From: National Review
COMMENT
- Let's always remember NR founder's, William F. Buckley's first job
out of college was with the CIA. He loved the benefits sooo much he
never left. How The Rockefeller Republicans Raped America: Part 1: William F. Buckley, Jr.
However, it does explain John Fund's career move. What connection does Fund have to Drones? This, will be revealed to you, grasshopper.
ARTICLE
Back
in 2011, the Obama administration drafted an executive order that would
have forced government contractors to disclose any donations over
$5,000 that the company or its executives made to outside political
groups. Federal law already requires such disclosure for contributions
to candidates and parties, but the order would have extended that
requirement to independent-expenditure groups, a category in which
conservatives outspent liberals for the first time in the 2010 election
cycle.
The draft order was clearly highly selective in its
approach. Federal-employee labor unions and recipients of federal
grants, two highly liberal donor populations, were exempted from the
disclosure requirements.
The Obama draft was eventually shelved
after howls of outrage from federal contractors. It was clearly
unnecessary because federal contracts are not supposed to be given out
on the basis of which causes companies support. But such highlighting
would allow left-wing groups — or at some future point right-wing groups
— to strong-arm political opponents of an administration. As the Wall Street Journal
pointed out; “Disclosure may sound nice, but the real point is to put
companies on notice that their political contributions will have, well,
consequences.”
When a congressional version of the Obama
executive order called the DISCLOSE Act was introduced in Congress in
2010, its Democratic cosponsor New York senator Chuck Schumer was quite
forthright in saying the bill was designed to “embarrass companies. . . .
The deterrent effect should not be underestimated.”
Richard Nixon
showed just what misuse selective forced disclosure of political
activities can be put to. John Dean, the White House counsel who went to
prison for his role in Watergate, drafted a memo on how the Nixon
people could keep an “enemies list” that would “determine what sorts of
dealings these individuals have with the Federal Government and how we
can best screw them (e.g., grant availability, federal contracts,
litigation prosecution, etc.).”
No one is suggesting that a return
of Richard Nixon’s tactics to Washington is imminent, but every
political weapon will eventually be misused by someone. Recently, the
IRS “inadvertently” released the confidential donor lists of
conservative nonprofits when replying to Freedom of Information Act
requests from liberal groups seeking greater transparency. The groups
were asked not to publish the information, but they did so anyway.
Such
information is already being used at the state level to intimidate
companies. In 2010, Target Corp. contributed $150,000 to an independent
group running ads against higher taxes. But the same group was also
backing a pro-traditional-marriage constitutional amendment. MoveOn.org,
a left-wing activist group, threatened a boycott of Target stores and
said it needed to be made an example of because the company’s so-called
“anti-gay” political behavior would become “the tip of the iceberg.”
Target immediately backed down.
Ever since the 2009 Citizens United
decision by the Supreme Court swept away many restrictions on political
free speech, liberals have tried to find a way to rein in independent
groups that engage in politics. After the DISCLOSE Act failed to pass
Congress and the Obama executive order was stillborn, liberal
commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission began making
noises last March that they might implement their own form of required
transparency. MORE
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