First Amendment

Our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) ran a full-page ad in the New York Times today that stands up for the right of individuals and organizations to speak their mind — on the climate, or any other issue.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, H. Sterling Burnett, Research Fellow and Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News, joins Host Isaac Orr to talk about the legal efforts by the Obama administration via Attorney General Loretta Lynch and several democratic state AG’s to prosecute companies, researchers and think tanks under RICO for disagreeing with them on climate science and policy.

President Barack Obama is downright hostile to the free flow of information, open debate, and research contradicting his opinions and the policies he uses to support them.

Controversy continues to rage over whether foods from plants modified with molecular genetic engineering techniques should have to be labeled as such. The battle has been fought for years in the media, Congress, state legislatures, federal courts and through referendum issues. Most mandatory-labeling proposals have failed, and none is currently in effect–for good reason: They fail every test–scientific, economic, legal and common sense. That hasn’t prevented the more ignorant and ideological legislators from continuing to try.

Each week I write an energy-themed commentary. The topic on which I write is generally something that my readers—even those in the energy industry—don’t know about. I frequently get grateful responses for the information, education, and deadlines addressed.

Reverence and veneration of our national flag has long been profound in the United States, far more so than in other countries. Veneration of the Stars and Stripes has evolved beyond mere respect for it as a symbol of national identity, but as an almost religious emblem of American values and the American way of life.

The net neutrality movement is positioning to influence the FCC, Congress, and candidates in the mid-term election cycle, to support their version of net neutrality — i.e. FCC reclassification of broadband Internet service as a telephone common carrier service.

In its recent ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court struck down yet another provision of federal campaign finance law as a violation of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee.

This time it was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act’s limitation on the aggregate amount of contributions — presently $123,200 — that a donor may contribute to all candidates or party committees in one election cycle.

It’s a sobering thought that the executive branch has brought eight leak-related prosecutions in the past five years compared to only three under our Constitution’s previous 221.

Clearly the folks at CREDO Mobile aren’t at all happy with the idea of incorporated entities engaging in politics and public policy debates – a threat to democracy, and all that.

The arguments made against Citizens United all boil down to a conviction that speech from some quarters is not worth hearing, and that the public cannot be trusted with the vote if they are influenced by certain disfavored speakers.

There has never been an “official journalism guild” that enjoys specified protection under the Constitution, nor should there ever be one.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., the University of Chicago’s Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, Martha Nussbaum – appointed in both the Law…