The MarxoFascists in the Obama regime are planning to regulate the news and impose a new oversight program of what is reported and why.
This is no surprise move to anyone paying attention. The control of information is vital to a dictatorship and brutal tyranny. Such a regime cannot allow dissent, freedom of speech or the reporting of news that showcases the nefarious deeds of rulers to a populace that has it’s minds shaped by propaganda.
The new FCC plan will use “researchers” placed in the news reporting industry to determine what is reported, how it is reported and why. This is just an opening salvo, for the real target they intend to intimidate and silence is the internet blogs and Conservative talk radio.
Combined with using the IRS to intimidate and fine Conservative groups, prohibiting them from political activism – the MarxoFascist dream of silencing dissent will be realized.
First Amendment: The FCC has cooked up a plan to place “researchers” in U.S. newsrooms, supposedly to learn all about how editorial decisions are made. Any questions as to why the U.S. is falling in the free press rankings?
As if illegal seizures of Associated Press phone records and the shadowy tailing of the mother of a Fox News reporter weren’t menacing enough, the Obama administration is going out of its way to institute a new intrusive surveillance of the press, as if the press wasn’t supine enough.
Ajit Pai, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission, warned this week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that a plan to dispatch researchers into radio, television and even newspaper newsrooms called the “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs” is still going forward, despite the grave danger it presented to the First Amendment.
Pai warned that under the rationale of increasing minority representation in newsrooms, the FCC, which has the power to issue or not issue broadcasting licenses, would dispatch its “researchers” to newsrooms across America to seek their “voluntary” compliance about how news stories are decided, as well as “wade into office politics” looking for angry reporters whose story ideas were rejected as evidence of a shutout of minority views.
Pai questioned if such a study could really be voluntary, given FCC’s conflict of interest (and, he might have added, the Obama record of going after political opponents).
The origin of the idea is a recrudescence of the Fairness Doctrine, inoperative since 1987 or so, to provide equal time to leftist points of view in broadcasting and other media that otherwise wouldn’t have a willing audience in a free market.
It’s an idea so fraught with potential for abuse it ought to have news agencies screaming bloody murder. The very idea of Obama hipsters showing up in newsrooms, asking questions and judging if newspapers (over which they have no jurisdiction), radio and TV are sufficiently diverse is nothing short of thought control.
But the reaction from the National Association of Broadcasters was mealy-mouthed. The FCC “should reconsider” “qualitative” sections of its study, it wrote.
The FCC now says it will be “closely reviewing the proposed research design to determine if an alternative approach is merited,” as a result of Pai’s warning. Adweek actually reported that as a “retreat.”
It’s because of this don’t-rock-the-boat attitude that Reporters Without Borders said the U.S. had “one of the most significant declines” in press freedom in the world last year, dropping 13 places to a wretched 46th in its newly released global ranking. If the FCC has its way, it can drop even further.
The FCC to “Interrogate” radio, TV and web site owners, editors and reporters to regulate political speech the regime does not like in new probe.
We knew Conservative Talk Radio’s days were numbered because they are one of the very FEW media sources that expose Obama’s MARXIST/STALINIST/FASCIST agenda for what it is.
Now a Federal probe will start the process to purge news that the Ruling Class in government does not like.
We knew this was coming, they have been telling us all along. Most were simply not listening, or like smokers of 20 years ago – thought the idea of free speech and press being regulated by the government, an absurdity.
The Federal Communications Commission is planning a broad probe of political speech across media platforms, an unprecedented move that raises serious First Amendment concerns.
The FCC’s proposed “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” which is set to begin a field test in a single market with an eye toward a comprehensive study in 2014, would collect a remarkably wide range of information on demographics, point of view, news topic selection, management style and other factors in news organizations both in and out of the FCC’s traditional purview.
The airwaves regulator would also subject news producers in all media to invasive questioning about their work and content.
A methodology [pdf] worked up by Silver Spring, Maryland-based Social Solutions International (SSI) says that in addition to its general evaluation of news content, the survey will include a “qualitative component” featuring interrogations of news organization owners, management and employees.
Among the questions federal contractors will be asking of private media companies:
For media owners:
“What is the news philosophy of the station?”
For editors, producers and managers:
“Do you have any reporters or editors assigned to topic ‘beats’? If so how many and what are the beats?”
“Who decides which stories are covered?”
…“In this study, the FCC will delve into the editorial discretion of newspapers, web sites and radio and TV stations,”
…The FCC will also be probing media such as internet sites and newspapers, over which it has no oversight. The FCC’s justification is that it has a mandate to ensure overall news environments are adequate for consumers who are at risk of being exposed to too few points of view – a questionable proposition in 2013.
