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I’ve been working for The Family Foundation for over a decade and thought I’d seen it all, but this morning’s display by several members of the Senate Finance Committee while debating a school choice bill went far beyond anything I’ve ever seen.

Delegate Jimmie Massie (R-78, Henrico) presented HB 599, a bill that would provide a tax credit for donations to private school scholarship programs. After several organizations, including The Family Foundation, the Virginia Catholic Conference, a private schools association and a Richmond Jewish school, spoke in support of the bill, the committee took over. From there, the normal decorum of the Senate vanished into a cloud of pure anger.

The hostility of several Democrat members of the Finance Committee to parents and education freedom went on full display. I cannot with words adequately describe what then took place. But you don’t have to take my word for it — we have the entire shameful sequence on video (see our YouTube channel as well)! Here is the entire committee hearing in its entirety:

Part 1, Delegate Massie’s Presentation:

Common sense stuff from Delegate Massie and a host of expert witnesses.

Part 2,  Supporting Statements Continue:

An eloquent, passionate, personal and intellectual presentation by Chesapeake resident Alberta Wilson.

Part 3, Finance Staff — No Fiscal Impact And The Outrage Begins:

Senator Howell should know the answer before she calls the witness!

Part 4, More Race Cards, Conclusion and Vote:

Senator Miller: This bill is akin to “selling people” but she’d still vote for it once public schools are fully funded!

In addition to all of this, Senator Henry Marsh (D-16, Richmond) criticized the bill without reading it: He accused the bill of subsidizing parents who send their children to private schools, but the bill plainly states the student must currently be enrolled in public schools to be eligible for the scholarships! I urge you to take the time to watch these short videos. I know you will be as dismayed as I was sitting there watching.

In a nutshell, opponents to the bill implied over and over that efforts to provide education freedom for low and moderate-income families is racially motivated. Without actually making the claim it was clear what they were saying. The harsh tone and rhetoric on display was simply appalling. Perhaps most disappointing is the fact that the children who are suffering most from poor government schools are African-American children in urban areas. It is private schools in those areas that offer true hope for children who otherwise have little chance at success. In fact, one of the most compelling testimonies in favor of the bill came from an African-American woman, Alberta Wilson, a champion of school choice!

Question: Do Senators Colgan, Reynolds and Houck, who also voted to kill the bill, agree with their Democrat colleagues’ assessment that school choice is essentially racist?

After watching the videos, ask them yourselves:

Senator Charles Colgan: district29@senate.virginia.gov, (804) 698-7529

Senator Roscoe Reynolds: district20@senate.virginia.gov, (804) 698-7520

Senator Edd Houck: district17@senate.virginia.gov, (804) 698-7517

This morning’s antics are emblematic of the philosophical divide between the political class in Richmond and families. But the anger displayed also is indicative that these legislators are beginning to feel the heat! Just two years ago, school choice bills didn’t even register a procedural motion in Senate Finance. Today, they generate heated responses.

I’ll say it again as I’ve said before — school choice is coming to Virginia! It might not be this year, it might not be next year, but it is coming. Families are demanding it. Watch the video so that you can see exactly whom it is that stands in the way of freedom.

You might not hear much about this in the Mainstream Media, although the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot mentions it toward the end of this article. But that’s why we and the New Media are here. And, we’d love to hear from you, too. Let us know what your impressions of the committee hearing are.

As part of our Virtual Lobby Day, we want to bring you as much flavor of the General Assembly as we can to those who can’t make it to Richmond as often as they’d like. In fact, we continue to post videos of committee hearings on bills we support on our YouTube Channel as well as here, making this blog perhaps the best place for information about what your state government is doing. Tomorrow, and throughout session, we’ll have more about what we’re doing through the Internet and how you can help influence lawmakers.

On January 18, Delegate Kathy Byron (R-22, Lynchburg), a former Family Foundation Legislator of the Year, spoke to pro-family activists at our Family Foundation Day at the Capitol. She focused on two pro-life bills she is carrying this session: HB 1033 (defining a baby as separate from the mother’s body) and HB 1042 (requiring an ultrasound before an abortion). Both bills are still alive. Click on them to get more information and learn where you need to direct your e-mails.

Delegate Kathy Byron speaks on behalf of the unborn — and the born in patroning the “baby bill” this session.

Hear it, see it for yourself, here, from NBC12 in Richmond, WSLS-TV in Roanoke and YouTube:

A detective explains why the mother cannot be charged . . . with anything!  He even cites the Virginia Senate’s refusal to pass bills to prevent this because it’s “too close to the abortion issue.”

