Free Republic

The Federal Communications Commission's unanimous support yesterday for a rule that would open the door to government regulation of the Internet has raised the concern of free speech advocates, but there are other members of the Obama administration who support similar measures. The president's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, drew up a "First Amendment New Deal," a new "fairness doctrine" that would include the establishment of a panel of "nonpartisan experts" to ensure "diversity of view" on the airwaves. Sunstein compared the need for the government to regulate broadcasting to the moral obligation of the U.S. to impose new...

Although president-elect Barack Obama has stated that he is opposed to the reimposition of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, it remains to be seen if he can resist the pressure of Congress to bring back a measure that many on the left favor because they claim it will "Hush Rush." Leading the charge for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is Congresswoman Anna Eshoo of California. According to this report, Eshoo not only wants to bring it back but to extend it to absurdly include cable and satellite where public airwaves are not even involved: Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, said Monday...

Attention bloggers, please file your lobbyist forms... I just got out of the Public Disclosure Commission's stakeholder meeting regarding Internet lobbying. As I blogged yesterday, the PDC is asking whether Internet activities such as email or blogging qualify as lobbying. Goldy has this succinct reply: "Um ... hell, no." The purpose of today's meeting was to solicit public comment. Nancy Krier, the PDC's general counsel, ran the meeting and about a dozen folks showed up. I shared EFF's concern: that the Internet, which has become the new town square, is a forum where many citizens voice opinions about legislation and...

The DC Examiner has a troubling editorial today on a new rule being proposed by Bush's FCC that would represent a threat to the unfettered marketplace of ideas on talk radio while in practice, giving power to anti-free speech elements to dictate what can be broadcast. As free speech advocates gear up to oppose revival of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” another Orwellian-named government effort to dictate the content of radio and TV news and opinion has been hatched by the Bush administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). So far, there’s been much less focus on the “localism rule” – even though...

NOTE: this is info from a previous thread, but I thought the phone call to the prosecutor's office was important enough for its own thread. KMOV VIDEO - THREAT OF PROSECUTION FOR TELLING "LIES" ABOUT OBAMA PROSECUTOR McCULLOCH's OFFICE POST 74 FROM PREVIOUS THREAD YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS! I just called county prosecutor Bob McCulloch's office. I spoke with his secretary Cindy. DFU: I saw the KMOV piece last night regarding the lies being told about Barack Obama. It is about time someone is doing something about this. Last night I saw a bumper sticker that said...

WATCH THIS FRIGHTENING VIDEO FROM KMOV This video should shake you to your core. Obama supporters in Missouri are blatantly announcing that law enforcement will be used to prosecute you if you are part of campaign ads that tell, in their opinion, "lies" about Barack Obama. And we thought the Clinton machine was bad? This is frightening. When will the lies be prosecuted about Palin, McCain, and Limbaugh? The answer is, they won't. This is how a free republic is taken down. When will freerepublic be taken down?

The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.video

Despite the fact that the film Obsession contains no political content and was made well before the 2008 election cycle began, CAIR, those paragons of Islamic moderation and honesty, would now have you believe that the national distribution of the DVD was an Israeli plot to elect John McCain. This is a very revealing action for CAIR to take. It reveals in particular two key aspects of CAIR's mindset: 1. It shows that CAIR is fully aware that the jihad against Israel is an integral part of the global jihad, and is not just a struggle to recover Palestinian "stolen...

CAIR Files FEC Complaint over Obsession   By Robert SpencerFrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, September 25, 2008 Despite the fact that the film Obsession contains no political content and was made well before the 2008 election cycle began, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, those paragons of Islamic moderation and honesty, would now have you believe that the national distribution of the DVD was an Israeli plot to elect John McCain. And they’ve filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging just that. According to MarketWire, “the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the FEC to investigate whether the Clarion...

The wholesale descent into Swift Boat campaigning has been blocked — for now — by a federal judge in Virginia. But voters should not rest easy. A group calling itself The Real Truth About Obama is appealing the ruling. The group aims to block federal regulations so it can spend unlimited money on a commercial smearing the Democratic nominee as a zealous proponent of any and all abortion on demand — “at any time during pregnancy, as many times as a woman wants one.” If the group were to win on appeal, it would signal open season for countless stealth...

Where are all the free-speech absolutists when you need them? Over the past month, left-wing partisans and Democrat lawyers have waged a brass-knuckled intimidation campaign against GOP donors, TV and radio stations, and even an investigative journalist because they have all dared to question the radical cult of Barack Obama. A chilly wind blows, but where the valiant protectors of political dissent are, nobody knows. On Aug. 11, I called the American Civil Liberties Union national headquarters in New York for comment about the Chicago gangland tactics of one of these groups -- a nonprofit called Accountable America that is...

