Shot in the Dark

Tag: Fairness Doctrine

  • Franken: “Go Pound Sand, Unions”, Part II – The Prize

    It’s no secret – American trade unions have been hemorrhaging membership for decades.  Outside government, there really is very little future for unions; in the private sector, they are a cost that generally can not be sustained. And so when the unions can find a hidden trove of tens of thousands of workers that can…

  • Fairness

    Dire Straits’ single “Money For Nothing” was one of the iconic songs of the 1980s when it came out in 1985.  Chock full of reference to MTV and the styles of the era, and featuring a video that was fairly bleeding-edge computer animation (albeit very, very stylized) for the time. It also created a brouhaha;…

  • Never Waste A Blazing Reichstag

    As the world learns more about Jarred Loughner, the unlikelihood that any “political rhetoric” had even the most oblique role in causing his atrocity over the weekend is becoming more and more clear to just about everyone. Everyone that hasn’t been waiting for something to come along to shut up the newly-uppity right, anyway. America’s…

  • Democrats: Criminalizing Dissent

    Democrats Diane Feinstein and Dick “Turban” Durbin – who have long been the Dems’ official trial-balloon-floaters for assaults on free speech like the “Fairness Doctrine” – are proposing an amendment to a Senate bill (S.448) clarifying the press shield law. And it’s aimed squarely at citizen journalists like you and I.  Via RWN, here’s the…

  • We’d Have Had An Insurrection…

    …if Bush’s administration had suggested this – federal control over content on the Internet. White House advisor Cass Sunstein is talking about the White House – the Feds, anyway – taking a huge role in censoring the Internet. And the insurgents – whatever their party?  They’d have been right: Perhaps most disturbing is Mr. Sunstein’s…

  • Repel The Gathering Fascism

    The “Broadcaster Freedom Act” may come up for a carefully-hidden vote – and if you support freedom of speech, we need your help: There’s a chance to get the newly expanded Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA) tacked on as an amendment to the Financial Services appropriation on Tuesday. The BFA is currently being redrafted to prevent…

  • Countdown To The Obamanschluss

    If a DC liberal pundit tells you you’re paranoid for worrying about your house being robbed, aim your gun at your door; there will be an armed burglar bursting in shortly. Anytime a liberal pundit, politician, apologist or powerbroker “guarantees” to keep hands off a liberty that might undercut the left in any way, they…

  • What Do These Three Items Have In Common?

    The Brits deny Geert Wilders – critic of Islamofascism – entrance to the UK because it might upset Moslems who are busy picking on Jewish kids. US Senators jump on board for a reprise of the “Fairness Doctrine”. And a dictator messes with a hero who’s already notched one dictatorship: Nobel laureate, former Polish prime…

  • Getting Off The Pot

    When the subject of the “Fairness” Doctrine comes up, Democrats respond “Obama’s said he won’t for it”.  It’s both correct and irrelevant; Obama doesn’t need to do a thing; the cynical among us believe he knows that full well, and that he’s got henchpeople to do that hyperpartisan, not-so-hopey-changey work for him. And they are…

  • The Fairest Doctrine

    I don’t follow talk radio around the country quite as much as I used to; it’s not like I’m about to go move across the country to take a talk show gig or anything. Fifteen or twenty years ago, when I still followed talk radio obsessively – almost like I was trying to make it…

  • Romp Not Lest Ye Be Romped

    Note to Twin Cities’ Leftybloggers:  Please, please try to get your facts straight when you want to try to noodle about with issues I genuinely care about.  You might get Haugenned. Fair warning. Liberal in the Land of Conservative writes: HOLY CRAP, the Democratic leadership in Congress is pushing the Fairness Doctrine. Who are the…

  • Franken’s Old Boss Hearts Rush Limbaugh

    Limbaugh Is Right on the Fairness Doctrine Conservative talk radio has worked itself into a tizzy lately over the rumored revival of the Fairness Doctrine — the FCC policy that sought to enforce balanced discussion on the nation’s airwaves. As the founding president of Air America Radio, I believe that for the last eight years…

