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SINCE Barry Goldwater, accepting the Republicans 1964 presidential nomination, said extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, Democrats have been decrying Republican extremism. Actually, although there is abundant foolishness and unseemliness in American politics, real extremism measures or movements that menace the Constitutions architecture of ordered liberty is rare. Last week, however, extremism stained the Senate.

Forty-eight members of the Democratic caucus attempted to do something never previously done amend the Bill of Rights. They tried to radically shrink First Amendment protection of political speech. They evidently think extremism in defense of the political class convenience is no vice.

The First Amendment as the First Congress passed it, and the states ratified it 223 years ago, says: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech. The 48 senators understand that this is incompatible by its plain text, and in light of numerous Supreme Court rulings with their desire to empower Congress and state legislatures to determine the permissible quantity, content and timing of political speech. Including, of course, speech by and about members of Congress and their challengers as well as persons seeking the presidency or state offices.

The 48 senators proposing to give legislators speech-regulating powers describe their amendment in anodyne language, as relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections. But what affects elections is speech, and the vast majority of contributions and expenditures are made to disseminate speech. The Democrats amendment says: Congress and the states may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections, and may prohibit corporations including nonprofit issue advocacy corporations (such as the Sierra Club, NARAL Pro-Choice America and thousands of others across the political spectrum) from spending any money to influence elections, which is what most of them exist to do.

Because all limits will be set by incumbent legislators, the limits deemed reasonable will surely serve incumbents interests. The lower the limits, the more valuable will be the myriad (and unregulated) advantages of officeholders.

The point of this improvement of James Madisons First Amendment is to reverse the Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision. It left in place the ban on corporate contributions to candidates. It said only that Americans do not forfeit their speech rights when they band together to express themselves on political issues through corporations, which they generally do through nonprofit advocacy corporations.

Floyd Abrams, among the First Amendments most distinguished defenders, notes that the proposed amendment deals only with political money that funds speech. That it would leave political speech less protected than pornography, political protests at funerals, and Nazi parades. That by aiming to equalize the political influence of persons and groups, it would reverse the 1976 Buckley decision joined by such champions of free expression as Justices William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Potter Stewart. That one reason President Harry Truman vetoed the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act was that he considered its ban on corporations and unions making independent expenditures to affect federal elections a dangerous intrusion on free speech. And that no Fortune 100 corporation appears to have contributed even a cent to any of the 10 highest-grossing super PACs in either the 2010, 2012 or 2014 election cycles.

There are not the 67 Democratic senators and 290 Democratic representatives necessary to send this amendment to the states for ratification. The mere proposing of it, however, has usefully revealed the senators who are eager to regulate speech about themselves:

Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Benjamin Cardin (Md.), Thomas Carper (Del.), Robert Casey (Pa.), Christopher Coons (Del.), Richard Durbin (Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Al Franken (Minn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Angus King (Maine), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Christopher Murphy (Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Harry Reid (Nev.), John Rockefeller (W.Va.), Bernard Sanders (Vt.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Mark Udall (Colo.), John Walsh (Mont.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Ron Wyden (Ore.).

The italicized names are of senators on the ballot this November. But all 48 Senate co-sponsors are American rarities real extremists.

Continued here:
George Will Eviscerating the 1st Amendment is extremism

She said she came from another country where she had her own culture and own religion, but because of America's First Amendment, she could practice her religion here freely.

This was the sentiment expressed by a student in my First Amendment-related course, The Media: Freedom and Power.

For nearly the past two decades, the first oral presentation assignment has been for students to recite the First Amendment and briefly describe what it means to them. But for some reason her words particularly resonated amid the tremors of the Islamic group ISIS in the Middle East.

ISIS. This one name we had not heard of a year ago now conjures images of unmerciful, cruel brutality. Clad in black, they resemble Nazis rolling their way through Europe in World War II, except ISIS is rolling through Iraq delivering on its promise of death to those who don't renounce their religions and convert to theirs.

Seriously? Who does that in this day and age?

