Sep 2, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
Arlington, Va.—What do Bill Clinton, Peggy Noonan, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Maureen Dowd and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth founder John O’Neil have in common?
All wrote books that could have been banned, just like “Hillary: The Movie,” the film at the heart of the campaign finance case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear new arguments in the case Wednesday, Sept. 9, in an unusual session ordered after justices appeared troubled by the government’s suggestion during the first oral argument that it could ban corporate-funded books. Indeed, Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, a leading advocate of campaign finance regulations, admitted this week to The New York Times, “A campaign document in the form of a book can be banned.”
Today, the Institute for Justice released a “top ten” list of political advocacy books from the last four presidential election cycles and asked: If the First Amendment doesn’t protect “Hillary: The Movie,” would it protect books like these?
1. Dude, Where’s My Country?, Michael Moore, 2003 (“There is probably no greater imperative facing the nation than the defeat of George W. Bush in the 2004 election.”)
2. Bush Must Go, Bill Press, 2004 (“If you need any ammunition for voting against George Bush, here they are: the top ten reasons why George Bush must be denied a second term.”)
3. My Dad, John McCain, Meghan McCain, 2008 (“There are a few things you need to know about my dad, and one of them is that he would make a great president.”)
4. The Case Against Hillary, Peggy Noonan, 2000 (“And that is the great thing about democracy: Before Hillary Clinton gets to decide your future, you get to decide hers.”); and The Case for Hillary, Susan Estrich, 2005 (“And when I say a woman president, it means Hillary.”)
5. Unfit for Command, John E. O’Neil and Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., 2004 (“I do not believe John Kerry is fit to be commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States.”)
6. A Call to Service, John Kerry, 2003 (“It is that determination I hope to bring to the election of 2004, to the presidency of the United States, and to the common challenges Americans face.”)
7. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken, 2003 (“George W. Bush is the worst environmental president in our nation’s history.”)
8. Shrub, Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose, 2000 (“George W. Bush is promising to do for the rest of the country what he has done for Texas.”)
9. Bushworld, Maureen Dowd, 2004 (“So it’s understandable why, going into his reelection campaign, Mr. Bush wouldn’t want to underscore that young Americans keep getting whacked over there [in Iraq].”)
10. Between Hope and History, President Bill Clinton, 1996 (“Now, I believe with all my heart, this is another moment for Americans to decide.”)
“Every one of these books takes a position on a candidate’s qualifications for office, just like ‘Hillary: The Movie,’ and every one was published by a corporation,” said Steve Simpson, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, which filed a friend-of-the court brief in Citizens Untied. “Every election season, candidates and their backers and detractors flood stores with similar titles. The question for the government and campaign finance ‘reformers’ is: Why not ban these books, too?”
Under McCain-Feingold’s electioneering communications ban, the nonprofit corporation Citizens United was barred from airing “Hillary: The Movie” on cable TV during the 2008 primary season. A lower court ruled the film fell under McCain-Feingold because “it takes a position on [then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s] character, qualifications, and fitness for office.” The Supreme Court is now revisiting the parts of McConnell v. FEC that upheld McCain-Feingold’s ban on corporate electioneering communications, as well as Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which upheld a ban on corporate express advocacy.
Although McCain-Feingold applies only to broadcast speech, if the Court okays the banning of Hillary: The Movie, there is no principled reason Congress could not extend the ban to books and other media, like newspapers and the Internet.
“Speech is speech, no matter who is speaking, who funds it or in what form it comes,” continued Simpson. “The same ideas do not become dangerous because they are funded by corporations or because they appear in an ad or film instead of a book or newspaper. The Supreme Court must return to first principles and protect all speech, regardless of the speaker, and overturning Austin and McConnell is a critical first step.”
“Political ads, books and films, like ‘Hillary: The Movie’ or Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ contribute to a robust and healthy debate, and they all deserve the fullest protection of the First Amendment,” said IJ Senior Attorney Bert Gall. “What’s at stake in Citizens United is whether the First Amendment protects this speech from censorship if Congress decides that it prefers silence over debate. The Supreme Court should reject censorship and open the floodgates to all speakers—and then let citizens and voters decide for themselves.”
The Institute for Justice defends First Amendment rights and challenges campaign finance laws nationwide. In May, the Institute secured a federal court ruling striking down Florida’s electioneering communications law, and IJ previously won a ruling in the Washington Supreme Court that stopped an attempt to regulate media commentary as “in-kind” political contributions. IJ is currently challenging laws in Colorado that suppress speech about ballot issues by grassroots groups and nonprofit organizations, as well as Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law for funding political campaigns with taxpayer dollars.
