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Fairness Doctrine A Minor Issue - Obama Ready To Confiscate TV Stations' Licenses!
Friends and Fiends at my old Network | MB26 and James Beam

Posted on 02/19/2009 3:58:11 PM PST by MindBender26

All this talk about the "Fairness Doctrine" is obscuring the real danger to America's freedom of the press. The real issue is the Obama administration's desire to steal television broadcasting licenses from the current station owners and give them to his radical friends such as ACORN and the labor unions.

This is not some "black helicopter" conspiracy. It's very real, and like Obama's other most-dangerous plans, can be implemented by the simple stroke of the pen.

First, a little background on the real value of television stations. In the words of Fred Friendly, television stations really exist only for one purpose, "to make money for the people who own the television stations." All the traditional talk about "serving the community" is simply that; it's just talk.

The real value of the television station is its ability to make money by charging for the commercials it airs. A typical medium-sized city television station might have a sale price of $$400 to $550 million dollars. The actual station, the building, towers, cameras and all the rest of the electronics are probably worth no more than $12 to $15 million, at the most. All the rest of the value comes from the licensed broadcast stations ability to charge thousands of dollars per minute to cast electrons humming the McDonald's jingle into the thin air. A television station truly has the ability to turn electricity into million dollar bills.

So obviously, if the building is only worth $15,000,000, it's the license, the federal permit to broadcast, that's worth the rest of the $400,000.000 to $550,000,000.

Television broadcasting station license renewal has been almost automatic for the last 50 years. The license renewal period of seven years was designed to spread the renewal cycles around the country and ensure they were removed from any political influence. Now Barack Obama wants to change all that!

During a speech in Chicago, sponsored by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH coalition, Obama's nominee to head the FCC, Michael J. Copps promised a radical change in station renewal procedures. The changes he proposed would effectively eliminate the "freedom of the press" enjoyed by our television station news departments. I know many of us believe, (from experience) that television news operations are hopelessly far-left liberal. Imagine how much worse it would be if television station owners knew that Obama could take away 95% of the value of their broadcast station investments by simply refusing to renew their license, because they offended him.

In his speech, Copps said that major "corporate interests" owned too many radio and television stations. He told the audience that those broadcast licenses should be taken away from those "corporate interests" and given to "the people." When asked who he meant by "the people," Copps replied that labor union political action committees, labor unions themselves, and organizations such as ACORN were the ones that he would like to see benefit by this broadcasting license reassignment.

But Copps and Obama are not willing to wait seven years for the full impact of this radical change to sink in. Instead of the seven-year renewal cycle, they want to require that each and every broadcasting station in the United States renew its license every two years! Simply put, that means that every broadcasting station, the major source of news and information for most Americans, would have to have its license renewed at the pleasure of Mr. Copps and Mr. Obama before the next presidential election!

Just for a moment, put yourself into the position of a broadcast station owner. You have a choice; try, to the best of your ability to provide an open and honest review and discussion of the American political scene, or, to make sure Copps and Obama don't get angry at you and take away your $500,000,000 + broadcasting license.

The time cycle of broadcast station relicensing is covered by FCC regulations, and Copps and Obama can change it all with the stroke of the pen.

Does anyone really think that they wouldn't do it?

This is very real, it's here and it's now. While we are all concerned with the admittedly important issue of the Fairness Doctrine, Obama may make it all moot by taking away from the broadcast station owners any interest whatsoever in having a real, critical, and free press.

The founding fathers envisioned newspapers and other media as a check and balance on the intrusive and overbearing government. By placing the owners of that media in fear of their very livelihood, Obama is ready to take away any desire or ability they will ever have to tell us what his government is really doing.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: agenda; bho2009; bho44; bhofcc; censorshipdoctrine; democrats; fairnessdoctrine; localism
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I hope it will never happen... but if it does, I wonder who'll tell you about it?
1 posted on 02/19/2009 3:58:11 PM PST by MindBender26
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To: MindBender26

I think he’s more likely to try to impose some kind of liability insurance on them to force them out of business that way.

Once they’re insured, near daily lawsuits from people claiming this or that offense will pick them apart.


2 posted on 02/19/2009 4:01:11 PM PST by cripplecreek (The poor bastards have us surrounded.)
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To: MindBender26
Obama is a hard core communists and the Country is about to fall under. This is serious.
3 posted on 02/19/2009 4:01:59 PM PST by Logical me (Oh, well!!!)
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To: MindBender26
Hmmm....finally my dream of becoming a pirate radio station operator may come to fruition, both as a broadcaster and a jammer.

