In the News

Washington Examiner: The IRS gives up power for once, and the Left goes nuts

By Bradley A. Smith

The decision to stop gathering some donor information seems, on the surface, like a no-brainer. First, the IRS neither used nor needed the information in its everyday operations. Because the new rule applies to nonprofit groups that do not get tax-deductible donations, including trade associations, issue groups such as the National Rifle Association and Greenpeace, and organizations such as volunteer fire departments, the information is not necessary to verify that taxpayers made tax-deductible contributions. (The IRS will still be able to demand donor information when necessary, such as for audits or criminal investigations).

Second, though the information is supposed to be kept confidential, this has not always been the case. For example, in 2014 the IRS was forced to pay damages to the National Organization for Marriage, which supports traditional marriage, after an employee, whose specific identity was never publicly uncovered, leaked information on NOM’s donors to an LGBT rights organization. There is simply no need for the IRS to maintain donor information that might be accidentally released, leaked by a rogue employee, or used by unscrupulous politicians to harass political opponents…

Finally, we might ask why, absent a very good reason, the federal government should ever be collecting data on our memberships and donations in the first place. What business of the government is it if you belong to a fishing club or the National Association of Realtors, or want to support Everytown for Gun Safety or the NRA?

Free Speech

Courthouse News Service: Millennials at Heart of America’s Free Speech Woes, Expert Tells Judges

By Maria Dinzeo

[Jonathan] Turley kicked off the Ninth Circuit’s annual judicial conference Monday by telling a Marriott ballroom full of judges that America has a big free speech problem.

“Polls indicate that 40 percent of millennials favor speech codes and government sanctions for offensive speech. And what really worries me the most is we’re losing this coming generation,” he said…

U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohue posited that millennials may have lost faith in the system. He pointed to Citizens United v. [FEC], a U.S. Supreme Court decision that essentially granted corporations the same free speech rights as people, as a possible cause of generational disillusionment.

“Millennials are perhaps valuing the rights of free speech less because of the sense that they have little control in light of decisions such as Citizens United. We grew up believing there was a marketplace of ideas and that the answer to bad speech was more speech,” Donohue, of the Western District of Washington, said.

“But there’s also this sense a lot of people have that the system is rigged. Congress enacted restrictions on campaign financing to try to even the playing field, and the court dismissed all of the concerns by Congress. And it seems all those concerns are coming true. So there’s a lot of disillusion.”

While Turley said he agreed with the Citizens United decision in terms of free speech, he agreed with Donohue’s point on disillusionment and corporate involvement in politics.

“I do think part of the problem we’re having with millennials is that there is this sense that they are no longer in control of their determination,” he said. “But there is something much more fundamental with this generation. I think we win them over by convincing them that they can still have a voice.”

Supreme Court

Washington Post: Supreme Court pick’s remarks on Nixon case open new front in confirmation fight

By Seung Min Kim and Robert Barnes

Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh’s years-old remarks questioning the landmark ruling that forced President Richard M. Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes opened a new front in the battle over his confirmation, ensuring his views on executive power will square prominently in Senate hearings.

Included in the thousands of pages turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee this past weekend is a 1999 transcript of a panel discussion in which the future Supreme Court nominee opined whether the “tensions of the time led to an erroneous decision” in the case United States v. Nixon.

Although Kavanaugh has defended the 1974 ruling in other remarks, Democrats have seized on his skepticism from nearly two decades ago to build a key argument against the nominee: That he won’t be a sufficient check on the president who appointed him…

Democrats have also focused on Kavanaugh’s rulings in favor of broad presidential power and his criticism of the independent counsel law to suggest that he would protect Trump from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe. The judge has been outspoken in saying, for instance, that he would “put the final nail in” the now-defunct independent counsel law.

But it is unclear whether Kavanaugh’s dim view of the independent counsel law extends to separate special-counsel regulations governing Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s legal battle with Trump’s lawyers over his request to interview the president could end up before the Supreme Court.

