The Intimidation Game Quotes

“Everything,” says Mitchell, “everything was a complete abandonment of the rule of law. It was all the forces of government using harassment and intimidation to shut people down.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“And how is all that sunshine working out? Obama came to office promising to oversee the most transparent administration in history. Instead, his government may go down as the most secretive in the modern era.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Target’s donation was clearly aimed at electing a governor with free-market priorities that would benefit consumers, workers, and retailers. But left-wing activists didn’t care about this truth; they wanted to make Target an example. They combed through Emmer’s record, looking for a politically sensitive issue, and landed on the candidate’s opposition to gay marriage. At the time, Emmer wasn’t out of the mainstream in that position. In 2008, the majority of Americans still opposed gay marriage, as did, for the record, Barack Obama.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Conservatives, she explained, were “crazy” and worse than “alien terrorists.” In March 2014, a friend wrote to complain about Texas Republicans. Lerner responded, “Look my view is that Lincoln was our worst president not our best. He should’[v]e let the south go. We really do seem to have 2 totally different mindsets.” Around”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Unfortunately, the Court fell for the same political sell-job as most of the nation. In its 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision—one of the nation’s most far-reaching cases—it did strike down a few important chunks of FECA, including limits on spending. But it would at the same time give its blessing to one of the more radical parts of the law—forced disclosure.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Washington in 1974 amended the 1971 FECA law to include sweeping new disclosure laws, restrictions on how much money private individuals and independent outfits might contribute to campaigns, and restrictions on how much politicians and parties could spend in elections. It also set up a new body to referee all these disputes—the Federal Election Commission. Campaign finance expert (and onetime FEC commissioner) Brad Smith, in his book Unfree Speech, calls FECA “one of the most radical laws ever passed in the United States; for the first time in history, Congress had passed a law requiring citizens to register with the government in order to criticize its office holders.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act banned both unions and corporations from spending money on pretty much any federal political activity. No giving dollars to candidates, but also no spending money independently to endorse or disapprove of politicians. In the space of forty short years, Democrats and Republicans had teamed up to make themselves immune from criticism from two of the biggest political constituencies in the country—businesses and workers (both private and public).”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“The Tillman Act was government silencing a sweeping category of critics. All under the guise of good government. Thirty years after the Tillman Act, a different Roosevelt was sitting in the White House, and congressional Republicans suspected him of using his ever-growing New Deal program to construct a permanent power base for the Democratic Party. Those suspicions turned to outrage in 1938, following accusations that employees at the Works Progress Administration had influenced congressional elections. Republicans, working with conservative Democrats, in 1939 used the scandal as an excuse to pass the Hatch Act, which limited the political activity of federal employees.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“by the end of the 1904 campaign had thoroughly soured the public on big money in politics. Tillman saw his opportunity to undercut both the GOP and its corporate benefactors, and so proposed one of the first sweeping federal finance laws: a total ban on corporate contributions to campaigns. He also had an unlikely and powerful backer for his campaign: Teddy Roosevelt. Eager to tamp down criticism of his donations and to relaunch his trust-busting campaign, the newly elected president used his first address to Congress to declare his new dedication to cleaning up the finance system he’d so skillfully used to get reelected. Roosevelt signed the Tillman Act into law in 1907. And thus the pattern was set for nearly every finance law to come. The Tillman Act wasn’t passed out of some thoughtful, benevolent congressional desire to clean up dirty politics. It was dirty politics. Democrats proposed and passed it to kneecap political rivals. A Republican signed it to mute criticism of his prior actions”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Tillman, a committed Democrat, was incensed. The South Carolinian despised anyone and anything with a liberal attitude about race. That included Roosevelt, who had in Tillman’s eyes committed the unforgivable sin of inviting Booker T. Washington to the White House. And it included corporations, many of which publicly opposed the South’s segregationist policies, in part because they disliked having to spend money on separate-but-equal facilities.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“This is the modern intimidation game. And it now defines American politics.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Campaign finance rules, by contrast, flip this. Finance laws are a restriction on the people; they empower government. As Bauer warned ALP, these modern finance laws have the force of both civil and criminal penalties behind them. The result is a bizarre situation. Stand on the street corner to complain about Barack Obama, and the First Amendment bars government from doing anything about it. Write a big check for a TV ad that complains about Barack Obama, and campaign finance rules may allow the government to arrest and jail you.