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Senate Approves Measure to Undo FCC Rules
fortheloveofjava writes "The Washington Post says here that the Senate voted 55 to 40 today to wipe out all of the Federal Communication Commission's controversial new media rules, employing a little used legislative tool for overturning agency regulations. If you signed the MOVEON.org petition, an image of part of it is visible here with sponsoring senators Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS)."
is the part that says, "Even if passed by the House, the White House has promised a veto."
damn
Wait I thought the government was bad? Especially the republicans, Lott, that is.... someone fill me in.
On the other hand, I believe such diversity will only be strengthened by allowing the people with the most resources free rein to develop channels/media as they see fit. You get duplication of effort now (CNN, FOX, MSNBC), where later we could perhaps have two or three media giants offering a broader spectrum (CNN Politics, CNN Music, CNN Sports).
So in a way I wonder if we should be upset about this.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I'm confused about why it takes such a major act of governmental will to override the FCC. They aren't elected, and should be subservient to Congress. Congress is the only body that can make law; why is the FCC being granted that power so strongly?
In essence, the FCC, part of the executive branch, is being given equal status to Congress. To override the FCC, Congress has to pass a new law (which the President has threatened to veto). Congress would then have to override that veto.... requiring a supermajority to regain *their own lawmaking power*.
Something is REALLY messed up here.
If all the people who signed that petition had voted in the first place, there wouldn't *be* anything to overturn today!
Remember folks: **AA = all kinds of American Apathy...
"Trent Lott (R-MS)." I dont know if this means that he is a member of Republicans for MicroSoft or if you mean that he is currently being posessed by Richard Stallman
Doesn't this mean that they're effectively impotent from this point forward, or am I misreading it? I'm English... if parliament vetoed something like this it would spell the end of the agency.
Nice job, and congrats americans! Looks like the peeps have got a say in matters like this. Take THAT, clear channel! This musician dances with happiness, and its not even my country.
"Old man yells at systemd"
The new FCC rules were championed by FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell, who argued that consolidation was less a threat now than when the rules were enacted because consumers have many more choices for their news and entertainment.
Sure, there's ClearChannel-Affiliate-1, ClearChannel-Affiliate-2, ClearChannel-Affiliate-3... Really, is there that much more choice out there? Internet broadcasting, maybe, but the folks who run their own stations are still being harassed by the tax-hungry powers-that-be.
It's great to see an actual online petition have *some part* in changing things - with all the online petitions that are passed around, congrats to moveon.org for actually making it effective! Score 1 for democracy (for the moment, at least...)!
Having seen the people Trent Lott represents, I'd prefer he continue to dress the way he does.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
So diversity of opinion is okay, just as long as it's to your liking? Liberalization of media regulations, IMHO, is what allows for things like talk radio, Fox News, donahue, etc.
I don't really think we have alot to be worried about. This will get overturned and all semi-right with the world (in regards to FCC policy) will be returned.
PS: For the record, I support Bush. Full disclosure or whatever.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I think you missed the point. They do dress like the people the represent. They just don't represent the people you think.
This is the same Congress that allowed the DirecTV monopoly of the NFL sunday Ticket to continue, and further allow DirecTV to require subscription to their service in order to buy the Sunday Ticket. I don't consider that a success.
Remember kids: If you voice or even think an opinion contrary to your selected President, then the terrorists win.
My point was there would be no diversity of opinion if all the news is from one source. And, that is what would happen if there are no controls on media takeovers and one company takes over everything.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
You must be new here...that's exactly what the average Slashbot (or liberal, more generally) wants.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You get duplication of effort now (CNN, FOX, MSNBC), where later we could perhaps have two or three media giants offering a broader spectrum (CNN Politics, CNN Music, CNN Sports).
What you are talking about is what I would call diversity of subject, this is nice. But, having multiple entities providing each subject gives diversity of substance, which is esential for an informed, balanced formation of opinion.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
and you wonder why there is no good new music coming out these days. because executives in board rooms decide what you will like. and it will be based on what they own and promote.
so now everything you watch on tv, listen to on the radio, see in a movie theatre, or hear on the street will be based on what one set of executives decides you need to know.
all it takes now is for someone to buy favor with these executives and we have something we are already starting to see. its called media manipulation.
news brought to you by the highest bidder.
LW-
...the original decision would have allowed the equivalent of a Clear Channel situation nationwide for television and newspapers, as well as outright crosspollination between the two. Which could mean you'd get the Fox News Washington Post and the CNNew York Times, and lead to an even greater polarization in news reporting between the moderates and the right. (There's no real 'liberal press' anymore.)
There's no real impetus to create that broad spectrum of events - the general intent seems to be to create a single nationally-acceptable product and show it everywhere, in order to sell more ad time and make money.
The only place we're really getting any 'diversity' is in the pay channels, which aren't dependent on commercials and therefore can take chances. So if they want to make something different like 'Queer as Folk', or 'The Sopranos', or 'Dead Like Me', they can, and if people watch it, it was a good experiment.
The more diversity in channels, the better it is. If you have three news channels like CNN, Fox and MSNBC, you have three different points of view, and therefore possibly a better chance of getting an idea about what's REALLY going on.
Brazil has decided you're cute.
why does this remind me of that episode where kent brockman is reading the news for CNNBCBS (a division of ABC)?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Really, the worst problem with media consolidation is the total loss of a sense of a local community, especially on the radio. I feel the major problem isn't TV, it is radio being taken over by ClearChannel, where people have to play their political games to get on the radio.
Just my .02
I have to go shower now.
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
They've always hated the fact that free media means that people won't listen to them. Now they're taking this change to get back at the media moguls for decades of doing good business. Read Clay Shirky's article on media regulation. The basic thesis: Diverse. Free. Equal. Pick two. Frankly, I'd much rather free diversity with no equality than controlled diversity.
The Internet has really made petitions more accessable. Look at that picture!
Like everything else in politics, the picture is not all it seems.
Those boxes of printout are a prop. They're no more meaningful than the football-sized American flag flying over the local car dealership, or George W. landing on an aircraft carrier to announce the "end of major hostilities".
From everything I've heard, faxes are effective, as are phone calls. Both are most effective when they 1) happen to match the results of the latest polls and 2) are sent by large campaign donors. Online petitions are pretty much worth no more than the paper they're not printed on.
