Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Friday that the Obama administration is pursuing restrictions on political speech through whatever means possible, including bypassing Congress and the federal judiciary.
“What they haven’t been able to achieve through the courts or Congress, they’re already attempting to achieve through regulations,” McConnell said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.
He quoted Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod’s comments from earlier this week in New York, where he expressed his hope that the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on campaign-finance reform in the Citizens United case could be overturned after the election.
“I hope that one of the things we can do, when we win this election, is use whatever tools are available, up to and including a Constitutional amendment, to turn this back,” Axelrod said.
McConnell went on to list several actions the administration has taken to curtail political speech:
- September 2009: The federal government warned health insurers that mailing customers about the potential consequences of President Obama’s health reform plan may be illegal.
- April 2011: The White House acknowledged Obama was considering an executive order that would have required federal contractors to disclose political spending over $5,000. Business interests called it a “back door” attempt to silence the administration’s critics.
- March 2012: The National Organization for Marriage accused the Internal Revenue Service of leaking its confidential tax information after the gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign posted IRS documents stamped with the words “OFFICIAL USE ONLY” on its website. The documents revealed that Mitt Romney had donated to the National Organization for Marriage.
- April 2012: The Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule requiring broadcasters to post who buys political ads on their stations, how often they run, and what they cost on the FCC website. The rule passed on a 2-1 vote, with the sole Republican commissioner voting no. The rule is being challenged in court.
- June 2012: The IRS revoked the tax-exempt status of Emerge America, which works to train Democratic women candidates, effectively forcing the group to disclose its donors. Observers say the decision could foretell similar action against larger groups, including the conservative Crossroads GPS and the pro-Obama Priorities USA.
- June 2012: The FEC deadlocked on whether ads from the American Future Fund, a right-leaning political advocacy group, are subject to strict reporting rules. The three Democrat commissioners agreed with the Obama campaign, deciding that those rules should apply; the three Republican commissioners dissented.
McConnell said liberals have always faced an uphill climb in American politics, and as a result, many have resorted to “obscuring their true intent, pursuing through regulation and the courts what they can’t through legislation, or muzzling their critics.”
“My own view has always been that if you can’t convince people of the wisdom of your policies, then you should come up with some better arguments. But for all its vaunted tolerance, the political left has consistently demonstrated a militant intolerance for dissent,” he said. “The minute we allow ourselves to be convinced that some people stand outside the protections of the First Amendment, we’re all in trouble.”
hopefuuly acts aggressively against all progressives
what " fools" humans are to think that we know better than our "CREATOR" , to wonder why humanity is in such a mess !!!!!!!!!!!
Free speech is important. On the other hand, if enough extremists get voted into Congress, the extremists "will defund all federal programs" that defend the civil rights and persons of everyone but the very well off. And in good "starve the tax-beast" fashion, they will (like Paul Ryan did in his last budget) include in that legislation gifts to the wealthy, the sum of which will nearly equal the sum of the spending cuts. Republicans artificially keep the deficit high in order to force more cuts in social programs.
Cutting funding for public education, teachers, fire fighters, the police, and legal aid societies from federal and state programs will ensure that, just in case anyone decides to attack an American who is not wealthy, the victims and their families will be on their own, and will learn to kow-tow to their betters. The takeover of the US government will have been bloodless, thanks to certain Supreme Court Justices; and the people who have lost all protections of their civil rights and persons will have to keep paying taxes anyway.
Current tax loopholes ensure that many corporations and very wealthy people can avoid paying much in taxes. That lets them keep more money, which they can use to take advantage of their rights under "Citizens United." They can now contribute "however" much they want to in order to get people elected who will keep supporting their interests, which include defunding protections of the rights and persons of "the rabble." It's important to certain corporations that "the rabble" become more subservient, so that they will give up and stop voting.
At Renew Democracy, we feel that just as many of the constitutional restrictions on social behavior ensure the primacy of individual rights to protect from the tyranny of the majority by making the rights of the group subservient to the rights of the individual, it is crucial to ensure the rights of the individual voter have primacy in the political process. For this reason we advocate for a constitutional amendment. The outline of the proposal of the Renew Democracy amendment goes far beyond the bumper sticker solutions of "corporations are not people" and "money is not speech" that many advocacy groups have latched onto as easy fundraisers. Our proposal would be a significant restructuring of the current motivation that present campaign "pay for play" creates in our representatives. We feel that unless our representatives are motivated to represent only the voters, our current broken system cannot be transformed. http://www.renewdemocracy.org/
Section 2 of the RDA states “The right to contribute to political campaigns and political parties is held solely by individual citizens”. This would render moot concerns about corporate personage as pertains to politics as corporations could no longer donate. Neither could unions, the Chamber of Commerce, MoveOn.org or any other group or organization. This would do what no other group would propose and eliminate political parties from funding politicians. This would have a powerful effect on liberating our representatives to represent the voters. The Renew Democracy Amendment in full would eliminate the advantage the wealthy have in running for political office, would end the Electoral College by guaranteeing direct election, create a constitutional framework for legislation regulating soft money and PACs, and would set a limit for individual donations based on average disposable income. We would hope that all concerned Americans would seize this moment where the vast majority realize we need to fix our system and adopt a fair and transformative proposal that partisans on both sides will despise but the vast majority will see the strength and benefit. http://www.renewdemocracy.org/