To a large degree, the Commission claims to be trying to solve a problem …about excessive “concentration” of media ownership, a concern reflected in SSI’s occult vocabulary of “underserved populations,” “diverse neighborhoods/communities” and “media ecologies.”
What that last paragraph means is an “excessive concentration of ‘White/Conservatives’ having a voice in society. So the Obama FCC is going to go after them, the same way his IRS went after White Conservative groups.
…[The]FCC said it was necessary to “ensure that the critical informational needs of Americans are being met and … advance the goal of diversity, including the promotion of greater women and minority participation in media.”
The Commission has not so far addressed the potential chilling effect of a government interrogation of news producers, nor the potential for abuse of the survey and the information it gathers.
In the last paragraph of a press release on an unrelated topic, the FCC announced last week that it had completed the comment period for the CIN survey and would begin field testing it in one market.
The FCC did not respond to requests for comment.
Contacted in person at an event Tuesday, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel referred The Daily Caller to a legal advisor to “figure out what the questions are,” without listening to any of the questions. The legal advisor referred The Daily Caller’s questions to another FCC official who did not respond.
The venture capital firm of Tom Wheeler, President Obama’s pick for FCC chairman, referred The Daily Caller to the White House’s press office, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Wheeler’s was unanimously confirmed by the Senate late Tuesday. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz had placed a hold on Wheeler’s nomination over concerns that FCC might impose requirements of the failed DISCLOSE Act, an attempt to legislate around the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision. Cruz announced Tuesday evening that he had withdrawn the hold after a meeting at which Wheeler assured him imposing such regulations was “not a priority.”
Wheeler’s view on the CIN survey is not known. Several Commission watchers told The Daily Caller the FCC is waiting for a new chairman to begin work on the 2014 quadrennial review and the CIN survey.
Conservative Talk Radio hosts are willfully missing the truth of what America is being transformed into.
Perhaps they do not want to sound like a ‘conspiracy freak’. Perhaps they do not want to sound alarming or cross an invisible line they know the Left will go berserk over. But for some reason, the voices of Conservatism are using a term to describe the corruption and perversion of business and corporations by the Obama regime that gives the radical Left in this country – more ammunition to pummel their ideological hatred of our former core mechanism of wealth creation.
The term they keep using is ‘Crony Capitalism’. That’s a term I’m formally taking issue with, because what is occurring is something far more sinister than just a simple case of political graft and corruption.
I am fond of hearing the Conservative radio hosts espouse the fact that ‘words mean things’. Good. Because yes, they do. Losing our language is one of many reasons this post-Constitutional Republic is foundering. Our society led by the Obama media machine refuses to call sin what it is, refuses to call Jihadists what they are – but incessantly call what we used to consider to be good, evil, and celebrates evil as good. Something the Bible says woe to those that do (Isaiah 5:20).
Plain words and their meaning are something the Left in this country have bastardized to their advantage by controlling the language and crafting the narrative to fit their agenda. They twist words to pervert their meaning and then use them as a bludgeon on their opposition. At the same time, the Conservative Movement, being attacked by not only the Left, but the Ruling Class of their own party – are growing timid in calling things what they are, as if walking on eggshells is going to win over anyone to our ideological side.
The Left employs a rule weapon of their own design that says that the moment someone invokes Hitler or Nazism to make a comparison – they automatically lose the argument. Well – I never agreed to any such rule in the first place – and we’re at war with the Left as far as I’m concerned – so to hell with their rules. I never granted them such authority as to dictate how an argument must be made. I prefer to call things what they are. However, I think many are cowed by these types of ‘rules’ the Left sets up and they sometimes do not call things what they are to avoid an insult or a label. Others may refuse to make such comparisons because doing so they estimate is somehow an affront to history and trivializes the horrors suffered. I say nonsense. Such comparisons should serve as a warning of history repeating itself because we forget history.
Why am I taking issue with Conservatives using the term ‘Crony Capitalism’ to describe what the Obama regime and the Ruling Class are doing? Because that term is not what is actually taking place.
Leftists are succeeding in convincing America that the entire concept of Capitalism is evil, flawed and wrong. They will point to pundits like Limbaugh and Levin who use the term ‘Crony Capitalism’ as some kind of ‘proof’ that Capitalism is not only evil evidenced by the term itself, but wholly corruptible and therefore must be discarded. While certainly cronyism is at play and has been an issue in politics in America for as long as anyone can remember (Cook County, IL anyone?) – Obama and his Democrats have taken it to a level far above and beyond cronyism and graft.
Rush made a comment on his radio program on Wednesday that triggered this essay. As he was describing what is being institutionalized across our nation at the local, state and federal level, I recognized it as something other than what he did.