A federal appeals court on Friday invalidated campaign finance rules that give wealthy donors broad latitude in underwriting expensive political ads. Limits on coordinated campaign spending apply too narrowly to time frames just before elections and should be expanded, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in the decision. Judge David Tatel said in the ruling that interest groups often engage in early advertising, in some cases more than a year before an election. The restrictions the Federal Election Commission imposed apply only to spending within 90 days of a congressional election and 120 days...

DENVER (AP) -- Focus on the Family chairman James Dobson has been cleared of accusations that he endangered his organization's nonprofit status by endorsing Republican candidates in 2004, an Internal Revenue Service audit found. The IRS said Dobson, who backed President Bush's re-election bid, was acting as an individual and not on behalf of the conservative Christian ministry. The influential child psychologist announced the findings Monday on his national radio show. At least two liberal watchdog groups — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Colorado Springs-based Citizens Project — filed complaints with the IRS in 2005 against Dobson....

The Supreme Court rocked the 2008 presidential race by upsetting, in late June, a provision of the McCain-Feingold speech-regulation law that banned any radio or TV ad mentioning the name of a candidate for federal office in the 30 days before a primary election and the 60 days before a general election. In particular, the case at hand — FEC vs. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. — dealt with so-called "sham" issue ads. These ads lobby federal officeholders to vote one way or the other on issues before them; however, such ads were banned on the grounds that... --snip-- The...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Unions and corporations would be allowed to pay for ads that mention political candidates in the weeks just before an election under rule options under consideration by the Federal Election Commission. The two proposals, announced Thursday, are in response to a Supreme Court ruling in June and would provide a broad exception to advertising limits contained in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The FEC has asked interested parties to comment on the options and says it plans to issue a final rule by the end of November. In a 5-4 decision on June 25 that permitted some...

Campaign Finance Reform’s War on Political Freedom An ongoing danger, despite two recent court victories 1 July 2007 In February 2006, Norm Feck learned that the city of Parker, Colorado was thinking about annexing his neighborhood, Parker North. Feck attended a meeting on the annexation, realized that it would mean more bureaucracy, and concluded that it wouldn’t be in Parker North residents’ interest. Together with five other Parker North locals, he wrote letters to the editor, handed out information sheets, formed an Internet discussion group, and printed up anti-annexation yard signs, which soon began sprouting throughout the neighborhood. That’s when...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission has no intention of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine imposing a requirement of balanced coverage of issues on public airwaves, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said. Martin, in a letter written this week to Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and made public Thursday, said the agency found no compelling reason to revisit its 1987 decision that enforcing the federal rule was not in the public interest. Several Democratic lawmakers suggested that Congress take another look at the doctrine after conservative radio talk show hosts aggressively attacked an immigration reform bill when it was on the Senate...

Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue." - William Ruder, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce Now that liberals have seized control of the U.S. Congress, they are trying to shut down talk radio so the American people can no longer hear the truth from Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and a host of other conservatives. But isn't that what liberals always do... silence the opposition? When Lenin seized...

JEFFERSON CITY | The Missouri Supreme Court reinstated campaign contribution limits Thursday, but it’s unclear whether politicians will be forced to return millions of dollars collected since the limits were lifted in January.The court, in a unanimous decision, overturned a lower judge who had thrown out a fundraising ban for elected officials and challengers during the legislative session but kept intact the overall repeal of Missouri’s individual contribution limits.The Supreme Court said the legislative history of the bill indicated lawmakers would not have repealed contribution limits if the donation blackout period was not in effect.The court noted that when the...

Liberals are hailing a report that calls for federal regulations to end the "structural imbalance in political talk radio." Two think tanks, the Center for American Progress and the Free Press, complain that more than 90 percent of the programs on talk radio feature conservative hosts and themes while only 10 percent are "progressive." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has promised to examine the report's recommendations for possible legislation and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says flatly, "It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better...

An ongoing danger, despite two recent court victoriesIn February 2006, Norm Feck learned that the city of Parker, Colorado was thinking about annexing his neighborhood, Parker North. Feck attended a meeting on the annexation, realized that it would mean more bureaucracy, and concluded that it wouldn’t be in Parker North residents’ interest. Together with five other Parker North locals, he wrote letters to the editor, handed out information sheets, formed an Internet discussion group, and printed up anti-annexation yard signs, which soon began sprouting throughout the neighborhood. That’s when annexation supporters took action—not with their own public campaign, but with...

