On with John Gibson on Fox Radio on IRS Documents and Speech Regulators

Link here.  Summary here:

Emails obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act reveal Lois Lerner cooking up plans with Justice Department officials to talk about ways to criminally charge conservative groups that are insufficiently quiet. J. Christian Adams, who is an election lawyer and served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice told John that this is not just about the IRS. This is about a movement that exists inside and outside of government that wants to see speech controlled.

Virginia Dem Governor gives drug dealing felons automatic restoration of voting rights

The ACLU is happy.  
Advocates were especially pleased that drug felonies will be considered nonviolent. Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, noted that the Justice Policy Institute recently reported that blacks comprise only 20 percent of Virginia’s population but make up 72 percent of those in prison for a drug offense.
Link to story at the Washington Post.

Reform zealots and IRS scandal weaken campaign contribution disclosure argument

Charles Krauthammer shows how reform community zealots and the IRS targeting of political opponents have weakened any good government argument for the full disclosure of political contributions. 
In his lone dissent to the disclosure requirement in Citizens United, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that American citizens should not be subject “to death threats, ruined careers, damaged or defaced property, or pre-emptive and threatening warning letters as the price for engaging in core political speech, the primary object of First Amendment protection.” (Internal quote marks omitted.)

In fact, wariness of full disclosure goes back to 1958 when the Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP did not have to release its membership list to the state, understanding that such disclosure would surely subject its members to persecution. “This court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations . . . particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.”

A different era, a different set of dissidents. But the naming of names, the listing of lists, goes on. The enforcers are at it again, this time armed with sortable Internet donor lists.

The ultimate victim here is full disclosure itself. If revealing your views opens you to the politics of personal destruction, then transparency, however valuable, must give way to the ultimate core political good, free expression.

GOP Rep. Fleming: “No evidence of problem” to support new expansive Voting Rights Bill

So what evidence has there been of discrimination since the Shelby case:   The Hill reports that according to GOP Representative Fleming, none. 
In terms of discrimination, someone being coerced not to vote or show up, I’m not aware of any evidence that’s a problem. I think photo ID is a much more pressing issue than these kind of questions,” Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said.

“IRS coordinated Tea Party targeting with Justice Department, FEC and liberal political activists”

Tapscott at the Examiner:


“Lerner’s mention of Americans for Campaign Reform is doubly interesting because it suggests the IRS scandal was a three-cornered effort by the Obama administration effort to suppress its Tea Party and conservative critics.


Americans for Campaign Reform is a 501(c)(3) education foundation. Note that IRS rules governing c3s bar partisan political activity far more rigorously than those covering c4s.


The group has received at least 41 contributions totaling $1.7 million in recent years from such groups as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The New York Community Trust, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.”