As we discovered with the Journolist scandal, these media members want to completely control the transmission and availability of information ... with a very liberal/progressive angle.

CNN Anchors Call For Crackdown on Bloggers

Everything else about her pales in comparison including no judicial experience, few cases argued, a long standing far left agenda, and unwavering support for socialism and big government.

She is a political appointee who hasn’t even reached the level of a judicial lightweight, never mind, having the wherewithal to become a Supreme Court justice.

We're Speechless
Investors Business Daily 05/12/2010

Supreme Court: Elena Kagan's thin paper trail was supposed to be an asset. But the confirmation of Obama's nominee may focus on one position it's clear she holds: that banning political speech can be constitutional.

'The government's answer has changed." That was how Solicitor General Kagan began her frantic damage control during a second round of oral arguments last September in the Citizens United case, which Kagan and the U.S. government ultimately lost and the First Amendment won.

Her deputy, Malcolm Stewart, in March of last year said the government had constitutional powers extending to banning books to limit corporate political influence.

As a result, the justices ordered a second round of arguments last fall to get into broader free speech questions.
For that, Kagan stepped into the fray herself, telling the justices that the government had reconsidered its position and conceding that banning books would elicit a strong court challenge.

So Chief Justice John Roberts asked her, "If you say that you are not going to apply it to a book, what about a pamphlet?"

"I think a pamphlet would be different," Kagan responded. "A pamphlet is pretty classic electioneering," and so the government could restrict such political speech.

Who you are should determine how much you can say — that is the admitted philosophy held by this high-court nominee.
According to the president, alluding to Kagan's role in the Citizens United case as he announced her as his Supreme Court choice on Monday, "powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens."

But who decides who those powerful interests are and how much they can say?

The most powerful interest of all does: the government.

In a 1996 University of Chicago Law School Journal article titled "Private Speech, Public Purpose: the Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine," which gets raves from left-leaning legal academics, Kagan contended that "the application of First Amendment law is best understood and most readily explained as a kind of motive-hunting."

If the motive is compelling enough, in other words, the government can regulate speech in the name of the public good.
The view that "the government may never subject particular ideas to disadvantage" is mistaken, Kagan wrote. "The government indeed may do so, if acting upon neutral, harm-based reasons."

Again, it is the government that decides if, say, a talk radio host or Tea Partyer is doing "harm" by engaging in political speech that allegedly incites some wacko to violence.

Columnist Jacob Sullum hit the bull's-eye on this when he wrote:

"While the government may constitutionally restrict speech based on 'neutrally conceived harms,' Kagan says, it may not restrict speech based on 'hostility toward ideas.'But as she herself more or less acknowledges, this distinction ultimately collapses because people are hostile to ideas they consider harmful."

In last month's 8-to-1 U.S. v. Stevens court decision regarding depictions of animal cruelty, Kagan contended that First Amendment protection "depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs," a claim Roberts called "startling and dangerous" in ruling against Kagan.

At only 50 years of age, Elena Kagan, a "speech redistributionist," could be on the high court for three decades.

Her upcoming confirmation hearings could be a First Amendment battle royal.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=533863

Now that the tables are turned, the Progressives are crying foul at anything that is less than reverential about Obama. It seems that such rights are only acceptible to them when they support their purposes and ideologies only.

Hypocrisy Watch: Left-Wing Hate and Violence

Despicable!

The level of hatred and intolerance which Grayson exhibits regarding this situation (as well as many others in the past) shows him to be emotionally and rationally challenged and not fit for his job as Representative. He should be investigated and censured as well as removed from office by those in his district.

As we unequivocally stated on April 3rd in Orlando Physician Expresses Sentiments Regarding Obama and Obamacare, this urologist was entirely within his legal, ethical and moral rights in our Democracy to post that comment.

Any attempt to silence this free speech is an attack on us all. Furthermore, we must prevent the government from using bullying, heavy handed or legal tactics to challenge our rights of expression and freedoms in general. By the way, where are all those demagogue Democrats who speciously claim that there is unwarranted vitriol in American discourse yet won't rein in one of their own? (They won't because they would level the same charges!)

