Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Liberal Progressive Rewrite (my version):
Congress shall make no law respecting any religion, and will do it’s best to prohibit the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of Liberal speech, or of the Liberal press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble (except for those who disagree with Liberals, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, but they will be ignored if they are not “deemed” worthy by Liberals.
An effort by Democrats to close down speech critical of their actions before it can impact the November elections is running into a rocky road in the U.S. House, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed action on the proposal while the party regroups and tries to assemble support.
The DISCLOSE Act, pending as HR 5175 in the U.S House and as S. 3295 in the Senate, targets the freedom of speech of companies and groups acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court in its “Citizens United” ruling last winter.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen in the House and Sen. Charles Schumer in the Senate, has 114 co-sponsors with Van Hollden and 49 with Schumer.
Pelosi, however, pulled the proposal from a floor vote and sent members home for the weekend because of turbulence over the plan to impose a new set of reporting and other requirements on a long list of organizations, according to a report in Human Events.
According to the Connie’s Congress column, “Democrats have been scrambling to shut down conservative political speech before the November elections this year since the January U.S. Supreme Court decision in ‘Citizens United v. FEC’ that found freedom of speech applies to everyone: individuals, corporations and unions.
“Discontented with a more level playing field, Democrats threw together the DISCLOSE Act, a very lengthy and complicated piece of legislation designed solely to undo the court’s decision.”
While moving forward, it still needed additional support, and in recent days a “carve-out” was created that would have exempted the National Rifle Association from its demands, allegedly in exchange for the NRA dropping its opposition.
But analysts say the move backfired, since the Internet ignited with criticism of the organization’s “deal with the devil” and other less-complimentary descriptions.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.com said, “Congress’ attempt to repair their attack on the First Amendment, overturned in the ‘Citizens United’ decision earlier this year, has run off the rails thanks to the machination of its Democratic backers.
“Nancy Pelosi pulled the DISCLOSE Act from the House floor last night after the news of sleazy deals to exempt powerful organizations from the law started leaking to the media. Ironically, it was a rare partnership between the NRA and the Democrats that sealed the bill’s fate.”(WND)
And this Congress is not known for backroom slezy deals, after all, as Pelosi herself said in 2007, it was “going to be the most ethical Congress” in history. And she wouldn’t lie, now would see…
Cleta Mitchell, a member of the board of directors for NRA, which would have fallen into the bill’s exempting language, wrote in a newspaper column the true purpose of the DISCLOSE Act is to “silence congressional critics in the 2010 elections.”
“Since the court’s January decision in ‘Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission’ that corporations cannot be constitutionally prohibited from making independent candidate-related expenditures, Democrats have been hyperventilating at the notion that corporations might spend millions of dollars criticizing them,” she wrote. “To foreclose that possibility, the DISCLOSE Act would impose onerous and complicated ‘disclosure’ restrictions on organizations that dare to engage in constitutionally protected political speech and on corporations that dare to contribute to such organizations.
“The DISCLOSE Act isn’t really intended to elicit information not currently required by law. The act serves notice on certain speakers that their involvement in the political process will exact a high price of regulation, penalty and notoriety, using disclosure and reporting as a subterfuge to chill their political speech and association,” she wrote.
“It is only disclosure, say the authors. And box-cutters are only handy household tools . . . until they are used by terrorists to crash airplanes,” she wrote.
The dirty little secret that the Democrats don’t want discussed is that Unions were the #1 user and abuser of campaign ads until this ruling, they had a virtual monopoly because of the money they could raise from their members.
And as if that weren’t enough…
WASHINGTON — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation’s homeland security chief said Friday.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
“The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet,” Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
Napolitano’s comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.
Mind you, last year, this is the same person who called “right wingers” and returning military personnel “terrorists” and this are the same people who have called the Tea Party movement “terrorists” on occasion.
And with “net neutrality” still out there (aka censorship) you can always trust Big Sis to do what’s best for you.
Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.
Too Bad she doesn’t believe that about the Border!!
She added, “We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable.”
You trade your freedom for our Security. What could be wrong with that.
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act would allow the President to disconnect Internet networks and force private websites to comply with broad cybersecurity measures.
Future US presidents would have their Internet “kill switch” powers renewed indefinitely.
The bill would give a newly-formed National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications the authority to monitor the “security status” of private websites, ISPs and other net-related business within the U.S. as well as critical internet components in other countries. Companies would be required to take part in “information sharing” with the government and certify to the NCCC that they have implemented approved security measures. Furthermore, any company that “relies on” the internet, telephone system or any other part of the U.S. “information infrastructure” would also be “subject to command” by the NCCC under the proposed new law.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!
Millard (IA) Public Schools will stop using a children’s book about global warming — but only until the district can obtain copies with a factual error corrected.
A review committee, convened after parents complained, concluded that author Laurie David’s book, “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming,” contained “a major factual error” in a graphic about rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels.
However, the district will cease to use a companion video about global warming, narrated by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, he wrote.
The committee found the video “without merit” and recommended that it not be used.
In the video, DiCaprio attributes global warming to mankind’s “destructive addiction” to oil. He says “big corporations” and politicians gained too much money and power “on our addiction,” making them “dangerously resistant to change.”
So how many school district did do this?
After all, it’s just education….
