Obama really hates the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United and is hell-bent on learning what companies donate to conservatives so he and his goons can intimidate and punish (as Valerie Jarrett stated) his opposition. Obama, and Democrats, have been attacking the 1st Amendment for decades.
The Obama administration is attempting to bypass Congress and force publicly-traded companies to reveal their political donations through regulation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance has begun the steps necessary to create a regulation that would in many ways mirror the DISCLOSE Act — a bill Senate Democrats have failed to pass through Congress.
Created in reaction to the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that said corporations and unions could not have limits placed on their political expenditures, the Senate bill would require political organizations to publicly name their donors and the amounts they give.
The SEC regulation would do the reverse — force companies to disclose the political groups they support — and have a similar effect.
“The Division [of Corporate Finance] is considering whether to recommend that the Commission issue a proposed rule to require that public companies provide disclosure to shareholders regarding the use of corporate resources for political activities,” reads the proposal, as reported to the president’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
As most of us know, when and where the Obama regime can’t legislate, they will try to regulate. Obama, the ‘constitutional scholar,” is still upset about the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United vs FEC.
As we know, Obama lied about the ruling. It does not allow for “foreign corporations to spend without limits in our elections” as Obama claims. The ruling by the Supreme Court did not change existing FEC laws which block foreign contributions to political campaigns (FEC Regulation 11 CFR 110.20 (i). Justice Kennedy noted in his opinion: ““We need not reach the question whether the Government has a compelling interest in preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’s political process.”
Soon after this ruling, Democrats attempted to pass their DISCLOSE Act. The bill basically allows certain groups full first amendment rights and limits their political opponents. The bill never was passed by the Senate so what is Obama looking to do.
Regulate when he can’t legislate. Obama is looking to use an Executive Order to push his agenda.
An impeccable source has provided me with a copy of a draft Executive Order that the White House is apparently circulating for comments from several government agencies. Titled “Disclosure of Political Spending By Government Contractors,” it appears to be an attempt by the Obama administration to implement — by executive fiat — portions of the DISCLOSE Act.
This was the bill introduced last year by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. The bill had onerous requirements that were duplicative of existing law and burdensome to political speech. It never passed Congress because of principled opposition to its unfair, one-side requirements that benefited labor unions at the expense of corporations. Democratic commissioners at the Federal Election Commission then tried to implement portions of the bill in new regulations. Fortunately, those regulations were not adopted because of the united opposition of the Republican commissioners.
As my source says:
It really is amazing — they lost in the Supreme Court, they lost in Congress, they lost at the FEC, so now the president is just going to do it by edict.
The draft Executive Order says it is intended to “increase transparency and accountability,” an interesting claim given the fact that federal contractors are already completely barred by 2 U.S.C. § 441c from making:
Any contribution of money or other things of value, or to promise expressly or impliedly to make any such contribution to any political party, committee, or candidate for public office or to any person for any political purpose or use.
Yet this proposed Executive Order would require government contractors to disclose:
(a) All contributions or expenditures to or on behalf of federal candidates, parties or party committees made by the bidding entity, its directors or officers, or any affiliates or subsidiaries within its control.
(b) Any contributions made to third party entities with the intention or reasonable expectation that parties would use those contributions to make independent expenditures or electioneering communications.
The problem is that this will require companies to delve into the personal political activities of their officers and directors — and require them to report political contributions those employees have made, not out of corporate funds (which is illegal), but out of their personal funds.
And note that these disclosure requirements will only apply to companies that make bids on government contracts. Federal employee unions that negotiate contracts for their members worth many times the value of some government contracts are not affected by this order. Neither are the recipients of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal grants.
Clearly, this administration is not interested in increasing “transparency and accountability” when it comes to forcing union leaders or the heads of liberal advocacy organizations such as Planned Parenthood from disclosing the personal political contributions they make to candidates running for federal office.
The draft order also tries to interfere with the First Amendment rights of contractors. It requires them to disclose independent expenditures that can be made legally on everything from politics to grassroots lobbying on issues. This is clearly intended to deter charitable and other contributions to third-party organizations, since the contractors will have to report any such contributions made with the “reasonable expectation” that the money will be used for First Amendment-protected activities.
Does anyone else smell the lies and hypocrisy? Obama is claiming Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are using foreign donations to steal democracy and elections. This has been proven a lie, yet Obama continues to spread it. Obama is actively misleading the American people and he used a progressive blogs information as his “proof.”
Let’s flashback to this little news nugget from the Washington Post:
Sen. Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed.
Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.
The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.
In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for Obama’s accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama’s finance vetting by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.
The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.
Obama just wants to silence his critics and using lies to do it is so Obama. The hypocrisy continues with the DISCLOSE Act that Obama and the Democrats are trying to pass. It is hypocrisy because the bill exempts Unions and a number of interest groups who give heavily to Democrats.
It’s the continued attack upon the First Amendment, brought to you by the Obama administration.
Watch CBS’s Bob Scheiffer destroy Obama crony David Axelrod (jump to 2:10 mark):
This all ties back to Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court and their ruling on the Citizens United vs FEC case.
Obama is using the Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals techniques he taught as a community organizer. ‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.’ This rule is applied to every Obama speech. There is always a target: Republicans, banks, Wall Street, Insurance companies, private citizens, police and private corporations.
Then there’s the freeze. Then Obama makes it personal. It’s all about him and how these targeted groups are trying to turn back the ‘progress’ he’s made. Then Obama polarized it by using flat-out lies and misinformation when speaking to his flock.