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“And that is how U.S. politicians get their hands on the First Amendment. They do it by proxy. Regulate money and you regulate speech. And better yet for the pols, regulating by proxy has extra upsides. For one, most Americans don’t get the connection. Tell the average American that you intend to restrict his right to speak at a town hall meeting, and watch the pitchforks come out. Tell the average American that you intend to regulate money in politics, and watch the praise flow.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“In 1967, a Democratic state attorney, Jeff Mobley, appears to have figured out a new way to do this: Go after donors. He issued subpoenas, calling on the chairman, secretary, and treasurer of the Arkansas Republican Party to hand over information about the party checking account. Arkansas had been essentially a one-party (Democratic) state since Reconstruction, but the GOP had started to gain a foothold—and Democrats didn’t like it. Mobley claimed to be investigating whether Republicans had violated election laws during the 1966 election, when it paid supporters to knock on doors and get out the vote. Republicans believed that what he really wanted was a list of the individuals contributing to his political rivals, and details on who the Republicans were paying to help it grow. GOP party officials sued in federal court, and in 1968 a panel of three judges expanded political anonymity to money and financing. The judges admitted that there are times when there is a legitimate state or public interest in seeing the financial records of political parties, and those records therefore should not be “completely immune from public disclosure.” But they decreed that there was no reason here for Mobley to obtain the identities of contributors. The Court boldly plowed new ground, pointing out the connection between money and speech—noting that, apart from voting, “financial contributions” were the only other way “most people can participate effectively in politics.” To the extent that the government “unreasonably inhibits or discourages” this, it violates the First Amendment.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“In 1774, a wickedly bright college student, all of age seventeen, wrote his first essay—defending the Continental Congress—and published it anonymously. His name was Alexander Hamilton. John Adams wrote several anonymous essays in the Boston Gazette in 1765 in response to the newly imposed Stamp Act. Isaac Collins, who printed the first family Bible in America, famously refused an order by the upper house of the New Jersey state legislature to reveal the real name of “Cincinnatus,” who’d written a scathing attack in his newspaper against Governor William Livingston. The very same governor would a few years later write under the name “Scipio” to criticize his legislature. Benjamin Rush, a Pennsylvania signer of the Declaration of Independence, would anonymously (under the name “Leonidas”) in the Pennsylvania Packet accuse members of Congress. One of America’s most famous political documents, the Federalist Papers, was written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective name “Publius.” These authors didn’t fear for their lives, but still had good reason for choosing a collective pen name. Clinton Rossiter, a renowned historian of the Federalist Papers, explained that the men wanted their arguments debated on the merits, free of preconceptions readers might have about the authors themselves. And they didn’t want controversial writings to undermine other work they were doing in government or their communities.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“In 1941, a political gadfly and publisher named Edward Rumely helped establish the Committee for Constitutional Government, an organization opposed to Franklin Roosevelt’s government expansion and court-packing. Rumely distributed books and literature about the Constitution to a mass mailing list. House Democrats called him in front of Congress, demanding the names of those who had bought his books in bulk for further distribution. He refused to provide them and was convicted of obstructing a congressional inquiry. The Supreme Court struck down the conviction in a landmark decision, writing, “The Power to inquire into all efforts of private individuals to influence public opinion through books and periodicals raises doubts of constitutionality in view of the prohibition of the First Amendment.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“SFVP attended some events that the media might cast as partisan, though members notably didn’t see it that way. When the chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A in June 2012 made public comments opposing same-sex marriage, inspiring protests and counterprotests at Chick-fil-A franchises across the country, the press cast it as a showdown between gays and antigays. When Kenney’s group showed up at a local Chick-fil-A, their interest was in backing the First Amendment, standing up for the right of corporate officers to have an opinion, and the right of chicken lovers to eat where they please.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“On the 2010 anniversary of 9/11 they staged a candelit vigil at a local firehouse. Kenney spent eight hours in her garage with a friend, cutting and pasting onto a fifty-foot mural the names of the three thousand Americans who had perished. An electrician by the name of Greg created a scaffold out of PVC pipe and wires to hold banners. A retired soundman, Aspen, volunteered his audio equipment and skills. Kenney arranged for SFV Patriots to read the voices of passengers on the hijacked planes. She stumped up a few dollars for a Scottish bagpiper and drums. She stumped up a few more to hire a vocalist. Many attendees were moved to tears.