Hey Nominal,
A classic example of campaign contributions being a form of speech, and the far left extremists attempting to shut down that speech, was the recent events of Target stores, who contributed $150,000.00 to a group called Minnesota Forward, who in turn ran ads for Republican Gubenatorial Candidate Tom Emmers, (sic??)
Target contributed the money to Minnesota Forward, because it is a pro-business organization. Target contributed the money long before Minnesota Forward ran the television spots for Candidate Emmers.
Now, George Soros financed MoveOn.org has targeted Target for a boycott, running ads against Target encouraging folks to boycott, because Emmers has rational thoughts and folks like TommyTomTom and his militant Gay Agenda got their panties in a wad.
The actions by MoveOn.org, (and folks like TommyTomTomForNews) is focused and intent on stopping free speech. In every board room in America now, there will be a voice encouraging corporations not to donate to conservative or pro-business organizations, because of the fall out that Target has now suffered.
All Americans should go to Target this weekend, and buy something!!
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:50 AM, nominal9 <nominal9@yahoo.com> wrote:
I agree about the Unanimous Speech.... but the issue of whether a
campaign contribution of money... whether direct or indirect...
constitutes "speech".... despite what the Supreme Court recently
said..... is still suspect, for me....It gives the "richer" candidate
a clear advantage in terms of access to campaign
advertising....nominal9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Political speech
[edit] Anonymous speech
In Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960), the Court struck down a
Los Angeles city ordinance that made it a crime to distribute
anonymous pamphlets. In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514
U.S. 334 (1995), the Court struck down an Ohio statute that made it a
crime to distribute anonymous campaign literature. However, in Meese
v. Keene,, 481 U.S. 465 (1987), the Court upheld the Foreign Agents
Registration Act of 1938, under which several Canadian films were
defined as "political propaganda," requiring their sponsors to be
identified.
[edit] Campaign finance
Main article: Campaign finance reform
In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the Supreme Court affirmed the
constitutionality of some parts, while declaring other parts
unconstitutional, of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and
related laws. These laws restricted the monetary contributions that
may be made to political campaigns and expenditure by candidates. The
Court concluded that limits on campaign contributions "serve[d] the
basic governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of the
electoral process without directly impinging upon the rights of
individual citizens and candidates to engage in political debate and
discussion."[27] However, the Court overturned the spending limits,
which it found imposed "substantial restraints on the quantity of
political speech."[28]
Further rules on campaign finance were scrutinized by the Court when
it determined McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93
(2003). The case centered on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of
2002, a law that introduced several new restrictions on campaign
financing. The Supreme Court upheld provisions which barred the
raising of soft money by national parties and the use of soft money by
private organizations to fund certain advertisements related to
elections. However, the Court struck down the "choice of expenditure"
rule, which required that parties could either make coordinated
expenditures for all its candidates, or permit candidates to spend
independently, but not both, which they agreed "placed an
unconstitutional burden on the parties' right to make unlimited
independent expenditures."[29] The Supreme Court also ruled that the
provision preventing minors from making political contributions was
unconstitutional, relying on the precedent established by Tinker.
In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551
U.S. 449 (2007), the Supreme Court sustained an "as applied" challenge
to provisions of the 2002 law dealing with advertising shortly before
a primary, caucus, or an election.
In Davis v. Federal Election Commission, 554 U.S. ___ (2008), the
Supreme Court declared the "Millionaire's Amendment" provisions of the
BCRA to be unconstitutional. The Court held that easing BCRA
restrictions for an opponent of a self-financing candidate spending at
least $350,000 of his own money violated the freedom of speech of the
self-financing candidate.
In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___
(2010), the Court ruled that federal restrictions on corporate
electoral advocacy under the BCRA were unconstitutional for violating
the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The Court overruled
Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990), which had
previously held that a law that prohibited corporations from using
treasury funds to support or oppose candidates in elections did not
violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments. The Court also overruled
the portion of McConnell that upheld such restrictions under the BCRA.
[30]
On Oct 15, 8:46 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Obama and the Left Assault Anonymous Political SpeechWritten by Thomas R. Eddlem
> Tuesday, 12 October 2010 10:14> The word has been handed down, from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow all the way up to President Barack Obama, and the talking points have come out. Political speech that isn't reported to the federal government is a "threat to our democracy," inthe words of President Obama. The Democratic National Committee has released atelevision adaccusing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of diverting foreign members' dues toward political ads in the United States.
> Yet the history of the American Republic reveals that the Founding Fathers not only supported anonymous political writing and speech by enacting the First Amendment, they regularly engaged in anonymous political speech themselves. Anonymous political speech is as American as the anonymously writtenFederalist Papers. Or, for that matter, theAnti-Federalist Papers, some of which were written by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee.
