Virginia Legislators Defend Marriage 

The outrageous decision by Virginia's newly-elected Attorney General, Mark Herring, to ignore the will of the people and the commonwealth's constitution by refusing to defend Virginia's marriage amendment has caused a firestorm. We called on legislators in Richmond to respond boldly and they are. 

William Howell (R), Speaker of the House of Delegates, blasted Herring's action for "the dangerous precedent it sets with regard to the rule of law." Howell added that Herring had demonstrated "great disregard … for the legislative and democratic processes."

State Senator Richard Black said, "I don't know what the difference between a dictatorship and this is." Something is definitely wrong when 57% of the people can be ignored by a politician who won his office by just 900 votes. Delegate Robert Marshall said, "We appropriate money for people to defend the Constitution, not to attack it. This is a complete dereliction of his duty." 

There have been calls for impeachment too, but the votes are not there since Democrats now control the state Senate. Fortunately, several members of the General Assembly are exploring other legal remedies, from defending the law themselves to suing Herring for the misuse of funds. 

Huckabee: "We Have A War For Women" 

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee spoke to the delegates gathered at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting yesterday. During his remarks, he directly took on the left's "war on women" mantra. Huckabee said: 
 

• "If the [liberals] want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or reproductive system without the help of the government, so be it. Let us take that discussion all across America. …[Conservatives] don't have a war on women. [We] have a war for women -- for them to be empowered to be something other than victims of their gender."

Good for you, "Huck." Of course, liberals are blasting him for being insensitive. But his point about the growing dependency on big government, and how liberal policies are encouraging greater dependency, is a discussion we need to have. As Margaret Thatcher famously said about socialism, eventually you run out of other people's money. 

Government Too Big, Too Powerful, Not Working 

A Gallup poll released this week finds that 65% of Americans say they are dissatisfied with our system of government and how well it is working. That is a big increase from 2008 when just 48% of Americans felt the same way. 

At first glance this seems very worrisome. But Americans are not ready to scrap the Constitution and start over. They think big government is the problem, not our founding principles. The same poll finds that 66% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and power of the federal government, up from 57% in 2008. 

We all know what has changed since 2008. The American people are increasingly worried that this administration has massively grown and mismanaged the government, and is threatening our liberties. 

Many Americans are unnerved by the incredible growth of the surveillance state. Yesterday the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to help balance counterterrorism policy with civil liberties, issued a report blasting the NSA's massive collection of phone records as illegal and ineffective. The board recommended that the program be terminated and all records be destroyed. The White House was dismissive and said it planned to keep the program in place.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to national security. Given that our enemies want to see a mushroom cloud over an American city, I believe we must go further than we would in normal times, just as we did during World War II, and these are not normal times. 

Having said that, this administration has shown a persistent impulse to use the power of government to punish and harass political opponents. How is it that conservative groups and Christian ministries can be subjected to harassment and abuse by the IRS and the FBI can find no evidence of wrong doing? 

Congressional oversight committees must continue to aggressively review how this administration is conducting itself in the name of national security.