Maggie's Farm

President Obama is trying to, once again, stir up resentment of “big business.” Obama does not mention that “big unions” and other Democrat-loving lobbies are larger spenders in political campaigns, largely unfettered now while corporations are under McCain-Feingold campaign finance restrictions.  Obama is trying to politick his way out of his many political defeats, protect his liberal base, and is doing so by pursuing his consistent opposition to free speech.  His transparency is evident, and boomeranging.

In the 2008 campaign, as Michael Barone wrote, “attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals.”  President Obama is consistent in continuing this shameful pursuit.

Once elected, President Obama issued an order barring officials from talking with lobbyists about the spending of “stimulus” funds.  The ACLU was critical:

The rule is intended to prevent stimulus funds from being “distributed on the basis of factors other than the merits of proposed projects or in response to improper influence or pressure,” according to the memo.

While applauding that goal, Michael Macleod-Ball, chief legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and himself a lobbyist, questioned the means, saying, “The question is whether this restriction, as it’s drafted, is the best way to achieve that end with the narrowest amount of limitation on an individual’s rights possible. “From our perspective, the pretty clear answer is ‘no, it’s not.’”

The “megascandal”  is not widely reported, however, that “stimulus” funds have been steered to Democrat congressional districts, and on no other basis such as socio-economic need.

President Obama appointed Cass Sunstein to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, with influence thoughout the Executive branch and regulatory agencies.  Sunstein favors “using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings,” to stifle criticisms of politicians.

The return of David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, to the Obama White House is telling of President Obama’s choice to pursue deceitful politicking instead of support free speech.

Not a new economic team. Not a new chief of staff. Not even a new national security staff to replace the gang that dropped the ball on the Christmas Day bomber. No, with the Obami, it is never about substance or getting the policy right. It’s not about governance. It is about the perpetual campaign. So the campaign manager gets the emergency call.

Plouffe is coupled with "campaign law expert and partisan warrior” Bob Bauer, who worked for Plouffe in the 2008 election, appointed in November as White House Legal Counsel.

Bauer is a supporter of campaign finance laws. He argued against the Citizens United challenge to them before the US Supreme Court.

The government contends the current campaign finance rules are constitutional. The Democratic National Committee is backing the government's position. In a brief co-filed by attorney Bob Bauer, who was later named White House counsel, the DNC argued that if the court swept away corporate spending restrictions, for-profit companies could overwhelm the power of individual small-dollar donors.

It also would leave political parties, which can't raise unlimited sums, at a disadvantage in responding to a barrage of corporate political ads attacking their candidates or supporting their opponents, and there "would be a heightened risk of corruption," the Democrats argue.

Plouffe is an architect of Obama’s misleading campaign verbiage.  Together, they are behind President Obama’s denunciation of last week’s US Supreme Court decision to overturn some of the excess restrictions on political spending in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign law and following Federal Election Commission regulations and rulings.

President Obama pronouncement:

"I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest," Obama said. "The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of the elections."

The Associated Press reported, “Yet the president is among those who see it as blowing open the doors to big-business influence over democracy. He predicted that anyone who runs for election and tries to take on powerful special interests will now be more likely to be "under assault come election time."

President Obama’s rhetoric ignores that currently his allies, like unions, are both favored by McCain-Feingold and the largest contributors to campaigns. Open Secrets lists the organizations that are Major Donors between 1989-2010.  Of the top 100, far more lean Democrat, including 8 of the top 10.  So far, in the 2010 election cycle, 60% of Political Action Committee contributions are to Democrats. In addition, Independent Expenditures between 1989-2010 on political campaigns by organizations, ostensibly uncoordinated with a political party, lists by far the largest coming from unions.

The sheer audacity of liberal groups is evident at the ACLU, which argued in support of the case brought in Citizens United but is now considering reversing itself. “ ‘The worst thing you could do – the absolutely worst thing you could do – is transform a civil liberties organization into a liberal political organization,’ Mr. Abrams, one of the most famous First Amendment lawyers in the country, told the board.” That hasn’t stopped the ACLU before.

The Supreme Court decision will not unleash major corporation contributions to political campaigns.  Most are pressed during the current economy.  Most want to avoid contentious public issues, so as not to harm their “brand.”  Most important, most large ones contribute to Democrats and Republicans, shifting their weight with which is in power.  Most, especially the large ones, are most interested in feeding at the public trough than in being partisan.  Unions, however, find their bread buttered only with Democrats.

Another missed outcome of the Supreme Court decision is that tax-favored Non-Profit corporations, most heavily Democrat and liberal, are enthusiastic at being able to spend on political campaigns. “The ruling could make it easier for advocacy groups to speak out, says Abby Levine, deputy director of advocacy programs at Alliance for Justice, an association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, and other advocacy groups.”

Critics of McCain-Feingold’s restrictions on free speech, however, weighed in with more reasoned Constitutional sense.  For example:

If you look at it from the overall view of the role of the First Amendment, this is a decision that gets back to basics and back to first principles.  The first principle of the First Amendment that nearly everyone agrees on is that its purpose is to protect political speech and enhance democracy, because the more speech you have, the better democracy you have.

It's a great decision to strike down a system of prior restraints.  The Court said that the combination of these incredibly complex rules and regulations about when you can speak about politics and when you can't and who can speak about politics and who can't, combined with the Federal Election Commission-a government agency that basically has to approve your political speech-together that operates as a de fact system of prior restraint. As we know, a system of prior restrains is the reason the Framers wrote the First Amendment.

I previously wrote about The McCain-Feingold Ghoul.

