{"id":14789,"date":"2012-07-24T21:38:45","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T01:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=14789"},"modified":"2012-07-24T21:38:45","modified_gmt":"2012-07-25T01:38:45","slug":"let-the-sunshine-in-but-only-in-some-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=14789","title":{"rendered":"Let The Sunshine In (But Only In Some Places)"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Review<\/a>\u00a0posted an article today about the Obama Administration’s support of the\u00a0DISCLOSE Act<\/a>. The DISCLOSE Act seeks\u00a0unprecedented disclosures from private individuals, organizations, and corporations as the price of participating in public debate.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

But the administration and its congressional allies hardly need a statute to make public participation in civic life difficult for private citizens.\u00a0The Obama Campaign<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee<\/a>\u00a0have filed complaints against a major conservative social-welfare organization,\u00a0Crossroads\u00a0GPS<\/span><\/a>, arguing it should be required to disclose it donors. Even worse, the IRS<\/a> has\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0to dozens of tax-exemption applications by tea-party groups with astonishingly intrusive document demands, seeking not only donor lists but also lists of volunteers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some recent problems with disclosing the names of everyone who chooses to take part in the public discourse:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sad reality of our decayed political discourse that too many dissenting citizens face similar dangers even today. Since 2008, we\u2019ve seen\u00a0intimidation<\/a>\u00a0of religious organizations,\u00a0death threats<\/a>, and\u00a0extreme economic reprisals<\/a>\u00a0after disclosures of financial support for allegedly offensive causes. In recent months, formerly anonymous bloggers have been\u00a0targeted<\/a>\u00a0for \u201cSWATings\u201d (where someone calls the police to fraudulently report a violent crime at a person\u2019s home, resulting in a potentially dangerous police intervention). And frivolous lawsuits against controversial speakers have become so common that more than 20 states have\u00a0adopted<\/a>\u00a0protective legislation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No doubt the Obama administration<\/a> would condemn the intimidation tactics its reckless \u201ctransparency\u201d efforts enable. Yet the government still bears responsibility for the harm that results. The Supreme Court\u00a0recognized<\/a>\u00a0this simple concept: \u201cIt is only after the initial exertion of state power\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0that private action takes hold.\u201d In other words, without the government-mandated disclosure, bad actors would be on a tighter rein and have fewer targets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please note. My name is nowhere on this blog. The domain name is registered to someone other than myself. That was the agreement I made with my husband and children when I started the blog–they were afraid of repercussions if I said anything that upset anyone. They did not want to see some crazed political zealot attack a little old lady. I tend to share that opinion and thus went along with their request.<\/p>\n

Generally transparency is a good idea, but when it endangers people who speak out, it needs to be stopped. See rightwinggranny.com<\/a>\u00a0for the story of\u00a0\u00a0Frank VanderSloot, a major contributor to Mitt Romney<\/a>‘s campaign. His is an example of government intimidation of a donor in a political campaign.<\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Review\u00a0posted an article today about the Obama Administration’s support of the\u00a0DISCLOSE Act. The DISCLOSE Act seeks\u00a0unprecedented disclosures from private individuals, organizations, and corporations as the price of participating in public debate. The article reports: But the administration and its … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3559,3558,3540,352,135],"class_list":["post-14789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-democratic-senatorial-campaign-committee","tag-disclose-act","tag-frank-vandersloot","tag-mitt-romney","tag-obama-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14794,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14789\/revisions\/14794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}