I keep trying to put my head around the crowing and cheering from the Religious Right over the GOP block of the DISCLOSE Act. The proposed law had nothing to do with religion or morality or culture war issues or anything of the sort.Why, then, are they (a) so thrilled by its obstruction, and (b) painting it as a victory for Free Speech?
The answer, of course, is that it helps the Republican Party. And that, evidently, is enough to make the Religious Right very happy.
To wit: Christian Coalition wins First Amendment victory in Senate | Christian Coalition of America
Yesterday afternoon, an interesting victory was won by the Republican Party in the United States Senate.
It’s interesting that you call it “interesting.”
All of the Republicans stuck together — including the 3 left-wing to moderate New England Republicans — providing a victory for the GOP and First Amendment rights victory for all Americans.
At least all Americans who are corporations. Are there other Americans who were helpeed by this? Do tell!
Christian Coalition of America (CCA) has been working for weeks trying to defeat this disaster of a bill, which actually passed the United States House of Representatives.
Oh my God! It actually passed the United States House of Representatives! Get the children inside, Mildred!
By a margin of one vote in the Senate yesterday, the onerous legislation called the “Disclose Act” introduced by the Democrats to help their union boss cronies and to censor the free speech rights of their opponents, was defeated.
Wow, the Crazy Factor per Sentence just pegged out.
- The bill was not defeated per se. It actually garnered a vote of 57 to 41 to be brought to the floor for debate in the Senate. Under the current Cloud-Cuckoo World of that august body, that meant that it was successfully blocked.
- It’s the DISCLOSE Act (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections).
- The bill provided no special benefit to unions? Its provisions included unions as well as corporations.
- The bill did not censor free speech. Corporations (which, under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, were magically granted the right of free speech) could say and do whatever they wanted in support of (or opposition to) a candidate. They simply had to do so publicly, not by back-door contributions in the middle of the night.
But I guess that, when you’re the Christian Coalition, you get to lie about thing with the assurance that Jesus will forgive you.
The major immediate problem was, the Supreme Court would not have been able to strike down this clearly unconstitutional bill in time for the November elections during which the Democrats hoped to hold down the great losses they will now undoubtedly suffer. Most analysts believe the House of Representatives will revert back to the Republicans after 4 disastrous years of Democrat control under San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Actually, most analysts believe no such thing. It’s within the realm of possibility, but it is not considered the most probable result.
(We’ll leave aside the rather untoward political partisan chortling over this by the CCA, not to mention their obligatory reference to Pelosi as being from San Francisco … and you know what that means …)
The Christian Coalition has been targetting the New England Republican Senators for weeks and was very pleased to see all of them join all of the other Senate Republicans in voting no on this abominable bill.
Abominable? Really?
The Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky called the Democrats’ “Disclose Act” a “transparent effort to rig the fall election for Democrats.” And he added that “Unions are the ultimate victors under this bill.”
And that’s because …? I mean, nice analysis and context, simply quoting a sound bite from the Senate Minority Leader.
The Democrats came up with this latest scheme to stifle debate in America after the United States Supreme Court — in a landmark ruling in January — declared that corporations and labor unions can use money from their general budgets to fund television advertisements calling for the election or defeat of candidates for Congress and for the White House.
See? Citizens United benefited unions, too. So how was the DISCLOSE Act to their benefit?
Today’s “The Wall Street Journal” reported that before January’s Supreme Court decision, these organizations had to fund political advertisements by collecting smaller donations from individuals.
Egads! You mean, they had to rely on individual citizens to contribute to a cause! How tyrannical and socialistic and Muslim of the Obama-Pelosi Cabal!
After Barack Obama audaciously and intentionally misinterpreted the Supreme Court ruling in this year’s State of the Union speech, Congress schemed to come up with a bill to help its radical union boss friends at the expense of groups and businesses which help Republicans and others who believe in the free enterprise system.
Intentional! Misleading! Scheme! Radical! Union Bosses!
And, yes, so it’s clearly “Republicans, Republicans, rah rah rah!” Which is remarkably pragmatic, if not terribly spiritual, of the Christian Coalition.
The Democrats in their “Disclose Act” had all sorts of onerous reporting requirements for those groups they consider their enemies, which would have effectively shut down criticism of Democrats and their left-wing agenda.
Yes! I mean, corporations (all corporations, and interest groups, including unions) would have to actually let people know that they were “criticizing Democrats and their left-wing agend.” They couldn’t just funnel money to astroturf organizations. How terribly, horribly, awfully, abominably onerous!
If this would “shut down” that criticism, it would only be because there would be voter and consumer backlash against such donations if they were made public. Which sounds like a way to let the people decide, don’t you think?
I mean, think of it, CCA — wouldn’t you like to know that Company X or Union Y or Interest Group Z is supporting some candidate who favors all sorts of Twisted and Evil Things like, say, gay rights? Or know that a candidate is getting money directly from some company known for supporting such thigns? Wouldn’t you want your members to know about that? Sorry, without the DISCLOSE Act, all that Godless Evil Shenanigans will take place under the radar.
But it helps the Republicans, so who cares?
“The Wall Street Journal” article reported that Senator Jon Kyl, Republican from Arizona said yesterday regarding the Democrats’ “Disclose Act” legislation: …
Because if a Republican Senator says it in the WSJ, you can take it to the bank! Or know that the bank has taken it to him (preferably in small, unmarked bills).
… “It is obviously written to disadvantage Republicans and favor Democrats.” For example, the article reports that “One of the more controversial provisions of the bill would require independent political entities to disclose the names of the donors to their political advertisements. Opponents said that could discourage corporations from donating to organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, that run political ads.”
Why would that discourage those companies, unless they thought the Chamber was running ads that might be embarrassing or might cause consumers to consider who they are doing business with?
The American people are sick and tired of the radical policies coming out of this Democrat-controlled 111th Congress and are getting ready to throw out many of these bums, to use the vernacular.
Your vernacular is down on the street, fo-shizzle!
The party of Jefferson and Jackson will rue the day they decided to follow the extreme left-wing policies coming out of the White House.
Well, and there’s a convincing argument!
So … seriously … where’s the beef here? The article seems to boil down to, “Making big corporations reveal that they are contributing to a candidate’s campaign might be embarrassing, for the corporations and candidates alike, so, since we think that might hurt the Republicans more, and since the Republicans are our BFFs, we will wrap ourselves up in the flag and render unto Caesar in the hope that Caesar will render back to us when they come into power again.”
Just what Christ would argue, I’ll betcha!