Even today's New York Times' analysis recognizes: "Legal scholars and social scientists say the evidence is meager, at best, that the post-Watergate campaign finance system has accomplished the broad goals its supporters asserted."  Now that it's proven by experience, that only leaves partisan BS for Obama et. al.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is more attuned to popular political winds than President Obama, and her speaking out on Internet freedom is welcome across the political spectrum. Nonetheless, there are other forces at play. Her motives aren’t pure, not startling in a politician, but bear examination.

Her recent speech favoring Internet freedom, in the wake of Google’s resistance to Chinese Internet repression and hacking, is in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s ignoring human rights to now, including in Iran where internal regime change possibly offers a best hope for averting catastrophe. Her speech is hoped to really signal a turn.

Importantly, Sec. Clinton made it clear that the Obama Administration is ready to commit significant resources to this effort. She said that, over the next year, the State Department plans to work with others to establish a standing effort to promote technology and will invite technologists to help advance the cause through a new “innovation competition” that will promote circumvention technologies and other technologies of freedom. Sec. Clinton also challenged private companies to stand up to censorship globally and challenge foreign governments when they demand controls on the free flow of information or digital technology.

We haven’t heard any support yet directly from President Obama.  In light of her diminished bulb within his administration, is Hillary trying to brighten it and to position herself for his possible 2012 implosion?

Other forces at play include riding the positive publicity that Google received for its resistance to Chinese muzzling of the Internet, that seems more aimed at helping Google to compete elsewhere, and hacking into Western companies’ software codes, which threatens their future profits. (See my previous post.)

Another factor at play is that the Obama administration is more protectionist than prior administrations, a sop to his labor union backers. Protectionism is a recurring populist theme. But, Obama is still teetering as US multinational companies,  who have also contributed heavily to gain entre to his chambers, favor continuing free trade policies.  Still, for example in Vietnam, where Western investment is critical to regime stability, "investors have largely avoided [it] over the past year as reform momentum stalls." The Wall Street Journal notes the wider arena: “It's been said that Vietnam aims to copy China's economic development model. Trying to frighten foreign investors into line, a la Beijing and Rio Tinto [Brazil], isn't a lesson worth copying, especially for a poor country trying to join the league of middle-income nations.” Using “human rights” leverage to increase US multinationals’ access to less fettered investing may be more a pressure tactic to open markets than to open minds.  The Obama administration gains support from the unions and big business by now highlighting Internet freedom concerns.

More attention to Internet freedom, also, serves to ameliorate scathing criticism from such needed major media players as the Washington Post, which editorialized on December 31, 2009 about increased repression in China and Vietnam:

Some Vietnam analysts believe the government's crackdown is intended to set the stage for a ruling party congress scheduled for 2011. Yet surely Vietnam, like China, has taken note of the Obama administration's relaxed attitude toward supporting dissidents and its public proclamations that human rights issues must be balanced against other interests. While the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam has criticized the crackdown, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said nothing in public about the arrests when she met Vietnam's foreign minister in October. Instead she focused attention on the "tenfold" increase in bilateral trade she said had taken place since 2001.

That trade boom makes Vietnam sensitive to Western criticism of its human rights record. So the staging of trials of pro-democracy activists during the holiday season is almost certainly not a coincidence. The tactic just might be working: A State Department spokesman said Wednesday that no public statement had been made about Mr. Kim's case, because "no one asked." He then e-mailed us a statement saying "the United States is disappointed in the results of the trial" and noting that Mr. Kim's case was among those raised during a U.S.-Vietnam dialogue on human rights in November. No doubt Hanoi regards such talk as perfunctory; certainly, the Obama administration has done nothing that would suggest otherwise.

The Obama administration has demonstrated that foreign policy is secondary to its radical domestic priorities, and thus is more flexible in tamping down concerns about its fundamental fecklessness in facing up to threats abroad. Hillary Clinton’s speech is therefore an easy sop.

OK, all said aside, if the Obama administration actually follows through with more than words, energetically, that is very welcome despite ulterior motivations.  As Human Rights Watch just reported, "Rights-respecting governments should speak up to protect peaceful activists and rights defenders in Vietnam and insist that the government abide by its international commitments," Adams [Asia director] said. "Donors have been far too quiet about rights in recent years, but Vietnamese activists say that they will never succeed without consistent support from influential governments."  The same goes for elsewhere among despotic regimes.

China has rejected Hillary’s appeal to more openness, calling it “information imperialism.”  Russia, Vietnam, Iran, Arab states, Venezuela, Bolivia express similar scorn.

Will the Obama administration actually show real spine on Internet freedom, or continue on its path of hollow words.  Despots are betting on the latter.

Outdoor Life magazine, “The source for hunting and fishing adventure”, brings us celebrities who enjoy these sports.  Here’s some of my favorites. Comments are excerpted from the magazine.

“Palin can make moose chili for us anytime.”

Lorrie Morgan: “legendary country crooner cutie…[has] ‘always been good with a gun,’ she says.”  [Let’s have a shoot-out.]

Jewel: “blond, beautiful, and a talented singer and performer [roped] her husband and former rodeo cowboy Ty Murray.” [Well tie me up!]

Miranda Lambert  says “I’ve got some trophy mounts.” [I’ve got the horns!] 

Natalie Gulbis “lamented catching nothing. We bet she won’t have a problem finding a better fishing guide.” [My rod is ready.]

 Check the link above for others, men. And this link.

Avril Lavigne: “"My brother used to be like, 'You're a girl. You can't go hunting or fishing. I'd be like, 'You're stupid.' And we'd get into a huge fight." Alrighty then!” [Love to wrassle!]

Eva Longoria: “"I can skin a deer and a pig and a snake- and rabbits." If there is a more perfect woman, someone please tell us- like, now!”

OK guys, get hunting and angling if you want to be skinned.

Tiger Woods “makes frequent angling trips.”