Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

The Disclose act HR 5175....The Democraps are going to call a vote on this abortion tommorow . It is on the calender to be brought up to a vote,, If you object to this unconstitutional Bill please fire off an email or call your congressman and tell them you oppose this and want them to do the same, If they get this passed it will harm every legitimate voting organization in the country that currently opposes the administration and will weaken groups like ours, The TEa Party etc.

DISCLOSE ACT - UP FOR A VOTE AGAIN
Dear Fellow Tea Party Patriots,

DISCLOSE ACT back on the calendar for tomorrow June 23, 2010! We must stop this 1st Amendment killing legislation. They are trying to stop our voices! Please call these Congressmen and tell them to Vote No on DISCLOSE ACT!



We have received information from Capitol Hill regarding the "Disclose Act" and we must work to defeat this bill. The vote is expected to take place tonight or tomorrow. We encourage you to find out more information about the DISCLOSE Act in the links below.

On April 29, 2010, Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced H.R. 5175, the Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. The bill is a direct response to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (McCain- Feingold) - a First Amendment victory in which the Supreme Court overturned the prohibition on corporations and unions using treasury funds for independent expenditures supporting or opposing political candidates at any time of the year. Simply put, the DISCLOSE Act will limit the political speech that was protected and encouraged by Citizens United.

Speaker Pelosi and the House Majority Leadership are making it a priority to pass this bill. This bill is designed to take away the influence of Tea Party and other conservative groups in the upcoming November election. We feel like this bill will be successfully challenged in the courts, but the ruling will not come before the November election.

An exemption has been carved out for the Labor Unions and other leftist advocacy groups. The NRA was also exempted so they would not actively oppose it.

Roll Call Magazine reports today that they have carved out even deeper exemptions in order to assure passage and we believe it clearly shows the intent of the bill is to diminish the effectiveness of Tea Party groups and other newer conservative advocacy groups.

"Facing wide-ranging blowback from an exemption tailored for the National Rifle Association, House Democratic leaders have decided to expand the carve-out from disclosure requirements in a campaign finance measure they are trying to pass this week.
The new standard lowers the membership requirement for outside groups from 1 million members to 500,000. Those groups would still need to have members in 50 states, have existed for 10 years and can accept no more than 15 percent of their funding from corporate or union sources. The broader bill, called the DISCLOSE Act, comes in response to the controversial Supreme Court decision in January that struck down limits on corporate and union spending in elections. The bill would force groups participating in elections to name their top donors, among other changes."


We need you to make phone calls, send emails and faxes and urge the Congressmen listed below to vote no on this bill.
Together, we can make a difference!

Can you post a link to this story?

From the GOA...

http://gunowners.org/a062210.htm

I sent emails to both congressmen last week.

Hello Fellow Gunners and Patriots!

I sent my "e" mail, made a phone call and wrote a personal letter to my US Representative today and sent a "courtesy" copy to Ms. Pelosi as well. I have now done this three times, each sucessive time, worded more strongly than the last. Pray for rain on their nefarious parade!

Best regards,

Albert

albertshank wrote:Pray for rain on their nefarious parade!

AMEN, Brother!

Here's my umbrella

Albert,

I'm quite certain that both your representative and Ms.Pelosi are even now moving out to take positive action regarding your recent letters...NOT. The only thing that will move them now is action from a well funded and orchestrated front. They have demonstrated time and time again that the voices of the citizenry does not matter. But, I digress and admire your motivation.

dk

THis one is definitely a priority of the Wicked Witch and her Flying Monkeys, It is very apparent they want to pass this thing to shut us and other oppostion groups up to take away our 1st amendment rights to free speech in the name of campaign reform..Remove them all from office and replace them, Now that;s camopaign reform we can live with.. Each successive time Pelosi is hoping she can muster the votes to pass this thing by rewording here and there or removing something to appease a group. Don;t beleive it for a minute, Look at the Health Care Bill..Things are being found in it that are down right frightening and there is more to come. As aggravating as it is to send emails,make calls, or take some other action ,it is necessary if for no other reason to let these clowns know we are paying attention and will take our deserved payback when the opportunity presents itself .