Pay attention and you will see this in every speech Obama gives.
The Progressive Movement is desperate. The 2008 election was supposed to be the dawn of a new liberal era. An enlightened bureaucratic elite in Washington was supposed to enact a broad and transformative agenda that would save the economy, return the nation to prosperity, and legitimize big government for a generation.
But only the enactment of the agenda occurred, without any of the promised benefits. President Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus and trillion-dollar health care entitlement are now law. The leftist bureaucrats have been empowered … but their policies have failed. Health insurance premiums are rising, poverty is up, and the nation’s unemployment rate hovers near 10%.
Faced with the obvious failure of their policies, the left is now desperately seeking to avoid accountability by blaming others. So President Barack Obama told a crowd in Philadelphia this weekend that “special interest groups” like the Chamber of Commerce are “spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads.” The President continued: “It could be the oil industry. It could be the insurance industry. It could even be foreign-owned corporations. You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose. … Now, that’s not just a threat to Democrats – that’s a threat to our democracy.”
The President may say he is only interested in disclosure, but his policy prescription does not accomplish that. When Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the DISCLOSE Act to the Senate he gave away the real aim of the bill. “The deterrent effect should not be underestimated,” Schumer said. And just what does the left want to deter Americans from doing? At the House committee DISCLOSE Act markup, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) said: “I have no problem whatsoever keeping everybody out [of elections]. If I could keep all outside entities out, I would.”
On Face the Nation this Sunday, CBS host Bob Schieffer confronted White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod about a New York Times article showing that White House charges of “secret foreign money” “stealing our democracy” were completely baseless. Schieffer asked: “If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?”
Axelrod went on to contend that it is the responsibility of those the White House accuses to prove they aren’t breaking the law. This morning, NBC’s Chuck Todd described Axelrod’s answer as “McCarthy-esque” on Daily Rundown.
Yes. Baseless charges about foreigners stealing democracy is the best the left can do. Their policies have completely failed and they are afraid of being held accountable. The President’s response is to try and use the power of the federal government to deter all dissent. If there is a threat to our democracy in this election, it is not coming from the Chamber of Commerce.
Now why wouldn’t Harry Reid answer those simple questions. This is the same goon that is trying to pass the DISCLOSE Act but doesn’t want the taxpayers to know who is paying him. Oh the transparency!
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just scheduled a vote on the DISCLOSE Act, which would force donors to publish their involvement in political ad campaigns, for Thursday.
Why not tomorrow, you might ask? Because there are no votes in the Senate scheduled for tomorrow. And that may be, in part, because there’s something else going on tomorrow: A big New York fundraiser for the Senate Democrats.
“I would be honored if you would join me for a very special reception with President Barack Obama on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 in New York. We have a limited numbers of tickets available to our general reception. If you would like to join us, please contact …[redacted]@dscc.org.”
The event has prices raising up to $15,200, but a mere $2,500 contributed or raised buys you access to a “VIP reception with members of Congress.” The money goes to the House Senate Victory Fund, which splits its recepts between the DSCC and the DCCC.
“An individual can contribute as much as $60,800 per calendar year to the House Senate Victory Fund,” the invitation helpfully notes. (These donations will, it’s worth noting, be disclosed.)
An thhen, it’s back to D.C. to get all that big money out of politics.
The source who sent this one over puts it in the “you can’t make this up category.”
Democrats have decided that they are more powerful than the Supreme Court of the United States and are attempting to silence their opponents. Basically Democrats have passed a bill that allows certain groups full rights to their first amendment rights and limits their political opponents. Of course, their beloved Unions, and other big donors to the Democratic Party are exempt from this bill.
The DISCLOSE — Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Election — Act will require corporations, labor unions, trade associations and advocacy groups to publicly declare their role in TV ads or mass mailings during the closing months of a political campaign, including where the money is coming from to pay for such activities. Foreign-controlled corporations and big government contractors would also be barred from paying for such political activities.
But the House bill exempts the National Rifle Association, unions and other special interests from all or part of the legislation, which Republicans charged was the product of “backroom deals” and Democrats said was necessary to get the bill passed. Floor debate over the bill was heated, with each side accusing the other of acting in bad faith and using the fight to advance its own partisan agenda.
This, of course, will be overturned by the Supreme Court should it pass the Senate. Democrats cannot pass a bill that grants certain groups rights while silencing the rights of others due to them being political opponents. Democrats want to silence “Big Business” because they usually donate to Republicans while exempting Unions because they always donate to Democrats. So Democrats exempt Unions from disclosing the truth.
A Democratic amendment tucked into campaign finance legislation Wednesday night also drew fire from Republicans and their allies, who contend it gives special treatment to Democrat-allied labor unions. The language in question would exempt from disclosure requirements transfers of cash from dues-funded groups to their affiliates to pay for certain election ads. It was inserted into the bill by Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Administration Committee and a big union backer.
A Democratic amendment ‘tucked’ inside legislation should be of no shock to the politically savy. Democrats have been doing this with all their bills of late. Just another way to reward those who helped Obama get to the White House.
Just the latest example of Democrats attacking free speech and attempting to silence their opposition. They have openly attacked Americans speaking out against an ever-growing government hell-bent on transforming America. They have openly attacked the press who point out their lies and corruption. They have openly called for government control of the internet. They want to ‘reinvent’ journalism. And now this.
Democrats are selling first amendment rights to unions and other special interests while attempting to squelch free speech rights of their opponents. The proof is in their actions.
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