The notion of someone being threatened with death for not believing in the religion of another is something just so out of the realm of our reality in America. While we are not a perfect nation, the idea of being killed for one's religious beliefs is not one of our daily worries.

Now, on the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America, many Americans once again have the threat of a new group on our collective minds. It is brought more to the fore with the beheadings of American journalists Steve Sotloff and James Foley.

Granted, ISIS has been beheading non-Americans for some time as it campaigned through Iraq and Syria. It has also posted videos of mass executions of captured soldiers and civilians. As it happens so often, it is when the victims are like us in this case Americans and for those in journalism, journalists that the brutality takes on a chillier chill of ice that glazes the soul.

I had purposely avoided seeing the videos depicting the beheadings of Sotloff and Foley. When writing this piece, however, I decided to take a look to see just how horrible the act was. But I could not find it. YouTube pulled the actual depictions of the beheadings. I looked for some time and still did not find it.

I suppose I could have kept looking and I might have found it somewhere on the Internet, but it was somewhat of a relief not to have to brace myself for what was done to them.

Read more:
Do We Want To See Beheading Videos Banned?

Jeanne Shaheen wants you to shut up already. She believes passionately that the First Amendment is too broad. It has to be rewritten to give government the authority to limit the speech of citizens.

Shaheen has promoted this view for years, and on Monday the bill she co-sponsored to amend the Constitution to restrict citizen speech came up for a procedural Senate vote. The American people lose when corporations and special interests can spend limitless dollars trying to sway public opinion and inject themselves in our democratic election process, and we have to take action on the secret money that is growing increasingly prevalent in campaigns, she said

Corporations and special interests, eh? If restricting corporations is the goal, then why does the constitutional amendment that she co-sponsored say, Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections?

The phrase candidates and others means you, not corporations and special interests.

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. Shaheen wants to make a law to do exactly that. But she cannot, because of the First Amendment. So she wants to amend it to give her the power to limit your ability to speak about politics, which means about her. New Hampshire, speak out against this while you still can.

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Shaheen vs. free speech She wants to silence you

The Alex Jones Show(VIDEO Commercial Free) Monday September 8 2014: Lew Rockwell
Russians Practice Nuking America -- Date: 09/08/2014 -- --SUBSCRIBE TO PRISONPLANET.TV-- http://www.prisonplanet.tv/ -Today - Alex breaks down recent attacks on the First Amendment and the...

By: Ron Gibson

Excerpt from:
The Alex Jones Show(VIDEO Commercial Free) Monday September 8 2014: Lew Rockwell - Video

Senators opened a historic debate Monday on whether to alter the First Amendment to give Congress the power to squelch free speech in the form of campaign spending, setting up a showdown vote later this week on the first alterations to the founding document in decades.

Democrats say the debate is a referendum on democracy and keeping the wealthy from distorting the system. Republicans counter its a debate about fundamental freedom of speech that all Americans should have.

For Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat driving the debate, its chiefly about two people Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who pour tens of millions of dollars into conservative and libertarian causes.

They are trying to buy America, at every level of government, Mr. Reid said.

Democrats are trying to undo several Supreme Court decisions that have ruled that spending money on issue ads is covered by free speech guarantees that neither Congress nor the states can ban.

Their legislation would give Congress or state legislatures the power to set reasonable limits on how much money political candidates could raise and spend in seeking election and power to prohibit outside groups from spending any money at all on ads.

That would apply particularly to corporations, whom Democrats say are increasingly being granted rights that should be reserved to individuals.

Their proposed amendment would specifically carve out an exemption for the corporations that own the press, which would be allowed to use its reporting to influence elections.

Republicans said Democrats were trying to silence political opponents rather than debate their ideas and accused Mr. Reid of forcing the issue to the floor in order to rally his political base ahead of Novembers elections.

This proposed amendment would be the biggest threat to free speech that Congress would have enacted since the Alien and Sedition Acts back in 1798, said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican.

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Senate debates limiting campaign cash by altering First Amendment