Campaign Finance Laws

So Bitter and I have some flyers we’ve made up, that we were looking to distribute. The one obstacle is that I’m not sure whether I’d be running afoul of campaign finance laws by doing so.  If you believe you live in a free country, where it’s perfectly lawful to use any electioneering speech you damned please to help defeat your Congressman, and replace him with someone who you feel will represent you better, you would be mistaken.  A quick perusal of federal campaign finance statutes will remove any notion of that very quickly.  This is not a system that’s designed to encourage participation of an active and engaged citizenry.  It’s a system designed to leave electioneering to professionals.  This is not a way to encourage a healthy Republic.  The sad part is, I think the people in power know this, and don’t care.  It helps them.

I’m pretty sure our fliers, which we would be distributing as private citizens, do not run afoul of finance regulations.  But you know, I’m not sure.  The fact that I signed up to be an Election Volunteer Coordinator with the NRA might complicate things.  I shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer to tell me whether or not I have free speech.  I am very tempted to put in lettering, underneath:

This Message was Approved by James Madison

It’s going to be very hard pulling the lever in the fall for that bastard McCain, who foisted much of this nonsense on us.  The only reason I can even begin to get by it, is because he had a lot of help in crafting this turd stew.  The recipe of this disaster might have brewed in McCain’s head, but it was Bush that added the corn, and Supreme Court that added the peanuts.  Mmm mmm.  It’s election year 2008, and we’re all going to have to take a big bite!

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Uberpost on The Great Kerfuffle of Last Week

Kevin Baker has an uberpost he’s been working on for a few days on the great kerfuffle.  Go have a read.

UPDATE: Kevin closes with

Our job, then, is not to “Frighten the White People,” it’s to make them MAD. It’s to make them “pro-freedom, pro-individual, pro-principles.” It’s to educate them.

Which explains why I had such a harsh objection to the Letter ot the Editor.  Anything that makes it easier for the population to dismiss our message is not helpful, from my point of view.  The great thing about our system is, if you get enough people angry, you don’t need a revolution, because we can throw the bastards out in the voting booth.  We did it in 1994, but we didn’t follow through.  People need to get mad, and stay mad, until things really change.  That’s a tall order, and I share Kevin’s hope that it’s not too late.

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Gun Nuts: TNG – Cage Match

I will be on Caleb and Squeaky’s live podcast show tonight at 11PM, where I will be engaging in epic battle with Kurt of Armed and Safe to the death!!! We will discover once and for all which side of the second amendment debate can survive in The Cage.

Either that, or we’re going to have a calm discussion centered around the great kerfuffle of last week, and I just said that to get you all to listen.  In fact, it’s going to be more a Q&A type deal rather than a debate, but it should be a pretty good discussion about the benefits and advantages or drawbacks and disadvantages of each type of advocacy. Tune in!

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Incumbent Endorsements

This person pretty clearly doesn’t want to recognize that Melissa Hart herself was the beneficiary of NRA’s endorsement policy when she lost to Jason Altmire:

How can the National Rifle Association say with a straight face that it is looking out for the interests of gun owners if it backs a candidate who is also endorsed by MoveOn.org (“NRA endorses Altmire in race against Hart,” July 25 and PghTrib.com)?

NRA doesn’t care how liberal you are, the only question is how you are on gun issues.  Hell, even John Murtha gets an endorsement because he’s still solid on second amendment rights.  Altmire’s record on the Second Amendment has been good, and he deserves the endorsement.

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Domestic Terrorists

These people need to be hunted down like dogs and thrown in jail.

While a spokesman said he didn’t know who committed the act, the Animal Liberation Front called the attacks a “necessary” act, just like those who fought against civil rights injustices. Spokesman Dr. Jerry Vlasak showed no remorse for the family or children who were targeted.

“If their father is willing to continue risking his livelihood in order to continue chopping up animals in a laboratory than his children are old enough to recognize the consequences,” said Vlasak, a former animal researcher, who is now a trauma surgeon. “This guy knows what he is doing. He knows that every day that he goes into the laboratory and hurts animals that it is unreasonable not to expect consequences.”

The Santa Cruz Police Department said it was “unconscionable” for anyone to defend such acts.

As someone who works in the pharmaceutical industry, I agree.  This kind of research not only help people, but animals as well.  Every drug on the market today was tested on animals (and people too, which the ALF loonies never seem to mention).

Authorities suspect that an animal rights group created the list, which warned: “Animal abusers everywhere beware; we know where you live; we know where you work; we will never back down until you end your abuse.”

Any biomedical researcher in the Philadelphia area who would like to learn how to defend yourself with a firearm, send me an e-mail.

Hat Tip to Thirdpower

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Inquirer Article on Mary McFate

The Philly Inquirer naturally couldn’t resist covering this one:

“She must be very good at what she does, because a whole bunch of very smart people were completely hoodwinked by this,” said Diane Edbril, CeaseFire PA’s executive director between 2004 and 2007.

Edbril hosted McFate at her Radnor home in July 2007, when McFate flew up from her home in Sarasota to attend a CeaseFire PA board meeting.

“She was in my guest room. Was she looking through stuff in my house?” Edbril was asking herself yesterday.

Ona Hamilton, whose local Million Mom March group evolved into CeaseFire PA in 2002, asked McFate to be on CeaseFire PA’s first board. McFate at the time was a board member for Pennsylvanians Against Handgun Violence. Hamilton said McFate would rail against her fellow board members in that organization for being too soft on the NRA, Hamilton said.

The article later goes on to suggest that many feel she still helped the movement a good deal through hard work and good ideas.  As I said previously, that would be the main problem I would have doing something like this.  I’m not willing to help the other side to the degree needed to get that kind of information.

Nonetheless, as much as I might be sympathetic with Diane Edbril’s feelings of betrayal, attempting to destroy part of the Constitution of the United States and part of the Constitution of this commonwealth isn’t trivial business.  I am willing to accept quite a lot of harsh tactics, within the bounds of the law, in order to preserve it.

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More on McCarthy Gun Seizure

War on Guns has a very detailed post up on what happened to one of Carolyn McCarthy’s constituents who had his guns seized after exercising his first amendment rights to petition the Congresswoman for a redress of grievances.

We covered this a bit here, and pointed out last week that this whole incident has Tom King, who is normally a pretty easy going guy, up in arms.  Or maybe I should say reasonably agitated, since they tend to be a bit touchy up there.

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Text of H.R.6691 Available

The text of HR6691, the Bill by the House Democrats to enforce the Heller decision on the District of Colombia is H.R.6691.  No surprises, really.  It’s actually a bit better than the Republican version, since it allows DC residents to obtain firearms in Maryland and Virginia.  NFA stuff will still be illegal in DC, and it does not address prohibition on carrying firearms.  I call that a good start, so hopefully we can get this through Congress before the elections.

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What Obama will Bring

For the past eight years, we’ve generally been able to stop this nonsense from happening:

At the outset of that gathering, U.S. representatives indicated that they would not accept any final agreement that mentioned ammunition, civilian possession of small arms or transfers to nonstate actors. Although not the only obstacle, the United States’ positions were viewed as a major cause for the meeting’s failure.

If Obama is elected, we will be enthusiastically participating in this UN scheme to disarm the people of the world.

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