Let's hear it for the First Amendment

Well, unless you're on the Obama campaign, that is.  NewsMax reports that the Obama campaign has been sending "intimidating cease-and-desist letters" to radio and TV stations that air anti-Obama ads, including NRA ads, threatening them with loss of their FCC licenses, and is now urging Obama supporters to write letter campaigns to their local stations demanding that they not run the NRA's ads documenting his long-standing anti-gun record.

This is the second time the Obama campaign has been caught trying to suppress an opposing ad.  Remember when the PSA aired pointing out Obama's connection to a former Weather Underground leader, and Obama's campaign said the people running the independent nonprofit that put the ad together should go to jail for it?  Saying that criticism — even factual criticism — of even a Presidential candidate should be a crime punishable by jail is pretty scary, and not something I want to see in any Presidential candidate.  That's only about one long step away from declaring any criticism of the administration, justified or not, to be sedition.

It's been said that the Second Amendment is the most important in the Bill of Rights because it protects the First.  It looks like the Obama camp dislikes both, and is quite willing to attack the First Amendment to try to prevent the NRA from exposing Obama's dislike of the Second to voters, so that Obama can continue to stand up and say "I'm not anti-gun.  Really.  Would I lie to you?"

(And before any Obama apologists stand up and start accusing bias, yes, I already know the writing of the NewsMax article is hardly what could be called neutral.  I'm guessing it's an NRA-PVF press release published as-is.)

"Pro-IP" passes Congress

The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, formerly known as the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act aka Pro-IP, has now passed both the House (341-41) and Senate (unanimously), and awaits only a Presidential signature.  The Bush administration sent a letter to Congress last week stating opposition to the bill, and I'm hoping for a veto.

In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that amounts to a veto threat, the administration said it was "deeply concerned" that the proposal would divert resources from criminal prosecution to civil enforcement, and create "unnecessary bureaucracy." Currently prosecutors have authority to file criminal charges.

The two-page letter said that copyright owners already have plenty of legal methods to target infringers, including seeking injunctions, impounding infringing materials, recovering actual damages plus statutory damages, and, in some cases, obtaining attorney's fees.  The letter was signed by Keith Nelson, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, and Lily Fu Claffee, the Commerce Department's general counsel.

[...]

In addition, the administration said the bill was "objectionable on constitutional grounds" because it would create an "IP coordinator" inside the White House, the organization of which is traditionally a presidential prerogative.

This bill is backed by both the MPAA and the RIAA, among others, and opponents include the EFF, Public Knowledge, and the American Library Association.  I cannot find any way to believe that it can possibly be a good thing for anyone except corporations.

In related news, Internet radio stations have won a temporary reprieve in the form of an extension of time to negotiate a new license fee agreement with the RIAA's SoundExchange subsidiary.  The extension gives both Internet and traditional radio stations until February 15 to arrive at a new agreement.  The RIAA's proposed terms would have bankrupted Internet radio stations, requiring up to 75% of their total revenue to be paid in licensing fees.

Properly framing a subject at debate

Or, in which luxobscura asks a very pertinent question:

BAMBI'S MOM IS DEAD.  IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR TO MOVE THE 2ND AMENDMENT DEBATE BEYOND DEER HUNTING, WHICH HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FRAMERS INTENT REGARDING SAID AMENDMENT?

I keep hearing from members of my friends list that Obama is a Constitutional scholar.  Yet he keeps trotting out the same old deer-and-ducks canard about the Second Amendment.

So:  Is he such a piss-poor Constitutional scholar that he honestly doesn't understand twenty-eight really rather simple words, or is he knowingly and intentionally trying to blow smoke up our asses?

He did, after all, issue a statement in which he claimed to support the United States Supreme Court's decision in Heller vs. DC stating that yes, Virginia, the Second Amendment does refer to an individual right, but even in that statement he clearly showed that he doesn't understand the meaning of the words "shall not be infringed."