43 Democrats in the Senate have signed onto a bill to effectively repeal the First Amendment. This month a cloture motion was introduced in order to stop debate and move the bill forward.
S.J.Res.19 would effectively give Congress the power to control any political speech in the United States.
Led by Harry Reid, the bill would eliminate the ability of campaigns, political parties and outside groups to spend money in elections. We would all like to see corruption via campaign spending to end, but to eliminate the 1st Amendment is not the way to do it.
Limiting or ending your rights is often initiated under the guise of addressing a problem ‘we all agree on’ and this is no different.
“What the amendment [to the Constitution] would do if adopted is give Congress plenary authority, absolute authority, to regulate all political speech,” stated Ted Cruz, who warned us last week this was coming.
Saying the foundations of democracy are threatened, Senate Democrats took the first step Tuesday to rewrite the First Amendment, holding a hearing to rally support for their proposed constitutional change that would give government the power to ban all spending on political campaigns.
The effort drew vows of resistance from Republicans, who harangued Democrats for abandoning free speech rights for political gain. Republican lawmakers said the solution was for Democrats to improve their arguments, not to silence their critics in an assault on fundamental freedoms.
“Where are the liberals today? Why is there not a liberal standing here defending the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment?” Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, demanded of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Forty-three Democrats are sponsoring the amendment, which would give Congress and the states powers to set strict limits — or eliminate — the ability of campaigns, political parties and outside groups to spend money in elections.
Democrats said they were spurred by several recent Supreme Court rulings that have freed up outside groups to spend money advertising for their points of view in elections, leading to a flood of cash, much of it spent anonymously, in the 2012 election.
testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Examining a Constitutional Amendment to Restore Democracy to the American People” focusing on campaign finance on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, June 3, 2014. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)Enlarge Photo
testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Examining a Constitutional Amendment … more >Signaling the stakes in the fight, the Senate’s top Democrat and Republican testified at the hearing, mounting feverish attacks on each other.
“We sit here today with a simple choice: We can keep the status quo and argue all day and all night, weekends, forever about whose billionaires are right, whose billionaires are wrong, or we can work together to change the system, to get this shady money out of our democracy and restore the basic principles of one American, one vote,” Mr. Reid said.
Mr. Reid acknowledged that he felt “so unclean” after his hard-fought 1998 Senate campaign, when one major donor contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the Nevada Democratic Party and let Mr. Reid know he had done so — apparently an effort to curry favor.
“I hope that didn’t corrupt me, but it was corrupting,” Mr. Reid said.
He continued his assault on the conservative Koch brothers, two billionaires who fund conservative causes and who have become special targets for Mr. Reid.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said Mr. Reid was attacking the Koch brothers as a smoke screen for “how incredibly bad this proposed amendment is.”
He said even liberal lions such as the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy voted against this kind of effort. Indeed, a 2001 effort to amend the Constitution on campaign finance was defeated by a 56-40 vote, and a 1997 effort was defeated by an even wider 61-39 vote.
Mr. McConnell said Democrats’ push this year is an election strategy, not a serious effort to work through constitutional issues.
“This proposal is never going to pass Congress. This is a political exercise and that’s all it is. The goal here is to stir up one party’s political base so they’ll show up in November,” he said.
The amendment Democrats are pursuing is strikingly broad. If ratified, the amendment would let federal and state governments set limits on how much money could be contributed to campaigns, spent by candidates or raised and spent by outside interest groups such as the National Rifle Association or the Sierra Club.
Vote against all senators who would dare to tamper with our free speech by changing our first amendment rights to free speech uncensored.
America we definitely have to stand up against this bid to take away our Free Speech of the 1st Amendment. Don’t remain silent any longer Americans !!!!!!!!!!
Ok people now we know who needs to be taken out of the senate !!!!!!!
We’ll end you before you end free speech. That is a promise.
For scores and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth a new nation and where is it ????