On the Nixon decision, Kavanaugh’s allies rallied to his defense. They pointed out that he had praised the unanimous ruling in the case – which forced Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes and ultimately led to his resignation – in other venues, such as a law review article in 1998 and a speech in 2016.

The Courts

Washington Examiner: Disgraced former New York AG Eric Schneiderman just lost in court in his efforts to persecute pro-lifers

By Becket Adams

A federal judge has ruled that a pro-life group did not harass patients and escorts outside an abortion clinic in Queens, N.Y., rebuking a concerted effort by Schneiderman to frame the demonstrators as violent extremists.

U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon also denied a request for an injunction by the state in People v. Griepp et al., arguing that the harassment allegations do not hold up under legal scrutiny…

The filed action came after the Schneiderman-run OAG conducted a yearlong undercover investigation that included hidden cameras, “female patient decoys,” and placing wires on the clinic’s escorts.

Judge Amon responded this weekend in a 103-page opinion saying she could find nothing to back the OAG’s specific allegations, dismantling entirely the testimony of the state’s witnesses as well as the state’s arguments.

“The most problematic of the credibility issues discussed … is the tendency for the Clinic Escort Recaps, Protestor Experience Questionnaires, and OAG witness testimony to exaggerate the impropriety of the defendants’ conduct and to omit mitigating circumstances,” Amon wrote.

Though the decision is a victory for the pro-life activists, the federal judge warned that they’re on thin ice.

“[T]his decision should not embolden the defendants to engage in more aggressive conduct. In a few instances noted, several of the defendants’ actions came close to crossing the line from activity protected by the First Amendment to conduct prohibited by [the New York City Clinic Access Act],” she wrote.

Congress

NBC News: Democrats and the GOP finally agree on something: How to use PAC loopholes to fund luxury lifestyles

By Adav Noti and Meredith McGehee

This runaway spending was brought to light in a new report, “How Leadership PACs Became Politicians’ Preferred Ticket to Luxury Living,” released on July 20 by our two government reform groups, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Issue One. The report highlights many bipartisan abuses of a source of funds little known beyond the beltway, but widely exploited within it: so-called leadership PACs…

The kicker: Much of this spending would likely be illegal if politicians used their official campaign accounts to pick up the tab. These kinds of expenses cannot be paid with campaign money because campaign donations present a much greater risk of buying access or influence if they are funding the politician’s next round of golf, country club membership, clothing purchase, or trip to Disney World.

So how are these abuses possible? Because while the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has long prohibited politicians from spending official campaign funds on personal expenditures, they have failed to apply this “personal use” prohibition to leadership PACs. And Congress, which has the power to police its own members, has also remained on the sidelines…

The FEC should adopt new rules clarifying that the personal use prohibition that already applies to campaign accounts also applies to leadership PACs. This would be an easy step, and the FEC clearly has the authority to take it.

For its part, Congress could pass legislation to crack down on leadership PACs, and the ethics committees in the House and Senate could enforce their rules applying a personal use ban to leadership PACs.

The Hill: Dem senators probe financial links between Butina, NRA

By Sylvan Lane

Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.), Bob Menendez (N.J.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) requested copies of all documents that outline Maria Butina’s connections to the NRA in a Monday letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Butina, a Russian national and gun-rights activist, was arrested and charged last week with secretly acting to advance the Kremlin’s interests through cultivating connections with powerful groups and individuals close to the Republican Party.

Butina is also a former assistant to Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee say potentially funneled Russian money into President Trump’s 2016 campaign through the NRA…

The senators asked Mnuchin for all records relevant to financial connections between the NRA and Butina, including groups affiliated with the NRA, a pro-gun rights groups Butina opened and a shell corporation Butina created with political operative Paul Erickson.