Planned Parenthood talks a lot about “choice.” However, undercover video after undercover video has exposed the nation’s leading abortion provider as anything but an organization concerned with providing options, women’s health or even upholding the law, covering up potential sexual abuse (see video here) and statutory rape cases (see video here) rather than notify law enforcement, all to procure paying customers.

Now, another shocking undercover video recently released by Live Action shows — as if we didn’t already know — that Planned Parenthood personnel will lie about health and medical issues, straight to a woman’s face, in order to suck in another check. To do that, Planned Parenthood “counselors” and abortionists attempt to dehumanize babies through manipulative word play. It’s an attempt to sever all cognitive, rational and loving connection between the mother and her baby, specifically by refusing to use the word “baby,” even correcting the “patient” (i.e., victim) when she says “baby.” Instead, they euphemistically call the baby a “pregnancy” or “fetus” and say it’s not a baby “until it’s born.”

Planned Parenthood even lies about heart beats, instead saying the the unborn baby has ”heart tones” up to a certain point, whatever that might mean. But perhaps the most apalling lies come from the abortionist himself, when he tells the “patient” that abortions are “very safe. Safer than having a baby, actually.” Which doesn’t exactly explain why a New Jersey woman went into a coma after a botched abortion and recently won $1.9 million in a settlement (see LifeNews.com).  

Perhaps more disturbing, and something to look into for an enterprising Wisconsin attorney (where the undercover video was taken), is that the abortionist admits to performing abortions for 40 years, which means he started four years before Roe v. Wade legalized it. Jeremy Wiggins adds his comments on the video and the New Jersey case at Rightly Concerned. (You can see all of Live Action’s Planned Parenthood undercover videos at its YouTube channel, here.) 

It all points to Planned Parenthood’s reason for being, succinctly stated by Lila Rose, Live Action’s president:

Planned Parenthood, while claiming to support patient self-determination, operates with an ‘abortion-first mentality.’

Nothing proves it more shockingly and vividly than this video:

Disconnecting the mother from her baby rhetorically and emotionally by dehumanizing the baby: Remember, it’s “heart tones,” NOT “heart beats;” it’s a “pregnancy,” NOT a ”baby.” Not to mention an abortionist who says he’s performed abortions longer than they’ve been legal.

We’ve been looking for an American conservative politician who would stand up and speak to the truth in the face of what the left has portrayed as its inevitable transformation of America into a European-style socialist state, as well as its permanent stay in power. Notice “American” in the first line, because earlier this year British European Parliament member Daniel Hannan emerged on the world stage with his profile in courage when he publicly dressed down British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in front of the European Parliament. Later, Hannan exposed the  liberty shackling European anti-discrimination laws as most Americans were asleep while our own version — “hate crimes” — was sailing through Congress.

But now, perhaps, America’s Hannan has emerged: Retired Army Lt. Colonel Allen West, a candidate for Congress in Florida (see author Mark Whittington at AssociatedContent.com), made a speech that has generated a million-plus views on YouTube, aired on national television, and which has galvanized conservatives across the country. Watch it for yourself and let us know what you think.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Allen West as ignited what some conservatives are calling a second American Revolution. His references to the patriotism of the first one reinforce that imagery.

As I mentioned last week, having a great network of followers makes my blogging life easy. (Except for the constant autograph seeking groupies — not!) Today, our great American friend WizeMaxie brings this to our attention, via Theo Spark — the orator of our time, the chosen one, the post partisan healer, the world’s rock star and the Nobel Peace Prize (but Olympic strikeout) winner at his very best (better, even, than when he claimed to have “visited 57 states with one more to go,” see YouTube), lying faster than Usain Bolt runs. Without further adieu, then, Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, good!

What it means to live in the Age of Obama: Don’t blink or you’ll miss it . . . seven lies in less than two minutes.

Educrats and assorted opponents of school choice and competition love to point to statistics that show student achievement in charter schools is no greater than in government-run schools. Therefore, they demand that we stop ”taking away resources” from public schools.

(First, can we stop using the euphemism “resources”? It’s taxpayer money, for Pete’s sake! It doesn’t come from the ground or trees or the river, where real, actual, put-to-use resources come from.)

Second, we know what they say about statistics. Third, and most important, if charter schools are so bad or indifferent, why do so many parents and students want in? In New York alone, there is a waiting list of 40,000 students trying to escape the government-run monopoly!