You dumb bastards, just how dumb are all of you? Quit politics, you don’t belong there. Morons!!
they are about to over step their boundaries,you mfers try it and see what happens…i swear too god ,you are about to wake up the sleepy giant…….pure treason,its bills like this is why they was trying to take away death as the penalty for treason last year cuz thats what this is TREASON
Democrats need to drop dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
https://www.facebook.com/14652514811/photos/a.432000524811.241407.14652514811/14652754811/?type=1&source=11
Just as cure is a bad word to our Medical Comunity peace is a bad word to the CIA and NATO.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-war-dawn-iranian-decade-101500274.html
The world has seen nothing like the ISIS before.
Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars
The Barbary pirates, sometimes called Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa’s Atlantic seaboard and even South America, and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing ships, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Muslim market in North Africa and the Middle East.
The Barbary Wars were two wars fought at different times over the same reasons between the United States of America and the Barbary states (the de jure Ottoman Empire possessions of, but de facto independent, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli) of North Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At issue was the Barbary pirates’ demand for tribute from American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. If ships of a given country failed to pay, pirates would attack the ships and take their goods, and often enslave crewmembers and hold them for ransom. When Thomas Jefferson became president he refused to pay tribute and sent a United States Naval fleet to the Mediterranean and bombarded the various fortified pirate cities and ultimately extracted concessions of fair passage from their rulers. Both the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison undertook the actions against the Barbary States at different times. Jefferson led the first, from 1801 to 1805, against pirates’ cities in what are today Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. Madison directed forces for the second war in 1815.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/ottoww1.html
http://online.wsj.com/ww1/ottoman-empire
Today Every Islamic Terrorist, whether ISIS, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, or whatever named Islamic Terrorist Group has the same agenda. The slavery of every woman and child on earth.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/congress-debates-arming-moderate-syrian-rebels-fight-isis
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/13/us-allies-let-funds-flow-to-al-qaeda-in-syria/?page=all
http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-proposes-500-million-to-aid-syrian-rebels-1403813486
If we can not work with Assad, the leader of Syria, we should allow Russia or a nation that can work with Syria to fight the Terrorists there.
The CIA grows stronger as there are more Terrorists and the CIA funds Terrorists.
NATO growe stronger as there are more Wars and threats of War.
The United States through George Soros and the National Endowment created, supported, and funded the violence and Terrorism in the Ukraine, the situation there is the responsibility of NATO, the EU and the United States, they created it and put the leaders in charge in the Ukraine who fail to have a peaceful nation today.
The Sanctions against Russia by the EU and the United States that created all the problems in the Ukraine are wrong.
In so many places in the world the problems are caused by the CIA’s, George Soros’s, and the National Endowment for Democracy’s Color Revolutions.
Arrest Barack Obama for Treason. Shred Obama’s Executive Orders. Fire Joe Biden, John Kerry, Eric Holder and every one ot Obama’s Appointees and the Heads of every Federal Agency in the United States.
Shut down the IRS, EPA, and the Bureau of Land Management.
Repeal Obamacare, the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and the Cyber Security Bill.
We have Immigration Laws, use them.
What makes The Department of Homeland Security Stronger ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_United_States
Just as Terrorists outside the United States make the CIA and NATO stronger, Terrorists and Hate Groups make Homeland Security Stronger, it is not to their advantage to work against them. Whether they are Radical Islamic Terrorists like the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, ISIS, ISIL, Hamas, or whatever, the Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, Neo Nazi, or New Black Panthers. To make the Department of Homeland Security stronger, it pays our goverment to let them thrive and grow.
The best assets of the CIA or the Department of Homeland Security are guys and girls who don’t know they are working for them. After all, the CIA and Obama’s Terrorists in Syria have always been working against the legal government in Syria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_United_States
http://shoebat.com/2014/09/07/looks-like-isis-propaganda-mastermind-boston-graduate-raised-america/
http://bit.ly/1rBnndL
The United States and the EU were responsible for all the violence and the Coup in the Ukraine.
They are the bad guys, the sanctions against Russia should end.
http://blogs.barrons.com/emergingmarketsdaily/2014/09/12/more-u-s-eu-sanctions-hit-russia-today/?mod=yahoobarrons&ru=yahoo
No Incumbents.
Everyone of them swore an oath to uphold the constitution. Put some teeth in the oath of office.