Now, folks, I don’t want to be misunderstood. I’m a capitalist. Don’t get me wrong. But look at all the bailouts that have taken place. Part of capitalism is when something fails, it fails. When an investment doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. You can’t bail out everybody. And once you start picking people you’re bailing out, then you’ve got crony capitalism, and that ain’t good. And what we have now, you have these various bailouts, you have government funding, chosen industries which can’t make it on their own and often can’t even make it with government help. All the Solyndras, for example, and right now the electric cars. I don’t mean to harp on them, but you take your pick. Industries that can’t make it and therefore shouldn’t, the market will always tell you the truth about things. Industries that shouldn’t make it then get propped up. That is not capitalism, and it’s artificial. It isn’t real.
Winners and losers are being picked by the government and you no longer have capitalism and you longer have free markets. And now there are corporate entities who care about immigration for one reason only: cheap labor. What happens in the country, couldn’t care less. They’re citizens of the world. They’re gonna have customers wherever. So they’re not ideologically sympathetic any longer. So, folks, we have to admit here that despite all the talk about the middle class and class warfare, big government, crony capitalism, crony socialism, seems to be the objective of both parties now.
What Rush describes here is something far more sinister and oppressive than the term ‘crony capitalism’ conveys. What Rush described is not crony capitalism.
It’s fascism. A Mussolini-styled form of Fascism.
And that IS the objective of both political parties and any business or corporation that stands to make a profit by getting in bed with government.
Fascism in it’s purest sense is Socialism with a Capitalist facade, continuing the illusion that wealth and property are still sovereign in the hands of the individual, while the state regulates and directs it.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
Is that not exactly what Rush described on his radio program excerpt above? Compare the institutionalization of what we see happening by the Ruling Class and business under Obama and what Sheldon defines here as Fascism (my proofs in parenthesis):
Under fascism, the state, through official cartels (IRS, EPA, DHS, OSHA, USDA, et al.), controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms (are you paying attention? ObamaCare anyone?). Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans” (Tax the rich, ban large sodas, eat more arugula, etc.)
Any of this sound familiar? It should. It’s the transformational process we are currently witnessing taking shape by the hand of Obama and his ‘cartels’ in all the Alphabet agencies of government. What Sheldon defines of Fascism is already being implemented in full by Obama. And the Drones and the Welfare Class are cheering for it. But there’s more in Sheldon’s definition of Fascism, and this is essentially what Rush himself was describing:
Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.
Corporatism, cartelizing firms, government boards, always subject to the final authority of a dictator’s economic plan. This is what is being done under Obama – a true Imperial Presidency burgeoning on a defacto dictatorship.
Benito Mussolini established Fascism as Italy’s economic model. As a Marxist, he modified the aspects of full government control by using Class warfare and declaring individuals who resist the ‘collective’ as being ‘selfish’.
“The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill”. – Benito Mussolini, Biography (p. 280)
The overall theme of Obama’s economics and the Democrat party itself is embodied in what Mussolini himself wrote. The Left in this country declares those who do not embrace them and their policies as ‘anti-social’ (racists, bigots, homophobes etc.). Anyone recall Obama lecturing us about “collective salvation”?
“The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity”.
This is what Obama is actually talking about folks; Fascism. It’s what ‘collective salvation’ means. He’s transforming America into a Fascist state right before our eyes.
Using the term ‘Crony Capitalism’ diminishes what is actually taking shape.
So let’s call them what they are – and what they are institutionalizing what it is.
If we want to be original – since much of what the Obama regime and the Democrat party is doing is a hybrid of Marxism, Socialism and Fascism – I choose to refer to Obama and the Ruling Class in this country as MARXOFASCISTS.
Stimulus Bill “Gives Authority” of nation’s broadcast and information ‘infrastructure’ to government.
American Spectator February 16, 2009
Senior FCC staff working for acting Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps held meetings last week with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to discuss ways the committee can create openings for the FCC to put in place a form of the “Fairness Doctrine” without actually calling it such.
Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. “It’s all about diversity in media,” says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings.
“Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them.”
Copps will remain acting chairman of the FCC until President Obama’s nominee, Julius Genachowski, is confirmed, and Copps has been told by the White House not create “problems” for the incoming chairman by committing to issues or policy development before the Obama pick arrives.
But Copps has been a supporter of putting in place policies that would allow the federal government to have greater oversight over the content that TV and radio stations broadcast to the public, and both the FCC and Waxman are looking to licensing and renewal of licensing as a means of enforcing “Fairness Doctrine” type policies without actually using the hot-button term “Fairness Doctrine.”