As for you, Alan Grayson, we have an open question indirectly related to this case:

How can you reconcile the fact that 95% of all blacks voted for Obama and yet not charge that this constitutes racism?

There can be no other rational explanation for this yet we have not heard one word about this from any Democrat regarding this racist vote.

What if 95% of whites had voted for McCain? We are sure that you would vehemently consider that to be egregious racism!

Grayson: Doctor shooing away Obama backers will deny treatment to blacks
By Jordan Fabian - 04/03/10 11:28 AM ET

A doctor who posted a sign at his practice asking Obama supporters to seek care "elsewhere" will end up denying service to many African Americans, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Friday.

Dr. Jack Cassell, an opponent of the healthcare law President Barack Obama signed last month, put up the sign at his office in Grayson's district.

"Well, in fact, where he lives, in Mount Dora, which is in my district, many, many of the Democrats who live in Mount Dora happen to be African-Americans," Grayson said on CNN. "So, by saying that he will not treat somebody who supported Obama, he's saying that he's not going to treat a large number of African-Americans in the community."

Grayson, a freshman who represents a Republican-leaning district, gained national attention during the healthcare debate last year when he said the GOP's healthcare plan was for seniors to "die quickly."

Cassell has said that he is not violating medical ethics rules.

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Cassell, 56, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

But Grayson said that he was violating the rules and that he will probably be disciplined by medical licensing authorities.

"How many people walked in -- walked up to his front door, saw the sign, and turned away?" he asked. "How many people referred from other physicians in the community, including primary care physicians, how many patients saw that sign and walked away?"

Asked what kind of punishment Cassell should receive, Grayson said "Well, whatever the medical authorities think he should get. But it is a clear violation of ethics, and it's a particularly ugly one. Why is it that the right wing is so preoccupied with denying people health? Why is that?"

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90467-rep-grayson-anti-obama-doctor-will-deny-treatment-to-blacks

The CNN Interview Video:

We must counter their verbal attacks, false allegations and fabrications - persistently and loudly. If we don't and keep acquiescing to the Federal government's increasing restriction of our rights, freedoms and choices as well as their unrestrained confiscation of our hard earned money through taxes and fees, we will have little left. We will end up in a situation not dissimilar to that of communist Russia in the 1970's and early 80's with a privileged, powerful, and corrupt government ruling and repressing the rest of the people, the proletariat, and where there is controlled but not free speech and the government determines most aspects of our daily lives.

Speak loudly and often in defense of your rights so that we can continue to SPEAK FREE!

Speak Free

Media contributed by Tami Peterson Lewiski www.digitaldecorating.com

Some corporations might have stayed silent out of fear of government retribution, greed or diaphanous promises by politicians … but now we will all pay the price.

Now that many companies have “elected” to reveal the real devastating financial consequences of Obamacare (driven to a sizable extent by their legal obligations as public companies to release the information), several prominent Democrats are egregiously seeking retribution against them for exposing the gargantuan financial fraud that has been perpetrated with the healthcare legislation.

Our government has abrogated many of our rights and freedoms while aggrandizing their power … and continues to thirst for more. This is the evil addiction and corruption of power which must be vanquished and reversed.

This must not be the new America that we have to live in!

Dems Threaten Congressional Show Trials After US Companies Leak Real Economic Damage of Obamacare
Jim Hoft   March 28, 2010

Late last week several US corporations leaked how the democrat’s health care bill will kill their businesses. The radicals in Congress were not pleased that these corporations would go public with this devastating information. In response, democrats threatened to call for Congressional show trials to publicly humiliate these corporations.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

…Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden.
Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

The last paragraph says it all about the democrat’s trickery:

The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

Byron York at The Washington Examiner has more on the show trials.

Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances — a move one committee Republicans describes as “an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats’ flawed health care reform legislation.”

…Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill’s opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it.