Bring it on, I say, bring it on....

4 posted on 02/19/2009 4:02:44 PM PST by randog (Tap into America!)
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To: MindBender26

I would have a hard time working up one tear if the MSM that brought Obama to power, suddenly lost their means of spreading propaganda.

As for the network’s television shows, somehow I think we would survive.

But you have got to love the idea of this. The welfare class that supports Obama, would come unglued. They’d be demanding his impeachment in minutes.


5 posted on 02/19/2009 4:05:07 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Resolved: Gregg, McCain, Snowe, Spectre: 2010, Collins, Graham: 2014)
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To: MindBender26; All

Be sure to ask every single Obama voter you know the following:

IS FASCISM REALLY THE “CHANGE” YOU THOUGHT VOTED FOR????


6 posted on 02/19/2009 4:05:55 PM PST by tcrlaf ("Hope" is the most Evil of all Evils"-Neitzsche)
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To: MindBender26

7 posted on 02/19/2009 4:06:37 PM PST by william clark (Ecclesiastes 10:2)
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To: MindBender26
"This is not some "black helicopter" conspiracy."

Of course it is.

8 posted on 02/19/2009 4:06:39 PM PST by verity ("Lord, what fools we mortals be!")
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To: MindBender26
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker”……Frederick Douglas
9 posted on 02/19/2009 4:06:54 PM PST by tflabo
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To: MindBender26

Wow. I did not realize that I woke up in some banana republic this morning. This is very scary stuff.


10 posted on 02/19/2009 4:07:52 PM PST by phormer phrog phlyer
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To: MindBender26
"Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God [Exodus 18:21]. . . . If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws"…....Noah Webster, ‘The History of the United States’
11 posted on 02/19/2009 4:10:41 PM PST by tflabo
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To: MindBender26

People blogging on the medium we’re using now, I guess...unless that creep Waxman makes the web his own personal fiefdom.


12 posted on 02/19/2009 4:13:19 PM PST by dr_who
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To: MindBender26

Is there a link to that speech in Chicago? I googled for a while and came up empty.


13 posted on 02/19/2009 4:17:27 PM PST by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: MindBender26

take over TV by radicals, destroy conservative talk radio, regulate speech online

how to win like Mugabe and Chavez


14 posted on 02/19/2009 4:18:09 PM PST by GeronL (Hey, won't you be my Face Book friend??)
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To: phormer phrog phlyer

He confiscates the licenses and gives them to his fascist cronies, but the transmitters, studios, buildings and assorted equipments belong to those who now own the licenses. Start confiscating them and giving them to the new holders of the licenses and we are all in Venezuela, and in this Free Republic that’s not going to happen.


15 posted on 02/19/2009 4:19:05 PM PST by xkaydet65
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To: MindBender26

Citations or links to video or audio would be quite helpful.


16 posted on 02/19/2009 4:22:17 PM PST by lonewacko_dot_com
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To: randog

LOL. I just remembered the other day (after reading all these threads about this topic) I have an FCC license, from the days many years ago when I worked for radio stations.


17 posted on 02/19/2009 4:31:54 PM PST by girlangler (Fish Fear Me)
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To: MindBender26

Do you have this posted on a blog somewhere else? I’d like to post it to the message board of our local NYTimes owned paper, but don’t know if it will make if it comes from Freerepublic.


18 posted on 02/19/2009 4:37:00 PM PST by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch (My new favorite quote "You can't organize clutter.")
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To: DoughtyOne
This article is not talking about losing the means to spread propaganda. It is suggesting such an action by the Obama crowd would result in significantly more propaganda as well as adoring praise for all things Obama and virulent denigration of anyone/thing slightly to the right of Abbey Hoffman.
19 posted on 02/19/2009 4:39:17 PM PST by Tucson (I'd prefer you just say thank you; or pick up a piece and walk a post)
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To: MindBender26

Hope is for sissies.

Call, write, and email your reps and tell them YOU ARE AGAINST THE PROPOSED CHANGES TO LICENSING.

Forward this story, and any others like it that you see fit, to everyone you know. Encourage THEM to call, email, and write their representatives.

Action kicks hope’s ass every single time.


20 posted on 02/19/2009 4:39:43 PM PST by snowrip (Liberal? YOU ARE A SOCIALIST WITH NO RATIONAL ARGUMENT.)
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