One idea Waxman’s committee staff is looking at is a congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and radio stations to have in place “advisory boards” that would act as watchdogs to ensure “community needs and opinions” are given fair treatment. Reports from those advisory boards would be used for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least annually by FCC staff.
Waxman and the FCC staff are also said to be looking at ways to ease the “consumer complaint” process, which could also be used along with the advisory boards.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is also looking at how it can put in place policies that would allow it greater oversight of the Internet.
“Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we’re seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information,” says on committee staffer. “We’re at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities.”
“This isn’t just about Limbaugh or a local radio host most of us haven’t heard about,” says Democrat committee member. “The FCC and state and local governments also have oversight over the Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we’ve established that broadband networks — the Internet — are critical, national infrastructure.
Of course what that means folks, is that because they shoved money in the Marxist Stimulus bill to give greater oversight of internet, radio and cable lines – which means they think the government NOW OWNS them.
In essense, the government has nationalized all information, and are going to decide for us, what we are allowed to hear, read and see.
”
We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure.”
Also involved in “brainstorming” on “Fairness Doctrine and online monitoring has been the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, which has published studies pressing for the Fairness Doctrine, as well as the radical MoveOn.org, which has been speaking to committee staff about policies that would allow them to use their five to six million person database to mobilize complaints against radio, TV or online entities they perceive to be limiting free speech or limiting opinion.
Tyranny is coming fast and furious folks.
By the time a majority wake up, it’s going to be too late to do anything about it.
The war to silence any opposition to the Secular and Political Left is now ratcheting itself up.
The clarion calls from the Elite Democrats to silence Christian and Talk Radio are reaching fevered pitch, while the Omnibus Stimulus Pork bill has revealed itself to being a vehicle to ban religious worship.
‘This isn’t like a convenient oversight, this is intentional’
President Obama’s proposed economic stimulus plan makes a deliberate – and unconstitutional – attempt to censor religious speech and worship on school campuses across the nation, according to a lawyer who argued related cases before the U.S. Supreme Court 20 years ago and won them all.
“This isn’t like a convenient oversight. This is intentional. This legislation pokes its finger in the eyes of people who hold religious beliefs,” Jay Sekulow, chief of the American Center for Law and Justice, told WND today.
His was the organization that decades ago argued on behalf of speech freedom on school campuses, winning repeatedly at the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, the 2001 Good News Club v. Milford Central School District decision was added, clarifying that restricting religious speech within the context of public shared-use facilities is unconstitutional.
The problem in the proposed stimulus bill comes from a provision that states: “PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS. – No funds awarded under this section may be used for – (C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities – (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.”
The wording that specifically targets religious speech already has been approved by the majority Democrats in the U.S. House – all GOP members opposed it. In the Senate, Jim DeMint, R-S.C., proposed an amendment to eliminate it, but again majority Democrats decided to keep the provision targeting religious instruction and activities.
Critics argued schools would accept any money offered, then impose a ban on religious events.
DeMint warned organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Campus Crusade for Christ, Catholic Student Ministries, Hillel and other religious groups would face new bans on access to public facilities that would not apply to other organizations.
“This is a direct attack on students of faith, and I’m outraged Democrats are using an economic stimulus bill to promote discrimination,” DeMint said. “Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for siding with the ACLU over millions of students of faith.”
“These students simply want equal access to public facilities, which is their constitutional right. This hostility toward religion must end. Those who voted to for this discrimination are standing in the schoolhouse door to deny people of faith from entering any campus building renovated by this bill,” said DeMint.
The senator said the stimulus bill now becomes an “ACLU stimulus” that has the goal of triggering lawsuits “designed to intimidate religious organizations across the nation.”
“This language is so vague, it’s not clear if students can even pray in a dorm room renovated with this funding since that is a form of ‘religious worship.’ If this provision remains in the bill, it will have a chilling effect on students of faith in America,” he said.
DeMint cited Obama’s statement at the National Prayer Breakfast this week that faith “can promote a greater good for all of us.”
“This provision is an assault against both. It’s un-American and it’s unconstitutional. Intolerant and it’s intolerable,” DeMint said.
The ban on religious organizations is linked to the $3.5 billion intended for “renovation of public or private college and university facilities.”
The ACLJ, which focuses on constitutional law, said the provision “has nothing to do with economic stimulus and everything to do with religious discrimination.”
“The thing is I litigated these cases on these exact issues 20 years ago,” Sekulow told WND. “Not only did we win, two of the decisions were unanimous and the other was 8-1.
“We’re seeing a rollback to the 1970s regarding church-state relations,” he said. “That’s what is troubling. It is a complete rollback that now institutionalizes discrimination through targeting religion.”
