Posted on 10/29/2009 8:23:09 AM PDT by heiss
"But we shouldn’t be so entertained by this spectacle that we lose sight of why, at bottom, it is a disturbing one. It’s not just because, as many commentators have already observed, the president appears to be taking a page out of Nixon’s playbook. Fundamentally, it’s because the administration’s media war against Fox is but a minor display of the tremendous power the government has to stifle speech it views as illegitimate.
Much of this power is the result of long-standing “campaign finance” laws. These laws impose all sorts of restrictions on political speech, and it’s no coincidence that the most draconian of these restrictions are targeted at those who can speak the most effectively against a politician’s reelection. The most effective speakers tend to be those who can spend the most money. Corporations, many of which have lots of money, receive particularly harsh treatment under the law. Congress and state legislatures have as a practical matter banned corporations from speaking effectively about candidates by prohibiting them from spending any money for that purpose during election season.
Fox News is part of a corporation, as are most of the other major news outlets in the United States. Congress and state legislators have chosen to exempt them from the ban they have placed on other corporations’ political speech. However, under current Supreme Court precedent there’s no legal reason that lawmakers cannot take that exemption away. As a result, government officials are constantly tempted to manipulate the exemption and silence those who disagree with them.
With the Obama administration now arguing that Fox News is a partisan political group masked as a news outlet, expect politicians to call for the government to revoke the network’s media exemption and use the campaign finance laws to mute its speech. "
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
thank you John McCain and Fred Thompson and their buddies in Senate Centrist Coalition for this. This shows how important it is to absolutely reject this sort of clueless, dangerous "bipartisan" RINO candidates in Senate and the House. Every conservative in this country was 100% opposed to CFR yet John McCain and Fred Thompson rammed it through with the "in your face" attitude.
There isn't much we can do anymore.
Do Campaign Finance Laws make any reference to illegal foreign donations?
Do Campaign Finance ethics include saying you’ll take the matching funds and cap your campaign funding and then violating that pledge when you realize you are on your way to a billion dollar warchest?
Do “like” campaign contributions include using every facet of the media to beat up on a VP candidate because she’s a conservative and a c**t?
Do “like” campaign contributions include hiring debate moderators who clearly favor one candidate over another and even have a financial stake in the victory of one candidate over another because of a book slated to be released on inauguration day celebrating said candidate?
Our elections are a joke. The FCC and FEC should go jump in a lake.
And W signed it.
Yes, W signed it reluctantly believing that it would be overturned by the Supreme Court and wanting to make it nice with “moderates” ie McCain and his buddies and not pick a new fight with them.
Shame W did not have a backbone with this. We are here to suffer from the results of CFR for years to come. This is a law that will be to harass conservatives only.
Nixon was the same way. Whatever the liberals wanted in domestic policy was fine with him. Foreign policy was where his interest lay.
We need to get unMcCained.
Here is something to think of. Fox is now the target and King Obama and his corrupt machine is trying to silence. Suppose he does just that. Then America goes to the toilet and depression like the 30’s hits. All the MSM will then complain they are broke and all of their employees are facing bread lines. Then they try to change and go for King Obama’s empire and do they think that King Obama will tolerate that? Hell no. His plate will never be empty and this communists, in our weakness, become the dictator for life. Think it can’t happen? Venezuela.
If the government imposes EVEN MORE rules and regulations on free speech, as a way of curbing political dissent, America will take up arms against the rogue government.
THIS is not USSR, Communist China, Cuba, or Venezuela.
THIS IS AMERICA!!! TIME TO GET EVEN LOUDER IN OUR DISSENT!
Yes, I agree, but there isn’t much we can do anymore.
Obama and congress will never repeal this liberal dream bill (thank you again Mssr John McCain and Fred Thompson) even with decent GOP majority and Sarah Palin as president. Dems would filibuster it.
Game over and get used to it.
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