NH Rebellion is a magnet for useful idiots.
Rule #1 – If *Democrats want it the odds are good it’s bad for freedom, individual liberty, State sovereignty, the Constitution, and the country. Stay away. (*We’re talking about the progressive variety running the party and setting the agenda and those that keep them in power.)
Rule #1a – If you are a Republican attracted to a group claiming to be non-partisan that is selling something Democrats want you are a useful idiot.
Predicated on the idea of removing the influence of money on political speech and politics, NH Rebellion uses money to influence political speech and politics. But that’s just the silly bit. The serious problems begin when you scratch the surface of NH Rebellion to see what’s underneath the non-partisan patina.
The first and most obvious problems are that the real goal is to use the states as a jumping ground to impose Federal McCain-Feingold-esque limitations on campaign money and to impose a different scheme. But no matter how you word it, spin it, or sell it, the government will have to have more power and control over political speech. That is always bad, no matter how bad anything else may appear at the time. You never NEVER give the government more power over political speech. Did I say never? Never.
In a land where you place limits on political spending, on political speech, the majority of expression shifts with a drunken lurch into the hands of the media. The media are enormous corporations that spend billions and billions (say it like Dr. Cal Sagan), on political speech. Speech that is overwhelmingly progressive in nature.
The fact that all campaign finance regulations benefit the progressive message and agenda, and or incumbents, if and when you can separate the two, must never be forgotten. It is why liberal money and progressive groups spend billions of dollars every year on talking about campaign finance. To advance the idea of removing “special interest” money from politics. It is why they create so-called non-partisan non-profits directed, led by, or tied to, special-interest progressive money. They have a shared interest in kneecapping political speech and institutionalizing it to their advantage.
The sky is blue, water is wet, Democrats want the government to control speech by any means available.
Concerning NH Rebellion and people who think this movement is a genuine non-partisan, grassroots, state-centric effort to make America work for the people, please refer to rules #1, and 1a and then continue reading.
In Bed with the League of Women Vote Stealers
NH Rebellion has some troubling bedfellows. They share office space with the ultra-liberal League of Women Voters (LoWV) at 4 Park St. Concord, Suite 200. The League of Women Voters is a progressive activist group.
The League of Women Voters snapped like a twig when Project Veritas demonstrated how easy it was to get a ballot in NH if you used the name of a deceased person.
The League of Women Voters in New Hampshire is responsible for harpooning Voter ID through the invention of mobile domicile for voting purposes in New Hampshire, and for the right of out of state college students to affect local elections.
The League of Women Voters wants progressive campaign finance reform, and it also advances social and environmental justice issues. For more on their Progressive work look here.
The point is that the League of Women Voters is not the least bit concerned about the influence of money in politics or electoral integrity. They are concerned with ensuring a one-party state, with a stranglehold on political speech, at whose table they have a gilded seat. NH Rebellion echoes much of what they are after concerning campaign finance reform, and they share a physical office.
What’s in a Name?
NH Rebellion is the DBA of the registered non-profit Corporations, Open Democracy Action, and the Coalition for Open Democracy, also known as Open Democracy.
Open Democracy advocated for speech-limiting legislation (as campaign finance reform) in New Hampshire in House Bill 1704. It’s evil twin SB 120 eventually became law. These are bills that lay the groundwork and precedent for controlling political speech by making it harder to know if and when you can speak, how you may speak, how much you may spend, and what constitutes an expense. The result is that amateurs, newcomers, ordinary citizens like you and I, are intimidated out of the process leaving the field to the experts in the political class who are overwhelmingly well connected, lawyered up, progressive learning institutions who protect incumbents, and the professional media.
The Coalition for Open Democracy Co-chair (of the Board of Directors) is Gordon Allen. He oversees Open Democracy, Open Democracy Action and NH Rebellion. I’ve written about Allen and his organization before.
The Coalition for Open Democracy Co-Chairman, Gordon Allen, was (is) a Policy Analyst for The New Hampshire Citizens Alliance (NHCA). The NHCA is the NH arm of USA Action (the nations largest progressive activist organization). Allen is also a giving left wing donor to folks like Ann McLane Kuster, Barack Obama, the DNC, and John Kerry. He was a presenter at the NH Progressive Summit and is a former Democrat State House Rep from Antrim.
The Coalition is actively promoted exclusively by Democrats, Democrat County Committees, and in this example by Uber-Democrat Mark Fernald and Sullivan County Democrats. Notice the language used, even invoking the left’s class warfare rhetoric of the 99%.
[Mark Fernald is known for many things but most famously for trying to pass an income tax in New Hampshire through the very partisan, left wing, Granite State Fair Tax Coalition, which later changed its name to NH Priorities. He is not, to my knowledge, linked to NH Rebellion, other than a shared interest in advancing a progressive agenda item.]
And while the Coalition for Open Democracy has since erased evidence that they have direct ties to the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and Democracy Matters, half of Open Democracy’s 2015 ‘Fellows’ display their ties to the latter.
Democracy Matters?
The purpose of Democracy Matters is to advance the progressive agenda by recruiting people (the younger, the better) and turning them into tools for the progressive agenda.
Democracy Matters (DM) is a student activist organization that seeks to “strengthen democracy” by training college and high-school students in the techniques of leftwing political activism, thereby creating a “new generation of reform-minded leaders.” DM’s mission is to “prepar[e] students for political involvement and leadership in a wide range of movements — from campaign finance reform to social justice, civil rights, workers’ rights, and environmental reform.” Focused heavily on removing private money from politics, DM is a proponent of “Voter-Owned Clean Elections,” a system of public campaign financing designed to reduce the political influence of lobbyist groups and wealthy donors.
Democracy Matters has ties to all things left-wing, propped up by large left wing donors including the infamous George Soros, money that finds its way into New Hampshire. It would be well within their character to use NH Rebellion to recruit Young Republicans or Libertarians to their cause and doing advocacy on local college campuses to advance their agenda.
Class Warfare Rhetoric.
From Open Democracy / NH Rebellion,
“…the majority of American citizens are effectively excluded from politics because they cannot afford to fund campaigns or seek elected office and tens of millions more working poor people face outright disenfranchisement at the polls.
.. Fewer than half of low-income citizens are registered to vote while thousands more impoverished residents are legally excluded from politics and just two percent of wealthy individuals and special interests fund state campaigns. Left unchecked, the growing influence and opportunity gap will leave large numbers of Granite Staters behind on the issues that matter most to their daily lives.
…Our job is to restore their hope and harness their energy to help build a national movement for reform in 2016, beginning in New Hampshire.
Class-warfare campaign financing anyone?
There is no mention of how Open Democracy’s past efforts would make it harder for small business owners and private individuals to participate in the process. Not a word.
But they are back with NH Rebellion in time to use New Hampshire’s First in the Nation primary status (or more to the point the media that comes here to follow candidates) to push campaign finance reform. Same old whore new dress.
Republicans and Libertarians involved or considering it should take a hard look at Steve’s rule number one and the connections identified here.
Note that the NH Rebellion Team and the Open Democracy Team are identical (naturally), but when you navigate to the Open Democracy pages, you also see the Open Democracy Board of Directors and Fellows (ties to money and policy). Don’t act surprised when you discover how many names on the page are ‘activists’ with ties to progressive organizations and movements. There are very few exceptions. See my note about useful idiots above.