Don't forget -- the honorable representatives of the people are ready, willing and able to ignore those boxes of "340,000 Signatures (And Growing)" if the opinion they represent will not get them re-elected.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
If Rupert Murdoch is legally allowed to take over all the media, he WILL.
As opposed to AOL/Time Warner controlling everything? How is Fox different from any other huge media conglomerate except that it's not dominated by left leaning opinions?
The new FCC regulations would only of allowed someone to control every market if the consumers in those markets wanted it to be that way. As long as there's a market for a differing viewpoint (Which CNN's numbers, while dwindling, show there is) no one entity would have control over the flow of all information.
The new FCC regulations simply got rid of a stupid system of propping up competition by making sure a successful organization that provided the content people WANTED couldn't buy out an unsuccessful competitor.
In the end what does it matter who owns what station? If the media outlet doesn't provide the information that people want, they'll go somewhere else (as is evident by the aforementioned dwindling CNN viewership). The government shouldn't be mucking about regulating the market, let the market forces regulate the market.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
...let's hope this passes and the president doesn't veto it!
We are at a critical juncture. If it doesn't pass, Radio will lose all diversity, Newspapers will only print boring wire stories, and television news will only be about ratings!
So Bush vowing to veto basically means he's disdainfully ignoring the will of the population he was supposedly elected to represent.
And we ARE still in a *representative* Republic? Right? ... right? Bueller?
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
YEAH!
This is great news. I was dreading Fox News spewing their bile everywhere. If Rupert Murdoch is legally allowed to take over all the media, he WILL. It would have been an Orwellian disaster (it's close to it already) if this wasn't voted down.
...wait for it... people tune into them. Now, I don't like pop drivel like Britney Aguilera or the crappy 'reality' shows, but (and I know this concept will be completely ignored here, but I've to try) my opinions should not be made into law, and neither should yours. If people didn't want to watch Fox, it wouldn't exist right now. Rupert has so much money because he gives people what they want....and just because you or I don't like it, more heavily regulating the media isn't good for anyone. Just because you don't like something does not mean it should be illegal, or no one would be legally allowed to eat cranberries, because I'm allergic to them. Think of how you'd feel if some pop-infected teeny bopper got a law passed that made all non-pop music subject to stringent regulation. That wouldn't be very fun for you, would it? Of course not. What these senators are doing is wrong, what the FCC does in regulating communication is wrong, it's all unconstitutional anyways. Free speech was intended to be just that, excepting cases of national interest or public safety. I think it's quite a stretch to equate 'equal time' (shea, right) with national interest or public safety. Let the clearchannels of the world push pop pap onto the masses until they can't take it anymore, and then their dominance will be ended and soon forgotten. Adding (or re-adding) regulation doesn't further our cause of liberty, it flies in its face.
You people are funny. Pols are tired of getting slammed in the media, so they work to more heavily regulate the media. Wow, what a victory for free speech. You idiots. The companies that prosper in the media do so because they can sell ad time (or monthly charges for no-commercial cable channels like HBO and Showtime) and because
Now, I know a bunch of you out there are literally afraid that one company will come to own every single tv and radio station as well as every single newspaper. However, there are enough rich liberals out there, if they wanted to, they'd be free to start their own network. If their network wasn't financially viable, it would fold. That's how things are supposed to work in this country. Sometimes people like things you don't like. Sometimes people say things you don't agree with. The beauty of this country is supposed to be that we're all free to like what we want and say what we want without worrying how others feel about it. Oh well, this nation was at one time a shining example of what to do. Now it's more a comedy of errors, and it won't be long before we slip into tragedy.
http://xkcd.com/386/
My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it! Why have two or three media giants? Let's have just one, that will be the most efficient and lead to the least duplication of effort. Let's make it Fox "News" because animals attacking babies is important. That, and foxy boxing. All this choice and diversity annoys and confuses me.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Case in point: Cybersecurity. Probably most of the congressmen in office are only familiar with Windows. They may be perfectly competent in use of email and web browsing, as well as other things that vary person to person, but would you trust the body as a whole to regulate electronic security on the level of national secrets? If anything, I question whether they can get the right experts in the right place so that anything can be done with it at all. But if it were up to Senator Lob B. Me to have a say in what companies' safeguards are put on IRS data or nuclear launch codes for that matter, the entire planet should be shaking in their boots.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
Here's the Senate Voting Record so you can appropriately attack your local representatives if you disagree with their actions.
/.. We don't talk to our reps, we just bitch about them.
But this is
Traditionally media leans toward the Democrats, Rupert Murdoch notwithstanding. I would think that letting them get richer would funnel more money toward the GOP's opponents.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
For two reasons, the new rules were better:
1. Most existing media/news sources would be taken over, thus forcing a change in management and direction. Good to shake up the old dinosaur media types.
2. As consolidation takes hold, many smaller stations/news sources would be able grow. This means more competition.
Most of the opponents of consolidation falsely warn us that diversity of opinion would be lost. This simply is not true since the available sources of news/media have grown exponentially in the last 30 years.
Here is a timeline:
1. my grandparents - read a newspaper listened to the radio
2. my parents - read newspaper, watched tv, listened to the radio
3. me - read newspaper, watched tv, listened to the radio, watched cable, read news on the internet, listened to internet radio, subscribed to many news email services -> even dropped the dead tree newspaper.
I haven't even tried satelite radio.
I don't listen to clearchannel, but since they have come to town, I have noticed that we have more stations, and a larger variety. We have formats that others have tried and failed... before Clearchannel was around.
It leads me to believe that they're subsidizing these small audience stations. Frankly, there's no way I'd listen to smooth jazz, but for those people that want it, clearchannel has one. Every other station that's tried it has dropped out after several months (or even weeks!) I don't think there's any advertising revenue for smooth jazz, but clear channel has to be subsidizing it with their more popular stations. How can more choice be bad? Frankly, if I wanted to buy advertising time, the last place I'd consider would be a smooth jazz station, but they seem to be making a go of it.
-- No sig for you!
