The Fairness Doctrine: Not Your Daddy's Doctrine

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Liberal think tank, Center for American Progress, has issued a 36-page report explaining why and how talk radio must be, and easily can be, regulated by a Fairness Doctrine - but not regulated in the way we conventionally think of a Fairness Doctrine.

This is a simple and doable plan for Democrats. The Fairness Doctrine will happen this way: All stations will be required to issue many new licenses to minorities - ethnic and women, which is known as "localism." Licenses will be up for review, and reissue, every three years rather than the current eight years. Programming will be basically local.

Moreover, the original Communications Act of 1934 still authorizes the FCC to require "reasonable access to or to permit purchase of reasonable amounts of time" by a legally qualified candidate for federal elective office, and equal opportunities must be afforded all their candidates for that office....

These obligations come from the same set of concerns from which the Fairness Doctrine arose. And Section 315 of the Communications Act still requires commercial broadcasters "to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of issues of public importance."...

Thus, the public obligations inherent in the Fairness Doctrine are still in existence and operative, at least on paper.

The Center for American Progress says that the original Fairness Doctrine's real value was not in the "fair discussion of important issues," but in the way licenses could be issued:

...limited license terms to three years [from eight, I think], subjected broadcasters to license challenges through comparative hearings, required notice to the local community that licenses were going to expire, and empowered the local community through a process of interviewing a variety of local leaders.

Perhaps the plan is to scrap the Telecommunications Act of 1996, mandated by Congress, which increased the number of radio stations that "one entity could own in the same market." However, doing so may not be necessary to bring achieve a plethora of Liberal programming and deny Conservative content.

The death of syndicated programming (nation shows like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) is imminent if Democrats have their way, to be replaced with local programming. In public, Democrats will say this has little to do with providing opposing viewpoints, but as this study finds, the new licensees will be decidedly Liberal.

...of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations in the country suggests that stations owned by racial or ethnic minorities are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows and more likely to air progressive hosts or shows....

This is an issue Barack Obama and Congress need not direct. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can accomplish all of the above without a word from Congress or the President.

A question for readers: Any opinions about advertisers and the enormous income to stations from successful programming, supported by advertising dollars? How will the money be replaced? Does it matter if stations are smaller, local and not in need of big money?

http://www.reuters.com/article/blogBurst/entertainment?bbPostId=Cz8neME9DYOr5Cz34JXBtDpWXHB4jpnXZS6HxDCzC7sh26jFVBQ

Related:

To Fairness Doctrine Naysayers: Support from RINO's

The Fairness Doctrine: What You May Not Know

Durban II: An Early test of Obama's Mid-East Intentions

The 2001 UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban quickly became a disgusting display of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel Propaganda. Much of the hatred took place in a six-day NGO Forum in a large cricket stadium attended by six thousand representatives of close to two thousand NGOs. It is there that the "Durban Strategy" was formulated, that is delegitimize the Jewish State via branding it as a racist entity. To his credit Then Secretary of State Colin Powell walked out of the conference.

Last month the United Nations released the draft statement for the follow-up conference scheduled for Geneva in April 2009. This conference is planned to be worse than the first one, It is an Anti-Jewish, Anti-America and Anti-Freedom HATE FEST. There are even sections which will restrict freedom of speech. Other nations have announced that they will not attend.

On Jan. 23, the Canadian foreign minister made the clear statement of principle that "Canada will not participate in the 2009 conference." A week later, 27 senators sent a letter to Rice asking her to do the same. Having had no response, on Feb. 13 during a Senate hearing, Sen. Norm Coleman asked Rice point-blank, would she make the same statement and refuse to "provide credibility to this process by participating?" Rice answered: "No, we've not made that statement. ... We have not tried to make a final decision on this."

The Secretary of State had decided to punt it to the NEXT administration.

The United States should show leadership and morality. President-elect Obama should announce immediately that we will NOT attend this hate fest. His decision to attend or not will be an early test of his true intentions regarding the Middle-East, as well as the appeasement of Islamo-fascism and anti-Semitism.

Read the rest here.

From Monkey in the Middle:

While European nations will attend, Canada and of course Israel will not be attending. The United States should be taking the lead in this, but will not. If history is any indication of what this kangaroo court will be like, then you can expect the UN aka Tower of Babel, to condemn Israel and Judaism. We can expect these purveyors of hatred to force the world into silence on Islam and to announce Islam as the world's only true religion.

