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In All Fairness: DOCTRINE AIR DEMOCRACY
The American Spectator ^ | February 16, 2009 | The Prowler

Posted on 02/16/2009 6:55:50 AM PST by TennTuxedo

DOCTRINE AIR DEMOCRACY

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: fairnessdoctrine; fascism
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Its coming people. Most were saying that Obama was not going to change much anytime soon because he would upset too many people who made up the swing vote.

The Democrats plan on turning everything upside down immediately, stifle dissent, and destroy conservatism at its roots.

1 posted on 02/16/2009 6:55:50 AM PST by TennTuxedo
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To: TennTuxedo

I guess having Cnn in all the airports, stores, hospitals, doctor
offices is considered “fair.”


2 posted on 02/16/2009 7:01:32 AM PST by gussiefinknottle (woof!woof!woof!)
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To: TennTuxedo

Conservatives ought to insist that any “Fainess Doctrine” be extended to NPR and PBS because they are taxpayer funded and certainly are not balanced.
Then conservatives ought to move on to suing for balance on state university faculties, where the ratio of liberal instructors to conservative instructors is about 20-1.


3 posted on 02/16/2009 7:01:45 AM PST by kittymyrib
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To: kittymyrib

After those, we should move on to the public air waves of the alphabetsoup channels, Hollywood and churches


4 posted on 02/16/2009 7:04:45 AM PST by YellowRoseofTx (Evil is not the opposite of God; it's the absence of God)
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To: TennTuxedo
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."

I don't know if it is possible, but I think it is time to build radio/TV stations/Internet 2.0 that has no government strings attached. Seriously, the Democrats are insane right now. The moonbat Left is running this country.

5 posted on 02/16/2009 7:06:47 AM PST by Major Matt Mason (The Kenyan Keynesian will bankrupt this nation.)
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To: TennTuxedo

Goodbye FreeRepublic.

Get ready to find a server overseas, out of the reach of the despots.


6 posted on 02/16/2009 7:08:28 AM PST by Bon mots
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To: TennTuxedo

He intends to promote diversity by extensive government regulation? It sounds like that apocryphal quote about destroying the village to save it.


7 posted on 02/16/2009 7:08:29 AM PST by jmcenanly
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To: TennTuxedo

They are making us work our way through the boxes of liberty:

1) The Moving Box—right of association, in particular territorially via migration
2) The Soap Box—right of free speech
3) The Ballot Box—right to a voice in your government
4) The Jury Box—right to a trial by jury of your peers
5) The Ammunition Box—right to threaten or use appropriate violence in self-defense

Box 1 was used when states had individual and varying laws. Leftists have made almost every issue a federal issue so that we can’t move to states with laws more to our liking.

Box 2 is under attack, the topic of this thread.

Box 3 will be gone with the influx of illegals, the refusal to verify voter identity, and the billions of our $$ to ACORN.

Box 4 was gone long ago - the judiciary is infested with leftists who see it as their duty to impose their idea of “justice” and not follow the law.

Box 5 - they’ll attempt it, but I expect there might be some resistance.

I propose we reinstitute the value of box 1, through 10th amendment sovereignty resolutions at the state level.


8 posted on 02/16/2009 7:11:12 AM PST by MrB (The 0bamanation: Marxism, Infanticide, Appeasement, Depression, Thuggery, and Censorship)
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To: TennTuxedo

It will go this way:

1) Local content rules
2) Local content review boards.

(moonbats enforcing moonbat rules)


9 posted on 02/16/2009 7:11:24 AM PST by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: kittymyrib

The judges of “fairness” will be liberals.


10 posted on 02/16/2009 7:11:56 AM PST by MrB (The 0bamanation: Marxism, Infanticide, Appeasement, Depression, Thuggery, and Censorship)
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To: kittymyrib

What none of these Democrats can conceive...is that people will come out complaining...not by the thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands...but probably by the millions...over CNN, NPR and the rest.

I would guess by the end of week one...there would be over 400,000 complaints....even Paul Harvey would likely get complaints. By the end of the month....well over 1.5 million complaints. The FCC would have to hire over 200 people just to manage the database and handle the daily mail delivery.

Various lawyers would be preparing weekly cases against the FCC for not acting on CNN or NPR...which would require the government to fund at least 100 lawyers on the staff to defend them from forced actions at the state and national level.