It's called separation of powers, and it's what makes the Federal government work at all. Congress is a legislative body. They make law. But laws as such have absolutely no effect on you or anyone else. When you get charged in court for "breaking the law," they don't cite you for violation of House or Senate legislation, they cite you for violation of US Legal Code. The FCC, like the EPA, SEC, and other agencies in the Executive branch, is a regulatory body. They make legal code. The FCC regulates (e.g. writes legal code concerning) communications in accordance with laws passed by Congress and the directives of the President. They write the legal code that is the concrete interpretation of abstract legislation. This is what they were trying to do. There is no Congressional law that says that you can/can't own more than one radio/TV station in a single town, and such a law would probably be unconstitutional. Take a high school physics course next time.
What are you even talking about? What the hell does "equal" mean in this context? And how exactly does media consolidation lead to "diversity"? And Trent Lott is a liberal?
I'd be happy to see a coherent argument against this, but what you said doesn't even make any sense!
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
they will glue an "Anti-American" label to your forehead.
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
is the DMCA next ?
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Seriously. You are 100% correct. People keep saying that deregulation leads to no diversity, but look at the internet, the most un-regulated media outlet in the world and also the most diverse.
Sure it is possable for one company to take over all the media, but the market wouldn't let that last for long. I would create a huge hole for someone else to come in and give different views and that someone would be instantly sucessful.
The FCC shouldn't regulate how large a company can get or what content they can put out. They should be technical only. They should make sure that company A's airwaves don't interfere with company B's and that's it.
this would be Bush's first veto.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
Your question, I believe, has this at its root "shouldn't we let the free market decide what's best for itself"? That answer is no. The free market has no public interest. The only thing it respects is cash. And there are more ways to skin a cat than by giving it what it wants. Look at Enron and Worldcom. Look at the World Bank and IMF have done to 3rd world countries. Bill Moyers had a great report on NOW a week or two ago that's worth seeing regarding those organizations.
The WTO was just voted down by Argentina. So clearly there is cause to believe that letting the biggest check writers run with their imaginations can be harmful. What you're suggesting is that these large corporations, who, by the way, are trying to monopolize the PUBLIC airwaves (on loan from Congress), have a case for making their mouthpieces even bigger.
This strikes me as the same logic that says we should overturn the McCain-Feingold bill on campaign finance reform because restricting soft money is akin to trampling on free speech.
Bullshit. The correct answer in both cases is that there needs to be limits on an individual or corporation's power to exert undue influence on the populace. What that means is nobody can be the sole voice of information in town by owning the major methods of media consumption (TV, radio, newspaper, Internet access) and it means that just because somebody has buckets of money that doesn't allow them to gain more of a say in who should be elected than say, yourself.
I don't want to turn to Uncle Sam for everything. I'm not suggesting anything radical. But I do think that it's in the interest of everybody to make sure that power and influence are not limited to a few corporations and people like George Soros who have the money to do whatever they want. (And I admire him. I threw him in just to make the point that I'm not engaging in partisan bickering. I think there is a larger moral point here.)
Overturning the FCC Regs was the right thing to do.
And just to address your point head on, nobody is trying to dictate what these channels put on air. The main point of the new regs was to expand the percent of media in a market that one company could own.
I really hope he doesn't veto. I'd abstain before I'd vote for Dean.
I'm not entirely sure who I'd vote for (I don't particularly trust Bush), but I'm curious why you'd abstain rather than voting for Dean if you felt as though Bush was not representing your best interests.
I guess I'm particularly interested in whether there are issues you disagree with him on, or is it just a personality thing?
You'll never see it unless you have internet access or buy a magazine.
TV has ZERO diversity. Sad. It's unwatchable.
This is not a free speech issue. Under US laws the radio frequencies are owned by the people. Thus, not even ClearChannel as a right to transmit without permission from the people.
If the people have decided that they'd rather have a lot of little broadcasters versus a few large broadcasters, that's the right the people have.
And who's stopping ClearChannel from speaking? The law only limits how many channels a company can own in any particular market. Thus ClearChannel is free to express its opinion in any market it so desires.
But even if ClearChannel was denied access to a particular market, it would not impede ClearChannel's ability to exercise its right to free speech. The company could pay people to stand on street corners to express opinions. In the US we have a right to speak, but no one has any duty to listen.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Your perception of the government, other corporations and random criminals in your neighborhood, etc. are based largely on what you absorb from news sources. You can't be in all places at all times for first hand knowledge, you require someone to synthesize this material for you and present it to you in a consumable fashion.
Various people process this information in various ways, and even if accurate factually almost always has a bias towards the view of the author, his editor, and by extension corporate leanings. You can usually put together a more accurate picture of events (if necessary) by watching multiple sources and picking out different or inconsistent statements. Perhaps on 95% of stories we won't do this because they're boring or straightforward, but there are always a few where you want more information or a different view.
If you follow the one source, one story, one owner philosophy, the only story you can read is the story desired by the corporation producing it. While it may not seem like it's abused horribly now, that's only because there is at least token competition and as such a reasonable desire to be professional. The smaller the space gets, the more power that is available by abusing it, and the less risky it is.
News is the subject that perhaps causes me the most fear, but I'd hate to think that all TV shows have the same political/social bent as say...Disney or worse, MTV.
The "President" favors special-interest big business (you know, the people who paid for his campaign) over the best interest of the public.
Have we ever seen the current Administration not favor big business over the public best interest?
Join Tor today!
Is it possible that this has as much that the politicians don't want to have to bow to power of a few media barrons when they go up for reelection as it does to do with the will of the people?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Doesn't this mean that they're effectively impotent from this point forward, or am I misreading it?
:-) We could have taken the simple route in the US after the War Of Independence, and kept some parliamentary form. Instead we put a lot of thought into it and came up with something much better. If the people vote for someone here, we figure that means they've made more than a fly by night choice, the term of the chosen guy gets served out regardless, and his appointments stand. Hey, if he's bad enough, he can be impeached. In the case of many of the states, the Governors can be recalled (er, well, admittedly a rogue court can interfere with all this, as we see today, but you will see that will get slapped down by higher court).
Of course not. First of all, the FCC rule change is not overturned yet. The Senate can't "veto" anything. It still has to pass the House, and it has to not be vetoed by the President. If vetoed, it would need 2/3 majorities in both houses to overturn the veto, reinstate the measure, and "veto" the FCC ruling. Unless an awful lot of people lose their heads, that ain't going to happen.
Second, so the regulatory body's (FCC's) ruling is rendered inoperable by a new law. So what. Big deal. There's no automatic implication of failure on the part of the regulators. What a bizarre thought. It's just the system working as per design.
