On November 21, the first-ever Wisconsin RLC meeting was held in Appleton, Wisconsin. Former State Representative Terri McCormick spoke at the meeting.

On November 30, a RLC meeting was held in the Milwaukee area. Attendees included former Representative McCormick, a candidate for Congress in Wisconsin’s Eighth District; Tomah Mayor Ed Thompson, a candidate for State Senate; and State Senate candidate Rick Richard.

The November 30 event was held after a speech by Dr. Tom Woods at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Some photos from the event follow.

The Wisconsin chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus expects to submit paperwork to charter its affiliate later this month.

Tom Woods Speech:

RLC Meeting – Nov. 30:
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Limited government voters are fed up with both parties. The Republican Liberty Caucus was founded in 1991 to promote individual liberty, limited government and free enterprise for the country by using the Republican Party as a vehicle to advance these timeless principles.

This month, the RLC will have two meetings to, hopefully, charter an official Wisconsin RLC organization. The goal of this organization, if chartered, will be to increase the number of limited government Republicans that serve in party positions and elected positions in the state.

Charter Meeting #1 – Appleton/Green Bay/Fox Valley: RSVP at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=328516715383
Sat, Nov. 21 at 12:30pm @ Beefeaters in Appleton

Charter Meeting #2 – Milwaukee: RSVP at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=101392729966
Mon., Nov. 30 at 9pm @ UWM Student Union, Room 250 in Milwaukee

See you there!

Republican party leaders across the country, and particularly here in Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional district, should heed the warning being sent by conservative voters, especially in light of developments in New York’s 23rd Congressional district race.

For those of you who haven’t been following that race, the not-so-conservative Republican candidate, Dierdre Scozzafava, abruptly suspended her campaign just three days before the election, after a Siena College poll showed she was supported by just 20% of the voters. Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman and Democratic nominee Bill Owens were nearly even, with 35 percent and 36 percent voter support respectively.

The New York race has been widely viewed as a battle between conservatives and the Republican Party for conservative voters, who don’t always blindly vote for the Republican candidate.

“It’s time for us to send a message to Washington – we’re sick and tired of big-spending, high-taxing, career politicians,” Hoffman said in a statement released after Scozzafava’s announcement, the AP reported.

Indeed!

In Wisconsin’s 8th district, self-serving career politicians have been busy behind the scenes, working with the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) to recruit no less than four potential candidates to run on the Republican ticket against incumbent Democrat Congressman Steve Kagen. They’ve even recruited one candidate who doesn’t live in the district.

Conveniently left out of this recruiting drive has been conservative Terri McCormick, a former member of the Wisconsin Assembly who ran in the 2006 primary race against them Assembly Speaker John Gard. That race left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Republican voters on both sides.

If McCormick decides to enter this race, she’ll again be the most qualified conservative candidate in the field, with a proven record of actual accomplishments in both the public and private sector.

There’s just one problem: McCormick won’t play political games. That’s why the NRCC and the self-serving career politicians are trying to marginalize her even before she gets into the race. One Republican “leader” has vowed to “bury her if she dares to run again.”

The NRCC is fast building a record – for choosing losing candidates. Despite the millions of dollars they’ve spent in recent elections, their record isn’t very good. They’ve shown a preponderance of picking game players instead of principled conservative candidates.

Maybe the voters know something the NRCC doesn’t. Maybe voters are smarter than we’ve been given credit for.

The big question is what will conservative voters in Wisconsin’s 8th district do? Will we blindly go with whoever the NRCC anoints as the Republican candidate, or will we take the time to examine the candidates and support the candidate who best represents our conservative principles?

Kerry Thomas is a RLC member in Wisconsin. Terri McCormick is a RLC Advisory Board member.

Students for Liberty has taken on the amazing task of organizing seven regional conferences this fall. The conferences bring different types of liberty-loving students together to hear from prominent speakers — many of whom are affiliated with the Republican Liberty Caucus.

This year’s regional conferences have occurred, thus far, in New York, Chicago, Phoenix/Tempe, and Austin. The RLC conducted outreach at three of the four seminars and had official speakers at two out of the four seminars.

I previously reported on the outreach at the first conference, which occurred on October 10. Two RLC supporters helped us table at that event, and two RLC representatives spoke. The most notable of the speakers was former National Board member Dr. Murray Sabrin, who was a contender for U.S. Senate in 2008. Additionally, RLC Northeast Regional Director Dan Halloran addressed the crowd. Dan is running an impressive campaign for New York City Council in a district that trends more conservative than most in the city.

