Slate’s David Weigel:

It’s hard to count the explosions. Battle for America has the sort of pyrotechnics that would make Michael Bay worry about the viewers’ retinas. Some buildings implode as fireballs tumble out the windows. Others crumble into clouds of dust and rubble. A group of dinosaurs, minding their own business, scrambles away from a meteor that causes a mushroom cloud, bringing them all to extinction.

All of this is in the service of a very sober argument about the failures of the 111th Congress.

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Battle for America is the fifth film produced in 2010 by Citizens United and the third by a former mergers-and-acquisitions manager named Stephen K. Bannon. Not too long ago, he was an amateur director. Now, he’s playing his movies at Tea Party events, conventions, and special screenings like the one in Georgetown Thursday night. Citizens United President David Bossie was there, as was the movie’s host, Dick Morris, and Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif. Bannon, wearing a West Point windbreaker (his daughter attended the school), was giddy about what his movies can do to the Democrats.

“We’ve tried to weaponize film,” he said. “And we’ve tried to do in it a certain way to get this view to people who might not necessarily see a political documentary. We made this film for independents and for Reagan Democrats. We’re actually going to take it to Paul Kanjorski’s district,” he said, referring to the Pennsylvania Democrat who’s on the first line of the incumbent deathwatch. “His constituents, those are the kind of people who need to see this.”

Outside the theater, one of the Washington panics of the moment concerns the surge of campaign spending brought on by Citizens United. It was Bossie’s group and its advertisements for Hillary: The Movie, that initiated a lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court. “We won,” Bossie told the premiere audience. “And we want to make use of that.” (more…)

Continued after the jump. (more…)

I didn’t set out to create a film that would go to the Supreme Court and change electoral/political history.

Thursday morning, the 21st of January found me climbing off an airplane in Las Vegas.  By the time the day was over Senator-elect Scott Brown was in Washington, Air America was dead, Keith Olbermann’s head had exploded (twice), and Citizens United v. FEC had overturned a century of campaign finance law. It seemed appropriate that it was snowing in Las Vegas. 

David Bossie: Chairman of the Board and President, Citizens United

First of all let me clear up any possible misunderstandings: I do not consider myself a great writer/director.  I have no connections in Hollywood. I don’t come from money or familial fame.  I have no patrons in politics.  I don’t have a degree from some hot film school or Ivy League institution. I’m not a genius or political wunderkind.  And, I don’t pretend that any of you have seen the film that spawned this Supreme Court case.  So, what does that make me? I think that makes me about like most Americans. 

I’ve been fascinated by the furor and fury over the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC.  It’s curious to be affiliated with, “the most irresponsible decision by the Supreme Court since the Dred Scott decision.”  The left has screamed bloody murder about the demise of democracy.  The left-brain has so firmly fixed the idea that “corporation” = evil, villainy, torture (George Bush), into its autonomic system that a clear reading of the case and decision is impossible for them.  (more…)

It is unnecessary for me to tell any of you reading this that the left has a stranglehold over both Hollywood and the mainstream media.  It is axiomatic in today’s news world dominated by the likes of Keith Olbermann and The New York Times that the “news” is delivered to your doorstep with a leftward slant.  

What are less well understood, however, are the lengths to which the government has gone to protect the left’s monopoly during the last decade and the complicity of the news media in that endeavor.  The recent confrontation between General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt and an O’Reilly Factor producer at GE’s shareholder meeting highlighted the nexus between government and the left-leaning media for all to see. 

For decades, the major broadcasting corporations and newspapers were the gatekeepers of the national political discourse in this country because the enormous infrastructure costs associated with setting up a news organization and a distribution network were prohibitive.  If you were a candidate, incumbent, or someone with a cause, you had to go hat-in-hand to the editors of these organizations asking them to take an interest in you or your cause.  If they accepted you, national attention followed, but if you were rejected by the media elites, you languished in anonymity.  In the last five or ten years, however, the cost of entry declined precipitously due to the proliferation of the internet, and the old guard found its cherished position atop the hierarchy being threatened by smaller upstart organizations.  (more…)

If the government has its way, Eminem’s new single could land him in jail, Jon Stewart’s book, America, could have been banned, and advertising Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 on television or radio would have been a felony.  That’s what the government argued two weeks ago in my organization’s Supreme Court case against the Federal Election Commission, Citizens United v. FEC. In oral arguments before the nine justices of the Supreme Court, the Deputy Solicitor General of the United States asserted that the government had the constitutional authority to criminalize the production of any communication with corporate assistance (such as from a publishing house or a film studio) that advocates the election or defeat of a federal candidate near an election.

That is a stunning claim when you consider that the vast majority of film, music and books in this country is produced commercially, i.e., with corporate assistance.  Effectively, the government claims that the First Amendment, contrary to popular belief, does not confer an inviolable right to speak freely about our elected officials.  Instead, it is the government’s opinion that it is only by the grace and goodwill of Congress that we are permitted to commercially market books and movies that speak out for or against candidates for federal office.  (more…)

Last week the United States Supreme Court held oral arguments over a fascinating question:  whether or not the federal government has the authority to decide if a movie/documentary is a form of entertainment free from most broadcast restrictions or if the video is instead a lengthy attack ad – albeit 90 minutes long – against a candidate for federal office subject to the landmark 2002 federal campaign finance law. The BCRA (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) prevents “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.  The case is Citizens United v. FEC and Hollywood should be greatly alarmed by its implications. 

David N. Bossie, President Citizens United

The movie in question is “Hillary the Movie” and as a low budget documentary it bills itself as providing the untold story of who Hillary Clinton is by presenting nearly “40 in-depth interviews with experts, opinion makers, and many of the people who personally locked horns with the Clintons.”  Regardless of one’s perspective on the electoral merits of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, it should be seen by industry insiders as truly remarkable that such a movie is subject to federal government regulation.   (more…)