I also expect that Barack Hussein Obama, being true to his Muslim background, will not only have the US attending Durban II, but will lead the charge against Israel.

And that is his idea of Change. God help us!

Cross posted from Monkey in the Middle

The latest UN Shame

This is what you will see at the UN




This is what you won't see at the UN



If you had not marked today's date on your calendars, folks, you may have missed the Big News. Today, November 24th, has been designated by that august body, the United Nations as its annual "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People".
Of course, no expression of "solidarity" with the Palestinians could go by without bashing the state of Israel.

Sure enough, that temple of world understanding in New York will feature a film that compares Israelis as Nazis ("La Terre Parle Arabe" or "The Land Speaks Arabic."), a film that compares the "Zionist plan for Palestinians" with the Final Solution, as well as an exhibit that paints Israel's 60 years of existence in a terrible light. never mind the fact that 60 years ago-November 29, 1947, the same UN proclaimed two states, Israel and an Arab state side-by-side. The Jews accepted the idea. The Arab world rejected it and prepared for war. The UN lobby will be festooned with a display entitled; The Palestinians- 60 years of struggle and enduring hope.

In addition, there will be resolutions. There will be exhibits. There will be speeches-all condemning Israel for violations of human rights. The UN's former Secretary General, the corrupt Kofi Annan has referred to November 29 as a "day of mourning-a day of grief."

What you won't see-what you won't hear is this:

Nothing will be said about acts of Palestinian terrorism. There will be no mention of the airplane hijackings. There will be no mention of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes. There will be no mention of the Achille Lauro takeover in the 1980s, when Palestinian terrorists took over a cruise ship. Nothing will be said about Leon Klinghofer, an elderly American Jewish passenger, who was murdered and tossed overboard-in his wheelchair. There will be no mention of the airport massacres carried out by Arab terrorists in Rome and Vienna in the 1980s. There will be no mention of the suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians in crowded buses, cafes and pizza parlors.

There will be no photos of Palestinians dancing in the streets and passing out candy on 9-11.

There will be no discussion of the corruption of Yassir Arafat.

There will be no discussion of the hanging or stoning of women in Iran for the "crime" of adultery. Similarly, there will be no discussion of the execution of homosexuals in Iran.

There will be no discussion of rape victims being punished for the "crime" of having illicit sex in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

There will be no discussion of forced female circumcision in parts of Africa.

This "commemoration" is just another sad example of why the UN has no further justification for its existence. This body is just a collection of nations, the majority of which are corrupt, third world countries which don't practice democracy, and have no respect for democracy. Human rights? How many of these banana republics know the first thing about human rights? How many of these countries can match Israel (the only democracy in the entire Middle East) when it comes to human rights?

So why does this useless body exist? Probably to transfer wealth from the developed world to their own sorry countries-where government leaders can siphon it off to Swiss bank accounts while their people live in extreme poverty. They certainly don't exist to stop genocide (witness Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and others). They certainly don't exist to save people from natural disasters. When the tsunami struck Indonesia and Thailand a couple of years back, the US military was on the ground delivering food, equipment and medical supplies while the UN bureaucrats were scheduling meetings in Tokyo to decide what they should do first. Then, as American citizens were donating millions of dollars to relief agencies, the UN had the cojones to criticize the US and other developed countries for not doing enough! They seem to forget that, courtesy of the US taxpayer, our country pays almost 25% of their total budget.

It is high time for the US to form a coalition of democratic states and leave this thing called the United Nations in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Assault on Thanksgiving in California

Viewer warning: The above picture may contain disturbing images. Viewer discretion advised.

Cross-posted by Gary Fouse
Fousesquawk


Claremont, a community southeast of Los Angeles, is now the scene of a fight over a Thanksgiving celebration that was scheduled to be held by two local elementary schools. The planned event would have involved some 150 elementary schoolchildren from Condit Elementary School and nearby Mountain View Elementary School. The program, which was in the preparation stages, would have involved the kids dressing up as Indians and Pilgrims as they shared a Thanksgiving dinner. In preparing for the event, the children were busy at work cutting out their costumes from paper. Then it all came crashing down.