The Democrats also renewed a previous request from Wyden for similar records regarding the NRA and Torshin, who was sanctioned by the Treasury Department for his close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin…

Butina was arrested three days after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post: On WhatsApp, fake news is fast – and can be fatal

By Elizabeth Dwoskin and Annie Gowen

At least two dozen people have been killed in mob lynchings in India since the start of the year, their deaths fueled by rumors that spread on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service. In Brazil, messages on WhatsApp falsely claimed a government-mandated yellow-fever vaccine was dangerous, leading people to avoid it. And as Mexico was heading into its presidential election this month, experts there called WhatsApp the ugly underbelly of the country’s news environment, a place where politically misleading stories, memes and messages can spread unchecked…

Unlike the largely open forums of Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp hosts private chats among groups of friends. It is encrypted, or mathematically scrambled, so that no one – not even the service’s employees – can read the content of messages that were not intended for them…

Executives held urgent meetings with political leaders in India last week, and the service is building new technology to promote news literacy. On Thursday, the company announced a major change, limiting the ability to forward messages – a feature that has been blamed for enabling disinformation to go viral.

WhatsApp’s new boss – Chris Daniels, a veteran executive from WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook – has vowed to prioritize safety…

On his first week on the job in May, Daniels, who declined to be interviewed, assembled WhatsApp’s 300 employees for a town hall. The commitment to privacy would not change, he told them, but from now on the focus of the service would also include safety – preventing misinformation and the harm it can cause, according to an executive who attended the meeting.

FEC

McClatchy DC: Donations to Nunes improperly used to charter a private jet, says complaint to FEC

By Kate Irby

Political donations to Rep. Devin Nunes were improperly used to fund $5,518 in private jet travel, says a complaint filed by a nonpartisan watchdog group with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

Nunes, R-Calif., is the sponsor of New PAC, a leadership political action committee which paid $11,036 to Paramount Business Jets on March 7, according to public filings. The PAC was refunded $5,518 May 18, citing overpayment…

It’s illegal for such leadership PAC money, which members of Congress use for donating money to other political candidates and committees, to be used for non-commercial air travel. Exceptions described in federal law are government-owned planes or planes already owned or leased by the congressman or candidate…

Myles Martin, an FEC spokesman, said candidates can use leadership PAC money for chartering private jets in certain cases. It has to be chartered through a company set up for that specific purpose and candidates have to pay the market rate. In those cases, chartering a private jet can fall under commercial air travel according to the FEC’s interpretation, Martin said.

“The law concerning this was mainly set up to prevent candidates from using a corporation’s private jet, or that of a wealthy donor,” Martin said, adding leadership PAC complaints are uncommon because candidates get a “wide discretion” in their use.

But Dan Weiner, senior counsel at the nonpartisan Brennan Center and a former senior counsel to an FEC commissioner, said any chartering of private flights by a leadership PAC is a “clear illegal use” under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act passed in 2007.

Harassment

Reason: Portland Food Cart Shuts Down Following Harassment by Occupy ICE Protesters

By Christian Britschgi

Co-owned by couple Scott and Julie Hakes, The Happy Camper used to do steady business serving food to the federal agents who worked across the street. The two used the proceeds to help fund their non-profit Off The Grid, which supplies food and clothing to Portland’s homeless population.

Julie was initially supportive of the Occupy ICE protest when it started, according to comments she made the Willamette Week. But the Hakes’ attempt to “stay neutral and serve all who are hungry,” including ICE and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) staff who share the Portland office space, provoked anger from some anti-ICE demonstrators, who reportedly threatened staff at the food cart for failing to get on board with the struggle…

According to Scott Hakes, the last straw came when protestors threatened his 21-year-old daughter for serving food to a DHS employee. “If they catch her outside the cart, they’re going to hurt her. They’re constantly cussing at her and screaming at her,” he told KGW. According to the owners, protestors also threatened to burn down the cart.

On July 20, less than a month after protests began, a post went up on the Happy Camper’s Facebook Facebook page announcing that the food cart would be shutting down. Reads the post: “We tried repeatedly to try to work out peaceful solutions with the organizations and individuals protesting, but it all came back to being told almost daily to either support the anti DHS agenda or suffer the consequences (Quote Unquote).”

Needless to say, threatening violence against third parties for not being sufficiently in favor of one’s chosen cause is inexcusable. It’s also remarkably counterproductive.