Well it passed in the House.

http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/ ... close-act/


This bill needs to be killed in the Senate. Because we all know Obama will sign on the dotted line with great fanfare if it ever reaches his office. Obviously there are many members of Congress who feel they can simply pass a bill to overrule what the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.

totes6 wrote:Well it passed in the House.

http://congress.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/ ... close-act/


This bill needs to be killed in the Senate. Because we all know Obama will sign on the dotted line with great fanfare if it ever reaches his office. Obviously there are many members of Congress who feel they can simply pass a bill to overrule what the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.

When they pass outright unconstitutional laws are we then surprised...think about this one as a set up for SCOTUS rulings on Heller,Chicago gun ban, etc, etc, etc. If we cant rely on SCOTUS rulings to stand then we are toast...

So who is going to have the kahunas to run ads in violation of the law?

(I'm assuming it will pass and it likely will)

It is clear that this bill is intended to keep the people from being reminded right before the election just how bad the current Congress is. The bill is a violation of our rights, so which organization is going to stand up and run ads? (assuming the penalty is applied to the people paying for the ad and not the media host who runs it)

Seriously, I want to know where to send money.

VA-ALERT: ACTION ITEM: Disclose Act passes the House

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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings.html
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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In a very narrow vote, the Disclose Act, which was revived a couple of
days ago, passed the House.

The NRA carveout was left in.

Here are the Virginia Congressmen who voted to restrict the First
Amendment, and by doing so, gun owner's voices to protect the Second
Amendment:

Boucher (D), Connolly (D), Moran (D), Perriello (D), and Scott (D)

These Congressmen voted to correctly:

Nye (D), Cantor (R), Forbes (R), Goodlatte (R), Wittman (R), Wolf(R)

-

We must now try to stop it in the Senate.

On behalf of VCDL, I have already contacted Senator Warner's office
and will contact Senator Webb's office on Friday.

ACTION ITEM:

Send a web mail to Senator Warner and Senator Web by clicking on the
links below:

Warner: http://warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Contact

Webb: http://webb.senate.gov/contact.cfm

For the topic or subject, choose "Campaign finance" for Warner and
"Government issues" for Webb

Suggested message:

I urge you to vote "NO" on the DISCLOSE Act bills, HR 5175 and S
3295. These bills are a thinly veiled attack on the First Amendment
and will interfere with the ability of most gun organizations to
protect the rights of gun owners.

Both bills must be defeated.

Please let me know how you are going to vote on HR 5175 and S 3295.




***************************************************************************
VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]

It is meant to silence the opposition ,plain and simple..And by calling it campaign reform ,the average Joe who hasn;t got a clue will think it's OK. We need to raise Holy Hell with our Congress people especailly if yours is one of the cowards that voted Yes to support it.

The president is for it, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is utterly against it claiming every first year law student knows it is illegal, RNC (Republican National Committee) Chairman Michael Steele explains that the Dems are worried more about stacking the election than creating jobs and reducing debt, and of course the DNC Chairman Tim Kaine is for how "it handed incredible power to special interests and their lobbyists".

The king hyprocrite of NY,,,Chuckie (I'm an incredible butthole ) Schumer planned this IMHO knowing it would piss many gun rights people off against the NRA and help split the ranks to ntheir benefit in November,, We can still beat this abomination and insult to the 1st amendment by remaining united and committed to removing every single one of them from office in November while continuing to fight them now...

So much I could say about this "act." Bottom line is the dems are going to pull out all the stops to stay in power. The bad part is they are going to do it so it appears to be legal on the surface. They will take advantage of the bell curve theory regarding intelligence. And that is about half of the population is of average intelligence or below. They dont have to do much to pull the wool over enough eyes to stay in power.

No doubt they will continue to screw around and shaft us royally... As long as we see through the BS and remain a solidified front of we can prevail ,,,.Allowing these morons to split our ranks will only to serve to benfit them,

I fully expected that party-man Connolly to vote for this. He so rode Obama's popularity coattails during the 2008 election, by himself he's nothing.