What happened was that one woman, the mother of one of the children, wrote a 2 1/2 page letter to the Claremont School Board, protesting the event as being denigrating and demeaning to Native Americans. As a result, the costumes have been scrapped by the school board.

In the letter, the woman, who is an Asst Professor of English at the University of California at Riverside and apparently of Indian heritage, described the Thanksgiving dinner as a "celebration of genocide". She compared the depiction of the first Thanksgiving dinner to showing slaves having dinner with their masters and Jews having dinner with Nazis.

On Thursday evening, the Claremont School Board held a public meeting, in which several parents showed up to defend having the event. They were told by the Board that the decision had already been made to have the students dressed in their normal clothes-and that no costumes would be permitted.

Whatever happened to Native Americans in our history, what in the world is wrong with showing a historical event that was conducted in friendship-before the wars began? Is this the first step in an all out assault on Thanksgiving-much as we have seen with Christmas? That this cowardly and/or politically correct school board would capitulate to one activist professor is absurd. Did she threaten them with a lawsuit? So now, in the interest of "sensitivity", to use the Board's own words, the event has been reduced to something as meaningless as an outing to Chucky Cheese.

To Fairness Doctrine Naysayers: Support from RINOs

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

Graphic courtesy of CityPages

We now have the first Republican, Senator Richard Lugar, showing support for a Fairness Doctrine. Will Senators Olympia Snow, Chuck Hagel, and Susan Collins follow suit, and abandon any semblance of Conservatism? If ever there was an issue to be defended by Congress, Republican or Democrat, free speech is it.

We have one thing to remember and to fight for: a Fairness Doctrine is diametrically opposed to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It's that simple:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment (enactment, endowment, formation, setting-up) of religion, or prohibiting (forbidding, preventing, suppressing) the the free exercise (pursuit) thereof; or abridging (abbreviating, compressing, curtailing, decreasing, lessening, omitting) the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition (ask, call upon, request, seek, urge) the government for a redress (adjustment, amendment, rectification, reformation) of grievances (damages, injustices)

Senator Dennis Kucinich is on record saying that a Fairness Doctrine will aid in:

...achieving a free exchange and a multiplicity of ideas," and finally, with a new law, we will be able to determine "if there is a balanced and fair representation"

The First Amendment does not guarantee "balanced and fair representation." "Fair and balanced" has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

If Congress actually respects the First Amendment and makes "no law," but relies on the Federal Communications Commission to, again, institute a Fairness Doctrine - which would also abridge the First Amendment - is not law, but is a "regulation," what can we do about it? Take the FCC to court?

For my activist readers, let's attempt to find out where Snow, Collins and Hagel stand on this issue. If you are a constituent of one of the three and get a statement, please leave it here in comments or blog about it and send a link.

Email Senator Lugar: (R-IN)
Phone: 202-224-4814, Fax: 202-228-0360

Email Senator Collins (R-ME)
Phone: 202-224-2523, Fax: 202-224--2693

Email Senator Snow (R-ME)
Phone: 202-224-5344 and 800-432-1599, Fax: 202-224-1946

Email Senator Hagel (R-NE)
202-224-4224, Fax: 202-224-5213

Visit VoteSmart for all the pertinent information and background about you Congressman

Please read the following excellent report from Martin at Blogbat who was sitting at the table with Senator Richard Lugar:

*****

Senator Lugar Hints at Support for "Fairness Doctrine"
by Martin at Blogbat.com

Last week I [and] other World Affairs Council members had the chance to meet with Indiana Senator Richard Lugar at the Capitol.

During our visit with the Indiana Republican on 7 November, he seemed to offer his support for a revived “Fairness Doctrine” tailored to target only one viewpoint – that of the comparatively modest talk radio industry. On the topic of such legislation, Lugar seemed sympathetic to the significant hostility among the left towards what he called “irresponsible” “right wing” radio, using catch-phrases right out of the Idiots Guide to Liberalism, intimating that talk radio was somehow a rogue entity that merely stirred up the common people to the consternation of all-knowing legislators. (Never mind the rogue entity on Capitol Hill that is attempting to usurp the Constitution.)

