Silencing Criticism: The history of sham arguments for McCain-Feingold

I do not like Senator McCain for a number of reasons, but by far the most compelling to me it the fact that he, and Russ Feingold, have made the most egregious attack on the first Amendment since the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798. How dared this son of privilege try to silence criticisms of himself because he suffers from a guilty conscience after accepting bribes from Charles keating. I expect it from closet totalitarians like Feingold, coming from McCain, its' a stab in the back.

Here is James Bopp, jr. with a history of this infamous bill:

In 2002, Congress adopted the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. As part of this new law, Congress prohibited corporations and labor unions from running “electioneering communications” — i.e., advertisements naming a candidate, including incumbent officeholders seeking reelection, broadcast to the candidate’s constituents — within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. Touted as necessary to eliminate “sham” issue ads that were really intended to elect or defeat a candidate, it is now apparent that the story of McCain-Feingold is itself replete with shams. This so-called “electioneering communication” prohibition is simply the latest permutation of the ancient and persistent impulse of government officials to quash criticism of their actions.

Faux Grassroots and Dissimulations
Grassroots support for McCain-Feingold turns out to have been largely a sham. Sean Treglia, the former program officer for campaign-finance reform at the Pew Charitable Trusts, boasted that, over the course of the seven years, he had directed $30 million, with Pew “in the background,” to “drive public policy” by “creat[ing] an impression that a mass movement was afoot,” “a constituency that would punish Congress if they didn’t vote for reform.” The calls to “stop the wealthy” from influencing government policy were actually generated by $140 million in grants from wealthy foundations like Pew: $123 million came from just eight foundations, and $104 million went to just 17 “campaign finance reform” organizations. Something was afoot, but it was certainly no mass movement; the constituency for McCain-Feingold was a sham.

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