Waxman’s demands came Friday in letters to several executives. “After the president signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance,” Waxman wrote to Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. A few hours before Waxman sent his letter, AT&T announced it will take a $1 billion charge against earnings because of the tax provision in the new health bill. AT&T also said it will be “evaluating prospective changes” to its health care benefits for all workers…

Waxman’s request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

These democrats in Washington are nothing but thugs. They’ll try anything to keep the truth from coming out about their disastrous legislation.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/dems-threaten-congressional-show-trials-after-us-companies-leak-real-economic-damage-of-obamacare/

When was the last time a liberal speaker at a University had their speech cancelled by out of control conservatives? Can’t think of any.

If one unkind word is spoken against a far-left adherent, the media is in an uncontrollable frenzy. The reverse does not occur in that the media and our present government actually encourage wanton vicious attacks against the right.

There are several important lessons in all of this. First, we must stand up and protect and fight for our rights. We must not allow our conservative points of view to be officially suppressed, threatened or punished whether it is by our government or a public institution. If we back down and don’t fight back, the consequences will be further erosion of our rights and freedoms. This is what has happened even in Canada and, of course, elsewhere. Let’s not let it happen here in America. There are already proposals to do just this such as the "Fairness Doctrine" and Obama's information czar who suggested controlling, correcting or deleting information on the internet that the government may deem "inaccurate" or "inappropriate".

We also must not be apologetic for our points of view or for non-violent means to express them. The left has done this very well. We need to be more verbally aggressive, loud and persistent.

Oh, Canada!
by Ann Coulter   03/24/2010

Since arriving in Canada I've been accused of thought crimes, threatened with criminal prosecution for speeches I hadn't yet given and denounced on the floor of the Parliament (which was nice because that one was on my "bucket list").

Posters advertising my speech have been officially banned, while posters denouncing me are plastered all over the University of Ottawa campus. Elected officials have been prohibited from attending my speeches. Also, the local clothing stores are fresh out of brown shirts.

Welcome to Canada!

The provost of the University of Ottawa, average student IQ: 0, wrote to me—widely disseminating his letter to at least a half-dozen intermediaries before it reached me—in advance of my visit in order to recommend that I familiarize myself with Canada's criminal laws regarding hate speech.

This marks the first time I've ever gotten hate mail for something I might do in the future.

Apparently Canadian law forbids "promoting hatred against any identifiable group," which the provost, Francois A. Houle advised me, "would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges."

I was given no specific examples of what words and phrases I couldn't use, but I take it I'm not supposed to say, "F----you, Francois."

While it was a relief to know that it is still permissible in Canada to promote hatred against unidentifiable groups, upon reading Francois' letter, I suddenly realized that I had just been the victim of a hate crime! And it was committed by Francois A. Houle (French for "Frank A. Hole").

What other speakers get a warning not to promote hatred? Did Francois A. Houle send a similarly worded letter to Israel-hater Omar Barghouti before he spoke last year at U of Ottawa? ("Ottawa": Indian for "Land of the Bed-Wetters.")

How about Angela Davis, Communist Party member and former Black Panther who spoke at the University of Zero just last month?

Or do only conservatives get letters admonishing them to be civil? Or—my suspicion—is it only conservative women who fuel Francois' rage?

How about sending a letter to all Muslim speakers advising them to please bathe once a week while in Canada? Would that constitute a hate crime?

I'm sure Canada's Human Rights Commission will get to the bottom of Francois' strange warning to me, inasmuch as I will be filing a complaint with that august body, so I expect they will be reviewing every letter the university has sent to other speakers prior to their speeches to see if any of them were threatened with criminal prosecution.

Both writer Mark Steyn and editor Ezra Levant have been investigated by the Human Rights Commission for promoting hatred toward Muslims.

Levant's alleged crime was to reprint the cartoons of Mohammed originally published in a Danish newspaper, leading practitioners of the Religion of Peace to engage in murderous violence across the globe. Steyn's alleged crime was to publish an excerpt of his book, America Alone in Maclean's magazine, in which he jauntily described Muslims as "hot for jihad."

Both of them also flew jet airliners full of passengers into skyscrapers in lower Manhattan, resulting in thousands of deaths. No, wait—that was somebody else.

Curiously, however, there was no evidence that either the cartoons or the column did, in fact, incite hatred toward Muslims—nor was there the remotest possibility that they would.