Above: Students at the Chicago Conference weigh the issues.

On October 17 in Chicago, students heard from two RLC representatives: former Michigan State Representative Leon Drolet and former Wisconsin State Representative Terri McCormick (photos below).

Leon participated in a debate with Isaac Moorehouse about how liberty-oriented people can achieve our goals.  Leon argued for the RLC strategy.  Terri McCormick gave a presentation about the political elite versus the grassroots, arguing that now is the time we take our country back for liberty.

On October 24, RLC members conducted outreach at two Students for Liberty Conferences: the Texas SFL conference in Austin and the Southern SFL conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Rising young star and RLC supporter Jared Fuller organized the Winston-Salem conference, and North Carolina RLC members Gloria Lloyd and Dana Mazer tabled for the Republican Liberty Caucus at the conference.  Former Congressional candidate and North Carolina RLC Board member B.J. Lawson was among the featured speakers.  Dr. Lawson gave a speech called “The Economy, Monty Python, and You”:

Meanwhile, RLC National Chair Dave Nalle and Bexar County (Texas) RLC Membership Chair Nadia Gaona reached out at the Texas SFL conference.

Dave observed a general trend that we continue to see to in our small-but-growing movement, noting that “the long-time libertarian activists [in the] audience were eager to stand up and talk proudly about their token political campaigns where they spent no money but got their name mentioned in the local newspaper when they won 3% of the vote.”

Says Dave, “It’s heartening to see the growth of interest in liberty and bringing our government under control, but it’s enormously frustrating to see so much of this enthusiasm misdirected into the political dead end and do-nothingism which still characterizes the Libertarian Party. The truth is that the pissed-off non-intellectuals of the Tea Party movement who come to libertarianism out of expediency rather than intellect have already accomplished more real political change in a year than the Libertarian Party has accomplished in more than 30 years.”

All complaints aside, these events have proven tremendously beneficial to the movement and the RLC has been able to capitalize on the opportunity to reach new young people with our strategy for victory.

The next RLC outreach booths at Students for Liberty Conferences will occur on November 7, when members will conduct outreach at the Philadelphia and Boston Students for Liberty Conferences.  Prospective RLC endorsee, 2010 U.S. Senate candidate from Connecticut Peter Schiff will be speaking at the Boston conference.  Schiff has previously explained the RLC strategy in a poignant way.

We look forward to reaching additional students at these conferences and thank the Students for Liberty for continuing to host these tremendous regional events. Thanks, too, to all of the RLC representatives and volunteers who have helped us at the conferences.

Above: Former Michigan State Representative Leon Drolet makes his points in a debate on strategies to attain liberty in our lifetime.

On Saturday, October 10, RLC members reached out at conferences in New York and Wisconsin.

In New York City, the Students for Liberty held its first of seven regional conferences taking place this fall. Several Republican Liberty Caucus representatives brought literature and the RLC banner to the conference to educate students about the Republican Liberty Caucus message and strategy.

Former RLC Board member, Ramapo College Professor of Finance, and former New Jersey Senate candidate Murray Sabrin addressed the audience, as did New York RLC Chair and City Council candidate Dan Halloran (pictured below).

Paul Sanchez of the soon-to-form Wisconsin RLC affiliate attended the Future Wisconsin Conference on October 10, too, to reach out to interested parties there. Future Wisconsin is an annual gathering of conservatives in Wisconsin.

Said Sanchez, “I was able to meet a number of allies to liberty throughout the day and we received a positive reception.”

“After [we charter our chapter], [we should] hit the ground running [to] network as [much as] possible,” he said. “This should then help us gain experience in other tasks such as supporting candidates on a local and state level. I think the next year should be pretty exciting and look forward to moving on to the next step.”

The RLC hopes to have a presence at upcoming Students for Liberty conferences in Boston, Chicago, Austin, Winston-Salem, and Philadelphia.

by Terri McCormick

Regardless of political party or ideological persuasion, there are limited resources and outcomes possible with H.R. 3200 – “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009″ — the bill currently pending in Congress. There is no doubt that the stakes are high for individuals and businesses. It is critical that citizens engage in the discussion and that ‘We the People’ read the bill and act accordingly.