  • As Far As We Can Throw Them

    “Obama doesn’t support the “Fairness” Doctrine” is the standard response from lefties when asked about Barack Obama’s putative fascist tendencies. Of course, it’s really not about him. It’s his caucus in Congress that’ll be the problem, that’ll push legislation to extinct conservative talk radio, and that Obama will (very likely) not veto after they ram…

  • The Internet Doesn’t Kill People…

    When a young person takes his or her life it is of course a sad story. A life snuffed before it has begun. When it happens with an audience, on the internet, it becomes national news. …and a threat to the first amendment. MIAMI (AP) — The father of a college student whose suicide was…

  • Back Underground

    On Saturday, King and I filled in for John, Chad and Brian on the second hour of NARN Volume I.  To kill the time with as little effort as possible, we did our “Top Ten” lists of best and worst things about having an Obama Administration.  Because it beat doing show prep, that’s why. Anyway,…

  • Dangerous Measure. Stupid Man.

    I’m not sure what to think of Senator “Chuckles” Schumer’s take on the return of the “Fairness” Doctrine.  Three possibilities present themselves: He’s an idiot. He assumes his audience and constituency are idiots. 1 and 2. Read this and then you be the judge: Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what…

  • It’s A Theory…

    So why is the media so very, very in the bag for The One? Theories, as they say, are like, um, toes.  Everyone has one. But Michael Malone – a career journalist and columnist – has a theory of his own. It’s the editors (managing editors, executive producers, etc), and it’s about self-preservation (I’ve added…

  • Nothing Here But Us Authoritarians

    We conservatives, concerned that a potential lefty supermajority will try to impose the “Fairness” Doctrine to destroy talk radio (the backbone and beating heart of American conservatism today), warn the nation that an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment rights of average Americans is imminent. “No – what, us?  Noooooooo!” responds the left.  “Why, Barack…

  • Bound And Gagged

    I ask my liberal acquaintances if they’re aware that the Democrats plan to muzzle conservative opinion in this country, by reinstating the “Fairness” Doctrine. Leave aside for a moment that most people of all political stripes have not the faintest clue how the “Fairness” Doctrine worked during its heyday (until Reagan repealed it in 1987),…

  • Fairness

    In a post last Friday about the “Fairness” Doctrine, a commenter quipped: Imagine the outcry when the wacko Phelps family of Kansas gets to have anti-gay programs on all of the stations that have pro-gay rights material. Heh. Funny – but as luck would have it, that’s not how the “Fairness” doctrine works. Here’s how…

  • 47% Of Your Neighbors Are Unclear On The Concept Of “Liberty”

    According to Rasmussen…: Nearly half of Americans (47%) believe the government should require all radio and television stations to offer equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary, but they draw the line at imposing that same requirement on the Internet. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say leave radio and TV alone, too. I have to wonder…

  • If It Were Important, It Wouldn’t Be The “First” Amendment

    People sometimes ask me “Mitch, how does the “Fairness Doctrine” work?” And I respond “Very badly, if real-life experience counts for anything”. While the notional idea behind the doctrine is to force “balance” in programming, it really works one of two ways: As it did with about 90% of talk stations before 1987 – by…

  • The Boot On Your Throat Looks Fabulous With Her Handbag

    Can’t shut ’em up with reason, or in the marketplace? Sic the government on ’em! The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the “Fairness Doctrine” (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush…

  • Reality: Bent to Fit While You Wait!

    GeeEmInEm at TvM forecasts: In a reprise of the 1992 campaign, get ready to hear about the worst economy since the Great Depression. Also, expect to see the return of the Fairness Doctrine titled “the Freedom Act of 2009” -or perhaps the subject of a book, “It Takes A Village To Decide What Each Villager…

  • Freedom Hangs By A Thicker Thread

    I’ve written a lot this past week about the Dems’ push to re-instate the “Fairness Doctrine”.   Let’s be clear about one thing:  the push to re-instate the Doctrine is based on a huge, cynical lie that the left is repeating, true to Goebbels, over and over.  Dick Durbin, for example (I’ve added emphasis): Dick Durbin…