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Groups like Kenney’s for the most part see the problem as “Washington”—singular. That leviathan—from a Democratic president, to a Republican Congress, to the anonymous bureaucrat—has forgotten for whom it works, and for what purpose. Kenney would years later begin her Washington testimony by zinging Republicans and Democrats alike: “You and I speak different languages in this Republic. You speak the language of power: the pen, purse, or gavel. I speak grassroots American, the language of liberty through providence, property, and civic virtue.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Kenney would find out only long after opening that packet that SFVP was one of 298 groups the IRS targeted—delaying their applications, freezing them out of elections. She’d learn that her own group had landed on the list for the simple reason that it had the word “patriot” in its name.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“The tax agency wanted answers to more than eighty questions about her small nonprofit, the San Fernando Valley Patriots (SFVP). In 2010, Kenney used an Internet service to apply to the agency for tax-exempt status. It was a straightforward process, and she’d thought it would only take a few months. Instead, she’d sat in radio silence for two years. And now the IRS was telling her she had twenty days to answer its questions, and that if she got anything wrong she could go to federal prison for perjury.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“And so the politicians know who is doing the criticizing, and with whom to settle scores. Former Senator John Kerry made sure that Sam Fox never got his ambassadorship to Belgium. Fox was disciplined for having donated to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The government subjected Frank VanderSloot and Catherine Engelbrecht to multiple audits as punishment for their conservative work. The IRS segregated out Tea Party applications and put them on hold as a penalty for opposing Barack Obama.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“The United States in the past hundred years, and in particular since Watergate, has gone down a very different path. In the name of “clean and transparent” elections, it has layered ever more restrictions on political spending, and by extension on speech. It has instituted a vast new disclosure regime, ostensibly to better inform voters about political actors and the workings of government. This disclosure has instead empowered the intimidators to silence those who question them.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“ALEC is a reason states have cut taxes on income and on corporations; reduced unemployment insurance; shored up private property rights; instituted medical savings accounts; reformed public pension plans; cracked down on trial lawyers; and enacted sunshine laws. Few Americans have heard of ALEC. But there’s a case to be made that no one policy organization has touched the daily lives of more Americans.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“What the left has understood forever is that big business and big government go hand in hand. They use the growth of big business to expand the growth of big government, and vice versa. What they also understand is that business is far more susceptible to pressure than government. So they devote a lot of time to pressuring business. We on the right, we ignore that. We sit here and we throw little pebbles at big government and get all frustrated when things don’t change overnight. What we need to be doing is using the model the left created, and attacking this symbiotic relationship from the business side.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Tony Soprano couldn’t do it better, and Freed gets results. While most of the news media spent its ink on the proxy fight battles raging in 2011, the far more interesting fact was this: Going into that proxy fight year, fifty-seven of the S&P 500 companies had already chosen to forgo political spending or to disclose their political spending on their websites. They’d already been gotten to.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“De Blasio went even further, delving back into the Target fray. The pol was a trustee of the New York City Employee Retirement System, which owned shares in Target. The left had already forced Target to cease using money in campaigns via trade associations. Yet the retailer hadn’t been able to shake the assault; activists sought to continue making an example of it. They scored a particular hit in 2011, when pop star Lady Gaga very publicly ended a deal with Target for her newest album due to its “continued political activity.” Target’s share price kept dropping.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“he was far more aggressive in his demands, handing the IRS specific target lists in the run-up to the 2012 election. In a July 2012 letter, he listed twelve groups he wanted investigated for political activity. Eleven”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Democratic chairwoman Ann Ravel landed there in 2013, straight from a job running California’s FEC equivalent, the Fair Political Practices Commission. She arrived with a mission to turbocharge the FEC’s powers. She’s proposed greatly expanding disclosure rules. She wants to give the FEC power to regulate Internet content. Most disturbingly, she wants to get rid of one commissioner, to end tie votes, and allow one party (presumably hers) to steamroll the other. With”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

“Bauer understood the modern power of using government—even if only the threat of it—to silence political opponents. And his special insight was realizing that the tool for getting those government drones trained on the right targets was campaign finance law.”
― Kimberley Strassel, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech