I received a letter from the Online Coalition for Free Speech today. It seems the Shays-Meehan group, which brought us the BCRA of 2002 have introduced a new bill into the house that would supposedly protect our right of free speech better than HR 1606 - The Online Freedom of Speech Act.

Don’t be misled by this attempt to derail the efforts of Congressman Jeb Hensarling and all of us who are fighting desparately to protect our free speech on the internet. Read:

“Right now - there are TWO bills in Congress that will affect bloggers - one good, one bad. The bill that deserves our support is HR 1606 - The Online Freedom of Speech Act.

The other bill - HR 4194 - is a substitute offered by those most interested in regulating the Internet. Its supporters are engaged in an aggressive campaign to pass this legislation in Congress, (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

I received the following from a staffer for Republican Congressman Chris Cannon, of Utah’s 3rd Congressional district, via my contact page. I wanted to share with you the remarks which the Congressman made on the floor of the House today.

“Rep. Chris Cannon Statement on HR 1606

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H.R. 1606, legislation that will exempt blogs, e-mail and other online speech from campaign finance laws.

When Congress passed campaign finance reform in 2002, the legislation did not identify political speech over the Internet as a target of the new regulations. The proponents of the law argued its intent was to restrict money not speech. But in April a federal judge sided with campaign finance reform zealots and ruled the FEC cannot completely exempt online speech from the requirements of the Campaign Finance Reform law.

I’m not here to revisit (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

From an article posted at Red State, and contributed by Congressman Jeb Hensarling:

“For those of you who are interested in tomorrow’s vote on the Online Freedom of Speech Act (H.R. 1606), I wanted to make you aware of the following letter I just sent, with Representative Albert Wynn (D-MD), to each of our colleagues in support of the bill. Since the bill is being considered “under suspension of the rules,” it needs to garner more than a majority of votes (two-thirds of the Members present and voting). So make your support for H.R. 1606 both loud and vocal!

Tomorrow the House will consider H.R. 1606, the online Freedom of Speech Act, which is identical to S. 678 introduced by Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid. This bill will protect citizen journalists, known as bloggers, from the heavy hand of federal regulation.

(Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

As we continue in our theme of individual liberty from last week where we discussed the commerce clause, we want to focus today on free speech.

There is no concept of freedom dearer to the hearts of the American people than that of free speech. The Constitution states in the first amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

For our purposes today the first right in the Bill of Rights following the establishment clause states:

“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”

Today we want to focus on one particular encroachment on this all important right that has recently been passed by both House and Senate, (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

If you have not yet done so, please visit the Online Coalition right now to read and endorse their comment concerning FEC regulation of internet blogging.

The window to submit a comment to the FEC closes on Friday, June 3rd, 2005 — it’s not too late to submit your own comment. Simply send an e-mail to internet@fec.gov and be sure to include your name and mailing address. If you do not feel comfortable providing the FEC with personal data, send your comment to info@onlinecoalition.com and they will submit it for you anonymously.

Once the public comment period closes, the FEC will deliberate for a few weeks and then hold a public hearing on either June 28th or June 29th in Washington, DC. Both Mike Krempasky (a Republican) and Michael Bassik (a Democrat) from Online Coalition have requested the opportunity to testify at those hearings.

After the public hearings, the FEC will deliberate for a few weeks until they produce a final version of the rules and vote to enact them. Out of the six-member bipartisan Commission, they need four votes to do anything.

Don’t forget to visit the Online Coalition today to read and endorse their comment.

Time is running our for public comment to the FEC in their proposed rulemaking regarding the internet. The deadline is June 3, 2005.

If you are a blogger, blog reader, or a friend to blogs, you should make your opinion known to the FEC.

You may sign on to the 11 Principles for Online Freedom already written up with the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Institute for Politics, Technology, and The Internet. The address for their sign-up is Center for Democracy and Technology.

If you would like to write your own comments, you can find help and instruction from Red State.org, here, or from DailyKos.com, here.

Please visit the The Online Coalition and help them to educate the FEC.

Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters Blog has a story entitled, Singapore Shuts Down A Critical Blogger about a Blogger being shutdown by his government for criticizing one of their agencies. The downed site, along with the apology to the agency can be found here.

Captain Ed’s response is the following:

“Both Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have taken a look at Chen’s battle with Singapore’s elite. Chen’s surrender is certainly understandable, but unfortunate. Less understandable is the acquiescence of traditional media outlets in paying these judgements, as the article implies, and their silence to this point about the practice of Singapore’s leaders. Rather than comply with these blatant attempts to stifle free speech, the larger outlets should simply stop reporting from Singapore and give better coverage to the government’s opposition movements from bases outside Singapore.

Sometimes I wonder if (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

The problem with absurdity is that at some point people will no longer believe what you have to say.

For instance, in this article entitled, Clear skies end global dimming, the writer tells us that because of major steps taken in the last two decades, our skies have cleared up immensely. More sunlight is reaching the earth’s surface now than it was in 1980.

The article then hypothesizes the following:

“Researchers will now focus on working out the long-term effects of clearer air. One thing they do know is that black particulate matter in the air has been contributing a cooling effect to the ground. “It is clear that the greenhouse effect has been partly masked in the past by air pollution,” says Andreas Macke, a meteorologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany. “

So now what are we to think? We have been told for the last thirty years to decrease pollution in the air because it causes global warming and the green-house effect. Now we are told we have done our job, and have cleaned up the air immensely, and that causes global warming as well.

We wonder just how much “science” people have the gullibility to swallow. The most fascinating thing is that they do.

Red State has a story about the recently proposed legislation to block the FEC from regulating online political speech. Their article entitled, Online Freedom of Speech Act Introduced in House contains the text of Congressman Jeb Hensarling’s letter to his colleagues. Here is the letter:

“Dear Colleague:

When Congress passed campaign finance reform in 2002, the legislation did not identify the Internet as a target of regulation, and rightly so. The explosion of new technology has done much to democratize our politics, encourage grassroots political involvement, and act as a tremendous catalyst for civic engagement across our country. With the emergence of blogs, the Internet truly puts the power in the hands of the people.

Unfortunately, a federal judge has ruled that the FEC’s previous broad exemption of the Internet was impermissible absent clear direction from Congress. Within (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Terri Schiavo has passed away, but the events surrounding her passing will have ripple effects for years to come. Red State Rant quotes a familiar Scripture Passage as comfort here.

“Revelation 21:4
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Hugh Hewitt, has a roundup of several articles that are well worth reading. His roundup is entitled, An Outbreak of Religiousrightitis. Here are a couple of excerpts from his post.

He includes a quotation from Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Opinion Journal article dated today, found here.

“Back to Noonan, who, when she is “on,” says things in ways that ought to be scratched into marble somewhere, like this:

“A great nation does not like to see an (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Captain Ed, of Captain’s Quarters Blog wrote yesterday, Bloggers Have Been Heard, in which he gives Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) praise for introducing a bill that would exempt “Internet communications from FEC regulation altogether:”

“Paragraph 22 of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: “Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.”

We add our thanks to Senator Reid for his action, and hope the bill is passed and signed into law. We would further suggest, that the BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act - McCain-Feingold) of 2002 be repealed altogether in light of how it was brought into being, and the corruption behind it, as we posted here, yesterday.

Please read Captain Ed’s entire post, linked above, and we add our thanks to him, for helping lead the charge against FEC regulation of Blogs.

In a Real Clear Politics commentary, today, Thomas Lifson of The American Thinker, has written Judicial Activism’s Perfect Storm.

Lifson predicts a storm brewing and makes some excellent points. Please read the entire article.

It seems all the forces surrounding judicial activism are rapidly reaching hurricane proportions. What makes it a perfect storm is the triangulation of the winds blowing. His major points are the following along with some excerpts:

“The American Public Is Paying Attention
High profile decisions in which judges nakedly impose their preferences have been accumulating at an accelerating pace. It is no longer an unusual occurrence for Americans to turn on their radios or TVs, or log onto the internet to discover that a judge somewhere has concluded that homosexual marriage is a Constitutional right, or that the death penalty for adolescents has become “cruel (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

Bloggers and others have formed an “Online Coalition” and written a letter to the FEC concerning the regulation of bloggers and websites. You can sign on here. If you don’t do anything else, at least read the letter, and stay informed.

Our thanks to Instapundit for pointing to the letter above.

In the aftermath of the “blogger firestorm” generated by FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith last week, there are now some critical assessments concerning this issue. Our thanks to Instapundit, for pointing to the latter two writers.

Three well known personalities have written post-appraisals concerning whether or not there could, or should be blogger regulation by the FEC.

Hugh Hewitt, syndicated radio talk show host, and Professor of Constitutional Law at Chapman University Law School says,

“I have been teaching the First Amendment for a decade, and it isn’t going to happen because it would be patently and obviously unconstitutional to classify the content of a political blog –which is essentially a cyber-newspaper– as within the purview of the FEC.”

His full statement entitled, Lions, and tigers and bears, oh my!, can be read here.

Richard Hasen, is a professor specializing in election law at (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)

The widespread story of yesterday concerning the FEC regulation of blogs, and even e-mail that has political references has been substantiated.

The Washington Times in an op-ed piece today entitled Excesses in McCain-Feingold, certainly lends weight to the accuracy of the story. An excerpt on their take on the subject is quoted here:

“But last September U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the decision, arguing that the “commission’s exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines” the law’s purpose. Interpreting this, Mr. Smith told CNET News that “any coordinated activity over the Internet would need to be regulated, as a minimum.” This includes, but is not limited to, blogs and other sources of political news and opinion that might link to a candidate’s Web page. This leaves bloggers and online news sources in a state of regulatory limbo. “Would a link to a candidate’s (Read the rest of the story below the fold...)