This explains why they are taking the chance on hammering Rush so hard : They want to get this NAZI bill passed. It's similar to all the hate unloaded on the Jews before Hitler took away their rights.
Posted on 03/06/2009 4:02:57 AM PST by Man50D
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday that she supports an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.”
The amendment’s language is viewed by many media experts as a means to regulate conservative talk radio, particularly popular programs such as the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Mark Hannity Show, among many others.
House Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a former radio broadcaster and one of Congress’ biggest opponents of the Fairness Doctrine -- an FCC regulation removed in 1987 that forced broadcasters to grant equal airtime to opposing political viewpoints -- told CNSNews.com that the amendment is a masked attempt to restore the Fairness Doctrine.
The amendment, sponsored by Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and attached to a bill (S.160) that would grant Washington, D.C., a vote in the House of Representatives, was approved by the Senate last Thursday in a party line 57-41 vote.
When asked whether she supports Durbin’s amendment, Speaker Pelosi said, “Certainly, I support Mr. Durbin in most things.”
“Diversity in media ownership is very, very, important,” said Pelosi.
Minutes after the passage of the ‘Durbin amendment’ last Thursday a separate amendment that would ban the restoration of the Fairness Doctrine, which was proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), was also attached to the same D.C. voting rights bill and passed by a vote of 87-11.
But Pence told CNSNews.com that Durbin’s amendment would mandate a “stealth Fairness Doctrine.”
“Its clear to me that Democrats, having failed in their frontal assault on talk radio in America through the Fairness Doctrine, are now shifting strategy to a form of regulation that is essentially the Fairness Doctrine by stealth,” Pence said. He added that he is not surprised Pelosi has endorsed Durbin’s plan.
“It should come as little surprise that Speaker Pelosi, who openly supports returning the Fairness Doctrine to the airwaves of American, would support a new version of it,” Pence told CNSNews.com.
But Durbin said last Thursday that his amendment should not be equated with the Fairness Doctrine.
"No one is suggesting that the law for the FCC says that you can give this license to a Republican and this one to a Democrat and this one to a liberal and this one to a conservative,” said Durbin at the time. “When we talk about diversity in media ownership, it relates primarily to gender, race and other characteristics of that nature."
Meanwhile, the amendment, which passed the Senate riding on the D.C. voting right’s bill, now goes to the House where Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he thinks Republicans may be able to muster the votes to stop it.
“I think as we get into the appropriations process you will see us continue our effort to make sure the Fairness Doctrine is not put back into place,” Boehner told CNSNews.com at his weekly press conference on Thursday. “And I do believe the votes are in the Congress to make sure that happens.”
The primary text of the Durbin amendment reads:
SEC.9 FCC Authorities. (a) Clarification of General Powers. – Title III of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended by inserting after section 303 (47 U.S.C. 303) the following new section: SEC.303B. Clarification of General Powers. (a) Certain Affirmative Actions Required – The Commission shall take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest. …
The amendment is nearly identical to a policy position outlined by the White House that says:
“Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: 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.”
Similarly, the Center for American Progress, headed by former Obama transition leader John Podesta, published a report that called for new “localism” and “ownership diversity” regulations to balance conservative talk radio with progressive talk radio.
The report, “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” concludes with the following recommendations:
“[A]ny effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs. We suggest three ways to accomplish this: -- Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations. -- Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing. -- Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.”
Hey Pelosi, affirmative action does not apply to the 1st AMENDMENT of the
Constitution, of the United States Of America.
Read it sometime during you're taxpayer flight in the Taxpayers Jet.
I was nice. I was nice. I was nice. @#$(&@%^_@(&%+!*(#^$
LLS
I wonder if the Verizons, Time Warners, and Dish Networks of the world would take notice if a million conservative viewers ditched their (viewing) subscriptions...
but then do we have that the conviction and/or the cajones?
I wonder if the Verizons, Time Warners, and Dish Networks of the world would take notice if a million conservative viewers ditched their (viewing) subscriptions...
but then do we have that the conviction and/or the cajones?
