I asked him if he supported regulating The New York Times because he thought it was wrong for the family that owned it to have more political influence than him and while his answer was rather long-winded, somewhat erratic and a more than a little evasive, the answer seemed to be yes, the Sulzbergers shouldn’t have more political influence than him.
Anyway, I didn’t say anything about the Nazis so I don’t know why you’re screaming about Godwin.
As Ray Bradbury said, there are many ways to burn a book and I have no problem saying that those who think the government has the right to censor books and movies due to their political content are book-burners.
As I’m sure you know, the Citizens United case was about whether or not the government could do that. Thankfully while the book-burners managed to get four justices to vote their way, they lost in a great victory for free speech.
One of Kennedy’s main arguments is that the law didn’t just limit the power of corporate money. rather, it divided corporate speakers into “favored” and “disfavored”.
What it comes down to is that most of the public wants to censor disfavored speakers. Thus, the existence of the 1st amendment.
In this universe, the entire reason “campaign finance reform” has repeatedly failed Constitutional tests over the last forty years is because it defines speech as a campaign contribution and tries to fine or jail people for things like “going on TV to talk about why they disagree with Hillary Clinton” (which is what gave rise to the Citizens United case). The link to censorship of other kinds should be fairly obvious.
I share the usual apprehensions about Wikipedia and invite you to read the actual ruling or myriad other sources if you don’t trust that quote.
The case that the pro-censorship forces can’t stop caterwauling about arose out of this incident: the federal government declaring speech against a particular candidate to be illegal and prohibiting it from being disseminated under penalty of law.
Seems to me that the issue in question was the timing of the broadcast, being within a restricted time frame relative to an election. Hence, your interpretation that this is censorship in favor of a particular candidate is bogus.
Whatssamatta you? You offer us a quote that talks about nothing but said timing, and never even mentions Ms Clinton to support a contention that it was all about Ms Clinton?
Why was it wrong for the anti-Clinton video to be shown at that time? Fox News, also a rich corporate entity, was allowed to go off on Clinton all they wanted.
So then, by your logic, it would not have been censorship to ban the showing of movie Fahrenheit 911 during the 2004 Presidential election campaign?
Would you also object to someone who called for such a banning to be called a “book-burner”?
To me, it’s pretty self-evident that is what the person is being and I’m reasonably certain that Ray Bradbury, who’s famous novel inspired the movie would agree.
So I take it then, that had you been on the SC during the hearing of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People vs. Alabama, you would have been fine with the state forcing the disclosure of membership lists?
If a “yes or no” answer is stupid, you’ll not get such an answer from me. Because I am not stupid, nor do I encourage stupid in others.
There are few if any principles of justice than cannot be exaggerated into an injustice by a mind so determined. The bitterness and danger endured by the NAACP during the Civil Rights struggle was extreme by any measure. Any comparison between their oppression and the minor indignities suffered by the Tea Party is an insult to any reasonable notion of justice, and will not get any respect from me. Because, as I said, I am not stupid.
I’m not a 501 expert by any means but I don’t think those code sections say what you think they say. Perhaps you intended to cite to different code sections?
Section 6104(b) refers to §§ 6033 (genereal reporting requirements, no mention of donors, or any particular reference to 501(c)(4)), 6034 (charitable trusts), and 6058 (pensions).
§ 6104(d)(3)provides a general exemption from disclosure for all 501 entities but it mentions nothing about being approved by the IRS. I think the only ones that “need” IRS approval are the ones that allow you to deduct contributions.
Not really sure how any of this exempts disclosure of donors to the IRS. The IRS is prohibited from disclosure to anyone else so IRS disclosure is moot. The disclosure issue is (I thought) entirely on the FEC side of things.
I don’t think this is an “everyone knows” sort of proposition. I know a lot of tax lawyers who probably have no idea that anything about § 6033.
Oh and BTW, I’m not sure that your cite says what you think it says.
And that donor list generally cannot be disclosed. The IRS does not disclose anything submitted on the schdule B regardless of what type of tax exempt organization you are talking about AFAICT. I think you are confusing FEC disclosure requirements with tax reporting requirements
My quote contains a reference to the speech in question, a piece called “Hillary: The Movie.” If you want to nitpick over whether that constitutes a “mention of Ms. Clinton” or not as if that has anything to do with the issue, find someone else to do it with.
The point is not whether the enforcement of the law is biased for or against one party (though, given recent events at the IRS and the fact that this is a pet issue of Democrats, it takes no genius to figure out where the regulations would fall if allowed to stand, at least until political power swings the other way and it then starts being biased in the opposite direction). The point is that you cannot declare “60 day windows” in which political speech is not allowed. This seems like a foundational principle of American civil liberties; anyone who would throw it out because “corporations” is not to be trusted.
Just FYI, part of the complaint raised conservative organizations is that some of their confidential donor lists were disclosed in violation of the law to their political opponents (who proceeded to post those donor lists online). (See also here, where ProPublica oddly burns their source for information leaked in violation of the law.) Those leaks may have been inadvertent, but if so, they were unfortunate mistakes because they feed directly into the narrative that the IRS was unfairly targeting conservative organizations.
Of course, this is Mother Jones reporting, so lefty cootie protocols are recommended, and if you can prove they are lying, you are welcome to it. But if they are not, it certainly puts the notion of the IRS persecuting Obama’s political enemies in a skeptical light, no?
No. “Hey, we also investigated other groups, just not based on their political affiliation” doesn’t excuse targeting anyone based on their political affiliation. The IRS should not flag conservative groups for “extra special” review merely because they’re conservative.
I see. So, they set out with the intention of oppressing the Tea Party, and made the necessary preliminary steps, but when it came time to pull the trigger…they didn’t?
Unless “pulling the trigger” was in fact delaying the resolution of the applications so much that some organizations gave up.
Your own numbers show that conservative organizations disproportionately received “special scrutiny”. Just a coincidence?
Do you think disproportionately singling out conservatives for, let’s say, tax audits, would be innocuous? After all, it is just “special scrutiny”, that’s all.