Here Ya Go Bubba:
I only post these for Bubba cuz he was saying he couldn't find anything from Rush lately.. I'm off to class..
L.Unplugged
EIB:
You know, there's more to this campaign finance reform debate than just the cut-and-dried constitutional aspects. What's on the table here, fundamentally, is what separates this nation from the rest of the world, what separates the free from the oppressed. Sometimes we get into arguments on my show about which of our freedoms is the most important. Many people think freedom of speech is it. Others think that it's the right to private property.
You can make arguments for both, but certainly the right to free speech - particularly within the political realm - has to rank in the top two. After all: it's not the First Amendment by accident. Remember, the Founding Fathers had a brilliant understanding of the human spirit to be free in all aspects. It is how we are created. It's how we're born. They understood that, and they wrote a Constitution that, in essence, codified it.
Freedoms and rights do not come from other men. They do not come from government. They are "endowed by our creator." We are born with them. As we are witnessing, the only limitations on freedom result from the actions of men. The nature of our creation is the yearning for unbridled freedom. We discuss laws to properly limit our yearning for freedom and where to properly place those limits, but the proper placement of these limits has just been overstepped by a huge margin by a bunch of men and women for the sole purpose of protecting their own electability.
Republicans in Congress think this is a safe vote, and probably some Democrats do too, because they figure the Supreme Court will overturn this bill or the president will veto it. They're only voting for this to be able to say they "did something" about Enron and about this media-loved but people-ignored issue. They're all going along with this stupid slogan to "get the money out of politics," instead of explaining that we spend more on diaper ads than campaign ads, and asking, "Do we ban all ads if we ban these? Is every ad corrupt?"
The sole purpose of this bill is ostensibly to take the money out of politics, which supposedly leads to corruption. But as President Bush himself has proven, you need dignity, honesty, and character in office, and you will not have corruption regardless of the system. It's not the system that's corrupt. It's corrupt people within the system that corrupt it by taking the money in exchange for deeds. You're not going to get the money out of it. Money is the mother's milk of politics, no matter what you do, unless you just tear up the Constitution. And a page of it, in effect, has been torn up by this bill.
People across the political spectrum are starting to wake up to this startling reality. I played a clip by a woman caller to C-SPAN's "independent line" who couldn't believe the facts of this bill were just as chilling as I described them. She illustrated why Tom Daschle is hell bent on ramming this thing through without a conference report, without any further debate. He just wants this thing voted on and passed now. He wants to send it up to the president, the president to sign it, because he knows that the longer this thing is out there the more people are going to catch on to what it really is.
This C-SPAN call is indicative of exactly why the Senate, particularly Daschle, is so eager to get this thing put to bed, because they sense the public seeing what this is really all about - and they ought to, for crying out loud. These people ought not be able to sleep given what they've done. They have amended the Constitution in wanton violation of the legal mechanism and method, and done so to their benefit! It really is outrageous when you stop to think of it - and more people are stopping to think about it every day.
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Liberal Loopholes
Read this headline from Wednesday's The Hill, a political junkie publication in Washington, D.C. of very high reputation: "House Democrats Make Plans to Circumvent Campaign Finance Reform." The very people who have created this unconstitutional bill to rob your right to speak out on the issues you care about, are making plans to get around it for themselves! All those of you who think that this bill is going to be harmful to the Democrats and Republicans equally and, therefore, we should support it, need to give me a couple minutes to show you the truth.
This story is being completely and totally ignored by the mainstream media, so I want you to read this article - or listen to me read it if you live in Rio Linda - because it demonstrates what I've always said about money: it's like water. It finds somewhere to go. Dick Gephardt is going to raise money for so-called "non-partisan" groups like the NAACP, though you can't find a single Republican they'll support or have supported. They're totally partisan, yet they'll manage to work their way - just as groups on the GOP side will, don't misunderstand - around this bill.
