Lynchburg held their 2nd TEA Party on September 17th, in honor of Constitution Day.
There were 8 great speakers total, and all are available on YouTube on the LynchburgTeaParty channel.
As with all the other TEA Party events I've spoken at, this was not a forum for me to promote myself or my campaign, and not a single flyer was handed out.
Without further ado, then, here is the speech I gave:

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Editors and Newsrooms,

The following is the press release from the Rees for Congress campaign concerning his recent plea of 'no contest' to a minor weapons charge.  I find it telling that at no time was this campaign contacted in any way, shape, or form for a statement, other than Mr. Reed's attendance at the hearing.  Since, in most incidences, the piece on Mr. Rees' hearing took place within the first 5 minutes of the local news coverage at 6pm, the interest of fairness suggests that the covering media should do us the kindness of airing a clarification of details concerning this incident in a similar time frame with suitable reporting. 

As campaign manager and communications director, please feel free to contact me at any time for clarification, revisions, or direct statements from the candidate.  I understand the media's diligence in reporting the news, but every story has two sides and the voters of the 5th district have a right to hear them."

-Michael J. Ernette

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – This afternoon, Bradley S. Rees pleaded "no contest," on advice of counsel, to a concealed weapons charge in the Lynchburg Circuit Court.  Ray Reed from the Lynchburg News and Advance was present at the hearing and wrote a very fair piece, but it is necessary to make some clarifications for the record, as media outlets across the district have played fast and loose with the facts surrounding the incident.

In the first, Mr. Rees legally obtained and registered both his .380 and .45 caliber SEMI automatic handguns.  He submitted all criminal and mental background checks, complied with the requisite waiting periods, and even used a layaway plan to purchase the weapons.

Second, when Mr. Rees was pulled over and cited for their possession on 21 May, he cooperated fully with law enforcement authorities concerning their presence in the vehicle.  In fact, it was Mr. Rees who alerted police officers to their presence.  Indeed, the issuing officer testified at the hearing as to Bradley’s cooperation and honesty in the matter.

Third, Mr. Rees had the weapons in his vehicle for the sole purpose of preventing their access to his children.  Brad’s children are 8 and 5 years old and have reached an inquisitive stage in their lives.  He does not yet own a gun safe and was attempting to keep them away from prying fingers.  Under 18.2-308 of the Virginia Code, it is legal to carry a firearm in the passenger compartment of a vehicle as long as it is conspicuous.  Brad was hurrying to rectify his vehicle's inspection status, and had neglected to make them conspicuous.  When pulled over, even the testifying officer said that he cooperated fully by honestly informing the officers that the weapons were present. These are hardly the signs of someone bent on egregiously committing a deliberate criminal act.

Finally, to reiterate, Mr. Rees was advised by legal counsel to plead no contest to this crime and at no time entered a plea of guilty, as some news stories have (incorrectly) stated.  He has remained culpable for his actions throughout the process and understands that, while not deliberate, he did violate the law and held himself accountable for that transgression. 

To emphasize the minor nature of this infraction, the charge for carrying a concealed weapon deliberately without a permit is one year in jail and a $1000 fine. Going into court, there were two charges that each could carry that penalty. Brad received a $100 fine. 

The Commonwealth of Virginia has long been a bastion for Second Amendment protections.  It is time for the state and federal governments to take a serious look at laws which give large swaths of gray area to the prosecutor in regard to whether a gun is concealed because it is in a glove compartment or on a passenger’s floor, rather than the seat. In the glove box, one of the weapons was even less accessible to Bradley than had it been legally carried on the passenger seat.  How does this coincide with the Commonwealth’s reasonable desire to protect its police and citizenry?  In truth, it doesn’t.  It is simply a way to garner more revenue and limit the rights of reasonable gun owners.

-30-

mje/bsr

The Bradley Rees for Congress web team is proud to release our brand new web site. On a shoestring budget, we have worked tirelessly to provide a more attractive, and useful website with a streamlined layout and more in-depth information about our favorite candidate. This is only the beginning of things to come. I'd like to point out just a few of the new features that you should be aware of. We have links to social media, a chipin widget, which will track donations, and even more ways to get in touch with our favorite candidate. We also have downloadable banners and buttons for you to place on your site, an official campaign blog, and... Please take a look around the new site, and let us know what you think!

In the future, we will be opening up articles for discussion, via a facebook login system. We will also have a store where you can purchase campaign materials, downloadable campaign literature, and a calendar of events where Bradley Rees will be appearing.

Please let us know how we can make your visit more productive.

The following is the text of the speech I gave in Danville on June 25th. It’s rather long, but I hope you’ll appreciate its message.

Good evening. First off, I’d like to thank the City of Danville for allowing me the honor of FORMALLY kicking off my campaign here, and thank y’all for coming out here to join me in this announcement.

I came to Danville tonight in much the same spirit as Michael. I can’t stand politics, or most politicians. There are a few statesmen left, but not nearly enough to stem the erosion of core principles that has been taking place for nearly a century. Americans are tired of the same old choices. And you shouldn’t have to hold your nose when you pull that lever in the voting booth. That’s why I’m here tonight.

