Keeping Free Republic Alive with YOUR Donations!
PLEASE Make Yours Today, Monthly if you can!
Posted on 01/30/2014 10:36:51 PM PST by Nachum
James Madison had it exactly right.
Referring to infringements on our freedoms, the Father of the Bill of Rights once wrote that such encroachments were more often “gradual and silent” than “violent and sudden.”
That’s exactly what we’re seeing with President Obama’s proposed regulation on so-called 501(c)(4) groups: a stealth attempt to stifle the ability of ordinary Americans to participate in the political process.
The administration’s proposal, quietly floated over Thanksgiving, is just the latest in a long line of attempts to skirt the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United, which basically said that businesses and independent groups have the same right to free speech under the First Amendment as anybody else.
Liberals hated Citizens United because it helped level the political playing field for conservatives. In their view, corporations that own liberal media outlets like The New York Times and MSNBC should have an absolute right to free speech, but independent groups and other grassroots organizations that seek to promote Madisonian ideals like limited government and greater liberty need to be kept in check.
They tried this a few years ago with the DISCLOSE Act, a bill that would have forced grassroots groups to disclose their donor lists. The goal was as obvious as it was anti-democratic: expose the names of those who support unfashionable causes or candidates in the hope of scaring them right off the political playing field.
And we all know what happened after Republicans blocked the DISCLOSE Act. The President and his top campaign aides made the names of conservative donors famous on their own, signaling to top officials at the IRS that they shouldn’t think twice about giving extra scrutiny to anybody on the conservative team.
In the end, an independent Inspector General found that IRS officials abused their authority by singling out
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Too little too late McConnell.
You made your bed with Obama. Now sleep in it. Your words are empty rhetoric.
I’ll know Mitch McConnell is serious about this stuff when he co-sponsors a bill to reduce funding to the IRS. Until then, he’s just playing footsie with his good friends on the Democratic side of the aisle.
Mitch talks tough when he senses he has a primary fight on his hands.
“Liberals hated Citizens United because it helped level the political playing field for conservatives.”
Exactly. THEIR businesses, big businesses, like ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NYTimes, WashPo etc were free to turn their business enterprises into virtual media centers on behalf of their candidates and causes, with none of the revenue supporting it considered an “in kind” campaign contribution.
But let anyone NOT linked up to their business enterprises try to have as much voice in the public square as they do and someone had to, and still has, try and prevent non-Liberal non-Left-of-center voices from being heard. That’s what all Liberal-leftist campaign regulation enterprises is all about; trying to get the law to oppose the voice of your opponents.
Need to take Rand Paul off. He doesn’t belong with the other 3.
bevin all the way.
It’s not my graphic.
If it were, I’d add Mike Lee to the top and Boehner to the bottom.
funny... people asking for ‘permission’ to form a group.
stop playing their game
Yep. Heard Mike after State of the Coup. He’s one of the good ones.
Mitch McConnell is also at war with conservatives, what a coincidence
As if you care, Mitch!
And McConnell was for it before he was against it
Indeed! I think he’s one of the most brilliant in the whole of the US Senate.
McConnell wants to punch TEA Party in the nose, right?
Miotch, resign stoopid.
Screw Mitch and the rest. When are we ever going to
take to the streets for a lot of civil disobedience?
We going down with a whimper? Holder needs to be severely
protested.
The Disclose Act could also have been used to force the communist and progressive (sarc) groups to publish their donor lists. Now that would have been a hoot.
You would have found more rich commies than red termites in a woodpile.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.