Free Republic

The news media's treatment of foundation involvement in public policy may have changed forever on March 17. That was the day the New York Post published "Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam," an account by one of its columnists, Ryan Sager, of the massive spending by several mainstream foundations to secure passage of the 2002 overhaul of campaign-finance laws and to keep the issue alive. Mr. Sager told his readers he had discovered "an immense scam perpetrated on the American people by a cadre of left-wing foundations and disguised as a 'mass movement.'" Foundations like Ford, Open Society, Carnegie, Joyce,...

The Federal Election Commission is moving forward with plans to regulate political speech on the Internet. (See "The Coming Crackdown on Blogging" on CNETnews.com) Rightwing and leftwing bloggers alike have cried foul. No one seems to want political censorship on the Net. Yet we are getting it anyway. Why? A videotape obtained by Ryan Sager of the New York Post provides a stunning answer to this question. It shows that the McCain-Feingold Act – which forms the legal basis for the FEC's current effort to muzzle bloggers – was pushed through Congress by fraudulent means. In a March 17 article,...