my Congressman voted to stick a knife into the heart of free speech.

He voted for a bill that carries a cruel joke of an acronym: DISCLOSE. That stands for Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections. Never has there been such a misnomer.

He voted for a bill that has only a single reason for its existence: to thwart the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United vs. FEC, which unshackled corporations from the restraints on political speech imposed upon them by McCain/Feingold.

When the SCOTUS ruled that private citizens, of which corporations are comprised, have the freedom to speak their political minds, Democrats went into a panic. How could they silence these newly-freed voices? First, they denied that corporations are composed of individual human beings with a right to free speech. Then, they demonized them as soulless entities with no shred of humanity – never mind that corporations are comprised of nothing BUT people like you and me.

Finally, behind closed doors, Chris Van Hollen and Chuck Schumer, the two men in charge of getting Democrats re-elected in the House and Senate respectively this fall, crafted DISCLOSE. In doing so, they reminded us once again that what Nancy Pelosi promised would be “a new era of honest, open, and transparent government,” is simply an epic fail.

The bill, which will have a tremendous effect on this November’s campaign, received a total of one hour of debate. This was determined by the same Democratic rules committee that had allotted 41 hours of debate to the naming of post offices.
What does the bill mean? This from Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner:

So unions now get nearly unrestricted, undisclosed political spending. Further, the restrictions in the DISCLOSE Act only cut one way — against business. If you took TARP funds as a business, express political advocacy is now verboten. So GM has very limited first amendment rights, but even though arguably primary beneficiary of the auto bailout was the United Auto Workers union which got government guaranteed billions directly as a result of the TARP funding — UAW can spend almost whatever it pleases, and it has a history of spending millions on Democratic campaigns.

Further, under the DISCLOSE Act if a company has more than $7 million in government contracts, it has no right to political speech. But public sector unions can spend millions of recycled tax dollars campaigning for Democrats, no problem. All this will likely do is make business spend more money on lobbyists rather than campaigns. Of course, campaign spending is much more transparent than lobbying, but when it comes to the DISCLOSE act, clean elections and free speech seem to be secondary considerations to getting Democrats elected.

And what are we to make of the fact that this bill - unlike all other campaign finance bills - has NO provision for expedited judicial review? It's just more evidence that this is a desperate move, by a desperate majority, desperate to hold on to power. They know that this law will likely fail to pass constitutional muster - but not before Election Day, 2010.

Instead of a bill that applied restrictions fairly to all entities, it contained loopholes (called "carve outs") to help the Democrats friends and silence their foes. I am disappointed that my representative would try to pull the wool over our eyes in this way - and worse, that he would try to silence our voices.

I suspect he still hasn’t gotten it. We are no longer asleep, Congressman McMahon – we are awake, alert, very concerned, informed and engaged. In the old days, you could double-talk your way around this vote and count on it being forgotten in a few short days. You'd probably be right if you thought that nobody was even paying attention.

Not anymore, Congressman. There are about 1,500 people on our mailing list, and these missives are forwarded to thousands of others, and they all have friends, relatives and neighbors. They may not call and they may not write, but now they are paying attention, and now they DO NOT forget - they watch and listen and read, and will remember when it's decision-making time in November.

Every vote like this one, every vote that makes us less free, every vote that brings us further under the thumb of this administration – every one – will energize us.

We will not rest, Congressman. We will take it to the streets and we will take it to Capitol Hill, and most importantly, we will take it to the voting booths.

Frank Santarpia
Staten Island, NY

Free Speech In the Crosshairs

Do you remember what it was like before the internet and talk radio and Fox News?

Do you remember the suffocating cocoon in which we felt wrapped and trapped, desperate for someone, anyone, to simply tell the unspun truth about the direction in which our country was headed? To express an understanding of the love we felt for a proud America who need not apologize to any nation or people, unashamed of its independence, vitality and free markets?

The Obama Administration remembers those days; so does the Left; so does the Mainstream Media.

They long for those times – times when they could empower the march to Marxism on a daily basis, news cycle after news cycle after news cycle. They are desperate to return to that era of control over the shaping of the political agenda, and as their electoral prospects dim, their anxiety grows.

The Tea Party Movement is their worst nightmare.

It is becoming a mighty river of public opinion and voting trends, flowing from the confluence of talk radio, cable news and the internet; it is Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and Heritage.org writ large; it is, indeed, the awakening of the sleeping giant . It is the message of conservatism gone viral; it is a longing to return to constitutional principles that is sweeping that portion of the populace that reveres and believes in the documents that are the foundation of this great country.

The Tea Party Movement empowers people who wish to halt the “fundamental change” being wrought upon this nation. Fundamental change? Why would any person who believes in the sanctity of human life and liberty want to fundamentally change a nation that has done more good for more people than any country in the history of the world?

Because of these things: the internet, talk radio, Fox News and Tea Party rallies, the silent majority now has a voice and feels empowered to push back. Worse for the left, it appears that we don’t merely wish to keep the statists in check – we mean to make fundamental changes to our government by disabusing it of the insane "entitlement-as-a-right" atmosphere that has pervaded Washington since the sixties.

And so, for the march to Marxism to continue, we must be stopped.

A seed was planted back in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton tried to lay the impetus for Oklahoma City bombing at the feet of Rush Limbaugh, a seed which has been fertilized and watered by Democrats, the mainstream media and the Left countless times over the years.

It was nurtured again last week by Mayor Bloomberg, whose first instinct was that the as-yet-unidentified Times Square bomber was someone who was unhappy with the recently-passed health care legislation - code words for a disgruntled Tea Partier.

Then a few days ago at a graduation ceremony, President Obama said, “Meanwhile, you’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t rank all that high on the truth meter...[snip]...Information becomes a distraction, a diversion...”

Information a distraction?

These are not isolated events; these are puzzle pieces which the Left hopes to fit together, and I can guarantee you that we will not like the picture that emerges after it is assembled.

Right now, the Tea Party movement stands atop a three-legged stool that is comprised of talk radio, cable television, and the internet. From this vantage point, at rallies throughout the country, grassroots groups espouse an obedience to the Constitution that is anathema to this Democratic Congress and their radical agenda – but all attempts to collapse this stool have thus far failed.

The collective wheels of the Left continue to spin, however, and therein lie my worst fears.

There is one thing which will give the Left, championed, as it is, by this Democratic Congress and the media, a shot to silence once again the silent majority: a major domestic terrorist attack that can be hung around the neck of the Tea Party movement.

Forget, for a moment, that a single kook with deranged purpose can erupt within ANY ideology – that truth that will be ignored. The sad truth is that the agenda of the Left is advanced by any act of violence that can plausibly be connected to an American that has expressed or implied Tea Party connections.

And if that happens – watch out.

Expect the Left to drag out the Fairness Doctrine, and use it as a cudgel to beat conservative voices into silence. ALL conservatives will be blamed for the attack, even humble bloggers, and all will be condemned as the enablers, the instigators, the progenitors of a deranged, right-wing monster.

They will shout that under such circumstances political candidates must disavow the Tea Party movement at every turn, that rallies must cease – or even be outlawed as an incitement to violence – and that mainstream America is obligated to turn away from the conservative principles in which we so passionately believe.

Say goodbye to Limbaugh, Levin, Malkin, Krauthammer and the rest if the Left finally gets the inaccurate and disingenuous "hate speech" moniker to stick.

To ensure that a movement such as ours will not rise again, they will systematically cut off every leg of the stool, every voice of the movement, and they will do it through legislation or simply by fiat. All they need is one kook.

My fear is that they, the Left, will provide him.

Already, one outlier has exhorted “infiltration” of the Tea Party movement to discredit it – but that was a single nut without a real plan, and without the brains to keep his intentions secret. There are other, smarter and more dangerous individuals out there, to whom a human life – or a hundred, or a thousand – is a small price to pay to quash a Constitutional movement that threatens to unravel decades of planning for "fundamental change."

The disturbed individual that tried to exhort his followers to infiltrate and discredit the April 15th Tea Party events with racist and violent signs became neutralized when a bright light was shone on his shadowy plot. That one was easy. The next one might not be.

The next one may carefully infiltrate the movement, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary Americans at rallies, may carry the appropriate signs, talk the talk, walk the walk - and then strike. His Tea Party bona fides will appear to be impeccable, but his heart will be filled with duplicity, hatred and death.

Be vigilant. Stay strong. And if, God forbid, such a thing were to happen, stand firm in your commitment to our country, our flag, our Constitution and the goodness of America. We cannot let the actions of a madman, whatever his motivations, be the excuse this Administration is seeking to marginalize - and worse, criminalize - this movement of free Americans.

Frank Santarpia
Staten Island, NY

Running for Cover. And Not Finding Any.

As predicted, Congressman McMahon has taken refuge in a tough guy approach to the radical health care proposal being bullied through Congress. It is to be expected, since he doesn't want to be seen as a cheerleader for what will prove to be an extraordinarily painful and destructive initiative.

It won't work, though. Not as long as we vow to stay informed and engaged.

This from the Staten Island Advance (SILive) today:

Said McMahon: "... I am concerned that the proposed health care bill will be paid for at the expense of our small business owners ... essentially penalizing (them)." [snip]

But Staten Island Rep. Michael McMahon predicted there will be a new way of providing health care in this country, and paying for it, by year's end, if not by Congress' August recess..."

Sound familiar? It should. Last week we wrote:

Do not be surprised if you see the Congressman expressing "deep concerns" about the health care bill, insinuating that he may not vote for it until he knows how it will be paid for. Ultimately, though, after some minor tweaks and fixes, he will toe the Obama/Pelosi line.

Now under normal circumstances this tactic would work quite well; it makes it seem as if he is putting the well-being and interests of his constituency before party loyalty - but that's all smoke and mirrors. The truth is that we are fools if we let him shape the message this way.

The underlying theme here is that despite the "tweaks and fixes," our Congressman is in favor of socialized medicine. McMahon - along with all the other politicians who will vote for this bill but are not personally bound by it - is ultimately going to vote to dump the greatest health care system in the history of the world.

Detractors (and there are many) will say that I'm being picky, that even when the Congressman does work for the benefit of his constituents I am looking for and finding fault. This is not true. The reality is that no matter what portions of socialized medicine McMahon objects to, he will still, in the end, support socialized medicine.

As I have said before, will say here, and will say again on August 2nd in Conference House Park: "Time and time again our Congressman votes us into the twilight world of soft tyranny..."

What's That Stench?

I don’t know the technical definition of Marxism, but I know it stinks. In fact, I bet it smells a lot like the putrid odor that is wafting out of Congress these days.

Something in those hallowed halls has gone terribly...rotten.

The House of Representatives, once populated by great men, great thinkers, great lovers of individual freedom and protectors of private property, is now, through its Democrat majority, a fully-baked product of the Obama Administration – a cesspool of radical thought, and even more radical legislation.

That we sent to Congress an individual who so comfortably swims in those foul waters is a measure of our gullibility. Gullibility and simple trust that this man would go to Washington and fight the good fight – fight to keep us free, as he is supposed to do. Fight to protect and defend the Constitution, as he is sworn to do.

Instead, time and time again he votes to enslave our economy, and by extension enslave us, to a gaggle of federal bureaucrats.

Worse yet, he votes with liars and America-haters. He votes with thugs and sneaks. He’s part of a majority that promised transparency, yet rams bills through with 300-page amendments issued in the blackest part of night, bills that are so impactful that they transform the basic relationship between government and private industry; bills that are passed before they are even presented in their final form, and hence, cannot even have been read.

I cannot call this representation, and I cannot sit idly by and pretend that a few bucks and a few jobs is a fair tradeoff for the destruction of the country that I love. American men and women have died to defend our rights and liberties for over 200 years, but now the ghosts of those brave soldiers must look on in horror, as our current so-called “representatives” filch those liberties, piece by piece, in the middle of the night like a gang of sneak-thieves.

Reprehensible. I don’t know whom you represent, Michael McMahon, but it sure ain’t me.

I cannot promise that you will be defeated in 2010, Congressman, but I do promise you this: by the time Staten Islanders march into that voting booth, they will be educated. They will know how you are voting, and what the real impacts of those votes will be – not the fluffy spin you will put on them in a four-color brochure.

No, I cannot reach everyone in the 13th, I don’t have the money or the platform - but I won’t stop trying. Your votes, and your often-insulting defense of them, have succeeded in creating a small, tough core of activists on Staten Island. Probably nothing for you to worry about – yet. But every day, the word seeps out to more and more people, and more and more people become aware and alert…and engaged.

To whatever extent I have anything to say about it, Congressman McMahon, Staten Islanders will not be sleep-walking into the voting booths in 2010. They will be voting with their eyes wide open.

We are paying attention, now. House by house, block by block, Staten Islanders are being roused from their slumber.

Who IS my Congressman?

I’d like to know who my Congressman is. Yes, I’m aware of his name, it’s Michael McMahon; I just don’t know who he is, and I’d really like to.

I’m also aware of his party affiliation, and in times past that might have been all I needed to know, but it’s hard to recognize the Democratic Party these days. That they have been wandering to the Left for decades is not a surprise – that they have become so brazenly and fully anti-capitalist is.

So I look at Congressman McMahon and wonder if he’s advancing an agenda he believes in, or if he’s just going along for the ride - someday I’d like to ask him.