If you were ever to open a door for hundred tigers to come out....this would be the instance.

Any tool that they authorize or approve...is a tool that can be used in a totally different way.


11 posted on 02/16/2009 7:15:29 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: TennTuxedo

Just a random thought here....but if the fairness doctrine is passed, does that mean NPR has to allow the Rush, Hannity, and other conservative shows on the air?


12 posted on 02/16/2009 7:23:47 AM PST by joe fonebone (When you ask God for help, sometimes he sends the Marines.)
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To: TennTuxedo

Bill Press and Megan just had it out over this on FOX. She did good.


13 posted on 02/16/2009 7:28:27 AM PST by ladyvet (WOLVERINES!!!!!)
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To: TennTuxedo
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.

What offends me almost as much as the "Fairness Doctrine" itself is that these people evidently think we are so g-ddamned stupid that they could push through the same thing by calling it something else.

As far as I am concerned, when the government starts rescinding the First Amendment, then the deal between us and them is off. This is not the America that my ancestors lived and died for. In fact, it is not America at all, not a republic at all, but an authoritarian oligarchy that is not content with running our lives in nearly every other way, but now must also determine what we can think and believe and express. To hell with that.

NO CENSORSHIP!

14 posted on 02/16/2009 7:29:53 AM PST by Southside_Chicago_Republican ("During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." --Orwell)
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To: TennTuxedo

Look, if conservatives just try to play defense, they will lose. Napoleon noted that a static defense is just a slow form of suicide. So what should they do?

When the FCC announces the new fairness doctrine, conservatives should be waiting in the wings with hundreds of lawsuits against every liberal media organization in the country, *demanding* equal time for conservative opinion.

It is a counterattack, and it hits hard and fast in three ways.

First of all, they are cowardly curs, and if confronted head on, they will run away like cockroaches from the light.

Second, if even a single federal judge permits a stay of the regulation, it will be effectively halted until the next election, at least.

Third, if even a single federal judge finds against it, there is a chance that it could go to the SCOTUS, which is still conservative enough to kill it with a free speech decision like Heller. This would set back efforts for liberal monopoly on speech by decades.


15 posted on 02/16/2009 7:30:38 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: TennTuxedo

If this comes to pass we should force these a$$holes to regret their wish. Equality MUST be present in all public forums, to include not only ALL the media, but throughout academia and everywhere else. Not a single opinionated word is to be uttered without perfect balance from the other side. Every invitation of someone like Noam Chomsky, for example, had BETTER be accompanied by an invite to the likes of Ann Coulter. For every word uttered by Al Gore at an environmental symposium, there had BETTER be a skeptical scientist sharing the stage, given EXACTLY the same amount of time. It should be backed up by a the threat of a flood of lawsuits demanding this be the practice.


16 posted on 02/16/2009 7:30:43 AM PST by ScottinVA (Make my world PURRRFECT, Lord Obama!)
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To: MrB

The problem with that, as I understand things, is that the 10th Amendment has been negated by court interpretations of the 14th.

Please feel free to educate me if I’m wrong.


17 posted on 02/16/2009 7:32:37 AM PST by wolfpat (Revolt, and re-establish the Constitution as the law of the land!)
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To: TennTuxedo
RE "Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? "

Yes, democrats.com! OK, its not heavily traffiked like FR.

18 posted on 02/16/2009 7:37:47 AM PST by sickoflibs (Keynesian Economics : "If you won't spend your money WE WILL!")
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To: ladyvet
Bill Press and Megan just had it out over this on FOX. She did good.

She did better than good; she kicked his obnoxious butt. But that will just guarantee she'll be on the short list of those who have to be silenced.

Hey, did you hear that Hugo Chavez can now be El Presidente for Life? Thanks to votes by Venezuelans employed by the government. Coming to America soon.

19 posted on 02/16/2009 7:38:46 AM PST by Bernard Marx (Free California from public union rule!)
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To: TennTuxedo

“Its coming people”

It will only be comming because no one says against it to the respresentatives and senators.

Please.. do not tell me that the democrats have the numbers.. I am aware of that.. But I KNOW that if the switchboards start lighting up.. even they would not ignore the backlash.


20 posted on 02/16/2009 7:48:54 AM PST by Kitanis
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