(caution for VERY strong language)
Story …
Here’s a lighter story for fans of McDonald and Heller, and perhaps a reminder of just how much gun rights have become mainstream. A week ago, a federal judge in Iowa ordered Osceola County Sheriff Douglas Weber to take an in-depth course on the US Constitution after overturning his decision to deny Paul Dorr a concealed-carry permit. Weber had rejected Dorr’s application because of his political activism:
A federal judge has lambasted an Iowa sheriff for denying a gun permit to an outspoken government watchdog and anti-abortion advocate whom some in the area considered “weird.”
It was wrong for Osceola County Sheriff Douglas Weber to deny Paul Dorr of Ocheyedan a permit to carry a concealed weapon three years ago, according to a court ruling issued Wednesday.
Four California high school students are fighting for their right to show their patriotism any day of the year, after they were forced to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.
While other students at the school wore clothing depicting the colors of the Mexican flag and other attire related to the holiday, the four students and one other were told by a school administrator that they could wear the shirts any other day but May 5, which celebrates the Mexican army’s victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla.
They filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Morgan Hill Unified School District.
Schumer was very clear that DISCLOSE was carefully crafted to “embarrass companies [inclined to get involved in the fall elections] out of exercising those rights,” according to Kim Strassel in the Wall Street Journal. “The bill will make companies ‘think twice’, [Schumer] rejoiced. ‘The deterrent effect should not be underestimated.’ ” Even though the bill is considered by many to be unconstitutional, the Democrats’ “goal here isn’t lasting legislation. The goal is to have this [law] in place for this election, when Democrats are at a low point, and when an empowered union base and a silenced corporate presence could make the difference between keeping the House and losing it.”
The bill immediately met resistance from numerous conservative groups, including the National Rifle Association. The bill would require organizations to disclose their top donors if they sponsor political television commercials or pay for mass mailings in the months leading to an election. The NRA initially said the bill “creates a series of byzantine disclosure requirements that have the obvious effect of intimidating speech…[and] attacks nearly all of the NRA’s political speech by creating an arbitrary patchwork of unprecedented reporting and disclosure requirements.”
Such resistance weakened support for the bill by numerous Democrats running for re-election this fall, and so a remedy was applied: exclude the NRA from those troublesome reporting requirements in exchange for which the NRA would drop all resistance to the bill. After NRA lobbyist Chris Cox met with Van Hollen, the NRA was “carved out” of the bill.
The outcry reached ear-shattering levels. “The NRA sells out to Democrats on the First Amendment,” castigated the Wall Street Journal. “Conservatives take on the NRA over [the] deal on [the] disclosure bill,” cried the Washington Post. RedState.org chimed in: “The National Rifle Association’s Excuse Holds No Water.” A member of the NRA’s Board of Directors, Cleta Mitchell, wrote in the Washington Post, that:
The cynical decision this week by House Democrats to exempt the National Rifle Association from the latest campaign finance regulatory scheme is itself a public disclosure. It reveals the true purpose of the perversely named Disclose Act (H.R. 5175): namely, to silence congressional critics in the 2010 elections.
The NRA “carve-out” reaffirms the wisdom of the First Amendment’s precise language: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.”
Congress can’t help itself. Since 1798, with the Alien and Sedition Acts, incumbent politicians have yearned for legal duct tape for their opponents’ mouths. The Disclose Act is a doozy of a muzzle.
For its part, the NRA — on whose board of directors I serve — rather than holding steadfastly to its historic principles of defending the Constitution and continuing its noble fight against government regulation of political speech instead opted for a political deal borne of self-interest in exchange for “neutrality” from the legislation’s requirements. In doing so, the NRA has, sadly, affirmed the notion held by congressional Democrats (and some Republicans), liberal activists, the media establishment and, at least for now, a minority on the Supreme Court that First Amendment protections are subject to negotiation. The Second Amendment surely cannot be far behind.
House Democrats held a shotgun wedding between campaign finance “reformers” and the National Rifle Association today in announcing a carve out for the powerful gun lobby in a bill responding to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision.
The “Shotgun Sellout” exempts large organizations from the most burdensome regulations of the DISCLOSE Act, “Democratic Incumbents Seek to Contain Losses by Outlawing Speech in Elections,” while pistol whipping genuine grassroots groups.
“The Democratic majority has decided that established, powerful interest groups should be exempted from the proposed draconian regulations, while small advocacy groups should have their voices silenced by the DISCLOSE Act,” said Center for Competitive Politics President Sean Parnell. “Exempting the National Rifle Association from these regulations while local groups such as the Oregon Firearms Federation would face stifling regulations if they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights simply cannot be considered ‘reform.’”
Read the rest.
From Seeing Red AZ
Wickenburg Christian Academy students had a rude awakening and a lesson they will not soon forget during a recent trip to Washington, D.C. when they, three parents and a teacher traveled to our nation’s Capitol on a Christian Discoveries study tour.
The Arizona students were asked to leave the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court because they were standing in a circle, heads bowed, praying.
On May 5, 2010, they participated in Capitol Hill Day. The first stop was the front steps of the Supreme Court. After taking a few pictures the group gathered off to the left at the top of the bottom level of steps to pray. Immediately the guard posted there ran down the steps and asked the group to go somewhere else to pray. He tapped teacher Maureen Rigo on the shoulder and said, “Ma’am, I’m not going to tell you that you can’t pray, but you can’t do it here. Please go somewhere else.” She asked, “Since when?” The answer, “This week.” So the group moved to the street level and prayed on the sidewalk instead.
Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment. Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), this bill – written by the head of the Democrats’ congressional campaign committee – is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In short, the Supreme Court found that the government could not restrict the free speech rights of individuals or other entities wishing to participate in the political dialogue.
It is hard to see how establishing a level playing field for free speech – as our Founding Fathers did by making it a right under the Constitution and which the Supreme Court upheld – is a threat to our democracy. Nevertheless, the White House and their allies on Capitol Hill see honest criticism as a threat to forcing their big government, liberal agenda through Congress. So, there is no time like the present – namely five months before an election – to start putting the muzzle on those individuals and organizations not sticking to the Democrats’ talking points.