By contrast, conservative speakers are regularly subjected to violent attacks on college campuses. Bill Kristol, Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and I have all been the targets of infamous campus attacks.

That's why the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (a sponsor of my Canada speeches) and the Young America's Foundation (a sponsor of many of my college speeches) don't send conservatives to college campuses without a bodyguard.

You'd have to be a real A-Houle not to anticipate that accusing a conservative of "promoting hatred" prior to her arrival on a college campus would in actuality—not in liberal fantasies of terrified Muslims cowering in terror of Mark Steyn readers—incite real-world violence toward the conservative.

The university itself acknowledged that Francois' letter was likely to provoke violence against me by demanding—long after my speech was scheduled, but immediately after Francois disseminated his letter—that my sponsors pony up more than $1,200 for extra security.

Also following Francois' letter, the Ottawa University Student Federation met for 7 1/2 hours to hammer out a series of resolutions denouncing me. The resolutions included:

"Whereas Ann Coulter is a hateful woman;
"Whereas she has made hateful comments against GLBTQ, Muslims, Jews and women;
"Whereas she violates an unwritten code of 'positive-space';
"Be it resolved that the SFUO express its disapproval of having Ann Coulter speak at the University of Ottawa."

At least the students didn't waste 7 1/2 hours on something silly, like their studies.

At the risk of violating anyone's positive space, what happened to Canada? How did the country that gave us Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Martin Short, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O'Hara suddenly become a bunch of whining crybabies?

After Tuesday night, the hatred incited by Francois' letter is no longer theoretical. The police called off my speech when the auditorium was surrounded by thousands of rioting liberals—screaming, blocking the entrance, throwing tables, demanding that my books be burned, and finally setting off the fire alarm.

Sadly, I missed the book-burning because I never made it to the building.

But, reportedly, a Canadian crowd hasn't been this excited since they opened a new Tim Hortons. Local reporters couldn't make out what the crowd was chanting, but it was something about "Molson" and a "sled dog."

I've given more than 100 college speeches, and not once has one of my speeches been shut down at any point. Even the pie-throwing incident at the University of Arizona didn't break up the event. I said, "Get them!" and the college Republicans got them, and then I continued with my rambling, hate-filled diatribe—I mean, my speech.

So we've run this experiment more than 100 times.

Only one college speech was ever met with so much mob violence that the police were forced to cancel it: The one that was preceded by a letter from the university provost accusing me of hate speech.

(To add insult to injury, Francois didn't even plan to attend my speech because Tuesday is his bikini wax night.)

If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech—which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech—is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.

Either Francois goes to jail or the Human Rights Commission is a hoax and a fraud.

Too bad he has not displayed such vigor and attention to the real important issues facing the American people like jobs, the economy, and terrorism.

Is Freedom Of Speech Really An Emergency?
By Thomas McArdle       Investors Business Daily   01/26/2010

A full year into his presidency we suddenly discover what it takes to get Barack Obama all worked up.

Not terrorism.

In the president's estimation, a near repeat of the Lockerbie bombing Christmas Day wasn't worth remarking on until three days later.

Not the risk of a fiscal doomsday.

Only after 12 months of joint one-party rule to secure his place as the biggest-spending president in history does he call for a bipartisan spending-restraint commission and a spending freeze. Both the commission and the freeze don't come along until the fall at the earliest, if they materialize at all.

But when the Supreme Court nullifies congressional incumbents' legislative attempts to suppress the threat of political speech via modern means of communication, he runs to the microphone as if it were a national emergency.
"With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special-interest money in our politics," he declared, promising swift action. "We are going to talk with bipartisan congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision."

Millions of Americans are suffering from double-digit unemployment. And now the nation has been assessed by the congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation as being unprepared for a biological terrorist attack. The panel slapped the Obama administration with a failing grade on its readiness and response plans to combat the use of deadly viruses or bacteria by an enemy.

Yet what does the president devote his radio address to last Saturday? Accusing the high court of the land of issuing a ruling that "strikes at our democracy itself."

