What Kind of Judges Will McCain Appoint?

T

Timshel

New member
He will appoint activists judges who will grant power to government to violate individual rights. I arrive at this conclusion by looking at the hissy fit he threw when the FEC failed to regulate 527's under the McCain/Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BiCRA).

527's are political organizations that are not affiliated with any politician or party and are so named for the part of the tax code that gives them tax exemption. Some examples are MoveOn.org or Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

BiCRA limited soft money going to parties. It made no mention of 527's. Yet when the inevitable result of McCain's bill resulted in money flowing into these organizations (especially when most of them showed a left leaning bias), he demanded that the FEC interpret his law as if it did apply to 527's. He wanted the FEC to interpret the law in a way that would give itself power not expressly granted by the law.

His argument was that the 527's violated the intent of the law. He demands that a bureaucratic agency ignore the letter of the law and create powers they were never granted. Why wouldn't he ask SC Judges to grant powers to congress or President they have not been granted?

I know, like many Republicans, he likes to blowhard about activist judges, except when they come down on his side. But, with the 527's he clearly and openly demanded bureaucratic activism which is much worse.
 
McCain's objections were related to the gesalt idea of campaign finance reform. from a purist standpoint, it does, indeed, defeat the purpose if 527s can accept unlimited donations, thereby pushing agendas specific to a candidate.

Of note is the issue is tax exempt organizations and the relation to 1st amendment rights, and NOT a direct attempt to curtail 1st amendment rights. If a person wants to pay for an advertisement praising Tiny B. Rayne as a candidate for dog catcher, that is their right. What McCain objects to, and I agree, is making the money spent on such endeavors a tax write off. It COMPELTELY defeats the intent of (and need for) campaign finance reform.

With the exception of 527s, non-profits cannot directly support nor directly endorse any specific candidate. I remember when I was an active leader in a renters' rights organization, how incredibly careful we had to be around election time in what we said and did. We presented a number of informative fliers on candidates positions. But to keep our status as a community benefit non-profit, every flier had to contain equivalent information on ALL candidates, and none of them could contain ANYTHING that indicated we supported a particular candidate or position. We would send out questions about our issues to candidates, but if even one did not respond, law did not allow us to publish any other answers. So we were forced to scour other polls and media events, gather together questions in our interest, and publish that, IF we could find information on all candidates about the same issue.

Of course, that was before the days of 527s. Frankly, I think 527s are a corruption of the idea of keeping community benefit non-profit organizations separated from politics. But unlike McCain, I would simply like to see 527s removed from tax exempt status, and go back to the days when all tax exempt organizations (including churches) had to be careful in not supporting a specific candidate. Either that, or relax the requirements for tax exemption and allow all tax exempt organizations (to include churches) to say whatever they want about politicians or politics. Treating one type of organization differently from another is not equal application of the tax exemption laws. Therefore, either ALL can have open free speech on politics or NONE of them should be able to do it and maintain their tax exempt status.
 
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Lets go with the Fair Tax Act and free up all the exemptions.

There would be none. But no need for any either.
 
Good Luck said:
Fair tax is a misnomer.

It's a national sales tax, and sales taxes are functionally regressive.
Click to expand...

Yes, its a national sales tax. But it is not a misnomer.

The reason it is called fair tax is that it has everyone paying the same rate. Not some paying little or none and some paying almost half of what they earn. It is not taxing it when you earn it and then taxing it again when you save it and earn a little interest. Its not taxing production every step of the way so that the final price is bloated by government abuse. It is not creating a method of punishing success. It is also not having the most intrusive and abusive branch of the government that exists, instead of a branch that should be only about collecting revenue for the government to use to function.
 
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