Senator Lugar first greeted each of us and was extremely friendly and cordial, before taking his usual seat (now that the Democrats are in power) in the Senate Foreign Relations committee room, as we each grabbed a chair – I wound up with the honor of holding down the chair of genuine conservative Louisiana Senator David Vitter. Senator Lugar then gave us a quick run-down of things like the international financial crisis, his own biography, and the in-coming administration before taking questions. During much of this, much that was said was nothing notable or new. The senator is indeed truly likable man and I must say I can see why, politics aside, he has been as successful in the Senate as he has been. However, unfortunately, beyond personality and congeniality, the Senator and millions of Americans part ways – and do so on numerous issues. However, Lugar, who voted in favor of an amendment in the 2007 Defense Authorization bill sponsored by Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman that would have killed such a censorship doctrine’s revival, is also known, as a Rockefeller Republican for among other things most recently ganging up with Ted Kennedy against the American people during the Amnesty war of 2006. Now that it seems safe for him to do so, he appears to be reversing his position on the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” as well.

Lugar’s language was strong and even harsh as he laid out the argument in favor of conservative radio censorship, as if he were a schoolmaster educating his children about the danger of alligators and why we need to trap them. As he sat in his seat sipping water from a glass with an emblem that read, “United States Senate”, Senator Lugar seemed to offer what was hardly a fair and balanced assessment of the state of media bias of his own. Instead, he seemed to ape the utterly false meme that talk radio was some giant politically unified monster for which there was no real counterweight.

Read more from Martin at Blogbat.us

*****

Related:
The Fairness Doctrine: What You May Not Know

Background:
What the FCC and the Media Has in Mind for You and
TheFairness Doctrine: A Chilling Effect,
and then a brush-up on the The Fairness Doctrine, The First Amendment and all that.

Video: CAIR Served Summons for Fraud and Racketeering

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie's Notebook

The Council for American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) 14th Annual Banquet was underway tonight in Washington, D.C. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim Congressman to be sworn in, and to be sworn in on a Koran, as well, was a keynote speaker. His speech topic: Muslims and the Obama Administration.

Speaker Pelosi, Keith Ellison and Wife

The evening took an unexpected turn when two men walked on to the stage and had a private chat with Nihad Awad, CAIR's Executive Director, who was standing behind a speaker in the process of lauding Rosa Parks. During the chat, Awad was served a summons and complaint for himself personally, for CAIR and for a real estate holding.



The server was Dave Gaubatz, a private investigator, who also provided copies of the summons and complaint to each diner.

Below is video of Dave Gaubatz serving the summons thanks to Gates of Vienna and Center for Vigilant Freedom:




For detailed information, visit Sane

Obama's White House- As The Stomach Churns

Cross posted from Wake up America


I so wanted John McCain to win the election, no doubt about it, but the bright side of his losing and Barack Obama winning, yes folks, I always can find a silver lining, is watching the far left have a cow over Obama's decisions, even before he has taken office.

I am learning that there is something to be said for a good old fashioned soap opera.

I am naming this one, "Obama's White House- As The Stomach Churns," and it is going to be a four year series.

The other day I pointed out how some members of the left were already expressing that are prepared to "go to war" with Obama before he takes office, because of his choices.

The cast is Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, people Obama is choosing for his cabinet and top positions, and of course the far far left of the Democratic party. We will throw in Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the far left political players of the Democratic party as well, because there is no doubt that they will be extras in this soap opera.

The Independent gives us a list of who has been confirmed picks for Obama as of now:

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Daschle, 60, former Senate Democratic leader

Senior adviser: David Axelrod, 53, Obama's campaign strategist

Senior adviser: Valerie Jarrett, 52, Chicago business-woman

White House counsel: Greg Craig, 63, former counsel to Bill Clinton

Chief of staff: Rahm Emanuel, 49, Political director under Bill Clinton

Political director: Patrick Gaspard, 41, a New York labour official

White House press secretary: Robert Gibbs, 37, political consultant

Vice President's chief of staff: Ron Klain, 31, former chief of staff of vice president Al Gore

Then it goes on to those that have been confirmed by sources but have not been formally announced as of yet, or still need to be vetted.

Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton, 61

Treasury Secretary: Timothy Geithner, 47

National Security Adviser: James Jones, 64

Attorney General: Eric Holder, 57

Head of Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano, 50

Commerce Department Secretary: Bill Richardson, 61

Stage is set, actors are cast and reactions from the far left are coming in about the names available already.

