Posted on 01/28/2016 6:11:36 AM PST by reaganaut1
Should government officials be able to cut off donations to groups because they employ people disparaged as "climate change deniers," even if the group in question is a think tank that studies a wide range of topics, only a few of which relate to climate change at all, and the "denial" in question includes telling politically inconvenient truths about the cost of proposed climate change legislation? Only a single-issue zealot with ideological blinders and a contempt for the First Amendment would think so.
But that hasn't stopped New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and California Attorney General Kamala Harris investigating Exxon, partly for making donations to think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council because these large organizations include a few people deemed "climate change deniers," even though climate change has no relation to most of their activities. (I have been to many speeches and luncheons at AEI, and not a single one related to climate change or even energy or environmental policy.)
The First Amendment has long been interpreted as protecting corporate lobbying and donations, even to groups that allegedly deceive the public about important issues. For example, in In re School Asbestos Litigation, 46 F.3d 1284 (3d Cir. 1994), a federal appeals court ruled that the maker of an asbestos product could not be held liable for joining and financially supporting a trade association for makers of asbestos products, even though the trade association allegedly "disseminated misleading information about the danger of asbestos in schools directly to" the plaintiffs, where "at least some" of the trade association's "activities were constitutionally protected."
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
boy, i hope the Donald is as conservative as he says h is, because he’s going to be defending the first and second amendments alot.
as well as states’ rights to decide on abortion laws.
gonna be busy.
So very sad!
Trump isn’t conservative and never has been.
It looks like Exxon has standing for a counter claim.
i’m voting for cruz in the generals most likely after some going back and forth. i’ve recovered from his NY comment :)
but what am i going to do come election day if Trump gets the nod?
at LEAST there’s hope with the Donald, if not being a true conservative, to at least make the country strong financially and militarily again.
there’s NO hope with the other side. and possibly the end of the the republic.
just, again using that word, “hope” that he picks conservative SC judges as some are getting quite up there in age.
Well, well.
I’d caution you to be a grown up in making claims.
To say ‘never’ is quite the statement and it can be easily refuted.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32
Truth is like poison to the left.
Remember, the earth was once flat.
If can do this, they can intervene in any case where they don’t like the organization’s message. Next up, where the state AG doesn’t like what your church teaches.
I would say welcome to the Land of the Used to be Free, but then again, Lincoln threw newspaper editors in jail for their opposition to the war he was waging against the southern states that had seceded. And then President Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts and people were arrested for violation of that law as well. We haven’t crossed those lines again recently.
Hmm. I noticed in your post you didn’t cite any evidence that Trump is or has ever been a conservative. You may want to heed your own advice.
A heavy boot’s twisting into place grinding an innocent face for eternity...
Global Warming on Free Republic here, here and here
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