McConnell at the bridge

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Power Line:

 

Scott Johnsom

6/14/12

 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has long been a supporter of the First Amendment rights of citizens in the face of what goes under the name of campaign finance reform. He knows what he is talking about and he has been a stalwart on the subject. Tomorrow he will be giving a major address at the American Enterprise Institute on *“Growing Threats to the First Amendment” at 11:15 a.m. (Eastern). The speech will be live streamed at the link. Despite Senator McConnell’s understated and gentlemanly style, I believe that in substance the speech will be something of a barnburner.

 

(Snip)

 

At the moment, the threats Senator McConnell sees on the horizon emanate principally from the Obama administration and the Obama reelection campaign. Senator McConnell characterized Obama several times as engaged in a Nixonian effort to silence critics, to intimidate political opponents, to clear the field for himself and his allies. In his address at AEI tomorrow Senator McConnell said he will recite “the litany of efforts” he sees the Obama crew having undertaken. He means to send up an alarm about what is happening.

 

(Snip)

 

One of the current guises in which the assault on speech rights travels today is the so-called DISCLOSE Act, a pet of Senator Schumer (which tells you just about everything you need to know about it). “Remember that contributions to our political campaigns are already subject to disclosure,” he said. “What they want to do is go digging through the records of outside groups.” For those in search of a motif, Senator McConnell added: “This is a heavy-handed, Nixonian administration.” Senator McConnell cited the Court’s opinion in NAACP v. Alabama and Justice Thomas’s partial dissent from the Court’s opinion in Citizens United as articulating the threat that such compelled disclosure entails.

 

(Snip)

 

* that would be today 6/15/12

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SURPRISE! it's Politico

 

Mitch McConnell defends Koch brothers

TARINI PARTI

6/15/12

 

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday blasted President Barack Obama for joining in liberal attacks against conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.

 

In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, the Kentucky Republican accused Obama’s reelection campaign of employing tactics not seen since the Nixon administration. Part of that, he said, is an “enemies list” and efforts to demonize private citizens like the Koch brothers.

 

(Snip)

 

McConnell, who has vehemently opposed the McCain-Feingold Act, spoke in favor of the landmark Citizens United decision, calling it “strong validation of a fight I’ve waged for nearly three decades against those within the government who would micromanage political speech.”

 

He repeatedly called out the Obama administration for violating the First Amendment and called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require outside groups to list their donors, a political weapon for exposing and intimidating the president’s critics.

(Snip)

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Timeline of the speech

If You Value The 1st Amendment, Watch This Speech By Mitch McConnell

 

Transcript Growing threats to our First Amendment Rights

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Senator McConnell on the Perils of Campaign Finance ‘Reform’

Hans A. von Spakovsky

6/21/12

 

(Snip)

 

McConnell’s final heartfelt plea to his audience was this:

 

Unite! Send a message to the next generation of leaders, whatever their stripe, that the First Amendment is something about which there can be no compromise. We may not win every fight, but we can at least guarantee we’ll always have a place in the debate. And in the end, I’m confident, the best ideas will always win out.

 

After all, that’s how free markets work. Whether it’s a market for goods or, the market of ideas, the best product will win in the end. And no American should ever be afraid of that.

 

As Oliver Wendell Holmes put it nearly a century ago, “The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”

 

And the best defense of this truth we have is still found in that sweeping command: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.”

 

As a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, I have to say “amen” to Sen. McConnell’s remarks. The unprecedented attacks on political speech by “reform” groups and mainstream media outlets have been unrelenting in the last three decades. The so-called “reform” laws passed by Congress with the approbation of the Washington Post and the New York Times to regulate the financing of federal campaigns have been complex, confusing pieces of legislation intended to protect incumbents and chill political speech. Everyone who believes in the First Amendment and the fundamental rights protected by the Bill of Rights should unite to fight these deceptively-labeled “reform” efforts.

 

The First Amendment does not need to be reformed, just abided by.