The effort by President Obama and congressional Democrats to sidestep the Supreme Court’s landmark free-speech ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case has sent these supposed advocates for clean elections down into the usual morass of special-interest legislation.
The Citizens United ruling overturned the McCain-Feingold federal restrictions, which prevented groups and corporations from exercising their right to comment on the behavior of our elected leaders. In this case, a so-called “reform” of campaign finance meant that incumbents had the right to silence their critics, such as in the instance that prompted the ruling, which concerned a film that was critical of Hillary Clinton and banned by the Federal Election Commission. The Court wisely saw this as a violation of the First Amendment.
Obama and the Democrats have engaged in nonstop demagoguery about this issue, which they pretend is about ensuring fairness but is actually about protecting politicians and the mainstream media from both scrutiny and competition. A measure proposed by Maryland’s Rep. Chris Van Hollen and New York’s Sen. Charles Schumer attempts to skirt the Court’s decision by adding new disclosure rulings, which will burden those attempting to speak out and is almost certainly unconstitutional. As the New York Times reports, they’ve now made it worse by granting specific exemptions to some groups but not to others. And in order to gain the votes of moderate Democrats, they’ve added the National Rifle Association to the ranks of those who will be excluded from the new regulations. That has now been changed to include all groups with 500,000 or more members. That may lead some Democrats to think they’ll escape being tarred as anti-gun in a year in which anti-incumbent fever is running high. But all this does is narrow down the government’s discrimination between speech that it likes — such as campaign expenditures by labor unions — and speech it doesn’t like — such as any group targeted by the bill — while infuriating some liberals who are appalled at having to exempt the NRA.
This law isn’t just a mess. It also illustrates everything that is wrong about so-called reform of election spending, which amounts to nothing more than deciding who can speak and who can’t. The Times treats this as just the usual congressional log-rolling, in which deals are made to avoid antagonizing some while harming others. But free speech cannot be allocated like earmark pork legislation, which doles out funds to some districts while others get nothing. But to unprincipled politicians whose main goal is to silence their critics, there is no limit as to how low they will sink in order to pass a bill that will hamstring independently financed political speech.
Biden on Palin: “Whoa”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/
If there is a market in this country that is truly has “market-driven” prices, it is the college and university system. If Obama (or anybody else) tries to have the federal government help people with their college tuition or other costs, the college and university system will merely raise their prices to absorb it all.
Having just sent my daughter off to college, I have first had experience with the FAFSA and other financial ad processes that are able to gauge down to the last cent what each and every family can “put up.”
If there was ever a topic that is “stupider than a stone”, helping with college financial aid is one of them.
“That’s why [Barak Obama] will invest in the next generation of teachers and why he’ll make college more affordable.”
“Investing” in teachers and making college more affordable are, by definition, contradictory statements.
I think it is far more interesting that Bidden is getting props for praising her performance. He’s not praising her, he’s just lowering the bar for his own upcomming debate performance. So that it’s not such a huge bonus when she cleans his clock. I have no doubt that when under fire and in the glare of the media spotlight he’ll revert to form and we’ll see Chairman Joe in all his sanctimony, condescention, rambling, self-agrandizing form. For those of us interested enough in the Judiciary to actually watch those hearings there is no doubt what kind of performance we are going to witness. Over and over again we’ve been able to see how his rhetorical skills wilt when he faces an opponent who is well prepared, intelligent and principled. I look forward to the spectacle to come.
Check out volokh.com on Obama’s service corp plans for college students and others. It’s quite disturbing:
http://tinyurl.com/6qbrpv
Gotta love the Dems, they see NO obstacle to a government policy for every last thing in your life. It seems endless because it is. College tuition affordability? How laughable is that? It is the government policy of subsidizing college that makes tuition more expensive–the very same subsidy malady that infects health care costs. Though admittedly a college-level understanding of microeconomics might be necessary to comprehend such adverse outcomes.