“Politics as usual” bedtime stories, when combined with chicken cordon bleu in the home of large political contributors, does not for good health care policy make. What it makes is a rather redundant kettle of “Status Quo Soup” stirred with the spoon of insider politics.

As former Congressman Dick Armey (R-TX) recently commented, “President Obama made the mistake of not setting a more specific direction for the democrat dominated legislature in both houses to pursue health care reform.”

Who will pay for the Healthcare Reform Act?

The middle class – either those small business owners who gross $250,000 a year or wealthier Americans whose household incomes are over $1,000,000, according to Mr. Obama in a press conference on July 23, 2009. The gaping taxpayer hole for the “Reform Act” appears to be 1/3 of the total cost of $1.5 trillion dollars.

Who is the Health Care Act written for?

A July 21, 2009 headline in The Washington Post read “Industry Cash Flowed to Drafters of Reform”. As liberal protesters marched outside, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) sat down inside a San Francisco mansion for a dinner of chicken cordon bleu and a discussion of landmark health care legislation under consideration by his Senate Finance Committee.

The July 21 story goes on to say: “Baucus’s fundraising prowess underscores the enduring political strength of the health care lobby, which led all other sectors in donations to federal candidates during the last election cycle and has shifted its giving to Democrats as the party has tightened its control of Congress.” In fact, “The [health care] sector gave nearly $170 million to federal lawmakers in 2007 and 2008, with 54 percent going to Democrats, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. The shift in parties was even more pronounced during the first three months of this year, when Democrats collected 60 percent of the $5.4 million donated by health care companies and their employees, the data show.”

Pay for Play politics does not yield solutions for Americans, but instead yields ‘deals’ for politicians.

What does the Health Care Reform Act do?

On page 16 of the 1,017 page document it clearly states, “In 5 years all private insurance plans must look like public plans.”

It is a government takeover of the private health care insurance industry. The private sector industry responsible for negotiating price on behalf of the patient will then be eliminated and a government-run “system” will replace it.

Does the Health Care Reform Act lower skyrocketing costs?

It would appear that government rationing is the answer being pursued, with the following examples:

1. Consider Elder Care. Instead of a goal to “age with dignity and independence” — which seems to be a shared common goal — under the bill in Congress, we will each be assigned to consultants who will review our case every five years to determine how grave a risk we will be to the federal health insurance system. When we become too high of a risk, the government will pull the plug. Or we will pay for the costs out of our own pocket (as if we haven’t paid enough in to the system already, right?).

2. Limits will be set to control costs for End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) of kidney disease, which many diabetics must face. The operative phrase is palliative care. It means treating the symptoms but not the underlying root cause of the disease. Give ‘em pain pills and let ‘em go die.

3. Congress has the ability to opt out of H.R. 3200 and they will still maintain their AIG-guaranteed pension and health care benefits.

4. TARP was distributed along party lines … so shouldn’t Americans be wary of health care being dispensed along party lines as well?

The notion of politicians and bureaucrats making health care decisions for the American people should have all of us concerned. But many Americans have been lulled to sleep, fat, dumb and happy that “the system is taking care of us.”

No need to read the 1,017 page document. Just trust the lobbyists and long-term politicians holding fundraisers throughout the negotiation process of the bill to get it right for all Americans.

For Hospitals, Clinics and Doctors

Is there an increased medicare reimbursement rate and guaranteed payment by the feds to hospitals and doctors who practice in federally approved clinics and hospitals? If not, the question then becomes ‘What happens when government bureaucrats hold all the insurance options?’

According to former Marine Veteran Carmen Russo, “The bottom line is that government will decide who lives and who dies. That’s what happens.”

Wouldn’t it be better if the Health Care Reform Act actually controlled health care costs?

Some suggestions:

Recommendations made on a Committee I chaired in the Wisconsin Legislature in 2002:

1. Create pools for prescription drugs, cooperative insurance pools, association pools nationwide and other insurance pools so that the free market has the opportunity to work. (Savings in Wisconsin’s first year alone was $40 million.)

2. Hold government bureaucracies and government-funded hospitals accountable by enforcing lean management controls on monies distributed on behalf of taxpayers. (Ever wondered why vertical impact machines were so expensive? You should – they are hammers!)

