Free Republic

11 Republican Senators who voted for the BCFA of 2002:McCain, Fitzgerald, Lugar, Collins, Snowe, Cochran, Domenicic, Spector, Chafee, Thompson Warner41 Republican House Members voted for the BCFA of 2002:Bohlert, Bono, Capito, Castle, Ferguson, Foley, Frelinghausen, Ganske, Gilchrest, Gilman, Graham, Greenwood, Grucci, Houghton, Horn, Johnson(CT), Johnson(IL), Kirk, LaTourette, Leach, LoBiondo, McHugh, Morella, Osborne, Ose, Petri, Platts, Quinn, Ramstad, Ros-Lehtinen, Sanders, Shays, Simmons, Smith(Mi), Thune, Upton, Walsh(not my clan), Wamp, Weldon(Pa), WolfOne President Signed BCRA of 2002:President Bush

The Supreme Court is finally discovering forms of free speech it considers "corrupting." Pornographers and flag-burners don't corrupt our politics and culture; "sham issue ads" do. Mapplethorpe-style exhibits don't corrupt the public square. No, what erodes it are nativity scenes. Basically the only form of speech the Supreme Court considers dangerous is the very political and religious speech the constitutional framers designed the First Amendment to protect. The more vital the speech is to the preservation of a republic, the more likely the justices are to ban it from public life. The more worthless the speech and destructive to a...

An interesting and horrifying thing happened this Wednesday. The United States Supreme Court modified key portions of the First Amendment to the Constitution, and few citizens took notice. Admittedly, those portions include such minor and ambiguous clauses as "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" and "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." According to the Court, Congress may indeed abridge these freedoms, even in the context that the authors of the Constitution specifically had in mind when the Amendment...

Peter Flaherty, President of the National Legal and Policy Center, today reacted to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on McCain-Feingold: (Washington, DC) Campaign finance "reformers" have succeeded in sucking more life out of the First Amendment. What they ignore is that all speech is the expression of ideas. The distinctions made between political and nonpolitical speech are largely a fiction, as are those between hard and soft money to finance politics. The attack on certain kinds of speech, and certain kinds of spending to facilitate it, is an attack on all speech. The media seem to love McCain-Feingold, but they'd better...

WASHINGTON - The legal wrangling over campaign finance restrictions is far from over, despite the Supreme Court's endorsement of the broadest limits on campaign donations in nearly 30 years. Justices invited opponents of the law to come back later with proof that parts of the new campaign law, as applied, are unconstitutional. But unless there is a showing of harm, the divided court said Wednesday, the nation is better off with limits on the financial influence of deep-pocket donors even if money can never be divorced from politics. The ruling means the restrictions put in place by Congress last year...

<p>Who could have imagined that the same Court which, within the past four years, has sternly disapproved of restrictions upon such inconsequential forms of expression as virtual child pornography, tobacco advertising, dissemination of illegally intercepted communications, and sexually explicit cable programming, would smile with favor upon a law that cut to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government.</p>

December 11, 2003, 1:01 p.m. Sad Day for Free Speech The Supreme Court upholds McCain-Feingold: Scalia's dissent A Primary Document EDITOR'S NOTE: On Dec. 10, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling upholding the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in a 5-4 rulling. Among the 4 was Justice Antonin Scalia. We reprint his dissent below. JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring with respect to BCRA Titles III and IV, dissenting with respect to BCRA Titles I and V, and concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part with respect to BCRA Title II. With respect to Titles I, II, and V:...

Excerpts from the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling Wednesday upholding key parts of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA, signed by Justices John Paul Stevens (news - web sites), Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites), David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (news - web sites), and Stephen Breyer (news - web sites), and dissents from the other four court members: Justices John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor, in upholding key parts of the campaign finance law: "Many years ago we observed that `to say that Congress is without power to pass appropriate legislation to safeguard ... an election...

IMHO GWB will veto the CFR Bill based on the fact that it doesn't include the points and principles he stands for, and because he took an oath of office that requires him to protect and defend the Constitution agaisnt all enemies both Foreign and DOMESTC, and this bill is a clear attack on the constitution.

<p>Justice Sandra Day O'Connor more or less completed her ideological journey toward judicial activism yesterday when she cast the deciding vote upholding the McCain-Feingold restrictions on campaign speech. Proponents of judicial restraint who were leery of her when Ronald Reagn appointed her in 1981 acknowledge that even they didn't expect her to come under the sway of elite opinion as much as she has.</p>

Vanity: An Open Message to the Republican Party Cheerleaders on this Forum...

Reports that main portions of McCain-Feingold are now being upheld! People currently wading through a decision of over 300 pages.

The mainstream media is protected from the campaign finance law. Yes, Congress has limited the right to free speech of "We the People," but left the media's power intact. In fact, it's actually enhanced the media's power by letting them dominate the airwaves 30 to 60 days before an election. But let me ask you a simple question: "If the Supreme Court can limit free speech today - under, I cannot believe, a GOP president, House and Senate - why can't it limit freedom of the press tomorrow? Once you amend the Constitution this way, anything goes! Those who don't...

In a move that will eliminate the 1st amendment protections of free speach was just announced.....America, established by the the Founding Fathers in 1776, has ended.

JAPAN TODAY March 28, 2002 ATLANTA — U.S. President George Bush quietly signed what he called a flawed law to reform political fund-raising on Wednesday and then set off on a blitz to raise some $3.5 million for fellow Republicans. Bush praised the law's ban on the unlimited contributions known as "soft money" to national political parties but he questioned its limits on outside political advertising and its failure to protect union members and company shareholders from having their money spent on politics without their consent. In a sign of his misgivings about the bill, the broadest overhaul of U.S....