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." -- The First Amendment WASHINGTON -- The Fourth of July is an apt moment to reflect upon one of the great underreported stories of our time: the rise of regulated speech. Glance at the First Amendment, but do not think it still applies. Large bodies of political speech are now governed by laws, agency regulations, court decisions and lawyerly interpretations. Speech has become un-free. This does...

In February 2006, Norm Feck learned that the city of Parker, Colorado was thinking about annexing his neighborhood, Parker North. Feck attended a meeting on the annexation, realized that it would mean more bureaucracy, and concluded that it wouldn’t be in Parker North residents’ interest. Together with five other Parker North locals, he wrote letters to the editor, handed out information sheets, formed an Internet discussion group, and printed up anti-annexation yard signs, which soon began sprouting throughout the neighborhood. That’s when annexation supporters took action—not with their own public campaign, but with a legal complaint against Feck and his...

Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly, a news analyst for NBC, MSNBC and CNBC, warns that "Unless broadcasters take steps to voluntarily balance their programming, they can expect a return of fairness rules if Democrats keep control of Congress and win the White House next year." The Rep. Mike Pence amendment, adopted by a vote of 309-115, was to the Financial Services Appropriations bill. It prohibits funds from being used by the Federal Communications Commission to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters. But it only applies to fiscal year 2008 dollars and there is no plan by the current Republican-dominated FCC...

Chris Wallace and Mike Gallagher did a good job of exposing Mark Green's double-talk on the Fairness Doctrine on today's Fox News Sunday. Green, who with his brother have brought Air America out of bankruptcy, was in to debate the issue against conservative talk-show host Gallagher. But when Wallace put it to Green that liberals have plenty of outlets for their views "without having the government mandate that they appear on radio," Green's answer was astounding. AIR AMERICA'S MARK GREEN: I don't want the government to mandate that.Really? Expanding on his answer, Green said he doesn't favor the Fairness Doctrine,...

Arizona Sen. John McCain has introduced federal legislation to protect talk radio shows from the reinstatement of past rules that required dissenting voices be given equal time on their shows. McCain and fellow GOP Senators John Thune of South Dakota and Norm Coleman of Minnesota have put forward legislation preventing the reinstatement of the 'Fairness Doctrine'. The Fairness Doctrine was done away with in 1987 but previously required political radio shows to offer equal time to opposing viewpoints as part of their Federal Communications Commission licenses. A number of Democrats and liberal advocates want the Fairness Doctrine put back in...

The House voted Thursday to bar the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the broadcast “fairness doctrine” even though there are no legislative or regulatory proposals to bring back the rule. Mike Pence, R-Ind., a former conservative radio talk show host, offered an amendment to the bill funding federal financial entities (HR 2829) that would block the FCC from spending money to restore the mandate. The rule, repealed 20 years ago, required broadcasters to present controversial issues in a balanced manner. During floor debate on the spending bill, José E. Serrano, D-N.Y., chairman of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations...

Congressman Mike Pence led the charge in the House of Representatives that effectively headed Feinstein, Kerry, and Durbin off at the pass. By adding an amendment to the Financial Services and General Government bill. His amendment will disallow any federal funds to be used to carry out any enforcement of a revived "Fairness Doctrine." It passed 309-115... Meaning - even a major chunk of Democrats thought the idea of reviving the ancient rule that would in essence stifle most free speech in on-air capacities - was a really stupid idea. Pence had this to say upon the overwhelming victorious vote...

There is a latent idea that the public is unable to come to the "correct" conclusions on policy because talk radio is indoctrinating them. This vicious, un-American and treasonous idea is unworthy of political debate in this country. People can be trusted to make up their own minds and much research indicates that people listen to conservative talk radio not to make up their minds, but because their minds are already made up. If people can't be trusted to make their own minds up, then we ought to be having a discussion on repealing the right to vote, not about...

Recently, Senator Dianne Feinstein endorsed the reinstatement of the “Fairness Doctrine”. We blogged about that here. John Kerry has now jumped on the bandwagon. In 1993 a similar campaign was launched and failed. Sen. Feinsten’s proposal in 2007 should, similarly, fail. The Doctrine suggested is anti-American and stings at the liberties we hold dear. History of the “Fairness Doctrine” Originally, the “Fairness Doctrine” was a regulation imposed by the FCC upon broadcasters which required broadcasters to present both sides of a contraversial story. The rationale was that broadcast airwaves were held in the public trust and, as such, should facilitate...

