It Begins: Democrats Violate First Amendment!

Dear Conservative,

Two weeks ago, I warned you that the Democrats in Congress, and the Fundraiser-in-Chief in the White House, were planning on amending the First Amendment to allow the government to regulate and restrict political speech.

After all, that was exactly what the IRS scandal was about. The powers-that-be hated the fact that Conservative non-profit groups were having an impact, so they tried to silence them. They tried to make it impossible for them to participate in the political realm. And it worked.

Well, the Democratic Party is once again trying to silence YOU and other like-minded conservatives.

Representative Paul Ryan went to the FEC and gave them the courtesy of letting them know he would be promoting his new book. Since he would be running for office, he didn’t want there to be any confusion between his electoral politicking and book promotion.

The Federal Elections Commission gave him the green light… except for one Democrat Commissioner. Soon enough, the rest of the Democratic Commissioners were against the idea as well and the next thing you know, Paul Ryan’s publisher is forced to operate under much stricter constraints.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It has always been held that publishing a book falls within those protections. But the Democrats are eager to change that, and they have even introduced a constitutional amendment to change the definition of freedom of speech!

Tell Congress to put an end to Harry Reid’s attempt to re-write the First Amendment!

The Paul Ryan case is important because it centers on the “media exemption” that the Democrats hate so much.

The media exemption allows for media outlets to cover news and politics without fear of reprisal from agencies like the FEC.

Paul Ryan’s publisher, Grand Central Publishing, sought the broad media exemption from regulation, which would allow it to promote the book as it saw fit rather than worry about dealing with FEC regulations. After all, this was a book, something that used to be protected under the First Amendment. But Democrats rejected that and pushed for a different commercial exemption that imposes rules over the publisher’s politics and book pricing.

Just in case you missed that: Democrats on the FEC pushed to impose rules over the publisher’s politics and pricing.

Since when does a government agency have the authority to control a book publisher’s politics and pricing schedule???

This is such a blatant violation of the First Amendment that I cannot even believe it was allowed to move forward!

That isn’t even all of it… The FEC also ruled that while Paul Ryan has the right to have his campaign and Political Action Committee buy books to give out, the promotion of his book on his websites has to be limited to TWO SENTENCES.

Let me get this straight… a sitting Congressmen writes a book and has it published, but he is not allowed to use more than two sentences to promote it on any of his websites?

The First Amendment is dead, ladies and gentlemen… The FEC has just set a precedent that if you publish a political book, it is subject to government regulation. The Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves right now!

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” These words remain true today.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has already voted on and approved S.J. Res. 19, the “Money Out/Voters In” amendment. When the committee was voting, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized his Democratic counterparts for pushing an amendment that would effectively ban books.

Under this proposed amendment, any dissemination of speech by political figures would be subject to FEC regulation. Since nearly ever form of speech costs money to distribute, it would all be regulated and controlled by the government.

I personally received dozens of emails saying that I was peddling conspiracy theories and that Democrats would never try to regulate the promotion of a politician’s books. Well, it took the Democrats two weeks to actually start implementing their goals…

It is absolutely ludicrous for a government agency to suggest that political speech and publications are open for regulation. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to ensure that dissent is protected under the law and the Democrats are making steady progress completely eliminating those protections!

The First Amendment is one of those things where if you don’t use it, you lose it. If you don’t continue to pound Congress and demand that this be stopped, the First Amendment will be repealed. Make no mistake, this is the first salvo in the war over the First Amendment and sooner or later, people won’t be able to ignore this encroaching unconstitutionality any longer.

We can either fight it now, when it is in its infancy and we have a chance to stop it or we can wait for the First Amendment to be altered to the point when we are no longer allowed to speak out.

I choose the former. Join me in STOPPING the Democrats’ attempts to change the First Amendment and protecting the freedom of speech as the founders intended!

Tell Congress to put an end to Harry Reid’s attempt to re-write the First Amendment!

I will not go silently!

Joe Otto

Conservative Daily

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