The Administration's War on the Bill of Rights

I will freely admit that I'm not Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's biggest fan, but his speech at the American Enterprise Institute deserves attention. Some of the highlights:

It’s hard to imagine a more broadly accepted proposition than the fact that Americans are free, above all else, to speak their minds openly and freely, without fear of punishment or reprisal from government authorities. Human nature being what it is, however, I think we would all have to admit that there will always be a temptation, particularly among those in power, to muffle one’s critics...

...The attacks on speech are legion. Perhaps the most prominent is the so-called DISCLOSE Act.

This is the Democrats’ legislative response to Citizens United, in which the Supreme Court correctly ruled that Congress may not ban political speech based on the identity of the speaker. The DISCLOSE Act aims to get around this ruling by compelling certain targeted groups to disclose the names of their donors, while excluding others, such as unions, from doing the same.

...[But] if disclosure is forced upon some but not all, it’s not an act of good government, it’s a political weapon. And that’s precisely what those who are pushing this legislation have in mind. This is nothing less than an effort by the government itself to exposes its critics to harassment and intimidation, either by government authorities or through third-party allies...

...Charles and David Koch have become household names, not for the tens of thousands of people they employ, not for their generosity to charity, and not for building up one of the most successful private corporations on the planet; but because of their forceful and unapologetic promotion and defense of capitalism... The results have been predictable. The Koch brothers, along with Koch employees, have had their lives threatened, received hundreds of obscenity-laced hate messages, and been harassed by left-wing groups. One e-mail carried a typical message. It read: “Choose your expiration date.”

If the President of the United States opposed these kinds of tactics, all he’d have to do is condemn them. Instead, he’s joined the effort.

This administration has directly attacked America's Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment. In fact, there's not much in the Bill of Rights it likes or respects.

The Obama White House makes Nixon's crew look like a bunch of Boy Scouts. November can't come quickly enough.