At the end of Thursday’s debate, Democratic House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (Wis.) agreed with Republicans that the government should not regulate conservative radio hosts such as Limbaugh and Hannity......“We ought to let right-wing talk radio go on as they do now,” he said. “Rush and Sean are just about as important in the scheme of things as Paris Hilton.......” The House voted overwhelmingly Thursday ( June 28, 2007 )to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from using taxpayer dollars to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters who feature conservative radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity....

“It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.” When I heard and read this, I sent my Senator an email reminding him that this country still has a Constitution and that WE THE PEOPLE would NOT be silenced. Some other words to the effect that only cowards want to silence debate and if you can't win electorally then you have to legislate ... yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea. See...

LET us hope that Su preme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who is rarely right about First Amendment matters, was right about what he said in April. During oral arguments about a challenge to a use of the McCain-Feingold law to suppress political speech, Breyer, who considers the suppression constitutional, said to the challenger: "If we agree with you in this case, goodbye McCain-Feingold." The challenger was a small group of Wisconsin citizens who, by their grass-roots lobbying for their political views, tried to commit the offense - the crime, actually - of influencing their U.S. senators during what the Federal...

Several of my liberal friends have a funny conversational tic: Whenever the talk wanders into certain topics, they abruptly switch off --- change the subject, or urgently go off to do something else. We're friends, so I never try to push them back to that dangerous little "Eeeek!" moment. But it's just as if they have a little thermometer in their heads, and when things get dangerous, the red line goes way up and all that mercury threatens to squirt out of the top. You can practically see it happening right in front of your eyes. That's what Sigmund Freud...

The Supreme Court loosened restrictions on campaign financing this week by ruling that corporations and unions are entitled to run a wider variety of political ads in the final weeks of federal elections. This was good news for corporations and unions. And bad news for Shannon Tracey. Tracey is local projects director of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, a grassroots group dedicated to repealing the notion of corporate personhood -- a legal distinction that grants constitutional rights to businesses and other organizations. "It's awful that the court is continuing to uphold the idea that companies have what should be rights...

Prominent Democrats want to revive a policy to require broadcasters to present multiple viewpoints on controversial issues, spurred by complaints that talk radio has unfairly impacted the national immigration debate. An article published Wednesday by The Hill quoted Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.),stating: “It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision.” The Fairness Doctrine was a Federal Communication Commission regulation that dates back to 1947. Under the regulation, station licensees were considered “public trustees” that had an...

I am worried. This is not my usual state of mind but so many signs point to trouble. There are various things of concern, such as the Immigration Bill, and more obscure issues, such as the Trans-North American Highway, which may have the effect of giving up our sovereignty. I am worried about what is happening to talk-radio in this country. Hopefully it does not resemble Hugo Chavez’s actions in Venezuela. If you report anything against his regime you are shut down. The assault against talk-radio here is not quite as drastic as that of the Chavez assault. It could...

Associated Press The Supreme Court loosened restrictions Monday on corporate- and union-funded television ads that air close to elections, weakening a key provision of a landmark campaign finance law. The court, split 5-4, upheld an appeals court ruling that an anti-abortion group should have been allowed to air ads during the final two months before the 2004 elections. The case involved advertisements that Wisconsin Right to Life was prevented from broadcasting. The ads asked voters to contact the state's two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, and urge them not to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees. Feingold, a co-author...

Unfairness Doctrine By The Editors Remember Jim Hightower? We didn’t think so. He was the former Texas state official who was, for a few minutes, the Left’s great hope for a liberal talk-radio host to challenge the domination of Rush Limbaugh. It didn’t work out. Neither did former New York governor Mario Cuomo, another failed radio talker. And neither did, most recently, Air America, the attempt to build an entire network of liberal talk. Nothing has worked too successfully for liberal political talkers. Rush, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, among others, are as dominant as ever. The only thing that...

Last I checked, a free society is one that respects individual liberties and freedoms for everyone. It lets people decide on the kinds of cars they drive, where they work, the hobbies they enjoy and the entertainment that they watch or listen to. It is a nation void of unnecessary government control over every facet of their lives. The Fairness Doctrine destroys the very notion of a free society. A country where its government controls the content of ratio stations is a government that abhors the free market and cannot stand the thought that people, you and me, possess the...