I tell people that I’m a different kind of candidate, not because it sounds good, but because it’s the truth. I am running a different kind of campaign. Michael agreed with me when he came on board that this campaign will not be about the typical petty, ad hominem attacks that voters have grown accustomed to. It will, instead, be about the issues that matter to the people who make this country great. Not politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers, but average folks who do the vital, but dirty, jobs that the vast majority of politicians know nothing about, even as they pass laws to make those same tough jobs even harder.

I have never aspired to public office and, as such, have never participated in the grooming and political posturing that takes place in the lives of those who do have those long-held aspirations. I see this as more a strength than a detriment, and when I explain to people why I feel that way they tend to agree.

To explain, briefly, our political system is broken. The entire concept of the lifelong public servant has been a destructive force in this country, for the most part. A person becomes entrenched in the constant backbiting and convenient campaign promises that soon become broken ones through “no fault of my own.” These are precisely the age-old political staples that have led to the lowest Congressional approval ratings in recent memory. These people we keep sending back to Washington are not public servants in their own minds, but rather see themselves as our masters. This is becoming more evident by the day. And we are growing weary with it.

I have never held an elected office, but my employment history is replete with accolades from former employers, supervisors, et cetera, who have given me a chance to prove myself (despite misgivings on the part of a few), and were never given cause to regret doing so. In every job I have ever undertaken (whether paid or on a voluntary basis), I have taken pride in my work. This is one of the most important lessons I learned from my father, and one of the main sources of pride I have in this country: the drive, by unconnected individuals, to excel in every endeavor, and to master every task set before them. It is that legacy, and that drive, which have made this country great. Not the contributions of elected officials, but those of private individuals, seeking only to improve their lives and circumstances and, in so doing, enriching an entire culture, one generation at a time.

By that same token, then, it should be noted here that, in our growth as a nation, the statesmen who still inspire with their words and actions were not men of standing, for the most part. They were common men, united behind a common cause. Not men who sought political careers to the exclusion of all else, guarding their every step against some future political scrutiny. No, they were mostly men who were thrust into the fray by the trials and struggles of their generation. Men who stood up, not to embrace the limelight, but to push it away, forcing it to shine brightly onto dark and menacing dangers to our liberty that had lurked in the shadows. Men like John Adams, who faced down ridicule. Teddy Roosevelt, who crusaded against injustice in the newly settled West, New York, and, finally, in Washington DC. And John F. Kennedy, who tried with all his might to battle back the forces of runaway government and destructive taxation. And a man like George Washington, who had given his all in serving his fledgling country on the field of battle, and sought only to retire and live out his last days in peace, but was begged to return to service, just once more, to be our first President.

These men, from various political parties, embody that American spirit we share: of striving to achieve, not because we enjoy working our fingers to the bone (although some of us do), but because of the feeling we get deep inside, that pride, that satisfaction, of knowing we did our best and EARNED OUR KEEP.
We, the people of this country, are hungry for change, as evidenced by the election results nationwide from ’06 and ’08. The problem is, no one has come on the political scene to clearly identify what form that change should take. That’s why I’m running.

In televised ads last October, Congressman Perriello, in typical political-posturing fashion, blatantly lied about the FairTax, an issue I’ve dedicated the last 5+ years of my life to. That and my years of research on the subject of the FairTax were my initial reason for running.

The FairTax will still be the centerpiece of my campaign, but in the travels I’ve undertaken around the 5th District over the last 8 months, a much more disturbing issue than our broken tax code became clear to me. The people of this country are afraid for the future of their families and whether they will even be able to stay in their homes. While I firmly believe that fixing our tax code, by completely replacing it with the FairTax, will solve a great number of the severe problems we face as a nation, I see something far more sinister and dire that stands right in the way of such a solution.

We are suffering from a crisis of leadership, on the Federal, State, and even local level. Our political system has created a bureaucracy so large, so pervasive, and so downright insidious, that the average working family feels helpless to stop the wrecking ball that is swinging toward them. Our entire political structure has been reinforced over the last several decades, not to serve the people who foot the bill, but to reign over us in perpetuity.

That is what needs to change. And the vast majority of people I’ve had conversations with recognize that. They are ready for an unconventional candidate who thinks, speaks, and lives like they do. They are ready to make their voices heard in the halls of Capitol Hill, and I come offering them the bullhorn they will need in order to be heard. The days of political dynasties and local party chiefs being kingmakers are over. The people are ready to reclaim their rightful place at the table, no matter what kind of income they earn or where they earn it.

This is the force that my message brings with it. Perhaps I don’t bring the people with the most money to contribute, or the nicest suits to wear while they smile for the cameras at campaign press conferences, but they bring with them the strength of numbers. In my time as a grassroots organizer, I quickly learned the power of coalition-building, and how to do it effectively. Through the social media revolution, massive numbers of ordinary people are being mobilized to take on the corruption of the political machines run by both major parties, and their crony counterparts in Congress.