Candidates and Campaigns

Roll Call: Senate Candidates Mislead When Announcing Fundraising Numbers

By Simone Pathé

At least two Republican Senate candidates who kicked their own money into their campaigns issued misleading statements about their second quarter fundraising this month.

Press releases that paint a rosier picture of candidates’ fundraising than their official quarterly reports are a reminder of the anachronistic reporting standards to which only Senate hopefuls are held.

Unlike House candidates – or anyone else registered with the Federal Election Commission – Senate contenders do not have to file their reports electronically.

They file them on paper, which means there’s a lag between when the campaigns try to get good headlines by announcing their numbers to the press and when the press is able to actually review those reports. Local reporters, though, have been picking up on the discrepancies.

The States

Chicago Tribune: Rauner blasts Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson’s cash giveaway, state says he didn’t violate campaign rules

By John Byrne and Rick Pearson

Mayoral candidate Willie Wilson apparently did not violate election law by handing out more than $200,000 in cash and checks Sunday to people at an event he attended with Gov. Bruce Rauner at a South Side church, according to the state elections board.

Wilson campaign spokesman Scott Winslow said the millionaire businessman gave the money to people to help them cover the cost of their property taxes and other expenses as part of his long-standing philanthropic work through the Dr. Willie Wilson Foundation, a registered nonprofit…

Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said the fact that the money came from Wilson’s foundation seems to allow him to avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws.

“As far as we can see, it looks like he didn’t use campaign funds for this,” Dietrich said. “And there doesn’t appear to have been any quid pro quo, like, ‘Here’s some money, vote for me.’ So from our perspective, it doesn’t look like there was anything illegal about this.”

Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman Jim Allen said the board is monitoring the situation. “We haven’t received a formal complaint, and even if we did, we aren’t in the municipal campaign yet, so it’s not clear what our authority would be, other than to refer the situation to law enforcement,” Allen said.

Las Cruces Sun-News: Farmers Market voter registration flap continues to stir debate

By Jacqueline Devine

Local progressive activist Lucas Herndon said his First Amendment rights were violated when he and other voter registration agents were told they could not circulate through the Farmers and Crafts Market of Las Cruces registering new voters.

And so, Herndon was back at the market signing up new voters Saturday, one week after a compromise was reached preventing such activity.

“I don’t think that compromise was appropriate. The city still hasn’t solved the fundamental problem,” Herndon said. “By saying this activity, voter registration, has to be restrained is violating the First Amendment in a big way and New Mexico state law as it is interpreted when it comes to voter registration.”

Herndon said he didn’t have any problems Saturday, despite the prohibition from the city and farmer’s market…

Herndon said he understands the Farmers and Crafts Market is a nonprofit, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is still on a public street which is available for free speech activities.

“Their lease does not preclude or change the fact that this a public main street. No matter what they have argued in the past, this is Main Street,” Herndon said. “It’s a street managed by the city, which is us, the citizens, and I have every right to be here walking up and down the street asking people a question.” …

Doña Ana County Clerk Scott Krahling said he is working with the farmers market to try and offer a permanent solution to the disagreement.

San Antonio Express-News: San Antonio fire union to sue city over alleged First Amendment violation

By Josh Baugh

At a hastily called press conference Thursday, San Antonio firefighters’ union boss Chris Steele announced plans to sue the city for violating the First Amendment rights of firefighters gathering signatures on three charter amendment petitions at a public library earlier this year.

City spokesman Jeff Coyle, who attended the press conference, said immediately afterward that there’s lengthy case law upholding the city’s right to regulate free speech, pointing to language within a 2013 memo that the union had distributed, and adding that the announcement was nothing more than a political stunt.

“What I think this is about today is an effort to distract from the union’s own negative publicity. If any of you all have been following the Express-News’ coverage of the union, it’s been reported for several days now that the fire union has not been appropriately disclosing or reporting its political activity,” he said. “I think what you’re seeing is the union calling a press conference today about something months ago that case law has long since decided in our favor.”