Sekulow said he already is drafting a complaint that will challenge the constitutionality of the provision, to be used if it isn’t removed.
However, he also warned that the problem is the damage that can be done within the probable four years it would take to get the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court and what that court would look like at that point.
Under Obama, he said, “there will be an ideology shift.” New appointments to the bench by Obama, he said, would be “much more left of where Justices (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg and (Stephen) Breyer are.”
Obama is following the Saul Alinsky rule (in his book, Rules for Radicals) to ‘clothe everything you do in morality’ because this is what most effectively fools the ‘middle class’ into agreeing with what you want to do.”
But the news today does not end there. There are efforts to not only silence Conservative Talk Radio, but to water down and silence Christian radio as well.
As the National Religious Broadcasters convened today in Nashville, an ominous shroud cast by political chatter about the reimposition of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” in the nation’s capital hung over the gathering.
NRB President Frank Wright said he sees the move as a credible threat under a Democrat-dominated Congress and with President Obama in the White House.
“And we have a personal concern,” Wright told Broadcasting & Cable. “The only radio station that ever lost its license under the fairness doctrine regime was a Christian radio station in Red Lion, Pa. We are only responding now to the statements the Democrats themselves are making.”
Representing 1,400 organizations, including large ministries and TV and radio stations, NRB said it is “girding itself for a major battle over broadcasting freedoms,” and was prepared to go to court, lobby Congress, or take its message to the public.
“We have talked before about many of these issues, but now, with the shift in the political landscape, I think these same things have a much higher probability of being enacted or at least having legislation and hearings and debates, and on the regulation side at the FCC,” said Wright.
He said the new political climate doesn’t just threaten broadcasters, but even churches that have no broadcast outlet.
“The fairness doctrine has a tremendous potential for constraining free speech, but hate crimes (legislation) has the potential of criminalizing it,” he said. “In the short run, the fairness doctrine has the immediate threat of being applied to Christian broadcasters and to the church in a very deleterious way. Hate crimes legislation, if that is enacted, will evolve over time and bleed over into speech and have a negative effect, but not right away. The fairness doctrine will have a negative impact the day it is implemented.”
He said he expects religious broadcasters, largely Christian, to be particularly hard hit because of the doctrine’s requirement for so-called “balance.” If an opposing view must be found for every matter of controversy, Christian broadcasters could find themselves in the unenviable and untenable position of seeking out other religious viewpoints – Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist – to counter what ministers of the Gospel say on the air.
“I have had a number of conversations with NRB members who operated under the old ‘Fairness Doctrine’ regime,” he said. “What happens is there is a chilling of free speech because the license-holder tends to take off the air the programmer whose content is deemed to be controversial.
This weekend’s meeting will offer up ideas about fighting back the prospects of government-controlled speech on the airwaves.
“I don’t want to tip our hands on strategy except to say that if the approach taken by the administration is an FCC approach, we believe we can bring enough pressure to bear on the commission at the point of enactment to bring enough heat to get them to see the light, so to speak,” he said. “I don’t think we can stop it in the House or Senate.”
Just last week another Democratic U.S. senator went on record as supporting the reinstatement of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” adding, “I feel like that’s gonna happen.”
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told radio host and WND columnist Bill Press \ when asked about whether it was time to bring back the so-called “Fairness Doctrine”: “I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else – I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.”
Stabenow’s husband, Tom Athans, was executive vice president of the left-leaning talk radio network Air America. He left the network in 2006, when it filed for bankruptcy, and co-founded the TalkUSA Radio Network.
Asked by Press if she could be counted on to push for hearings in the Senate this year “to bring these (radio station) owners in and hold them accountable,” Stabenow replied: “I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that’s gonna happen. Yep.”
CC Commissioner Robert McDowell, a Bush appointee whose term runs through June, however, warned that Democrats may be adopting a stealthier approach to shutting down conservatives on talk radio.
In a speech to the Media Institute in Washington, Multichannel News reports, McDowell suggested there are efforts to implement the controversial policy without using the red-flagged “Fairness Doctrine” label.
“That’s just Marketing 101,” McDowell explained. “If your brand is controversial, make it a new brand.”
Instead, McDowell alleged, Democrats will try to disguise their efforts in the name of localism, diversity or network neutrality.
McDowell further suggested that the FCC may already be gearing up to enforce the “Fairness Doctrine” through community advisory boards that help determine local programming. While radio stations use the boards on a voluntary basis now, McDowell warned if the advisory panels become mandatory, “Would not such a policy be akin to a re-imposition of the Doctrine, albeit under a different name and sales pitch?”