Aug 31, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12, 2009–According to the latest reports, the United States suffered a six-fold increase in casualties in the war in Afghanistan last month, versus the same time a year ago. The Wall Street Journal, in a story earlier this week, declared the Taliban are now winning the war. The Wall Street Journal noted that the American strategy in Afghanistan “puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants.” This is why we’re losing the war, and we at the Ayn Rand Center have been saying it for seven years.
In 2006 Elan Journo, a fellow with the Ayn Rand Center, wrote: “The failure in Afghanistan is a result of Washington’s foreign policy. Despite lip service to the goal of protecting America’s safety, the ‘war on terror’ has been waged in compliance with the prevailing moral premise that self-interest is evil and self-sacrifice a virtue. Instead of trouncing the enemy for the sake of protecting American lives, our leaders have sacrificed our self-defense for the sake of serving the whims of Afghans.”
In 2004 Mr. Journo wrote about the Iraq war: “Though Washington may be blinded by the longing to buy the love of Iraqis, our service men know all too well that (as one put it): ‘When you go to fight, it’s time to shoot–not to make friends with people.’ In its might and courage our military is unequaled; it is the moral responsibility of Washington to issue battle plans that will properly ‘shock and awe’ the enemy. Eschewing self-interest in the name of compassion is immoral. The result is self-destruction.”
In 2002 ARC senior fellow Dr. Onkar Ghate : “How then goes the war? An objective answer must be: badly. But our cause is not yet lost. We lack not the wealth nor the skilled military necessary to defeat the enemy, only the ideas and the will. If we articulate and practice a rational foreign policy, one actually premised on America’s self-interest, we will prevail. Nothing more is needed to achieve victory than to replace the pragmatism and self-sacrifice now dictating America’s actions with the principles of reason and rational self-interest; nothing less will do.”
Will our government listen?
Aug 26, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 25, 2009–In a Washington Post editorial yesterday, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele offered his principles for reforming health care. While he rightly condemned the Obama plan for expanding government control over health care, Mr. Steele vowed to preserve the existing government policies and programs that are responsible for today’s health care crisis, such as Medicare and Medicare Advantage.
Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center, writes, “If the government guarantees health care to people, costs have to skyrocket. When someone else is footing the bill for health care costs, consumers demand medical services without having to consider their real price. The artificially inflated demand this creates sends expenditures soaring out of control. It is irrelevant whether the government finances this spending spree directly, as it does with traditional Medicare, or indirectly, as with Medicare Advantage. In the end, the results are the same.
“The only way to fix the problems caused by government interference in medicine is to eliminate government interference in medicine. By returning to a truly free system where each individual is responsible for his own health care costs, we would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry, leading ultimately to high quality, affordable medical care for Americans. Let’s start looking at ways to phase out government interference in medicine.”
Editor’s Note: The conservatives are worse than the Liberals as they are supposed to be the alternative to the “progressivism” (i.e., socialism) of the Left; but, instead the conservatives merely respond with a watered down version of socialism (as they accept the principles of the Left), thus providing no real alternative. Conservatives do this because of their acceptance of altruism — the doctrine of self-sacrifice — over the right to the pursuit of happiness.
Jul 13, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
Dear All;
My Boston Tea Party Speech of July 4 is now on Youtube, in two parts:
Happy Independence Day!
John
Jun 22, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
John Lewis appears on Pajamas TV to discuss the Iran Election Chaos. He also gives an excellent contrast between Israel and Iran. (LINK)
Jun 8, 2009 | Dollars & Crosses
Washington, D.C., June 8, 2009–In an op-ed published last week by Investor’s Business Daily, Alex Epstein, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, reacted to the Department of Justice’s recent announcement that it will increase enforcement of antitrust laws, and argued that the government should leave successful businesses alone to operate as they see fit.
According to Mr. Epstein, companies like Google, which are in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice, have “no power to force consumers” to use their products and “no power to prevent competitors from offering products” of their own. Consequently, such companies can pose “no threat to anyone’s rights or to the competitive process.”
The only player in today’s market that can thwart competition, said Epstein, is the government. “By using the vast and arbitrary political power given to it by antitrust law, the government can forcibly control successful companies such as Google and Microsoft, telling them what products they cannot sell, what markets they cannot enter, what prices they cannot charge. Obama’s new push to ‘protect’ competition,” noted Epstein, “is the real threat to competition.”
“Under the reign of antitrust, any superior company can be stopped in its tracks because some bureaucrat, company, or academic decides that the prices in its voluntary contracts are too high, or its voluntary terms are too onerous, or even,” added Epstein, “that its stable of free products is too large!” “Success earned in a free, competitive process is an achievement.” It is a travesty, concluded Epstein, that “our Department of Justice regards it as a crime.”