Folks, I’m not our here tonight claiming to have all the answers. But I think we could do well to look at history and take comfort, and some measure of courage, from past statesmen. I will not delve into cumbersome quotes that we’ve all heard from the Founding Fathers. After all, I’m sure most of you have come to expect me to do things a bit differently. So, let me quote:

“The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn’t want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

These words were not spoken by one of our Founding Fathers. In fact, they are attributed to a man who died over 2,000 years ago, a Roman statesman named Marcus Tullius Cicero (55 BC).

So we see that the problems we face are not new. They have been solved in the past, in much the same way we must resolve to deal with them now, by limiting the power of our government and their most vocal benefactors, the lobbyists.

The problems we face today are also varied. We look around us now, at these abandoned factories, at the growing unemployment rates, at the ever-increasing numbers of people dependent on welfare, Medicare, and Social Security, and we dare to ask the tough questions. “Where did that American resolve go? Or IS it gone? If it is, what can we do to bring it back?”

I have spoken many times about not holding wise businessmen and women accountable for being wise. From the steel mills in Pittsburgh to the tire and textile factories here in Danville and out to the technology production in the valleys of California, America has spent years watching industry leave this country because it was smarter to produce outside this country.

Confiscatory taxation has left many working people like you wondering how to feed their families. This current government health care proposal, and the taxation that will come with it, will take away even more of the few factories that the middle class has left to earn a living in.

An estimated 200 million people are covered and happy with their insurance, which will be taken away eventually, by the immutable laws of economics, under the Obama plan that Perriello supports.

The only solution is to take that decision off the boardroom table by ridding employers of the taxation dilemma in the first place with the institution of the FairTax. If a businessman has to limit healthcare benefits to his hires because he has to pay taxes, he will. With the FairTax, legislation that I support and will work hard to institute, no choice would be necessary, and businessmen would be free to make business decisions, not health care decisions.

We’ve told a judge in Alabama that he can’t even post the Ten Commandments outside of his courthouse, yet Federal regulations read like the ten thousand Commandments. Right now, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the cost to businesses and individuals imposed by these 73,000 pages of Federal regulations runs well above 1 TRILLION dollars annually. And this does not even take into account compliance costs associated with the Infernal Revenue Code. Add those costs in, and we approach TWO trillion. Per year. Straight out of the pockets of individuals. Do you think that could have some negative effects on our economy? None of these regulations put in place by Federal government agencies are even subjected to a Congressional vote.

Even with all those numbers, we haven’t even begun to talk about tax liability. Yet our government continues to spend massive amounts of money, which they don’t have, making future tax increases the likeliest path for them to take when these bills come due. This is another reason I am a vocal advocate of the FairTax, and have been for over 5 years.

I’ve mentioned the FairTax a couple of times now, and some of you may be wondering what the heck it is. Let me ask you a few questions, by way of explanation.

How would you like to bring home your entire paycheck to spend, save, invest, bury, burn, or whatever you like? The FairTax does that. How would you like to see outsourcing ended and corporations lined up from the Bering Strait to the Bermuda Triangle trying to get into the U.S. to build new facilities? The FairTax does that, too. How would you like to have the 60,000 page tax code, which is mostly incomprehensible even to it’s administrators, reduced to around 200 pages and your dreaded tax filings every year going away? The FairTax even does that. How would you like to get your tax refund in monthly installments year-round instead of just once? You guessed it, the FairTax does that. Best of all, without the IRS hiding in your closet ready to jump out and demand access to your personal expenditure documentation.

Why do I enthusiastically endorse the FairTax? Because a human being’s life span is finite. You only have so many minutes, hours, and days on Earth. When you go to work, whatever time you spend there is a portion of your life that you can never reclaim. You are trading those hours of your life for a monetary compensation, with which you can purchase whatever you choose to enhance and/or sustain your life, and that of your family.

When your government forcefully confiscates any portion of that money, before you can even use it for sustaining the life of yourself or your family, your government is, essentially, laying claim to a portion of your life. The framers of the Constitution knew this, which was exactly why they expressly prohibited direct taxation of a person’s income. The 16th Amendment changed that. It’s time to get rid of that amendment. And, yes, you guessed it: the FairTax will do that, too.

It is time for the good citizens of Southside and Central Virginia to vote for their own self interests and prevent the public health care option from passing. My plan for taxation does that and places the choice of common sense practices in the hands of the people who should make those decisions, workers and their employers. Likewise, my proposals for regulatory and tort reform will start us on the road back to the prosperity that our founders envisioned and fought so hard for.

A scant 240 years ago, Americans were decrying taxation without representation. Now we have rampant regulation with absolutely NO representation. And, to be quite honest, when our Congress passes a 1,400 page bill spends 1 trillion dollars they don’t have, and expects us to pick up the tab, when we don’t have it, either, this borders on that same taxation without representation that our Founders fought so hard to end.

That paradigm must shift, but it will take some loud voices raised in opposition and some heavy lifting. Luckily, I’m bringing a bullhorn and forklift with me. And, after hearing these problems and my outline for solutions, I hope you’ll join in.

Thanks for coming out. God bless you and your families. Goodnight.