Part one of As The Stomach Churns will deal with Hillary Clinton, because Clinton and Obama will definitely be the lead players in As The Stomach Churns, we see that there were a few conditions set by Clinton before she would agree to accept the position of Secretary of State.

The first sign of friction in the Obama camp as Mrs Clinton demands - and gets - a purge of her critics before accepting Secretary of State role.

The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady's foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.

From the Telegraph we see the choice of Clinton is not going over very well with the far far left of the party and some unnamed Obama aides and courtesy of the Washington Post, the Clinton choice has some in the Arab world "worried."

The aides on Hillary Clinton:

But when they met on Wednesday they agreed on one thing: "He's making a mistake." As one of the participants told a friend later that night: "She'll do a good job but she'll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can't bear the drama again."

She, of course, is Hillary Clinton, former First Lady, figurehead of Democratic women, presidential candidate with 18 million votes and now would-be Secretary of State.

[...]

"They can't help themselves," the Obama aide told his friend, a fellow Democrat strategist. "Every event is a potential ladder up or a bullet to be dodged. They're positioning and spinning all the time. They lost. Now we seem to be handing them the farm."

Most shocking to Mr Obama's team is the loss of discipline and control that they have experienced since coming to Washington.

The President-elect's campaign was tightly controlled, with very few uncoordinated leaks. The candidate was known as "No Drama Obama." David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief of the left of centre magazine Mother Jones, summed up the problem: "The presidential transition of no-drama Obama became infected by the never-ending soap opera of the Clintons. And it really is time to turn that programme off."

The Washington Post columnist and Clinton sceptic, David Ignatius, added: "The idea of subcontracting foreign policy to Clinton, a big, hungry, needy ego surrounded by a team that's hungrier and needier still, strikes me as a mistake of potentially enormous proportions." It is a view that many around the President-elect now share.

[...]

Steven Clemons, senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank the New America Foundation, summed up their dilemma: "This rock star President-elect may either be confused, deluded and self-destructive in sculpting a team that has a high probability of paralysing itself in vicious internal skirmishes - or he may just be brilliant, really, really brilliant."

What is certain is that Hillary Clinton is here to stay - and it won't be dull.

The far left on Hillary Clinton:

From the other Telegraph article (linked above) we see some reactions about Hillary Clinton being chosen as Secretary of State

Chris Bowers of the influential OpenLeft.com blog complained: "That is, over all, a centre-right foreign policy team. I feel incredibly frustrated. Progressives are being entirely left out of Obama's major appointments so far."

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos site, the in-house talking shop for the anti-war Left, warned that Democrats risk sounding "tone deaf" to the views of "the American electorate that voted in overwhelming numbers for change from the discredited Bush policies."

Other reactions to the Clinton pick found on liberal blogs:

Huffington Post, writer Mark Joseph:

Why would Obama want to tarnish his brand new administration with the Clinton soap opera of Monica, Whitewater, Vince Foster, Marc Rich and company when he could start fresh with an entirely new team? And why would he want a mortal enemy like Hillary who is probably at this very moment plotting her comeback strategy for 2012, inside his administration, leaking to the press and undermining him? I thought he put the Clintons away for good. He seems too smart to do something like this.

Also via Huffington Post we see Christopher Hitchens appeared on "Hardball" calling the choice of Clinton a "Ludicrous Embarrassment." (Video at the link)

The Washington Independent questions whether Clinton will fill those positions under her, as Secretary of State with loyalists.

Let is be said here that the more moderate liberals, which I always separate from the far far left liberals, do not seem to be having the same problem with the Obama choice of Clinton for the Secretary of State job and are not reacting as strongly as the media and far left pundits are.

The reactions across the blogosphere and in the media to the remaining names on the list given above of the Obama picks which are confirmed and/or not formally announced yet, will be shown in part two of "Obama's White House- As The Stomach Churns."

For now I will leave you with a quote from EmptyWheel:

When it comes to the netroots, Barack Obama has the long arm-short arm syndrome. He has taken much from us in terms of support, voice, momentum, money, footwork and energy. Obama has given little, if anything, in return to the netroots. Unless you count disdain and scorn. And pokes in the eye with a blunt stick.

.