3. Get government out of the business of private business and into the role of ensuring a safety net for those Americans who need catastrophic care and government-secured insurance.

4. Never forget for a moment that the largest increases in health care costs are our individual choices that come with individual responsibility such as; our weight, exercise, smoking habits, and lifestyle choices.

We cannot regulate personal choices. But we can regulate government stupidity caused by incremental policy based on campaign contributions. The problem is both political parties have lost the public’s trust.

It is time to get behind candidates who we trust to change the way things are. We cannot hope and pray for change without action.

It is time to act!

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Terri McCormick is a former Wisconsin State Representative. While in the legislature, she Chaired the Health Care Cost Partnerships Committee.  She is currently working to establish an active Republican Liberty Caucus affiliate in Wisconsin.

© 2009 Terri McCormick
Reposted with permission.

Reading my home-town newspaper always gets my blood boiling. I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin — where the only thing more ridiculous than abuses by local law enforcement is the ineptitude of local politicians. (Not surprisingly, they’re almost exclusively Democrat Party members.)

Last September, I blogged about how the city of Milwaukee was going to confiscate a disabled man’s home for not paying a parking ticket from 2004.

That wasn’t good enough for city bureaucrats: now, according to The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the city is planning to take the land of a family who dreamed of building a restaurant. “It’s been our livelihood and I have turned down two promotions at my job because this was my future with my family,” the land owner, Rafael Cetina, told the local newspaper.

If the land confiscation goes through via eminent domain, it will dash the dreams of Cetina, whose family bought the land in 2002 with visions of building a restaurant and club that would serve spicy Mayan flavors paying tribute to his heritage on the Yucatan Peninsula.

Why is the Cetina family land being confiscated?  To expand a fruit stand.

You heard right.

But it gets worse:  the family that owns and operates Pete’s Fruit Market would be empowered by the city to expand the fruit market.  Pete Tsitiridis, owner of the fruit market, and his family made $2,000 in campaign contributions last year to Milwaukee Alderman Jim Witkowiak, the mover-and-shaker in the city’s plans to take the land from the Cetina family.

On Tuesday, the city’s Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee, chaired by Witkowiak, voted to approve the land acquisition. The ultimate decision will rest with the Common Council.

The Cetinas bought the first parcel in 2002 and spent $200,000 on everything from steel framing to lighting fixtures to eventually build the restaurant and club. He is now weeks away from losing the land to the city.

The Cetina family property has no violations against it, and they put up the fence to abide by city ordinances.

Nonetheless, Assistant City Attorney Gregg Hagopian said the site’s location and the fact it has remained vacant for years is an issue.  “It is vacant land that is impeding business growth and expansion and is unused or underutilized,” Hagopian said.

Please contact Milwaukee Common Council members and encourage them to save the Cetina family’s justly-aquired property.

by Jim Burkee*

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel | April 14, 2009

If exit polls and surveys prove accurate, there will be one demographic deeply underrepresented in Wednesday’s conservative “taxpayer tea parties,” to be held at capitols across the country: Americans between the ages of 18 and 29.

In 2008, Democrats dominated Republicans among these voters, winning them over by a 2-to-1 margin in the presidential race (68% for Barack Obama vs. 30% for John McCain). It wasn’t simply an Obama phenomenon, either: In races for the House of Representatives nationwide, 18- to 29-year-olds voted 63% to 34% for Democrats. In conservative South Dakota, 60% voted against an abortion ban; in California, 61% opposed a proposition (which passed) to ban gay marriage; a majority opposed Arizona’s law to ban adoption by gay couples; and even in Mississippi, longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran tied his Democratic challenger among young voters.

In the first few months of his presidency, Obama has continued his full-court press for young voters, breaking protocol by giving Queen Elizabeth a loaded iPod, appearing on television and radio and expanding the White House’s Internet presence.

But the political loyalties of that coveted demographic are not yet decided. While they seem to lean to the left, they’re actually more libertarian than liberal, a fact that will reshape the way we think about liberalism and conservatism in decades to come.

America’s Generation Y (born between 1980 and 1995) is the first to have grown up with the Internet, which leaves it the most liberty-loving generation since the era of Andrew Jackson. Liberty, the root of what meant to the founders’ generation “liberal,” describes freedom from control and interference, particularly by government. And there is no domain so free from government as the Internet.