And while Republicans’ prediction of “Fairness Doctrine” legislation remains unfulfilled and highly speculative, a WND investigation has revealed that McDowell and Walden aren’t just fear-mongering, as some have suggested. A think tank headed by John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama’s transition team, mapped out a strategy in 2007 for clamping down on talk radio using language that has since been parroted by both the Obama campaign and the new administration’s White House website.
In June of 2007, Podesta’s Center for American Progress released a report titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” detailing the conservative viewpoint’s dominance on the airwaves and proposing steps for leveling the playing field.
“Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system,” the report reads, “particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.”
The report then demonstrates how radio stations owned locally, or operated by female and minority owners, are statistically more likely to carry liberal political talk shows.
Therefore, the report concludes, the answer to getting equal time for “progressives” lies in mandating “localism” and “diversity” without ever needing to mention the “Fairness Doctrine.”
To accomplish the strategy, the report recommends legislating local and national caps on ownership of commercial radio stations and demanding radio stations regularly prove to the FCC that they are “operating on behalf of the public interest” to maintain their broadcasting license.
And if stations are unwilling to abide by the FCC’s new regulatory standards, the report recommends, they should pay spectrum-use fees directly to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting “with clear mandates to support local news and public affairs programming and to cover controversial and political issues in a fair and balanced manner.”
In this way, the report concludes, between $100 million and $250 million could be raised for public radio, which will be compelled to broadcast via the old standards established by the “Fairness Doctrine.”
Since the report’s release in 2007, the Obama camp has twice gone on record advocating positions identical to Podesta’s think tank.
Last summer, in denying the presidential candidate’s support of the “Fairness Doctrine,” Obama’s press secretary said, “Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.”
Further, the White House website lists on its technology agenda page that the president plans to “encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.”
The president’s position and proposals match the language of his transition co-chair’s think tank report almost word-for-word.
President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill Friday that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.
It has become evident this week that the narcissism of President Barrack The Hussein Obama have revealed his closed door preferences and utter intolerance towards any hint of question or criticism of him. So he issues threats.
I simply have to laugh at the audacity of this guy, the new Dear Leader of the world, to think he can go to A PRESS ROOM, and think no one is going to ask him a question??? Obviously Saul Alinsky and William Ayers did not enlighten Obama that the press is not automatically a state propaganda arm, it often has to be MADE into such a tool.
This lack of access and transparency is not surprising, even though Obama insists his will be “the most transparent” of Administrations. I think we can call this a bold-faced lie in advance based on what we already know. According to Sun-Times columnist and long-time Chicago journalist, Carol Marin, journalists at Barack Obama news conferences have come to realize that Obama pre-picks those journalists whom he will allow to ask him questions at the conference and many of them now “don’t even bother raising” their hands to be called upon.
So much for ‘transparency’. Obama pre-selects his photography, those with access to him and those who are allowed to ask him questions.
And these Liberals think Nixon was an “Imperial President”.
What is behind all of these efforts of ‘control’ is Obama’s intolerance and ability to handle any criticism. But then history teaches that tyrants of men NEVER allow criticism of their ideas, policies or actions. As it was with the world’s tyrannical dictators, so will it be with Obama.
The sycophantic worshippers of Obama can burn effigies of Bush and Cheny and taunt and hiss at them as an exercise of free political speech, but if anyone dares question or criticize The One – then his displeasure is made known, and his admonition is to silence and warn others away from those that dare opine in the negative of Obama or his agenda.
Of course many Conservatives fully expected efforts by this White House and the Democrat Congress to silence talk radio, Obama’s harshest and stalwart opposition. Obama took a step in fulfilling that fear Friday when he admonished the Republicans in Congress to “stop listening to Rush Limbaugh” if they wanted to get along with his administration.
Obviously Obama is not the brightest bulb in the pack, because if he was paying any attention, he would understand that the Republican Party HAS NOT BEEN LISTENING to Limbaugh AT ALL. In fact the GOP Leadership despises Limbaugh as much as Obama does. Beltway Republicans hate Limbaugh and Conservative Talk Radio and have made no secret of it. Do folks forget that Colin Powell, that bulwark of Republicanism made a similar suggestion on CNN back in October? Do the short memories and short weenies in Washington forget that John McCain is no fan of Limbaugh or Talk Radio?
Perhaps if the Liberal GOP Elites running the party WERE LISTENING to Limbaugh – The GOP would not be begging for scraps from the Democrat table and the Marxist Left would not be in control of the government right now.
Facts aside, can you just imagine if Bush suggested that Democrats stop listening to Al Sharpton’s radio show, or Randi Rhodes on Air America if they wanted to get along with his administration? Bedlam would have ensued. But then hypocrisy is a hallmark of the Democrat Liberal Elite and this is what we expect of them. Liberal radio is free expression, Conservative radio is Hate Speech.
