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Talbert Black (Talbert Black Jr) [Message] Interim state coordinator 234 Hermitage Road Lexington, SC 29072

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Sound Money Legislation Posted by photontorpedotube

Posted 05/10/11

SCSoundMoney.Com

Sound Money Legislation

H 4128 S0862

Critical to Our Liberty and Prosperity.

Immediate Action Required!

Contact your legislator today!

Press Conference:

Wednesday May 11, 2011 @ 11:00 a.m.

1st Floor of the South Carolina State House

Be there! Show your support for the pillar of Liberty and Prosperity!

SC GOP State Convention Posted by georgia tech swagger

Posted 05/06/11

Everybody be sure to check in on time.   Check-in closes promptly at 9:00 AM.   So please make sure you give yourself plenty of time.

At the Tea Party rally at the GOP Presidential Debate, I handed out a Questionnaire to each of the three candidates for SC GOP Chair.   Keep in mind, due entirely to time constraints on my side of things, this only gave candidates about a day to answer this thorough survey of various issues.   At this time, only Chad Connelly has responded back.   The original Questionnaire and the responses from Chad are included below.   Please check back here tonight to see if others have responded as well, or look for me at the State Convention.   I won't be quite as conspicuous as I usually am, but I will have a Georgia Tech hat, khakis, and a black button up shirt on so you should be able to find me that way.   I will linger outside the Convention Hall.   If any last minute responses came in, I will have them with me.

Hopefully this questionnaire will help people make up their minds about three candidates which are quite similar.   We intend to use this questionnaire going forward for candidates in races at all levels in South Carolina.

Original Questionnaire

Chad Connelly's Answers 

This is a great video Posted by DanielCochran

Posted 05/04/11 Last updated 05/04/11

http://youtu.be/8wQfoh9Cmgw

Ron Paul 2012!

Seeking Local Coordinators Posted by photontorpedotube

Posted 04/23/11 Last updated 04/23/11

We need more C4L Local Coordinators in Greenville.  We have 141 precincts, and only a few Local Coordinators. This is a good chance to get involved in grass roots activism.  

There is some time committment involved. You need to complete the Local Coordinator Boot Camp.  Some of this involves recording the names of local politicians in a memo.  Other parts are very important for our organizing effort.  For example, mapping your Precinct is not so easy.

I created a map of my Precinct, Edwards Forest, by using an image from Google Earth, and then using a image editing program to highlight the boundaries of the Precinct.  Here is a picture of Edwards Forest.  

The C4L site gives you some links to work with as well.  Here is a link to the Greenville County mapping site that I used to figure out my Precinct boundaries.  There are probably a lot of ways to figure it out besides this way, and perhaps you can figure a better way.  The essential issue, however, is to learn where your Precinct is and learn who is in it.  That information will be helpful in getting your neighbors more involved as part of C4L.

It is everyone's interest to become organized on a local level.  The better organized we are the better we will be able to respond in a crisis situation. 

RINO Preservation Statute: The Judge Got it Wrong Posted by photontorpedotube

Posted 04/07/11

The South Carolina Republican Party filed an action in federal court seeking relief from an unconstitutional South Carolina election law that forces Republican voters to elect Republican leaders for elective office in an open primary. 

Presently, Republicans must select leaders in open primaries unless a huge majority (probably at least 80 percent) of delegates to the State Convention vote for the only statutorily allowed alternative, "nomination by party." The problem is that the RINO-infected Legislature has imposed such a high threshold (see S.C. Code Section 7-11-30) that Republicans' ability to opt out of an open primary is practically impossible. See my blog post here and a YouTube video here for more details. 

The lawsuit argues that South Carolina election laws violate the Constitution's First Amendment right of association because open primaries force Republicans to associate with moderate independents, third parties, progressive voters, and Democrats to elect the Republican standard bearer for a general elections. The forced association with moderates and progressives in an open primary waters down the message of Republican leaders and confuses the message of conservatism.

On March 30, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Michelle Childs, an Obama-appointee, issued an Opinion and Order that shot down the Republican Party's lawsuit stating, "any burden that may be imposed on a party by the limitations contained in the convention nomination statute is only slight, at best."

In Miller v. Brown, 503 F.3d 360, 368. (4th Cir. 2007), a U.S. Court of Appeals court for our region (4th Circuit) struck down Virginia's election statute. Citing and quoting Supreme Court precedent, the Miller decision (authored by Greenville's Billy Wilkins) stated, in part, as follows: 

"Further, the [Supreme] Court recognized that, 'the inclusion of persons unaffiliated with a political party may seriously distort its collective decisions-thus impairing the party's essential functions -and [therefore] political parties may . . . protect themselves from intrusion by those with adverse political principles.'"

Judge Childs' Opinion and Order overlooks the terrible distortion that a forced open primary system imposes on the South Carolina Republican Party. 

In a case called California Democratic Party v. Jones, 530 U.S. 567 (2000), the Supreme Court made crystal clear that a State's unconstitutional imposition on the association rights of political parties has a devastating impact on the ideas that a political party stands for:

"Representative democracy in any populous unit of governance is unimaginable without the ability of citizens to band together in promoting among the electorate candidates who espouse their political views. . . .

. . . .

In no area is the political association's right to exclude more important than in the process of selecting its nominee. That process often determines the party's positions on the most significant public policy issues of the day, and even when those positions are predetermined it is the nominee who becomes the party's ambassador to the general electorate in winning it over to the party's views."

The idea of constitutional conservatism is the core and central ideal of the Republican Party. The harm caused by an attack on our core belief is not just "only slight, at best." The Legislature's attack on our ideal is devastating. It deals heavy blows to our political philosophy.

Republicans have tried nominating candidates using South Carolina's present system of election laws. The result is continuing selection of moderates and RINOs who gain the nomination as the Republican standard bearers by campaigning for the votes of independents, progressives, and Democrats. These so-called Republican leaders, whose message is often muddled and incoherent, cause confusion among the public about what Republicans really stand for, and actually greatly benefit Democrats in general elections.

The message of constitutional conservatism is a message of freedom and liberty. The message of the moderates, progressives and Democrats is crony capitalism, tyranny, collectivism, and oppression. 

The idea of principled constitutional conservatism is the thing that binds together South Carolina Republicans. If we would be permitted to control the process of how we pick our own leaders, then we could put forward leaders who will articulate a message of true conservatism. That message would be powerful indeed.

If Judge Childs thinks the harm caused by the State's unconstitutional tinkering in how our party picks its leader is just "only slight, at best," it must be because she does not understand what the Supreme Court said in cases like Jones, nor what the majority said in Miller. 

The State of South Carolina has no business meddling in the process of how Republicans pick leaders. 

If the State wants to impose an open primary law as the only means for a political party to pick candidates by election, that is their right. However, by the same token, the State has no business interfering with the process of how a political party opts out of such an odious choice. 

Here, S.C. Code Ann. Section 7-11-30 effectively precludes Republicans from choosing nomination by party as a viable alternative at the State convention. It precludes us from picking the best leaders because it makes us nominate Republican candidates in open primaries. It keeps us from picking the best nominee, one who would clearly and forcefully express constitutional conservatism as a political philosophy. 

The Judge got it wrong. The State got it wrong. The South Carolina election law is unconstitutional.