I'm English... if parliament vetoed something like this it would spell the end of the agency.
That explains it
This is about monopoly of information source. The regulation , just like the sherman act, was put there to avoid a total concentration in a branch. What people oppose isn't fox per see, or clear channel, it is that one giant media organisation own everything and then imprint its own opinion/color onto everything. And since it would own the majority of the media there would be no way to get other source of info. Think simply of the skewing of the free market when there is a complete monopoly, but instead of pohysical product, think "information". That is IMO certainly a bigger threat to any nation/citizen freedom than any monopoly in a physical object industry.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
where later we could perhaps have two or three media giants offering a broader spectrum (CNN Politics, CNN Music, CNN Sports).
Replace CNN with FOX and (at least for me) the issue of mixed feelings is immediately resolved. I called the bloody cable company and said cancel my service or get FOX News out of my house, and I recommend that anyone else who finds FOX disgusting do the same.
One of the sponsors of this bill is Sen. Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota. Have you ever been to North Dakota? They have NO choice in TV, radio, or newspaper. How would they notice any difference? This guy is a puppet, and someone who hates Clearchannel is behind it.
I don't much care for ClearChannel, but whoever's got Dorgan's ear probably isn't any better.
I don't like too much regulation. How many of you think that we elect the WISEST and most INTELLIGENT people to office in this country?
I'd like to point out Sen Tom Daschle, who allows big business out of billions in cleanup costs for mining in S. Dakota, but then complains about the Bush's clean air record.
I'll also point out Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston), with her recent effort to rename Freedom Fries back to French Fries, and her recent push to have more black names for hurricanes.
-- No sig for you!
A hidden section of this bill re-introduces the "fairness doctrine." Sounds good, we're all for fairness, right?
What the "fairness doctrine" actually means is that if anyone disagrees with anything said on the radio, they can call in and demand to be put on the air to refute what they disagree with. The station manager will have to put them on and give them time to speak their mind.
The fairness doctrine existed until 1983, when there were about 5 talk radio stations nationwide. Now, there are well over 1000 (less than 20% owned by any one company) talk radio stations. If this law goes into effect--and Bush will likely veto it--it will mean the end of talk radio.
Just imagine if someone said on the air, "SCO owns UNIX" and everyone on slashdot called up and demanded to be put on the air to refute the point. It would take days. What's going to happen is no more controversial topics will ever be discussed over the radio. Eventually, all talk radio will shut down because no one wants constant vanilla talk.
BTW, it's freedom OF speech, not freedom TO speak, which means under the constitution, no one is required to allow someone to access to their licensed airwaves. Congress can make laws requiring it, but doing so limits the free speech of the station owners and their hosts.
You post a factual story with absolutley no indication of what I'm supposed to think. Is it good? Is it bad? Do you know how frustrating this is? Now I have to read the linkage and attempt to form my own opinion. I don't have time for this! What am I paying you guys for?
Thank God that I read the story late enough that 30+ people have posted within my threshold. Whew.
MC
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
The rules have already been stayed by a judge, so there isn't a possibility of sudden waves of consolidation yet. Whatever ruling is set down in the current case in Philidelphia will be appealed to the Supreme Court. This thing is going to be dragged through the courts all the way to the top. That is where the buck will stop.
So what you've got to ask yourself is, "Do I feel lucky?" Do you think the Supreme Court will rule for or against the media consolidation rules? Before you answer, please review the history of media deregulation. In particular, read up on the cable-broadcast cross-ownership ruling that came out of the D.C. court which prompted this whole fiasco (Fox v. FCC, if I remember correctly.)
I'll tell you this: there is a significant probability that these new ownership rules will be upheld, not rejected, especially given the conservative leanings of the high court.
Just some food for thought.
Congress has told them to periodically review and rewrite FCC regulations to make sure that they are still necessary and relevant. That doesn't stop them from bashing the FCC when they don't like the result.
The courts have been striking down FCC decisions when the courts have decided that the FCC did not backup their decision with objective research and data.
Whenever a large corporation does not like the result of a FCC decision, they sue, hoping that the court will overturn the FCC's new rule.
This has turned the FCC into a punching bag for a wide variety of competing interests.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Bzzzzt! Wrong wrong answer. One could be Spanish and Cuban as part of the Empire. You're trying to tell me there's no such thing as a Puerto Rican or a Vermonter?
Now let's see if you're bright and informed enough to find the real historical falsity in my post.
KFG
thats like "apathetic" enthusiasm. Jazz is well... jazzy. Simply playing a saxophone does not make something jazz, and adding "smooth" doesn't change this.
Unfortunately, the Senate has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and struck down the JSA ban along with everything else. At least the House had the sense to just strike down the higher market caps and leave the rest in place...
Can somebody answer me these questions, becuase I must be a clueless bafoon and the answers aren't found anywhere on google.com or moveon.org:
;) ... And not a mention of the run-away democrats hurting democracy and wasting taxpayer money by breaking the law that requires them to report to the Texas state capitol and conduct business as usual?
1) What's with all the paper in that petition picture? I mean, geez, the tree huggers must be having a heart attack over that massive ammount of waste. If it shocked me, I could only imagine...
2) (offtopic?) Item #2 on moveon.org, along with stuff about tons of money raised on an ad campaign.... I actually see mention about the "every 10 years Texas redistricting", but no mention about how it actually hurts democracy more when it favors Democrats more than Republicans this time around... It's been anti-republican redistrcting for the last 40 years or so, hasn't it? Even after this stuff, Republicans will still be licking old-democrat wounds
As far as the FCC ruling, I can't really find much more to say that hasn't been said, except that the FCC should probably force the radio stations to do a better job of being a source of public service.... It is _our_ airwaves, after all.
SJ 17 IS 108th CONGRESS 1st Session S. J. RES. 17 Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to broadcast media ownership. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES July 15, 2003 Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. LOTT, Mr. HOLLINGS, Ms. COLLINS, Mr. FEINGOLD, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. KERRY, Mrs. HUTCHISON, and Mr. WYDEN) introduced the following resolution; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation JOINT RESOLUTION Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to broadcast media ownership. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to broadcast media ownership (Report and Order FCC 03-127, received by Congress on July 10, 2003), and such rule shall have no force or effect.
"Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS)"
But now they are allotted a certain number of senator representatives, like a state!? Figures . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
"What the "fairness doctrine" actually means is that opposing points of view (in response to an editorial comment broadcast on air) shall receive an "equal opportunity" to rebuttal, i.e. an equal amount of time to refute the editorial."
What it means is that the radio station is no longer accountable to its audience. Instead, it is accountable to attorneys or government who now micro-manage its content in order to make it "fair" by the standards of the managers.
"Imagine if Rush Limbaugh had to open the phones (or invite guest) to rebut him -- wouldn't that make it much more interesting than (as you put it) "vanilla talk"?"
He does. Not all the time, but plenty of times during the week. Glad you brought him up. The "Fairness Doctrine" is mainly favored by those who want to see Limbaugh knocked off the air.
The end result of the fairness doctrine would be a return to the pre-doctrine days, when AM radio was 100% polkas, or oldies from 9 years ago, or Garden and Car Repair shows. The stations would air this rather than turn over control of their content to outsiders. I'd lose good ol' Rush. I'd also lose this excellent all-news NPR station that arose when the "doctrine" was struck down. I'm sure I'd lose our local Pacifica affiliate as well.
is that we have a regulatory body (who is unelected) being able, with help from the president, to pass laws over the heads of the legislature.
Would someone please tell me I'm missing something here.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
The flag image is wrong. The US flag has thirteen horizontal stripes, beginning and ending with red.
PS: For the record, I support Bush.
Me too! Oh... wait, you mean the president don't you? Never mind...
So does it do more bad than good to write and express displeasure at how they voted after the fact?
I was surprised to see this up on FCC's website so quickly..... It's really nice to see Congress trying to prevent a train wreck that had more to do with the courts than anything started in the legistlative or executive branches.... And we all know which political party has few friends in and around the benches.
there goes my media monopoly
Say WHAT?
In case you didn't notice, the ruling does NOTHING to create a media monopoly. What it does is increase, to 45%, the potential audience that may be reached by stations owned by a single network entity.
This does NOT say that a nework can own all the stations in a market. It does not even say they can own ONE station in every market. They can't even own ONE station per area where the aggregate of all the stations they own reach even HALF the people in the country!
This is simple a change in the balance of power and money flow between the networks and the privately owned local stations affiliated with the networks, allowing the networks to directly own and operate a somewhat larger fraction (though still less than half of the potential audicnce worth) of the stations, rather than licencing their feed to a station run as a separate business by a separate owner.
Can you IMAGINE the government applying a similar rule to newspapers, or printers? "One entity can only own enough newspapers to reach 45% of the potential newspaper readers (i.e. voters)!" "One can only own enough printing presses to print manefestos for 45% of the population!"
Or how about this: "One entity can have network connectivity to reach no more than 45% of the population!"
Free speech advocates would be screaming about censorship!
(And then there's the tie-in with newspapers - where the same entity can't own a paper and a news station in the same city.)
THIS is why your networks are run by conglomerates, (all spitting the establishment / politically-correct party line) while alternative views are restricted to cable channels and syndicated talk-shows (when they appear at all): Nobody can buy up little radio or TV stations and set up a national-reach alternative.
I really want to see the Supreme Court rule on whether the FCC should be able to impose such a rule at all, or if the whole limitation must be struck down as incompatabile with the First Amendment.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I disagree. Business in this country, and especially the media, is a system that tends toward polarization. That is, the more power a given company gets, the more power it's able to grab; and with the media it's an especially insidious problem because they control access to the information people need to make informed decisions. And the operations of the media are refined to the point that small or startup companies can really only get a foothold in non-traditional, niche areas. Controls are needed to balance this polarization tendency, otherwise things WILL end up in the hands of one company. For one example of the abuses of the media, do some research on William Randolph Hearst.
That's not good for the society as a whole, no matter what one individual says. People who argue for complete unfettered competition are (in my experience) usually the same ones who think they live in a vacuum, or would prefer to, and feel little association or empathy with other human beings. I find it hard to see how they could build a stable and fair society. Not to mention that these people are even MORE vulnerable to being misled by the media, because more of their contact with the rest of society occurs through that medium.
Anyway, back to the point. My checkbook shouldn't be my only way of voting. This backlash against the FCC ruling can be viewed as an example of the aforementioned controls, and a right and proper expression of the will of the people - as valid as if they had boycotted ClearChannel. As such it ought to be respected; if you don't, you're arguing that the few (the media corps) should dictate to the many, and I don't think that's what you meant. Remember, fewer than a dozen responses were received in favor of the FCC ruling, compared to hundreds of thousands against.
I for one am glad to see that some people in this country are looking out for the good of the system as a whole, and not just their own interests.
Read my keyboard review.
"But now they are..."
Son, this is nothing new. Senator Henry Jackson of Washington State was once called "The Senator from Boeing," during a controversy over the TFX program (to become the F-111 fighter/bomber) in the 60s. McNamara handed the contract to McDonald Douglas and old "Scoop Jackson" blew a (figurative, but not by much) gasket, leading to investigations and other nonsense.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
When the content is entertainment you are correct - entertainment media should not be regulated in this way, but there are 2 other concerns. 1) News is not entertainment and there needs to be controls placed on it so that the people are not mislead. Granted supply and demand will regulate entertainment media just fine on it's own, but with news media, truth in supply is the demand. You are not guaranteed truth by checking 1 source. 2) Frequency restrictions - Since we only have a finite # of allowable frequencies to be used, it should be quite obvious that no one company should be allowed to control more than their fair share. Satellite radio will try to add more to this, but at a cost and who will be allowed to broadcast on it? Besides all that - if all you had to watch on TV, listen to on the radio was junk designed to sell you something would it really be a good thing?
You mean these "senators", who I hear are sometimes "elected" by the "people", did something in the "interest" of these "people"? What about the sacred rulings of the FCC? I mean come on, the guy who runs that is the son of a general! Plus he had the support of at least two other members of this agency, and all for naught.
This is the last straw, I'm moving to Canada.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
Not only does Gerrymandering happen continually but in the Texas case it has been one sided for twenty years.
The Democrats have controlled the Texas legislature for that long and every few years they have continued to skew the district lines to firm up their control. The Republican actions of late are simply skewing in a different direction.
