CPAC To Honor Phil Robertson With "Defender Of First Amendment" Award

Via the Hollywood Reporter:

Fourteen months after he sparked a major controversy for making remarks widely perceived as anti-gay, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has been named the recipient of a free-speech award from Citizens United, an organization routinely disparaged by Hollywood liberals. Robertson will receive the "Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award" at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which is better known as CPAC and is one of the biggest annual events for prominent movers and shakers on the right. "Even when the entire mainstream media demanded he disavow his beliefs and attempted to have him fired from his own hit show for expressing these beliefs, he stood firm in his faith,” Citizens United president David Bossie said.

Breitbart, should you have forgotten, was murdered by President Obama either by poisoning or with a subsonic death ray fired from a low-orbit satellite.

Ted Cruz: Democrats Want To Outlaw SNL

Via Deadline:

A new proposal for campaign finance reform would make Saturday Night Live’s political skits illegal, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has warned. The Senate is debating a bill that would add a constitutional amendment allowing Congress reverse a 2010 Supreme Court decision and restore limits on corporate campaign spending. Republicans say the bill, proposed by Dems, is an attack on free speech. Cruz, however, went one step further and connected the dots to NBC’s late-night sketch comedy show, and its exec producer Lorne Michaels. “Lorne Michaels could be put in jail under this amendment for making fun of any politician. That is extremely dangerous,” Cruz argued yesterday afternoon — tossing in a Dana Carvey impression to drive home his point. That’s because, Cruz insisted, the bill would give congress the “constitutional authority to prohibit” corporations “from engaging in political speech” and, “NBC, which airs Saturday Night Live, is a corporation.”

Sen. Ted Cruz: Democrats Are Going To Vote On Repealing First Amendment

Miranda Blue writes at Right Wing Watch:

When Sen. Ted Cruz told the conservative pastors gathered at the Family Research Council’s Watchmen on the Wall conference yesterday that “the Senate Democrats are going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment,” he was met with an audible gasp. He earned more gasps when he warned that this amendment would suppress the political speech rights of the “citizenry” and “muzzle” pastors in their pulpits. We were surprised too. That would be news! But then it became clear what he was talking about: Senate leadership is planning to hold a vote on a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and rulings in related campaign finance cases such as this year’s McCutcheon case, which have steadily eliminated the limits on election spending by corporations and wealthy individuals.

TRAILER: Citizen Koch

Clip description:

In this searing exposé on the state of democracy in America and the fracturing of the Republican Party, Academy Award®-nominated directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water; co-producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 & Bowling for Columbine) follow the money behind the rise of the Tea Party. CITIZEN KOCH investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations and billionaires on the electoral process, featuring stories of life-long Republicans whose loyalty is tested when their families become collateral damage in the GOP fight to take organized labor out at the knees. Alternately terrifying and funny, CITIZEN KOCH is an essential and powerful portrait of our political times.

Gay House Rep. Mark Pocan Sponsors Amendment To Overturn Citizens United

Openly gay freshman House Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) today announced his co-sponsorship of a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, the landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling that permits unlimited political spending by corporations. The lead sponsor of the amendment is Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN). Via press release:

In making the announcement, lead sponsor Rep. Rick Nolan (DFL-Minnesota), said: “It’s time to take the shaping and molding of public policy out of corporate boardrooms, away from the corporate lobbyists, and put it back in city halls – back with county boards and state legislatures – and back in the Congress where it belongs.” Ben Manski, a spokesperson for Move to Amend, agreed, saying: “Today, members of Congress join a movement that insists on the fundamental equality of all Americans, and that rejects the idea that the corporate class should have special protections against We the People.” The Move to Amend coalition was formed in 2009 in preparation for the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. Today, the coalition of nearly 260,000 people and hundreds of organizations has helped to pass nearly 500 resolutions in municipalities and local governments across the country calling on the state and federal governments to adopt this amendment.

Here's the text of Section One of the amendment.

Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights] The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only. Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law. The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.