The Censorious Left Marches On; Far Left Hopes to Destroy Fox News Posted by Rich Noyes on June 20, 2007 - 13:25. Reporting on yesterday’s “Take Back America” liberal conference, CNSNews.com’s Randy Hall shows how the organized Left is mounting a full-fledged campaign to delegitimize Fox News and other non-liberal media outlets. The Leftists are especially gleeful that they managed to persuade Democratic candidates to boycott any debates that would be aired on the Fox News Channel, with MoveOn.org’s Adam Green boasting about how the successful scuttling of Fox debates provides "a blueprint for things that we can continue to...

The Fairness Doctrine, the law that effectively put the kibosh on political talk radio for a number of years, might be coming back if congressional Democrats have their way. According to Fred Thompson, this turn of events was prompted in part by the failure of Air America radio: The real issue here is not what you “can” see or hear — which is what the Fairness Doctrine was about originally. It’s what you’re “choosing” to see or hear. Insiders say it was the collapse of the radio station “Air America” that led to this attempt to retool the Fairness Doctrine...

In the face of evidence agreed upon by hundreds of climate scientists, George Taylor holds firm. He does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change. Taylor also holds a unique title: State Climatologist. ... Taylor has held the title of "state climatologist" since 1991 when the legislature created a state climate office at OSU The university created the job title, not the state. ... His opinions conflict not only with many other scientists, but with the state of Oregon's policies.

Politicians are forever trying to protect voters from themselves. Hence the relentless onslaught of campaign-finance regulations. They assume that the average citizen is not sophisticated enough to verify the truth or falsehood of political advertising. So laws are needed to punish anyone - primarily those with deep pockets - who would "mislead" or "deceive" the public. Or to prevent big-time donors from "corrupting" the political process. America's founders were loath to let the government draw the line between deception and hyperbole (or even embellishment), especially in the political arena. That's one reason the language of the First Amendment is so...

Senate Democrats pressed the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission this week to slap tighter controls on media ownership, public-interest broadcasting and television violence. But after a sometimes contentious two-hour hearing Thursday, some lawmakers expressed little hope of meaningful change. Several Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee warned the agency.......

In a victory for grassroots activists across the country, Republicans stood united Thursday night and helped strike Section 220 from the Senate Ethics Bill. This section would have put undue regulations on the activities of grassroots organizations. Almost all Democrats voted to keep Section 220 in the bill. By a 55 to 43 vote, the Bennett Amendment which would strike Section 220 from the Senate Ethics Bill (S. 1) passed with unanimous support from Republicans. Seven Democrats supported the amendment while all other Democrats voted against it. As noted at LifeNews.com, “The measure, before the amendment, would have imposed strict...

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will sponsor a bill to strengthen campaign finance laws in this session of Congress despite vehement opposition to campaign finance reform from conservative Republican activists whose support he needs to win the party's nomination for president in 2008. McCain recently had appeared to be backing away from his support of campaign finance reform, which has been a signature issue for him. But Friday, a top aide in his Senate office said that McCain will reintroduce a bill to further clamp down on independent "527" groups. "Yes, it is McCain's bill and McCain will introduce it this...

Beware of liberals using such words as "fairness." In resurrecting the "Fairness Doctrine," liberals are trying to kill conservative talk radio and restore their media monopoly. Period. The doctrine would selectively stifle free political discourse, which is essential for our representative government. The Fairness Doctrine, an FCC regulation in force from 1949 to 1987, required broadcasters to present "both sides" of controversial issues. During that time, liberals had a virtual monopoly on the media. Since the rule was repealed, conservative talk radio has exploded -- Rush Limbaugh launched his syndicated radio show in 1988 -- and other media outlets multiplied:...

As Congress prepares to strengthen ethics rules, James Dobson is accusing lawmakers, particularly Democrats, of vying to clamp down on his ability to rally conservative Christians in the political arena. "I am just about as irritated as I am going to get," the Focus on the Family chairman practically ranted on his radio show a week ago. Leading a charge along with allies such as Gary Bauer of the nonprofit American Values, Dobson said this proposal to regulate "grassroots lobbying" would cripple his ability to influence confirmation of Supreme Court nominees, for instance. Such regulation is prescribed in Senate Bill...

This week--perhaps even tomorrow--the U.S. Senate is taking up legislation that could stifle gun owners’ voices in the legislative process. To ensure gun owners remain able to speak out in support of our Second Amendment rights, during debate this week on S.A. 3, the “Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act”, Senators Robert Bennett (R-Utah) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will offer an amendment to strike Sec. 220--the section that would force countless groups of ordinary citizens to register with the federal government as “lobbyists,” with all the attendant restrictions, costs, and penalties. The First Amendment protects an unqualified “right of the people...