What does it mean to have been weaned in an environment – the Internet – virtually free of government interference? Millions of Gen-Yers have grown accustomed to making purchases online tax-free. They download movies and music (much of it pirated), read their news online for free (to the detriment of print media), find recipes online and network with friends and relatives online.

In short, they love their freedom.

This love of liberty translates into a unique political composite. Gen-Yers are less nationalistic and more likely to see all politicians as corrupt than older voters. They support liberalization of drug laws and would prefer to see marijuana legalized. And they are much less likely to support restrictions on immigration than older voters. On these counts, they seem to lean left of center, at least as the political spectrum is defined today.

But they are also free-traders, much more supportive of globalization than older voters. They’re optimistic, overwhelmingly believing that they can change the country for the better. And in the most recent surveys, they support proposals to privatize Social Security, which few believe will be there for them when they retire. On these counts, they seem to lean right of center.

The truth is, this generation, which seems not to fit in any neat political category, is more ideologically consistent than either Democrats or Republicans. The conservatism that dominates the Republican Party today is a combination of limited government in some places (taxation and regulation), but bigger and more intrusive government elsewhere (homeland security, military and on social issues). The Democratic Party is just as inconsistent, preferring government to be hands-off on social and civil liberty issues, but large elsewhere in areas like health care and other entitlements.

Gen-Yers see the inconsistency. Weaned on the Internet, they understand what our founders understood and what classical liberals since have preached: that Social Security and the Internal Revenue Service represent big, intrusive government, but so, too, do a massive military, snooping spy agencies and national identification cards. They don’t want the government taxing their Internet purchases any more than they want a government agency assigning them a doctor.

It’s the classical liberalism of Milton Friedman, who argued that political and economic freedom are deeply interrelated – that one cannot exist without the other. They’ve grown up with that kind of freedom, and as voting adults, they have come to expect it.

Republicans might be tempted to reject as “liberal” these voters because of their moderate social views. And Democrats would be wrong to believe that social moderation somehow translates into an affinity for big government programs.

Generation Y, and the iPod generation to follow, likely will redefine what it means to be conservative or liberal. The first party to understand this and adjust will dominate America’s political landscape in the future.

Jim Burkee is an associate professor of American history at Concordia University Wisconsin.

*Mr. Burkee was endorsed by the Republican Liberty Caucus in his 2008 primary challenge to incumbent Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI).

Wisconsin State Representative Steve Nass, who was endorsed by the RLC in 2006, has a great column at WisOpinion.com about the proposed economic stimulus package.

Says Nass:

It is true that the country faces the greatest economic challenge in nearly 100 years. It is true that greed and wasteful government spending are fundamental reasons fueling the financial inferno.

If you believe that greed is a serious part of the problem, do you then offer solutions that reward both individual and corporate greed?

If you believe wasteful government spending helped sap the strength of the economy, do you then offer proposals that will require some of the largest tax increases in U.S. and world history?

Read more.

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal made an unusual recommendation for the replacement of minority leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to lead the GOP in the U.S. House, citing the need for new leadership, youth and principle. While Boehner is the favorite to retain the position, the Wall Street Journal’s endorsement is likely to resonate with many RLCers.

Rep. Ryan has a lifetime ‘libertarian’ rating in the Liberty Index. While not earning 100%, he nonetheless displays a more-than-passing familiarity with libertarian ideas.

["He says things like] ‘I grew up on Hayek and [Ludwig von] Mises’ at the place in a conversation where most people would say something like, ‘I grew up on a farm,’” notes The Weekly Standard,” a publication not noted for respect for either free market economist. And elsewhere, Ryan says: “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ [by Ayn Rand] as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well . . . I try to make my interns read it.”

His timely Austrian background is evident in his Nov. 11 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, where he lists “loose money” from the Fed first in his list of financial crisis culprits. In passing up an easy opportunity to pin the blame on House Democrats and rather state a larger truth, Ryan clearly is seeing through the partisan smoke that surrounds him. That’s leadership.

His Facebook page (yes, Facebook) shows that he has a lot in common with a generation that the GOP lost in its bellicose neocon years of budget-busting and bailouts.

There are negatives to Rep. Ryan also, of course, and these must be evaluated in making sure Rep. Ryan will be 1) a net plus for our ideas and 2) the best among the alternatives. Please feel free to list them under comments, below, for everyone’s consideration.