A Campaign Finance Reform "See, We TOLD You So!"
I'm tempted to say something like, "They can NOT be serious" about this, but those of us who warned that this is where so-called "campaign finance reform" would end up know better.
Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.
In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.
Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.
I was initially startled when I read about this development, but my shock didn't last long. This is how liberal busybodying governance works. A phony "populist" cause is cited as justification to impose stiff federal regulation upon the related, alleged "problem." A bureaucracy is created, or assigned, to do the regulating. And that bureaucracy then proceeds to run amok, running far afield of the original scope and/or intent of the law, because that is what regulators do. They're like public sector energizer bunnies - they just keep going and going and going and going....
The difference with the "Campaign Finance Reform Act" is that using the First Amendment for kleenex and toilet paper at the same time wasn't an unintended consequence of Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold, but their conscious objective.
Captain Ed, speaking for the entire blogosphere (Michelle Malkin, MyDD, Atrios, DailyKos, In the Agora, Winfield Myers, Instapundit, Steven Bainbridge, Pajama Hadin, Rightwing Nuthouse, Say Anything, Baronger's Scribblings, Mike Krempasky, Susanna Cornett, Hennessy's View, The Anchoress, Polipundit, Red State, among many, many others) is pissed:
The FEC, thanks to a John McCain lawsuit, will have to calculate the value of a link on a political website in order to determine whether the owner has overdonated to a campaign -- in other words, committed a felony. Bigger blogs will come under closer scrutiny, which means that any expression of support on CQ with a referential hyperlink may well get valued at more than the $2,000 maximum hard-cash contribution.
In order for me to operate under those conditions, I will need to hire a lawyer and an accountant to guide me through the election laws and calculate my in-kind donations on almost an hourly basis. How many bloggers will put up with that kind of hassle just to speak their minds about candidates and issues? John McCain and Russ Feingold have effectively created an American bureaucracy dedicated to stamping out independent political speech, and the courts have abdicated all reason in declaring it constitutional.
And, never let it be forgotten, George W. Bush signed the damn thing into law. If he'd taken the same stance in the GWOT, we'd all be slinking around in burkas by now.
This is redundant proof that what "Sailor" and the Donks really want to expunge from American politics is not money, but free, unfettered, independent speech.
Isn't this just the kind of thing we're trying to get rid of in the Middle East?
UPDATE: If La Shawn Barber wants a trackback link, La Shawn Barber will get one....
Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over.
In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.
Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.
I was initially startled when I read about this development, but my shock didn't last long. This is how liberal busybodying governance works. A phony "populist" cause is cited as justification to impose stiff federal regulation upon the related, alleged "problem." A bureaucracy is created, or assigned, to do the regulating. And that bureaucracy then proceeds to run amok, running far afield of the original scope and/or intent of the law, because that is what regulators do. They're like public sector energizer bunnies - they just keep going and going and going and going....
The difference with the "Campaign Finance Reform Act" is that using the First Amendment for kleenex and toilet paper at the same time wasn't an unintended consequence of Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold, but their conscious objective.
Captain Ed, speaking for the entire blogosphere (Michelle Malkin, MyDD, Atrios, DailyKos, In the Agora, Winfield Myers, Instapundit, Steven Bainbridge, Pajama Hadin, Rightwing Nuthouse, Say Anything, Baronger's Scribblings, Mike Krempasky, Susanna Cornett, Hennessy's View, The Anchoress, Polipundit, Red State, among many, many others) is pissed:
The FEC, thanks to a John McCain lawsuit, will have to calculate the value of a link on a political website in order to determine whether the owner has overdonated to a campaign -- in other words, committed a felony. Bigger blogs will come under closer scrutiny, which means that any expression of support on CQ with a referential hyperlink may well get valued at more than the $2,000 maximum hard-cash contribution.
In order for me to operate under those conditions, I will need to hire a lawyer and an accountant to guide me through the election laws and calculate my in-kind donations on almost an hourly basis. How many bloggers will put up with that kind of hassle just to speak their minds about candidates and issues? John McCain and Russ Feingold have effectively created an American bureaucracy dedicated to stamping out independent political speech, and the courts have abdicated all reason in declaring it constitutional.
And, never let it be forgotten, George W. Bush signed the damn thing into law. If he'd taken the same stance in the GWOT, we'd all be slinking around in burkas by now.
This is redundant proof that what "Sailor" and the Donks really want to expunge from American politics is not money, but free, unfettered, independent speech.
Isn't this just the kind of thing we're trying to get rid of in the Middle East?
UPDATE: If La Shawn Barber wants a trackback link, La Shawn Barber will get one....
posted by JASmius at 5:46 PM
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