> Political "progressives" are engaging in a coordinated attack against this constitutionally protected form of free speech. MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow, interviewing the candidates for Oregon's 4th Congressional District, noted that a mysterious group, Concerned Taxpayers of America, had funded $150,000 in television commercials supporting the Republican challenger in the race, Dr. Art Robinson. In advance of interviewing the incumbent Democrat Pete DeFazio, Maddowopinedthat anonymous television advertisements that express political opinions were:
> Money-laundering on a grand scale. Money-laundering, that's what it is, to take over the Congress of the United States of America. There is no ceiling on what you can spend. This is the way the elections are running right now. After theCitizens United, after the campaign finance changes that conservatives are supporting this year, this is the way our elections run in America now. And this, this is the context in which every individual American citizen of average, mediate, moderate or extreme means every American in the country is deciding whether or not it's a good idea to donate 25 bucks to their chosen candidate to try to make a human-sized difference in this year's elections. What do you think your odds are of making a difference, a human-sized difference, as a regular human, a regular citizen if this is the landscape in which our elections get decided now? ...You don't stand a chance.
> Of course, this is not the way elections are being held right now. Elections are simply ballots and counting. What Maddow was describing is political speech, the kind of speech the First Amendment was specifically written to protect. The First Amendmentreads, "Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." Maddow assumes that the American people are mindless morons who will do the bidding of whatever anonymous voices on the television tell them, and that an individual with a powerful message can never obtain a large audience through the Internet. The reality is that the anonymous spending remains a tiny proportion of total campaign spending. Maddowtoldthe Republican Art Robinson, "It would be illegal for somebody to give you a $150,000 donation," but Robinson replied of the Concerned Taxpayers of America television advertisements that "I'm delighted that these people have helped to level the playing field."
> Of course, the playing field is not leveled. Thompson has to contest with Political Action Committees that have lined the pockets of his opponent, Pete DeFazio, by far more than the $150,000 Concerned Taxpayers of America have spent. Moreover, he has to contend with big media, like MSNBC's Maddow, who are openly sympathetic with DeFazio. And the biggest of all money influences in the political campaign is also working against Robinson: federal handouts. Federal transfer payments to farmers, the poor, retired, union highway workers, state workers, local school officials, all are geared toward the age-old election strategy of "tax, spend, and elect" first perfected during Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal."> Non-plussed, Maddowpressed: "Does the fact that the donations to this group are anonymous, does that bother you at all, just as an American? I mean, if you get elected in part, because this spending and then you find out it's from criminals or foreign interests or communists or something, wouldn't that bother you?"
> This, of course, may explain in part why Concerned Taxpayers of America chose to remain anonymous. They probably wanted to avoid being smeared by Rachel Maddow as foreign communist criminals. If so, you can count that effort as an epic fail. The only wonder in Maddow's statement is why she left out that they could also be "baby-killers" and "wife-beaters." Indeed, it is possible they could be those as well. After all, the anonymous donors are backing a Republican, which in Maddow's worldview is a rough moral equivalent.> Robinson calmlyreplied, "Your representation that this money could come from criminals is simply a way of trying to smear them and smear me by association." Of course, Robinson didn't even have an association with the group. He doesn't even know who they are, and because of what's left of the campaign finance laws after theCitizens Uniteddecision, he can't know. The law still prohibits Robinson from coordinating with like-minded outside groups. "I haven't been trying to find out, because I think that's the legal position I'm supposed to take," RobinsontoldNational Public Radio.
> Days after the Maddow clash with Robinson, President Obama had apparently received his marching orders. Hetoldthe audience at a Philadelphia rally:
> Thanks to a Supreme Court decision calledCitizens United, they are being helped along this year by special interest groups that are spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads attacking folks like Patrick Murphy, attacking folks like Joe Sestak just attacking people without ever disclosing who's behind all these attack ads. You don't know. It could be the oil industry. It could be the insurance industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don't know because they don't have to disclose. Now, that's not just a threat to Democrats that's a threat to our democracy. Every American business and industry deserves a seat at the table, but they don't get to a chance to buy every chair.
> Of course, anonymous political speech is not a threat to our system of government. To the contrary, our political system is a direct by-product of anonymous political speech. Samuel Adams wrote anonymously almost constantly, and hisanonymous writings as "Vindex,"among the contributions of other patriotic anonymous writers, were a prime cause of the American Revolution. America is an independent nation in large part due to anonymous political speech. Moreover, America's current Constitution would likely never have been adopted had it not been for James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay writing the anonymousFederalist Papersurging the states to ratify the U.S. Constitution.http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/4856-obama-and-the-left-assault-anonymous-political-speech
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