This explains why they are taking the chance on hammering Rush so hard : They want to get this NAZI bill passed. It's similar to all the hate unloaded on the Jews before Hitler took away their rights.
Mark
Nancy, nobody wants to listen to your ideas on the radio in the first place. You’re just another power-drunk Democrat opportunist. Get lost.
ping
"Diversity? That word in this context reminds me of the line from the movie "The Blues Brothers," where the bar owner's wife answers the question "what sort of music do you play here?" with "Both Kinds! Country AND Western!"
Chris Stigall, the conservative morning host on AM710, KCMO in Kansas City, was doing a sub for Michael Savage in the last week or so, and he got a call that was someone complaining about just that... Chris filled him in on the radio business. Then he told the guy that radio stations all over the country are looking for filler shows, mostly on the weekends. All he needs to go is find someone to sponsor him, and radio stations would LOVE to have him on. All he needs to do is find some people who think like him, and get them to pony up some money, and he'll be on the air. Because, no matter what the leftists tell you, as far as the vast majority of radio station owners are concerned, it's NOT about ideology: It's about making money. If it would make money, the radio stations would be airing shows about hunting pink gorillas! The only people who really make it about ideology are either religious broadcasters (who the left also wants to shut down) and the left itself, who can't actually run shows that actually make money, which is why they're especially prevalent on NPR and local tax payer (force) funded radio stations.
I guess the guy just doesn't approve of the fact that he would actually have to PAY to get his views on the air, or find someone that will. Gee, isn't that what Rush's sponsors have been doing for all these years?
Mark
And don't forget Waxman's talks about needing to control content on the Internet as well.
The left is power-drunk, and showing their true colors as totalitarian government supporters.
Mark
Kings, princes, governments and politicians have from the beginning tried to control information distribution. Just started this one the other day. Looks to be a good read.
http://books.google.com/books?id=KO30kMoLKKkC
The Creation of the Media
By Paul Starr
This will be the one that starts America on the road to cleaning up DC or revolution... I am ready whichever way the wind blows
I agree.
For every person who wants to clean-up DC we have:
1) others more concerned about protecting their ever dwindling possessions while ranting and raving about Obama and his ilk
2) others who think they will go out in a blaze of glory against the lefist forces in their own private Alamo
The time for rhetoric is over...
The time for a action in NOW....
We have some very intelligent people on this web site who have some great ideas(I am not one of them)...
Let’s put some into play...
“...I want her to get a long term case of laryngitis.”
Can ya throw in herpes and a dose of clap?
So much for the First Amendment. The United States Constitution; would-be tyrants’ Public Enemy Number One.
Thanks for the ping!
LLS
Durbin and Pelosi are free to start up a radio station if they choose and make it as diverse as they wish . . . I have come to despise the words, ‘diversity’ and ‘diverse’.
That is because of the Newspeak meanings which Big Journalism has attached to so many words, not just "diversity."According to William Safire, the meaning of the word "liberal" was changed (essentially inverted) during the 1920s; no such a coup as that could be perpetrated without the collusion of Big Journalism.
"The press" in the sense in which Associated Press Journalism means the term is exclusive rather than inclusive; their insinuation is that Associated Press journalism has freedom of the press because only the AP defines and defends the public interest. In reality, of course, "the freedom . . . of the press" is the right of the people to use technology to promote our ideas. The right of freedom of the press was implied in the Constitution before the Bill of Rights was added (the Federalists opposed the addition of the Bill of Rights because they feared that it would be used a ceiling and not a floor on the rights of the people - which is precisely the system of the opponents of our freedom to listen to Rush if we wanna. The idea that the phrase "the freedom . . . of the press" had any unique application to the Associated Press is risible because the AP was founded two generations after the ratification of the First Amendment.
The definition of "objective" as being synonymous with journalism is Newspeak, as is the use of "liberal" or "progressive" to define exactly the attitudes which a journalist would call "objective" in another journalist.
The fact that Judd Gregg is in this picture is the reason the GOP is in trouble. Can ANY of our current seat wasters stand up to the Democrat Junta???
I thought his name was Rush Lavin?
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