I wrote Chris Cox and Wayne LaPierre a letter regarding this issue. I will type in and post the response letter that I got. It's full of red herrings. Stay tuned....

Here's the letter I got in response to my letter of opposition. This same letter obviously was sent out to all sorts of people. In the style of the VCDL's VA-ALERTs, I have added my own annotations in {curly brackets}.

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National Rifle Association of America
Institute for Legislative Action
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

Office of the Executive Director
Chris W. Cox

June 21, 2010

I received your letter regarding the NRA's position on H.R. 5175, the "DISCLOSE Act". Regrettably, our position has been misstated by some and intentionally misrepresented by others. I hope you'll allow me to provide the proper context.

The U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United Decision was a significant victory for free speech and the Constitution. The NRA filed a strong brief in that case, which the Court specifically cited several times in its opinion. The DISCLOSE Act is an attempt to reverse that victory and that's why we told Congress we oppose it. {CowboyT: Untill the NRA got an exemption for specifically and only itself, that is....}

The NRA has never supported--nor would we ever support -- any version of this bill. Those who suggest otherwise are wrong. {CowboyT: Oh, really? Is that why my girlfriend heard Wayne LaPierre saying that he actually supports this bill?}

The restrictions in this bill should not apply to anyone or to any organization. My job is to ensure they don't apply to the NRA and our members. Without the NRA, the Second Amendment will be lost and I will do everything in my power to prevent that. {CowboyT: Wow...that's pretty arrogant. Unless the NRA and only the NRA exists, we will lose the 2A? So, GOA, VCDL, Calguns, etc. just don't matter? If we all switched our membership to GOA, what would Mr. Cox say then?}

We believe that any restriction on political speech is repugnant. But some of our critics believe we should put the Second Amendment at risk over a First Amendment principle to protect other organizations. {CowboyT: Wrong. This isn't about "protecting other organizations". This is about protecting the American principle called the First Amendment!} That's easy to say--unless you have a sworn duty to protect the Second Amendment above all else, as I do. {CowboyT: Even when it means casting off other Constitutional Amendments to do that?}

The NRA is a single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to protecting the Second Amendment. {CowboyT: Is that right? Then why, in this month's edition of America's 1st Freedom, is the NRA going on about illegal immigration? Why did the NRA take a position in Citizens United at all, a FIRST Amendment issue?} We do not represent the interests of other organizations. {CowboyT: So, they're in this for themselves, are they? Then I will treat them as such.} Nor do all groups fight all issues together. For example, we didn't support the U.S. Chamber of Commerce when it backed amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens {CowboyT: This is a total red herring with nothing to do with 2A issues} and we did not join the Chamber in its support of President Obama's stimulus bill {CowboyT: Again, another red herring, not 2A-related--wow, so much for being a "single issue organization", eh?}. And we've been in direct opposition when the Chamber has tried to restrict Second Amendment rights in publicly accessible parking lots. {CowboyT: OK, this one is appropriate, but they don't get "extra points" for that. They're supposed to do that.}

Rather than focusing on opposing this bill, some have encouraged people to blame the NRA for this Congress's unconstitutional attack on free speech. {CowboyT: No, we blame this Congress for this Congress's un-Constitutional attack on free speech. We blame the NRA leadership for getting bought out to keep quiet about it.} That's a shame. {CowboyT: Yes, it is.} If you oppose this bill, I hope you will contact your Member of Congress and Senators so they can hear from you. {CowboyT: Also contact the NRA about changing their weaselly, un-American position as well.}

Sincerely,

{signed}

Chris W. Cox
Executive Director

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With support for DISCLOSE faltering in the Senate, and no immediate sponsor in sight, the chances of this bill passing is slim. Which brings a question to mind....

If the DISCLOSE act fails, will the NRA be forgiven for their self-serving carve out?. Or will gun owners hold a grudge as well as hold their donations?.

Let's hear your thoughts.