Rush: There are two things going on here. One prong of the Great Unifier’s plan is to isolate elected Republicans from their voters and supporters by making the argument about me and not about his plan. He is hoping that these Republicans will also publicly denounce me and thus marginalize me. And who knows? Are ideological and philosophical ties enough to keep the GOP loyal to their voters? Meanwhile, the effort to foist all blame for this mess on the private sector continues unabated when most of the blame for this current debacle can be laid at the feet of the Congress and a couple of former presidents. And there is a strategic reason for this.
Secondly, here is a combo quote from the meeting:
“If we don’t get this done we (the Democrats) could lose seats and I could lose re-election. But we can’t let people like Rush Limbaugh stall this. That’s how things don’t get done in this town.”
To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama’s plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR’s New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy.
Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing “eternal” power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy. If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle.
…If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of the trillion dollar debacle.
…Your publication and website have documented Obama’s ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals:
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Of course that is what is going on here, and Obama is not the only one engaged in doing this. The Republican Leadership and the Moderates in the GOP are on the same warpath, because they now think it is better to go along with the Marxist makeover of America, than to stand against it. The GOP leadership knows where the power lies, and they will do anything to share in it.
Which is why all we have heard this week is for everyone to unify behind Obama and the Democrats and to ‘See what Obama does before commenting’ crappola.
His High Exaltedness, The One was not finished with displaying his hubris however, as later in the day in an exchange with Eric Cantor (R-VA) about his Pork Spending Bill disguised as a “Stimulus package”, Obama told him point blank ‘I won. I will trump you on that” – which in essence means, “Shut Up, I’m king”.
I seem to recall the outrage of Liberals when Bush said pointedly that he was “The Decider” when defending Donald Rumsfeld from all the calls from the Press and the Pundits for Rumsfeld to resign back in 2006. I guess defending a Cabinet Official from anti-war zealots calling for his head and defending yet another omnibus pork spending bill that affects every American taxpayer and their children, are mutually exclusive.
What has been made clear by Obama himself this week is that he will not tolerate any opposition, any questions, any dissent of his plans which he is adamant are enacted as swiftly as possible, without debate.
“In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude.” – George Washington, 1st President of the United States
“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.” – Frederick Douglass
It was only a matter of time. It has been hinted at, suggested in subtle ways and hinted in thinly veiled words – but anyone with foresight could see that the calls of “Hate Speech” would eventually be used to silence any opposition to a cultural lobbying effort. Any minority could run with that football; Blacks, Homosexuals, Militant Muslims, obese people, Secularists and whomever just wants to make sure they can shut up their detractors by force of law. “Hate Speech” is the new New Nuclear Option against liberty of thought and expression.
The illegal immigration and Mexican Nationalist movement inside America has taken that fear to the next step of reality by announcing that newscasters like Lou Dobbs and Talk Show hosts like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are engaging in “hate speech” by speaking out against Illegal Immigration and illegals in America. In new media and online efforts, the massive whitewash of groups like LaRaza, MEChA, and crime statistics being purged of any immigrant status are underway, while these groups look to turn the anti-immigrant sentiments against their loudest opponents in media. The way they are undertaking this effort is to describe the demand for illegals to follow our laws and assimilate into an American culture as nothing different than the path the Nazis took to expunge the Jews from Europe.
This is deliberate lunacy of course. There are enough statistics in crime, video, internet web sites and massive marches about the efforts these groups are making to insist on demands from America. Reconquinista and Atzlan are not myths, they are vocal and written promises being made and marched about. The efforts to silence the speech of those decrying this lawlessness as hate is as absurd as calling the celebration of Cinco De Mayo treason – but here we are, and it is entering the next phase.
The New York Times’s political blog reports on an outrageous speech by National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia, that somehow they must have overlooked the implications of. Murguia says that anyone harshly criticizing illegal immigrants, especially mainstream opinion-makers, should be removed from the air waves. This of course is the the Washington DC Elite’s wet dream, be they Democrats or Republicans: to silence what they all perceive to be a thorn in their sides of getting away with shoving last Summer’s Amnesty bill down our throats.
The implications of this are mind-boggling. Look for CAIR and the Homosexual lobbies to follow suit with their own calls to do likewise with their detractors. The massive lurch to the Political Left this country has taken will no doubt see a return of the Fairness Doctrine, and it will probably ensure the shut down of talk radio and return the monopoly of information and news to the mainstream media. I suppose since we are already fast on our way towards becomming a multicultural third world bananna republic, this should be no surprise to anyone, but to hear it actually articulated as a political effort is a realization that we are not in Kansas anymore. I guess we should just rename it Atzlan?