Really, I would - heart-to-heart, as a neighbor, not as a constituent. I’d say, “Do you really believe in the President’s anti-capitalist agenda? Do you really believe that the free market is a failed concept? Do you really believe that an economic downturn, no matter how serious, is an excuse to scrap the whole system; to take a headlong dive into European-style socialism?”

Because that’s the way my Congressman is voting.

I met him once at a campaign get-together in the lovely backyard of a North Shore friend; a biergarten-style barbeque on a beautiful early-fall evening. My impression was that of an exceedingly nice guy, very bright, ambitious and in possession of all the skills necessary to be a highly successful politician. I saw no indications that I was meeting a socialist – or, at least, an enabler of socialism. Or was I?

And that gets to the crux of the matter. IS my Congressman a socialist, or does he just vote that way? He is voting with the majority on bills that are changing the American landscape not in subtle ways, but in a series of violent, seismic shifts to the left; is he cowed into doing so because of his freshman status? Does he fear that crossing party lines will result in lukewarm support from the DCCC in 2010 – his first re-election attempt and the one in which House members are most vulnerable?

Or has he actually bought into what his party is attempting to sell?

Congressman McMahon, Staten Islander, regular guy, solid American citizen, was born in the biggest melting pot the world has ever known. If he was like me, and like so many other sons or daughters of so many other immigrants, he grew up proud of his heritage, but understanding that he was an un-hyphenated American before all else, and that he had every right to claim the same mantle of rugged individualism and personal responsibility as the earliest settlers, revolutionaries, pioneers, and lovers if liberty.

How then can he vote with his party’s majority? How then can he stand proudly next to the likes of such odious blame-America-firsters as Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Steny Hoyer? How then can he look us all straight in the eye and say that yes, he STILL believes we are a nation of rugged individualists, who accept personal responsibility as part of the cost of maintaining our individual liberties? How then can he not realize that the moment you allow the government to become the chief supplier of sustenance for yourself and your family, you have sacrificed the one thing that has made you uniquely American – the freedom to follow your own path, whether it leads to success or to failure?

Congressman, during our conversation I would like to ask you if you believe, as I do, that the leadership of your party is doling out goodies in unprecedented sums in order to buy perpetual power, and do you support this? I, for one, harbor a dread that this is no longer a government of, by and for ALL the people. Why is it that I’m feeling that this is a government FOR some of the people, and AGAINST others?

There is nothing more American than strong differences of opinion between supporters of different political parties – it has been going on since before the Declaration of Independence. But here, now, something is amiss; some much greater issue has taken center stage. Whatever our political differences have been in the past, the one underlying belief was that we, as American citizens of any political stripe, would always be protected by the rule of law and by the Constitution; beliefs which transcended party lines.

I fear that this is no longer the case, and I want my Congressman to give it to me straight: is he joining forces with those who would strip us of our Constitutional guarantees, or will his birthright as a free and independent American lead him to use his voice - and his vote - to protect and defend the documents and traditions that have given our citizens more liberty and opportunity than any other civilization in the history of the world?

Over the centuries, America has survived wars and upheavals that have threatened its very existence, but America has never been faced with the danger it confronts now. A President has taken power - along with a Congress that has an almost filibuster-proof majority - and this President and this Congress are taking our country on a path very, very far from the America of our forebears.

So Congressman McMahon, if we ever do get to sit down together again, just to talk, a couple of Staten Island guys born in roughly the same place at roughly the same time, please be prepared to field this question: Do you stand with the America envisioned by Barack Obama and so many in your party?

Or do you stand with the real America? The America of our Founding Fathers, indeed, the America of our own fathers.

We calls 'em like we sees 'em....

...and we call Congressman Michael McMahon "SAFE AT HOME" for his NO vote on a bill that will enact illegal, punitive taxation against those individuals that received contractual bonuses in the AIG debacle. Distancing himself from the hard-left members of his party earns our kudos and commendations.

Who knows? More independent thinking like this and perhaps the good Congressman will come out and demonstrate WITH us in front of his offices at noon on Tax Day, protesting the not-to-be-believed trillion dollar deficits that the Obama administration is foisting upon generations of Americans as we lurch sickeningly towards European-style socialism.

The thought that Congress can legislate punishment for private citizens because they find their LEGAL actions to be odious smacks of big-brotherism on a scale never before imagined in the United States. This Congress continues to ignore the Constitution in the most shocking manner, and bills like this can only be a pre-cursor to other legislation curtailing the rights and liberties Americans have enjoyed since our country was founded. Heck, perhaps they'll decide to tax the incomes of certain radio talk-show hosts at a 95% rate. That'll shut 'em up.