Unfortunately, New York, as does Virginia, has a cap on the amount of charter schools. Different formula, same result — restricting competition and choice as well as the variety of teaching methods and environments. The only thing it does produce is more student failure and teacher inadequacy. But there is hope for New York. Its Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch told Maura Walz of the blog Gotham Schools that she favors raising the charter school cap. There is hope in Virginia as well, since Governor-elect Bob McDonnell, his running mates Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli, and the increased GOP majority in the House of Delegates favor more school competition. With McDonnell’s giant mandate, there are rumors of some big idea education reform legislation that may be proposed during the upcoming session of the General Assembly. After all, even President Barack Obama is in the odd position of being on McDonnell’s side on this issue. 

For a good briefing on the actual value of charter schools, here’s part one of an interview with Caroline Hoxby, Ph.D., the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor of Economics at Stanford University, conducted by the Show-Me Institute in May (for the other three parts, click on this YouTube link and the the “more info” link on the right):

If charter schools are so bad, why are is there a waiting list of 40,000 students in New York?

TFF Action, our sister organization, has published its 2009 Voter Guides, which list the positions of the candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general on crucial issues facing all Virginians, as well as those running for certain seats in the House of Delegates. You can read them online here, as well as print and distribute or forward them electronically. You can also get hard copies by calling John Smith at 804-343-0010 or by e-mailing him at john@familyfoundation.org.

While it compiled the Voter Guides, TFF Action also launched our latest Internet site — its own YouTube channel — and its first hit is this video voter guide:

The candidates and the issues: Who supports and opposes what?

The issues facing Virginia this year are monumental. The election may be a turning point not only for Virginia, but the nation. The eyes of the country are on us — and the message Virginia sends in two weeks will either validate the efforts of those in power in Washington, D.C., or send them a message and prepare the way for a reversal of trends in 2010. Inform yourself. Inform others. Share this information and this link with those on your e-mail lists, post it on social networking sites, and consider ordering the Voter Guides for distribution to your church.

We know why the three Democrat candidates for statewide office are reluctant to debate, even though they are behind in the polls — they either don’t know their own positions (see Creigh Deeds tax and Marriage Amendment videos) or don’t know much about the job they are seeking (see Jody Wagner video). Now it’s Delegate Steve Shannon’s turn to show his incompetence as he seeks election to attorney general, Virginia’s second most important office.

Tuesday, we commented on a debate he and his Republican attorney general opponent, Senator Ken Cuccinelli, had on WTOP-AM in Washington, D.C. It didn’t go well for Shannon, then. Last night, in Prince William County, it got worse. Also, again, it wasn’t broadcast. But we do have the magic of YouTube and, with his performance, Shannon might become a bigger video celebrity than Deeds, whose tax video has been seen by 50,000-plus people.  

In the video, Senator Cuccinelli asks Delegate Shannon to name the divisions within the attorney general’s office and their functions. Shannon doesn’t know! He says it’s a gotcha question, as if not knowing the structure of the commonwealth’s law firm is a trivial matter, and refuses to answer! (Hear the derisive laughs from the audience.) Does he think the governor doesn’t have to know how many cabinet departments there are, or their functions? 

At the end, you can hear Delegate Shannon tell a reporter, “It’s been a bad week . . . for Ken.” If polls showing his opponent up by double digits is his idea of bad, no wonder he thinks he answered the question!

Thanks to our friends at Bearing Drift who posted this earlier today, we now have the Mark Warner/Creigh Deeds television ad that the Deeds campaign pulled quicker than a Usain Bolt sprint. You see, it’s all about Mark Warner saying Creigh Deeds will continue the policies he (Warner) started as governor and that Deeds believes in low taxes.

Experts at M.I.T. can’t calculate how many things are wrong with this ad. First, Warner raised taxes by the largest amount in Virginia history. Second, if you go by Deeds’ previous ads, he’s for lower taxes, which makes Warner’s proclamation, shall we say, inconsistent, with his own policies as governor. But if you go by Deeds’ media interviews and debate statements, he’s for higher taxes. (See this post debate interview!)

Third, in case no one heard, Democrat Senator Edd Houck, one of the highest ranking budget writers in the General Assembly, wrote last week that no tax increase is necessary! (See here.)

Fourth, where’s Tim Kaine? Off on another trip? (See video here.) Why won’t Deeds use him in his ads?

No matter the answers to these questions, we highly recommend you watch this now. The Deeds campaign already pulled it off television. It only may be seconds before it’s pulled from YouTube.

A still more confusing twist on Creigh Deeds’ tax policy. At least this time, even he knows it’s not too clear (see video), so he’s pulled this ad from television.