Saturday, May 29, 2010

Another Attack on the First Amendment

by j. wright

Representative Tom Price, Republican-Georgia wrote in part recently: Democrats in Congress are gearing up to vote on new legislation that blatantly undermines the First Amendment. Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), responding to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The Court found that the federal government could not restrict the free speech rights of individuals or other entities wishing to participate in the political dialogue; a right under the Constitution’s First Amendment, and which the Supreme Court upheld.

This White House and their allies on Capitol Hill now see honest criticism as a threat to their big government, liberal agenda. It wasn't always that way. Remember back in 2003 when Senator Hillary Clinton, D- NY, screeched "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." (Uhh... except this particular administration? They're exempt somehow?)

Under this proposed DISCLOSE Act, certain incorporated entities would be restricted in how they can exercise their free speech rights, but there is an exemption for some in the media sphere like newspapers, TV news, etc. However, there is one driving force in today’s public debate that is NOT exempt; Internet bloggers (of which I’m one).

Representative Price adds, “…many bloggers, in order to exercise their free speech rights, would have to jump through the same onerous new hoops…” and he calls it an overreach by one party in power.

Representative Price ends his article with this: “Democrats should not be allowed to give themselves carte blanche to shut down the ability of those in the blogosphere or elsewhere to participate in our nation’s collective dialogue. That flies in the face of our most sacred rights as American citizens.”

ShopFloor.org on May 25 had this to say:
House Could Vote on Bill to Limit Political Speech This Week.
The House leadership hopes to push the pace of floor consideration this week in order to get a vote in on H.R. 5175, the bill to limit political speech in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Supporters want to have the new, certainly unconstitutional law, in place in time to chill political speech before the November elections.

The National Association of Manufacturers was one of 86 business and trade associations to send a letter to the Committee on House Administration last week registering strong objections to the legislation.

As I wrote here recently, political dissent today is viewed by many radical leftists as unpatriotic. A few short years ago it was championed by many of the same politicians who are willing now to put “their boot on some necks.” In other words, we should all just sit down and shut up.


jaq~


Sources:
http://biggovernment.com/tprice/2010/05/27/bloggers-beware-theyre-coming-after-you/
http://www.shopfloor.org/2010/05/25/house-could-vote-on-bill-to-limit-political-speech-this-week/

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Why Does the Obama Administration Violate the Law?

by j. wright

As a rule, I don’t become easily disturbed but that’s beginning to change. When Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano criticize Arizona's illegal alien law then admit publicly that they haven’t read it I tend to become disturbed. (FYI, immigrants normally are foreigners who settle in another country legally.)

Then President Obama invited President Felipe Calderone of Mexico to the White House where the next day he stood in the “people’s house,” our U.S. House of Representatives, and practically parroting Obama, publicly criticized Arizona’s duly elected governor and legislature for passing an anti-alien law, following which the majority of the Democrat legislators and administration officials present stood and applauded.

Later, John Morton, Obama’s head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said his agency would not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to him by the state of Arizona. “The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, not a patchwork of state laws,” he said.

Echoing previous comments made by President Obama and others in the administration, Morton said that Arizona’s new law targeting illegal immigration is not “good government. I don’t think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, said it appeared the Obama administration is "nullifying existing law" and suggested Morton may not be the right person for his post if he fails to enforce federal immigration law.

"If he feels he cannot enforce the law, he shouldn't have the job," Sessions told Fox News. "That makes him, in my view, not fulfilling the responsibilities of his office."

Sessions said the U.S. government has "systematically failed" to enforce federal immigration law and claimed Morton's statement is an indication that federal officials do not plan on working with Arizona authorities regarding its controversial law.

"They're telegraphing to every ICE agency in America that they really don't intend on cooperating with Arizona," Sessions said. "The federal government
should step up and do it. It's their responsibility."

The real irony in what President Obama believes and what AG Eric Holder and Secretary Napolitano and ICE head Morton said is that the Arizona law is redundant in that it mimics the existing but currently not enforced federal statute making it a crime (a misdemeanor) to be in the state illegally and requires law officials to check suspects for immigration paperwork.

Can someone please explain why a federal agency head can refuse to enforce any existing statute and keep his job? Maybe because those amongst us illegally now might later register as Democrats one day?

jaq~

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Political Dissent: Patriotic or anti-American?

by j. wright~

As published recently in the Cadillac News, Cadillac, MI

Seton Motley, writing in dallasblog.com says, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote in a 1996 article entitled Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine that "redistribution of speech is not itself an illegitimate end" for government. Ms. Kagan also asserts that government can restrict speech if it believes that speech might cause harm, either directly or by inciting others to do harm.

Quoting Peg Kaplen on typepad.com, "Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism. So we were told just a few short years ago. When we had a Republican president, those on the left constantly reminded us that speaking out against the government was our right, a higher calling - and that criticism of such was anti-American and wrong."

Remember When Dissent Was Patriotic? When doing it didn't mean you were a zealot or an extremist or a Nazi? Hillary Clinton once thought debate and dissent were patriotic. Or, at least, she did back in 2003 when she said, "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this (Bush) administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." I totally agreed with then Senator Clinton. But unless I’m mistaken, anymore it seems like this Freedom of Speech thingy established by the Founders in our Constitution depends wholly on who is speaking, or who is currently occupying the White House, or who controls the legislative branches of our government.

When Supreme Court nominee Kagan is confronted with her own words during the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, what do you suppose her answers will reflect today? Will she, like President Obama, lament too that “information becomes a distraction?”

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Social Justice? I have a couple of questions.

Principles of social justice:


1. Every citizen willing to work shall receive a just and living annual wage which will enable him to maintain and educate his family

2. Nationalize those public necessities which by their very nature are too important to be held in the control of private individuals

3. Uphold the right of private property yet of controlling it for the public good

4. Believe not only in the right of the laboring man to organize in unions but also in the duty of the Government which that laboring man supports to protect these organizations against the vested interests of wealth and of intellect

5. Believe in the event of a war and for the defense of our nation and its liberties, if there shall be a conscription of men let there be a conscription of wealth

6. Believe in preferring the sanctity of human rights to the sanctity of property rights.

7. Believe that the chief concern of government shall be for the poor, because as is witnessed, the rich have ample means of their own to care for themselves.

So, boys and girls, does any of that sound vaguely familiar?

Q- Who proposed it and when?

Well, as a lot of today's progressive liberal socialist types are suggesting, it wasn't Glenn Beck, who is now being compared to this radical leftist. This was proposed in November of 1934 by then Father Coughlin, a Canadian priest who migrated to American in the early 1930s, became a nationally known voice on the radio with upwards of 25 million listeners.

Originally an avid foe of FDR and his policies because he wasn't liberal enough, he sucked up to him anyway in hopes of becoming Secretary of the Treasury. This from a man who was both anti-capitalism and anti-commerce. Whoa! Sounds a lot like what we are hearing today from some of our "leaders."

Eighty years and more of this crap slowly taking over, seeping like a venomous cancer into our lives and our kids and grandkids lives, is it time to irradicate it? November 2 can't come soon enough.

jaq~