(Soapbox) Gerrymandering is one of the sleaziest activities done by both parties. Nothing says, "I don't care what you think." more than redistricting so that certain groups are underreprensated. Again this done by both sides through out the country and is one of the main reasons I dislike politicans. (/Soapbox)
Damnit, sorry, the contract really went to General Dynamics, not McDonald Douglas.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Well, when we keep telling everyone else how our system is so much better, and how we're the "greatest country in the world" its hard to imagine them getting any other impression...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I'm well aware of that. Thanks for elucidating and reinforcing my point :)
Whoa buddy slow down, I just used them as an example. If there were an actual hard-line Liberal News station I would have just as happily used them as well. You do have to admit that FOX leans conservatively, and that in itself is not all that bad of a thing since there are some other viewpoints on other networks to counter-balance it. If they were the only news station though, this would not be a good thing, hell a single news source is a bad idea no matter what their leaning. The more variety you have the more individual opinions and prejudices are going to be diluted.
Too many people see things as black and white, if I disagree with a Liberal, I must be a fascist right-winger, and if I disagree with the Right, then I am a pinko-liberal self loather whatever. Wake up and smells the cat food, most people are moderates and we don't completely buy any viewpoint in its entirety. You don't have the slightest inkling of what my viewpoints are regarding any of the people you mention in your rant; so don't put words in my mouth.
Hypocrisy is the single most destructive force in human kinds history second only to fundamentalism
And how would your rant fall into this idea considering that you assume you know who I voted for last election?
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Of course, though, everyone is a moderate according to themselves. Rumsfeld is a moderate surrounded by a bunch of left-wingers, just as Howard Dean is a moderate surrounded by a bunch of right-wingers. You can tell who is a conservative and who is a liberal by the bias they percieve. People who see only right-wing bias in the media are liberals, people who see only left-wing bias are conservatives. It's the people who have figured out that there is lots of both left-wing and right-wing bias in the media that have the possibility of actually being moderates.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Where can I send an email to CNN commenting on their coverage? (I tried to find it on several occasions). Do you think Rupert Murdoch cares about my opinion? I doubt it. The media only respond to the public through the Nielsen ratings system, and that's based around ad sales. Marketing types will tell you that they can more easily sell to uninformed, gullible viewers, and that's what mainstream media caters to.
Which leads me to another point: the "liberal bias" that so many Republicans scream about hasn't existed for years. Media companies will cover anything that sells ads; in peaceful times, that means liberal stories about the average Joe being attacked by corporate scumbags; but when there's a war, things reverse. Where's the liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh? Neal Boortz? George Will? Chris Matthews? Fox News? The closest one I can find is Bill Moyers, who (whether you agree with him or not) at least interviews his opponents respectfully, gives them time to speak, and treats their arguments thoughtfully. What station is he on? PBS (naturally).
The First Amendment says nothing about media ownership. Nothing is preventing anyone from saying what they want to say, and nobody's being censored here. But let's go down that route: is it better to allow a few large companies, who already have a louder voice than the rest, to be "censored" by restricting how big a megaphone they can own, or is it better to allow dozens of smaller companies to be "censored" by being put out of business? Remember, their ability to survive in the marketplace depends not just on how well they do their jobs, but by how big they already are. Economies of scale ARE a factor, and they unfairly favor the big guys.
To address your car example, GM grew by gutting public transportation, namely streetcars, through back-door means (I encourage you to do research on this). As for the regulatory wall, let me ask you another question: would the car companies be building cars as safe as they are now, if safety regulations weren't in place? Would fuel efficiency be as high as it is now? I would argue not, and the country would be worse off for it.
Read my keyboard review.
anyone know why the FCC would support something so stupid? what do they get out of it?
If you actually LOOKED at opensecrets.org, you will see that individuals contributing less than $200 only comprised 10.5% of the total funds raised. That is less than "non-disclosure" (11.8%) and FEDERAL FUND (35%)!!!
If you add the hundreds of million funneled through PACs' (independent ads) and GOP, small individuals probably contributed less than 5% for ol' Bush's last election.
No wonder Bush will do anything and everything for those donors... (note that the percentage is not that much different for Gore).
How can you call MSNBC "far left"? These are the guys that ran Micheal Savage and shit.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The company could pay people to stand on street corners to express opinions. In the US we have a right to speak, but no one has any duty to listen.
A similar analogy: the people can stipulate that one company can't hire enough people to speak so loudly (or at all possible frequencies) in a way which will drown out other free speech.
Anyway, I prefer them to maintain a more professional appearance. They are, after all, supposed to be representing our country. I would rather not have the nation's leaders look like a bunch of slobs.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Read this salon article for more information.
No other President (Clinton included) had to have the SC decide what was correct. Only Rutherford B. Hayes had a similarly disputed election. That's the one where the 8 Republicans in the committee gave Hayes the disputed 20 electoral college votes letting him win with 185 to Tilden's 184.
Yes, and the selection of Hayes over Tilden almost resulted in a civil war. The selection of Bush resulted in ineffectual complaining. *sigh*
I just hope that we actually count the votes in the next election...
"The SC selected Bush and then declared that checking on the actual vote total would cause people to question the legitimacy of their selection"
No, the votes were already counted: Bush won. The Supreme Court did not select him. All they did was ignore some lawyers who lied to the Court in an attempt to overturn the election. Even if the Court had listened to the lawyers, Gore still lost the count they were asking for.
"So even though both Hayes and Bush deservedly have asterisks next to their presidencies"
Bush and Hayes do not. Put the asterisks next to the two guys who were impeached.
" Bush is alone in having the SC hand out a Presidency"
Yet, if you look at what happened, the SC did not hand him anything. Bush won in November. That is what counted.
I think there is a bit of a differnece between being able to reach a certain percentage of the population and having control of a scarce resource that provides you access to some percentage of the population. I can buy the New York Times in just about any city but there is no fundamental limit on the number of newspapers that can distribute anywhere they choose. The airwaves are different in that there are only a limited number of channels available, and so the FCC has been delegated to ensure that the public interest is served by those who are given license to use this scarce resource. The public interest is not necessarily served by the entity that can make the most money, the entity that runs most "efficiently." Broadcasters view radio stations as a means for delivering listeners to advertisers. How does this serve the public interest?
This is sort of funny how this is being portrayed. So...the liberals are attacking the conservative media, eh? And Trent Lott, who is sponsoring this move against the new FCC media rules, is such a liberal.