Another brilliant piece exposing the CFR "non-partisan" hypocrisy comes from Fred Barnes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Barnes focuses mainly on the hard money issue, saying that Republicans have always had an advantage in raising hard money through individual contributions, whereas the Democrats have come to rely more on soft money through corporate and special interest cash.
He also touches on this attitude, which I saw displayed by almost everyone on Sunday in the talk shows, that the free speech part of the bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will throw it out. Isn't that a little cavalier when you're talking about the First Amendment? What guarantee do you have that the court will rule against the bill? None! Oh sure, Marty Meehan said last week on the House floor that this bill doesn't stop issue ads from airing 60 days before a general election, but that's all it does. He's saying that because he knows, as Senator Mitch McConnell has said, that most people in Congress haven't even bothered to read these bills.
This bill makes independent groups follow the same hard money cap that candidates must abide by. That's a deceitful argument, because these independent groups of citizens are not political parties or candidates. Limiting how much they can say is unconstitutional, as ruled in Buckley v. Valeo. Congress does not have the authority to decide when We the People may speak or how we may speak about candidates - including incumbents. It's right there in the First Amendment, and you can't change it by a simple majority vote!
Gephardt and the so-called reformers have basically come up with a plan that skirts their limit on soft money. Soft money becomes illegal, yet they're already working on a substitute for it. The substitute is found in a new rule that allows members of Congress to raise funds in $20,000 increments for tax-exempt organizations that claim to be "non-partisan." That's where the loophole starts, but you can bet members of Congress will widen that hole until they're sucking millions of dollars in that cash they claim to hate so much through it.
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Little Dick's Greatest Day
On Wednesday night, over two hundred members of Congress violated their oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" by voting for a law that abridges the First Amendment. What did House Minority Leader Richard "Dick" Gephardt think of this dark day? He described it as the most important in his 25 years of service in the House. Well, if this is the most important day he's ever had, it tells us a lot.
Gephardt's most important day in the House should have been when the Congress came together at a joint session last September to hear the president of the United States give one of the most important speeches in recent American history. As you know, Bush assured a shaken nation that he would avenge the worst mass murder of citizens in our history in that speech. He declared war on terrorism, called the nation to arms, and united us like rarely before.
For most Americans, that was the most important day in the House in 25 years, not this silly, stupid, deceptively named campaign finance reform bill. But I can understand what Gephardt is saying, ladies and gentlemen. To him, job one is securing, maintaining and exercising power.
To him, Tom Daschle, other liberals in the Democratic - and, sadly, some in the Republican - Party, the Constitution is an obstacle to their designs on this country and on their role in it.
To them, the Constitution of the United States is an impediment to bigger government, and parts of it have to be swept aside so that government can grow, so that more power can be amassed in Washington, D.C. What's shocking is that these people know that they're shredding the First Amendment. They know they are amending the Constitution - something you can't do by a simple majority vote.
I proved Gephardt knew what he was doing on Friday's show by citing testimony he gave before the a subcommittee hearing on the Constitution, free speech and campaign finance reform. On February 27th, 1997, Gephardt said that the Supreme Court had ruled that, when it comes to elections, money equals speech. As a result of their decisions, only by allowing unlimited spending in campaigns can we protect the cherished right of free speech. He admitted that this put the following "two important values in direct conflict."
"Free speech, promoted through billions of dollars in 30-second negative ads," Gephardt said, "and our desires for healthy campaigns and a healthy democracy." But, Gephardt said, as the Supreme Court "has framed it, you can't have both." He then said, "That's why Barney Frank and I have proposed to change the excessive spending campaign system that the Buckley decision has put in place by proposing that an amendment to the Constitution to give Congress significant and explicit authority to regulate campaigns and campaign spending."
He said it five years ago, and proposed it by going through the proper mechanism for amending the Constitution. But now it's come to pass by a simple majority. Gephardt wants Congress in charge of elections, with the power to regulate campaigns and campaign spending. Stop and think about that. I shouldn't even have to analyze it.
