Remembering back to the 1996 Democrat National Convention, Hillary Clinton, in an impassioned plea to defend the honor of her husband, a man with such obvious character and class, that when he had the 19 year old intern alone in his office, he penetrated her only with the tip of his expensive cigar and not with any actual part of his own anatomy. Hillary, in that shrill tone that only she and the mythical creature known as a banshee can achieve, alluded to something she labeled as, “The Mean Republican Attack Machine.” She also told tales of the, “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.” Being a member in good standing on the political right myself, I must say that I’ve not received my invitation to the secret meetings of the conspirators yet, and gentle persons, I would love to participate.
Against that backdrop, and to place context on this continuing labeling of all things right of center as either evil, stupid, senile, or crazy, remember what happened to Sarah Palin after the 2008 Presidential Election. Four people, none of whom had ever lived in Alaska prior to 2008, nor had even visited Alaska, moved in, and in January of 2009, filed so many ethics complaints against Governor Palin that she was forced to resign. Defending herself and her family against the sheer number of charges and complaints became a full time job in itself. when the dust settled of course, not one allegation was found to have had any basis in reality, and the four operatives of the Democrat Party promptly ended their residence in Alaska.
There are two things to note here. First, if Sarah Palin were really an idiot, as the game of categorize the Republican had labeled her, why the need to destroy her in this fashion? I should think the Democrats would have welcomed her with open arms as an adversary. Claire McCaskill as you’ll recall, actually donated large amounts of money and resources to the campaign of one Todd Aiken during his primary run for the Missouri Senate Seat in 2012. Secondly, the injury was not to Governor Palin alone. The injury also occurred to the people of Alaska who had their legitimate choice for their Governor vetoed by the Democrat Party. She was chased from her office because she dared to stand up and oppose their agenda. The rest of the nation also suffered an injury when this tactic proved successful, as it has served to encourage repeat of this behavior.
From the Wall Street Journal Article linked to above:
Americans learned in the IRS political targeting scandal that government enforcement power can be used to stifle political speech. Something similar may be unfolding in Wisconsin, where a special prosecutor is targeting conservative groups that participated in the battle over Governor Scott Walker’s union reforms.
In recent weeks, special prosecutor Francis Schmitz has hit dozens of conservative groups with subpoenas demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns to recall Governor Walker and state legislative leaders.
Copies of two subpoenas we’ve seen demand “all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications” both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees. The groups include the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
One subpoena also demands “all records of income received, including fundraising information and the identity of persons contributing to the corporation.” In other words, tell us who your donors are.
snip:
The kitchen-sink subpoenas deserve skepticism considering their subject and targets. The disclosure of conservative political donors has become a preoccupation of the political left across the country. In the heat of the fight over Governor Walker’s reforms, unions urged boycotts of Walker contributors and DemocraticUnderground.com published a list of Walker donors for boycotting.
The subpoena demand for the names of donors to nonprofit groups that aren’t legally required to disclose them is especially troubling. Readers may recall that the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent the tax-exempt applications of several conservative groups to the ProPublica news website in 2012.
The subpoenas don’t spell out a specific allegation, but the demands suggest the government may be pursuing a theory of illegal campaign coordination by independent groups during the recall elections. If prosecutors are pursuing a theory that independent conservative groups coordinated with candidate campaigns during the recall, their goal may be to transform the independent expenditures into candidate committees after the fact, requiring revision of campaign-finance disclosures and possible criminal charges.
snip:
Perhaps the probe will turn up some nefarious activity that warrants this subpoena monsoon and home raids. But in the meantime the effect is to limit political speech by intimidating these groups from participating in the 2014 campaign. Stifling allies of Mr. Walker would be an enormous in-kind contribution to Democrats. Even if no charges are filed, the subpoenas will have served as a form of speech suppression.
Mr. O’Keefe told us that the flurry of subpoenas “froze my communications and frightened many allies and vendors of the pro-taxpayer political movement in Wisconsin and across the country.” Even if no one is ever convicted of a crime, he says, “the process is the punishment.”
Evil does not begin to describe what is happening in Wisconsin. If you want to discuss voter suppression, here’s your chance. The voters in Wisconsin twice elected their current leadership within the last 3 years. This is the second time that the Democrats have gone after Scott Walker with this very tactic, and yet, the will of the Wisconsin electorate means nothing to them. Their vote in Wisconsin is worthy of nothing more than being suppressed. The unmitigated gall of those people, voting for someone other than the chosen Marxist apparatchiks selected to be their leaders by party central.
For what ever reason, they are fighting harder and more vigorously in Wisconsin than anywhere else. These are the lengths that they are willing to go to in order to seize power, and God help us all if they are successful in seizing any more than what they currently have. Those of us on the right have a goal that is to convince people that we are right, and to win that battle in the arena of ideas. The goal of the political left is to destroy any and all competing view points and to do away with any semblance of an opposition party. Either we figure out a way to unite and save our country, and do this quickly, or our nation will have been fundamentally transformed into something that no longer has any chance of resembling the bastion of free enterprise and self determination that we have all known and wish to see again.
Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.
Tags: IRS Scandal, Lawfare
