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To: Jim Robinson
...an agency that has outlived its purpose

Not to quibble but hammering the administration's opposition in broadcast media has been the precise purpose of the FCC from its creation. FDR instituted the FCC because he couldn't abide criticism from Father Coughlin and James Gillis among others. Obama's just the first since then to use it as openly as did FDR.

31 posted on 02/24/2014 12:33:44 PM PST by Paine in the Neck (Socialism consumes EVERYTHING)
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To: Paine in the Neck

The history of FCC use against political opponents does go back to Roosevelt’s FCC ruling it was unfair for a New England chain of stations to editorialize against Franklin Roosevelt.

When Truman was around the FCC went after George Richards, the radio station owner (Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles) who put Coughlin on the air in the 1930s, alleging his news programs were biased against liberals and Democrats. Richards died as the case dragged on.

Kennedy planned to use fairness complaints to shut down conservative commentators and preachers who bought radio and television time in the early 1960’s to criticize him.
Johnson inherited the operation and it was used to great effect to harass conservative broadcasters who supported Goldwater in the 1964 election.

The in Nixon’s time fairness rulings came down against the liberal media (NBC News) and conservative radio preachers who advocated a military win in Vietnam. NBC won a partial victory in court but the conservative preachers lost with one radio station taken off the air.

Nixon’s supporters in the conservative movement of the time called for “fair and balanced” news. Even Phyllis Schlafly commented in favor of the Fairness Doctrine.

THERE IS A HISTORY OF BOTH PARTIES USING THE FCC AS A POLITICAL WEAPON AGAINST OPPONENTS AND THE LATEST ACTION FITS THAT TO A TEE.


39 posted on 02/24/2014 2:19:52 PM PST by Nextrush (AFFORDABLE CARE ACT=HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY BAILOUT ACT)
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