If Only We Had Known...

Victor Davis Hanson reminds us that Barack Obama was, well, less then honest with the American people during the campaign. However, Congressman McMahon, totally nonplussed by all the slippin' and slidin', has managed to help facilitate this radical agenda with amazing consistency, thumbing his nose at a constituency which voted heavily against Barack Obama.

Setting aside for the moment the puzzling inconsistency that our borough could soundly reject Barack Obama but soundly elect McMahon, let's take a moment to examine just what President Obama has done since his $170 million (what recession?) inauguration this past January, less than three months ago. In that short time, this administration has proposed or passed legislation, with Congressman McMahon's assistance, that:

- Borrowed $787 Billion (over a trillion with debt servicing) for a stimulus package that contained precious little actual "stimulus."

- Pushed a $3.6 trillion budget with over 8,500 earmarks.

- Procured $634 billion as a "down payment" on what is essentially socialized medicine - the worst that money can buy.

- Augmented the wasted $700 billion Bush bailout of failing banks with an additional $750 billion, promulgating the liberal theory that no problem is so thorny that it cannot be solved by flinging huge amounts of taxpayer dollars at it. Like the War on Poverty.

- Promised to HALVE the federal deficit by upping the income tax burden to 40% on the "rich" 5% of Americans who currently pay 60% of our income taxes. Got that? And in addition to the tax hike, the filthy will see their Social Security limits raised and some of their deductions disappear or shrink.

- Ignored the fact that some Americans, when they add in state and local taxes, will pay over 60% of their income in taxes. No problem, even though 40% of Americans pay no income taxes at all. Can you say "redistribution?"

We could go on, but you get the point. Was there ever a more dangerous time for Americans? We cannot afford to wait. We must speak out against the travesty inflicted upon our country by this immature, inexperienced and downright dangerous Administration.

Atlas is shrugging.

Higher Corporate Taxes: WE Bear The Cost...

From Walter Williams' on-the-money IBD editorial:

It's not rocket science to conclude that whatever lowers the cost of capital formation enables workers to have more capital to work with and enjoy higher wages. Policies that raise the cost of capital formation such as capital gains taxes, low depreciation allowances and high corporate income taxes, and thereby reduce capital formation, serve not the interests of workers, investors nor consumers.

Taxes also reduce transactions. I need my computer repaired. You and I agree that the job is worth $200. Suppose there's the imposition of a 30% income tax on you. That means you would net only $140 and might refuse the job.

You might suggest that if I were willing to pay you $285, you would do the job because at that price your after-tax earnings will be $200 — what doing the job is worth to you.

There's a problem. The repair job was worth $200 to me, not $285. So it's my turn to say the heck with it. Or would we — and society — be better off if you and I agreed to the repair job but did not tell anybody? I'd say yes, but we'd be criminals.

You might wonder how congressmen can get away with taxes and other measures that reduce our prosperity potential. Part of the answer is the anti-business climate promoted in academia and the news media. The more important reason is that prosperity foregone is invisible.

In other words, we can never tell how much richer we would have been without today's level of congressional interference in our lives and therefore don't fight it as much as we should.

Congressman McMahon is an intelligent man, it is hard to believe that he doesn't see the direction this is taking. The Congressman has to make a choice: he must vote in the best interest of his constituents, or he must vote in the best interests of Nancy Pelosi.

How our Congressman spends YOUR $$$ (Pt 1)

Let's start at the beginning.

The 2009 Congress was barely two weeks old when the profligate spending started. Under the title of "CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2009" Congressman McMahon and his fellow House Dems, led by the Nancy Pelosi, voted to re-authorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, a bill that was designed to provide health insurance to poor kids whose families could not afford to procure it themselves.

One problem, though, with this bill. It EXPANDS the program to include "children" up to the age of 30, and "poor" families that earn up to $78,000. That's right, YOUR MONEY will help pay for health insurance for a 30-year-old "child" whose parents earn 78 grand a year. Beautiful.

You know what it really is, don't you? It's a down payment on socialized medicine.

Rep. McMahon's Voting Record

To his credit, Congressman McMahon voted in favor of blocking the release of the second portion of the TARP funds. Of course, this was a joint resolution, and this brief moment of clarity is, sadly, the sole exception to Rep. McMahon's record of voting in favor of every outrageous spending bill and tax increase that is floated by this radical Congress.

In future posts, we will discuss many of Rep. McMahon's votes on various issues, paying particular attention to his votes on the Budget, Spending and Taxes. In the meantime, you can take a look at our Congressman's entire voting record at Votesmart.org.