It does however, bring the Curses of Deuteronomy 28 to my recollection and I worry the alien nationals enclaving among us are nearing PC parity with Americans. The end result of speech deemed ‘hate’ by lobbying groups and the government are bringing to a close, this experiment we called an American republic.
A Call to End Hate Speech
By Ariel Alexovich
The head of the country’s largest Latino civil rights organization called on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News to stop providing a forum for pundits who consistently disparage the documented and undocumented Hispanic immigrant population.
The group, the National Council of La Raza (meaning “the people”), also has asked Mike Huckabee to renounce the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, a co-founder of the Minuteman Project, a private organization dedicated to preventing people from illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington on Thursday, Janet Murguia, the N.C.L.R. president, said that anti-Latino remarks on the big three cable news networks are insulting not only to minorities but also to the greater American population.
“It’s personal, it’s intolerable, and it has to end,” she said.
Besides contacting network executives and the Huckabee campaign, the N.C.L.R. has created a Web site to illustrate how disparaging language negatively affects race relations in America.
She listed Glenn Beck, who sometimes appears as a commentator on CNN as well as hosts his own radio show, as one of the worst offenders. Last June, he suggested that America create an alternative energy source out of the bodies of illegal immigrants.
Such talk has serious consequences, Ms. Murguia said. She cited an F.B.I. report which showed a double-digit percentage rise in violence against Latinos since 2003. What’s more, these negative feelings towards Hispanics carries over into U.S. legislation.
“Very often they’re taking their issues straight from some of the hate groups that we just described here, so that actually these words that go out from the hate groups get turned into campaign strategies and political strategies,” said Cecilia Munoz, an N.C.L.R. vice president.
Other major “vigilantes” that need to be kept in check are CNN’s Lou Dobbs, and Fox’s Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes — and most of their guests.
Ms. Murguia didn’t directly endorse any candidate or, for that matter, any political party. However, she had kind words to say about John McCain, the arguable front-runner in the Republican race. Mr. McCain’s plan to handle immigration does not involve the deportation of all illegal immigrants.
“With his emergence as a leading Republican presidential primary contender, I do think that we’ll see this toned down,” Ms. Murguia said. “He has not bought into the demonization or the dehumanization of the undocumented. And, you know, we give him a lot of credit for that. He has stuck principally to that position.
Does it mean that we know everything he’s going to do in that area of reform? And I know he’s got his work cut out for him with a number of people, and we’ll see him put this whole platform together, but we do believe that if he ends up being in a lead role here, we think that that issue will be tapered down.
But it’s not just because of his views — we’re also seeing that it’s a strategy that is not winning for candidates who use it.”
With that she pointed to the single-issue, anti-immigration platform of Tom Tancredo, who withdrew from the Republican race in December. Mr. Tancredo, a congressman from Colorado, had created a particularly scary ad that portrayed Hispanic immigrants as dangerous criminals.
Ms. Murguia argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights:
Everyone knows there is a line sometimes that can be crossed when it comes to free speech. And when free speech transforms into hate speech, we’ve got to draw that line. And that’s what we’re doing here today. And we need to make sure that network executives will hold their people accountable and not cross that line.
John McCain and La Raza-The Race share a deep-seated contempt for grass-roots conservatives who worked successfully to defeat the disastrous amnesty bill. And they share a common impulse to marginalize their political opponents as “haters.”
Thus, La Raza-The Race has launched a new “We Can Stop the Hate” campaign–smack dab in the middle of the campaign season–to redefine tough policy criticism from the Right as “hate.” They protest that it is “racist” and out-of-bounds to talk about reconquista–even as the McCain campaign boasts a “Mexico First/”Just A Region”/”Free Flow of People” outreach director who’s practicing it out in the open for the leading GOP presidential front-runner.
Yes, an ethnic separatist group that calls itself “The Race”–a group that has embraced John McCain and vice versa–has the gall to crusade against “hate.” Chris Kelly notes that La Raza-The Race head Janet Murguia is calling for networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves and that both La Raza-The Race and another open-borders group are pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes.
Murgia praised McCain and looks forward to the “tapering down” of immigration enforcement efforts if he wins the White House: “With his emergence as a leading Republican presidential primary contender, I do think that we’ll see this toned down… Does it mean that we know everything he’s going to do in that area of reform? And I know he’s got his work cut out for him with a number of people, and we’ll see him put this whole platform together, but we do believe that if he ends up being in a lead role here, we think that that issue will be tapered down.”
No respect for the rule of law. No respect for the First Amendment.
Sword At-The-Ready 