Here is a decent article from ZDNet that explains why CONSERVATIVES are even against these new rules:
Why the FCC is wrong on media ownership
by David Coursey
Sigh indeed. The current populace is too utterly self-centered and stupid to even realize there's a problem. The current direction of the country literally does represent a possible shift toward a fascist state, but try finding someone under the age of thirty that even knows what facist means.
Here you have a huge list of post-WWII children who have been taught that they are the most precious thing on Earth. They have been sheltered and protected from all the bad things in the world and they do not care enough about anyone else to think about those things.
The current administration, though often characterized so, is NOT stupid. They are playing off the fears of these sniveling cowards. Anytime Bush needs to drum up support for his next assinine move, he just starts shouting about terrorists. Whether it's trying to justify attacking soveriegn nations (not that mind the overthrow of Hussein - just the lies that allowed it to happen) or trying to justify stripping American citizens of their constitutional rights, or trying to justify secret military trials - it's always about terrorism.
No, friend. Don't expect a revolution. Don't expect anything. The populace is too dumb and too greedy and they are easily molded. They will not resist and the powers will win.
Do you know what frightens me? Not terrorists, no. No, not war. Not the economy. Not criminals or the disease du'jour. No, none of those things. In the last 10 minutes at least 8 military choppers have flown over my house. What frightens me is this: I don't REALLY know WHY they're flying around.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
AOL and road runner have both decided to redirect their users to Time's own sites.
Wouldn't that be false advertising? AOL advertises that any grown-up with a computer running Windows or Mac OS, a modem, a land telephone line, and a credit card can access the whole Internet with AOL. It would at least be deceptive if not outright fraudulent to filter web sites based on whether they agree with the opinions of Time Warner.
Will I retire or break 10K?
whose intent was not to screw the little guy in favor of corporate interests?
W has got to be the worst president in the history of our nation. I'm not kidding.
They are civically uninformed on a wide variety of issues, and push to make things worse in many cases.
You may think they push to make things worse; you may also think Bush's solution to stimulate economy is a good one. They may think they push to make things better, and may also think Bush's economic solution is a bad one. Either way, there are plenty of knowledgable, educated policy-makers (economists, in the above example) who debate these issues every day. To each their own I say, but to blindly charge them as being "civically uninformed" is just silly.
Thanks to moveon, an antisemite is the leading Dem candidate.
According to the recent polls, Lieberman is the leading candidate. If he is "antisemite", then Bush is a "compassionate conservative" (or whatever the latest feel-good label is).
I'll assume you mean Howard Dean, but to say moveon is responsible for his high placing in the polls is giving them far too much credit. They haven't 'endorsed' any one candidate yet, and Howard Dean has gotten where he is without any help from moveon (that I'm aware of). Howard Dean is also certainly *not* antisemitic - he has said his views are "closer to that of AIPAC's" - far too 'pro-semitic' in my opinion.
I smell burning Karma...
Shut up troll. If you actually have something to add that has any value what-so-ever show your face and back up your statements. Since none of your "points" have any basis in reality what-so-ever, I can only conclude that you're either just wasting my time or you're a complete idiot. Not to be a pot calling the kettle black, I'll respond once and only once to these idiotic statements:
Get a fucking life. There's a difference between taking sides on political issues on party lines (like stupid people like you do) and actually thinking about issues and deciding on them independant of party lines (like I do).
And, for the record, I think overall Clinton was at best mediocre. He was a two-faced lying fuck and he should've been removed for lying straight-faced to the American public - just like what should happen to Bush for the same reason.
Idiot.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Uh, no. The initial war effort cost American tax payers 85 billion dollars. Then, we attempted to seize control over Iraq's natural resources (oil) to fund its rebuilding. That failed miserably, so now aside from asking for internnational assistance, we're putting out another 80 billion dollars of tax payer money.
And no, Saddam did not destroy Iraq before we came in. You are either insanely stupid, ignorant, or just a liar. What destroyed Iraq was the "shock and awe" campaign we waged where thousands of bombs were dropped on Baghdad every night for, what, two weeks? In the process, we killed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and destroyed their homes. That, you idiot, destroyed Iraq. Iraq had electricity and running water before we showed up.
You people giving Bush blind support would really like to forget how Bush and his regime repeatedly lied to the American people and the United Nations about the reasons for attacking Iraq. Yes, it was illegal. Deceiving the American people for the purpose of going to war is illegal. Get a grip.
Not doing so well there yourself, AC.
Join Tor today!
I know it's not what Limbaugh told you, but here's the truth:
As for the electoral vote, about 50,000 more people went to the polls in Florida intending to vote for Gore.
As for the popular vote, Bush was going to make a big stink if he won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote.
No, it's not. Your economic system is capitalism, not your political system. The airwaves are owned by the public and leased to private interests who commit their use for the public good. It's a lease, not a sale. Having all limited-bandwidth media owned by one corporation makes as much sense as single ownership of all federal lands and waterways.
Did anybody notice that this "repeal", while rolling back the FCC regulations, also slips in a few whammies of its own?
The "Fairness" Doctrine (AKA Hush Rush) is back.
Some politicians -- Dems as well as squishy GOPers -- have gotten their feelings hurt over the years by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. So now they want to impose a new (actually old) rule: for every (profitable) hour of a popular (at least on radio) right wing talkshow host, THOU SHALT put on an hour of some unprofitable, unpopular (at least on radio) left wing host.
Because NPR is just not enough.
Most stations that aren't directly subsidized by the Guvmint would simply go broke doing that -- they can't just waste half of their broadcast day with zero ad revenue. So, away with Sean, away with Rush, and bring on 24hour MiqueToast McMiddle. And they'd probably STILL go broke. (of course, for the "free speech means say only what I like" crowd and the "all corporations are evil scum" crowd, they're probably cheering right now)
Say what you want about Rush&Friends, but they have definitely enlivened political debate in this country. Of course, that's a bad thing -- because incumbent politicians might get their feelings hurt by such indecorous public criticism...
But his picture is on your money.
Life imitates art.
For those interested in more information on the Fairness Doctrine, I would suggest this web site:
http://www.stopmediaregulation.org/
Media regulation is the limitation of Free Speech. This clearly violates the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" (my paraphrase).