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
The Liberal Progressive Rewrite (my version):
Congress shall make no law respecting any religion, and will do it’s best to prohibit the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of Liberal speech, or of the Liberal press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble (except for those who disagree with Liberals, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, but they will be ignored if they are not “deemed” worthy by Liberals.
An effort by Democrats to close down speech critical of their actions before it can impact the November elections is running into a rocky road in the U.S. House, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delayed action on the proposal while the party regroups and tries to assemble support.
The DISCLOSE Act, pending as HR 5175 in the U.S House and as S. 3295 in the Senate, targets the freedom of speech of companies and groups acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court in its “Citizens United” ruling last winter.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen in the House and Sen. Charles Schumer in the Senate, has 114 co-sponsors with Van Hollden and 49 with Schumer.
Pelosi, however, pulled the proposal from a floor vote and sent members home for the weekend because of turbulence over the plan to impose a new set of reporting and other requirements on a long list of organizations, according to a report in Human Events.
According to the Connie’s Congress column, “Democrats have been scrambling to shut down conservative political speech before the November elections this year since the January U.S. Supreme Court decision in ‘Citizens United v. FEC’ that found freedom of speech applies to everyone: individuals, corporations and unions.
“Discontented with a more level playing field, Democrats threw together the DISCLOSE Act, a very lengthy and complicated piece of legislation designed solely to undo the court’s decision.”
While moving forward, it still needed additional support, and in recent days a “carve-out” was created that would have exempted the National Rifle Association from its demands, allegedly in exchange for the NRA dropping its opposition.
But analysts say the move backfired, since the Internet ignited with criticism of the organization’s “deal with the devil” and other less-complimentary descriptions.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.com said, “Congress’ attempt to repair their attack on the First Amendment, overturned in the ‘Citizens United’ decision earlier this year, has run off the rails thanks to the machination of its Democratic backers.
“Nancy Pelosi pulled the DISCLOSE Act from the House floor last night after the news of sleazy deals to exempt powerful organizations from the law started leaking to the media. Ironically, it was a rare partnership between the NRA and the Democrats that sealed the bill’s fate.”(WND)
And this Congress is not known for backroom slezy deals, after all, as Pelosi herself said in 2007, it was “going to be the most ethical Congress” in history. And she wouldn’t lie, now would see…
Cleta Mitchell, a member of the board of directors for NRA, which would have fallen into the bill’s exempting language, wrote in a newspaper column the true purpose of the DISCLOSE Act is to “silence congressional critics in the 2010 elections.”
“Since the court’s January decision in ‘Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission’ that corporations cannot be constitutionally prohibited from making independent candidate-related expenditures, Democrats have been hyperventilating at the notion that corporations might spend millions of dollars criticizing them,” she wrote. “To foreclose that possibility, the DISCLOSE Act would impose onerous and complicated ‘disclosure’ restrictions on organizations that dare to engage in constitutionally protected political speech and on corporations that dare to contribute to such organizations.
“The DISCLOSE Act isn’t really intended to elicit information not currently required by law. The act serves notice on certain speakers that their involvement in the political process will exact a high price of regulation, penalty and notoriety, using disclosure and reporting as a subterfuge to chill their political speech and association,” she wrote.
“It is only disclosure, say the authors. And box-cutters are only handy household tools . . . until they are used by terrorists to crash airplanes,” she wrote.
The dirty little secret that the Democrats don’t want discussed is that Unions were the #1 user and abuser of campaign ads until this ruling, they had a virtual monopoly because of the money they could raise from their members.
And as if that weren’t enough…
WASHINGTON — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation’s homeland security chief said Friday.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
“The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet,” Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
Napolitano’s comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.
Mind you, last year, this is the same person who called “right wingers” and returning military personnel “terrorists” and this are the same people who have called the Tea Party movement “terrorists” on occasion.
And with “net neutrality” still out there (aka censorship) you can always trust Big Sis to do what’s best for you.
Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.
Too Bad she doesn’t believe that about the Border!!
She added, “We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable.”
You trade your freedom for our Security. What could be wrong with that.
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act would allow the President to disconnect Internet networks and force private websites to comply with broad cybersecurity measures.
Future US presidents would have their Internet “kill switch” powers renewed indefinitely.
The bill would give a newly-formed National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications the authority to monitor the “security status” of private websites, ISPs and other net-related business within the U.S. as well as critical internet components in other countries. Companies would be required to take part in “information sharing” with the government and certify to the NCCC that they have implemented approved security measures. Furthermore, any company that “relies on” the internet, telephone system or any other part of the U.S. “information infrastructure” would also be “subject to command” by the NCCC under the proposed new law.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!
Millard (IA) Public Schools will stop using a children’s book about global warming — but only until the district can obtain copies with a factual error corrected.
A review committee, convened after parents complained, concluded that author Laurie David’s book, “The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming,” contained “a major factual error” in a graphic about rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels.
However, the district will cease to use a companion video about global warming, narrated by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, he wrote.
The committee found the video “without merit” and recommended that it not be used.
In the video, DiCaprio attributes global warming to mankind’s “destructive addiction” to oil. He says “big corporations” and politicians gained too much money and power “on our addiction,” making them “dangerously resistant to change.”
So how many school district did do this?
After all, it’s just education….
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