Most Americans may be under the misapprehension that terrorists such as underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are the people to keep from striking at our democracy. Uh-uh. According to the president's priorities, the real threat to our democracy comes from Justice Anthony Kennedy and his warped view that American citizens should be able to use "their financial clout to directly interfere with elections by running advertisements for or against candidates in the crucial closing weeks."

The president says, "I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest" — not $12 trillion in federal debt; not an abysmal 26% of teens working (a record low since statistics began being kept in 1948, according to a report by Northeastern University); not the terrorist state of Iran on track to building nuclear bombs.
Let's look at that Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which our chief executive considers a calamity of such historic proportions that "When this ruling came down, I instructed my administration to get to work immediately with members of Congress willing to fight for the American people to develop a forceful, bipartisan response to this decision."

Kennedy is viewed by liberal Democrats as the most reasonable of the five conservative justices; he was co-author with former Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter in their joint Casey opinion reaffirming the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

Kennedy's 5-4 decision abrogating McCain-Feingold pointed out that under that law, "skits on YouTube.com" satirizing politicians too close to Election Day are a felony "solely because a corporation, other than an exempt media corporation, has made the 'purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value' in order to engage in political speech."

Before posting that YouTube video with corporate funding, of course, McCain-Feingold lets you ask Uncle Sam's (specifically the Federal Election Commission) permission.

As Justice Kennedy's ruling notes: "If parties want to avoid litigation and the possibility of civil and criminal penalties, they must either refrain from speaking or ask the FEC to issue an advisory opinion approving of the political speech in question."

Then, "government officials pore over each word of a text to see if, in their judgment, it accords with the 11-factor test they have promulgated."

As he and the four justices joining him recognize, "This is an unprecedented governmental intervention into the realm of speech."

Yet it is this victory for free speech last week that requires, according to Obama, "a forceful, bipartisan response" — not the whole myriad of more pressing challenges facing our country, ranging from the fiscal time bomb of out-of-control entitlement programs to our dangerously porous borders.

Blasting the Citizens United ruling may set the stage for another successful Supreme Court nomination for the Obama administration. But it won't restore the public confidence a president needs at a time of serious economic troubles and a continuing global war on terror.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=519165

The ruling is a victory for free speech and the First Amendment and freedom from government intrusion and restraint on our rights.

The Gag Is Removed
Investors Business Daily    01/21/2010

Campaign Finance: Five justices ruled Thursday that corporations and labor unions can donate directly to political activities. At least someone in Washington is trying to protect free speech.

Lawmakers have been strangling constitutionally secured political speech for years. In 1990, the Supreme Court upheld a Michigan law that barred corporate political contributions. Twelve years later, Congress passed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Among other restrictions, it banned for 30 days before a presidential primary and 60 days before the general election any "electioneering communications" that would be broadcast over television airways or transmitted via cable or satellite.

The encroachments were too much for the Roberts Supreme Court, which on Thursday invalidated 5-4 the McCain-Feingold blackout period and overturned the 1990 high court ruling in its Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission decision.

In 2008, Citizens United produced "Hillary: The Movie." The documentary, aimed at derailing Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, was political in nature. The FEC shut down pay-per-view broadcasts of "Hillary," saying that it was a political ad and therefore violated federal election law.

Citizens United, an advocacy group, rightly responded by asking the courts to protect its right to free speech. The Supreme Court rightly replied by ruling for Citizens United — and for everyone else in the country as well.
Free speech cannot survive in a society when it's for me but not for thee. If the government can take away one person's free speech, it can bar free speech for all. Yet that's the society some want.

Take note of campaign finance law supporters, who suspend belief that money donated to political activity is speech protected by the Constitution. They ignore both the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling, which confirmed that political donations are speech, and their own instincts that tell them financial contributions are indeed expression.

Today they condemn the pro-liberty Citizens United ruling and lament that the Roberts Court is moving hard to the right.
The First Amendment is neither right nor left. It protects all sides of every argument — yes, even the more unsavory speech that hurts feelings and offends our sense of decency. Constitutional expression promotes a vibrant, enlightened and open society. The more information we have, the better off we are.

The Citizens United ruling is an important decision that moves the country closer to the principles of its founding and the vision of its founders.

URL   http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=518759