As for the regulatory wall, let me ask you another question: would the car companies be building cars as safe as they are now, if safety regulations weren't in place? Would fuel efficiency be as high as it is now? I would argue not, and the country would be worse off for it.
So what you are basically saying is that if not for benevolent government riding those car companies' asses, they'd all make deathtraps? I mean, if a consumer had (say) 9 or 10 american car companies to choose from, not one of them would make a safe car if not for government? Consumers would just continue to buy unsafe cars, rather than buying cars from companies who were proven to make safe cars? You appear to exhibit a very common symptom among big government lovers: you feel that 'the public' or 'the masses' are all complete idiots. Yet to me, you're one of 'the public' and 'the masses' and I don't feel that you're inherently stupid. I wouldn't buy a car known to be a deathtrap, no matter what sort of government regulations were in place. When purchasing a new car, I look for many things, including fuel efficiency and safety. If not for government regulation, I'd...still look for the same things. Regulations are not a guarantee of action anyway, and pretending that regulations should be considered to be more important than facts is ridiculous. Knowing that regulations are in place make people feel safer, but don't really make them safer. Ask the Enron employees and stockholders how the heavy regulation of corporate accounting practices helped them.
Economies of scale ARE a factor, and they unfairly favor the big guys.
Do you know how much it costs to comply with government regulations? (note: I'm not talking about the cost for safety equipment and the like, simply proving that you meet the regulations is expensive) Companies that would be able to put out a lesser product (with its commensurately lower price) are barred from building themselves up precisely because they can't afford to toe the regulatory line, and those who are big enough to easily afford to do so are also big enough to trivially manipulate the regulations (or their appearance of meeting them), in which case the consumer feels a safety that is illusory. Here is an analogy which may be helpful: A person lost in the woods with only a small knife has no illusion of safety, and thus must proceed with extreme caution in order to survive. A person equipped with a rifle (and its feeling of safety) would be less likely to see the water moccasin in the damn leaves. An illusion of safety leads to decreased vigilance. For example, you know that the car industry is heavily regulated. Therefore, I doubt you checked crash statistics or safety studies before you bought your last car. Are you really safer relying on regulations than you are relying on yourself? Personally, I'd say no.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Moveon is no different than all the others and so from that perspective is equally deserving of respect.
That's your problem. They are not worthy of respect. Neither is any corrupt official, neither is any official who uses his/her power to further his/her own ends. I realize that your statement can be literally taken to mean 'equally underserving of respect', however that's not the inference made from your phrasing. Giving *any* respect to corrupt assholes only prepetuates the problem. Voting 'none of the above' in races where no candidate of true character is running is a preferable option to giving the theives the keys to the castle.
http://xkcd.com/386/
in an age where barriers to becoming a content distributor are virtually nil
What about the cost of either licensing such works or, if you produce content yourself, proving in court that the works are in fact original? Songwriters are screwed, and Spider Robinson knows it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Try internet radio.
Very few people have wireless Internet access of sufficient throughput to listen to Internet radio in a moving automobile.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Central government takeover of aspects of the economy, such as the 17% represented by the health care industry is certainly fascist.
Actually, that's closer to socialism, governmental control of the economy. Fascism is a totalitarian political system that limits the rights and freedons of those living under it.
PATRIOT? You mean the act that requires warrants for all searches? Yes, it does.
True, it does, but it doesn't take much to get one. And certain acts that once required more than a warrant, a wire tap for example, now require only a warrant, which themselves only need to be justified in the name of "intelligence". In fact, anyone can be investigated, and their possessions and personal information seized, with little or no justification.
From http://www.texasbar.com/globals/tbj/2003/jan/right s.asp:
More can be found here.
Yet, Bush has yet to lie.
Perhapse... But he certainly plays fast and loose with the truth. For example, Bush has said that Iraq and al Qaeda are in league, this has yet to be proven, and, given their extremely different ideologies, very unlikely. Even Rumsfeld has said as much. And where are the weapons of mass destruction Iraq was supposed to have? And why aren't we attacking Iran, who is know to sponsor terrorism, and who has been found to have nuclear materials? And what about the claims that the Iraqi people welcomed the US forces as their liderators (that oh so perfect image of the statue of Saddam falling was largely staged, many times the number of people who were there marched in protest of the US opposition only days later)? Maybe he's not lying, maybe he really believes everything he says. I'm not sure which would be worse.
It's also the newest media outlet--its unregulated because large slow-moving beaurocracies (eg. goverments and multinational corporations) haven't figured out how to do so. Yet.
I bet when they do, it'll be to help 'diversity' or 'freedom' or 'starving children' or whatever concept they need to jam their ideas onto the internet at large. Once the bandwidth increases to the extent that we start seeing 'Joe Blow's News Channel' and 'Mary Popular's All-Cooking Channel' and 50 million other homebrew channels, if the government hasn't trampled all over the internet already by then, it will come down with both feet. Our government doesn't want people to actually use their free speech, because then you might criticize the President or disagree with Trent Lott or call Lieberman a hypocrite and that would be anarchy.
http://xkcd.com/386/
> he's going to have to rely an MASSIVE election fraud to beat Wesley Clark in 2004.
I thought you had a brain until I read that. Wesley Clark? Yeah, that'll happen.
> It's the people who have figured out that there is lots of both left-wing and right-wing bias in the media that have the possibility of actually being moderates.
Wow. How can I say "I agree" more than "Welcome to my friends list."
Bush's cronies in Texas are already trying to redistrict the state to increase republican state representatives. In the process, republican electoral votes for the President in national elections.
:-)
/. post)
You need to brush up on political science 101. Electoral votes are not determined by the representatives elected to congress. The only relationship between the elected representatives to the U.S. Congress and the presidential electoral college is that the total number of representatives = the total number of electoral votes. Texas is an all-or-nothing state. If a presidential candidate wins the popular vote in Texas, he gets all 32 (33 now?) electoral votes, regardless of which party has more representatives. It is true that elected official s are often also the electoral representatives, but that's neither here nor there.
So even if the popular vote favors a democratic candidate, the republican candidate has a better chance of winning. Considering Texas is one of the largest states in terms of electoral votes that's not just disgusting. That's scary.
See above comments. WHO is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives doesn't really affect who gets what electoral votes. The electoral votes are decided (by tradition, incidentally) by the popular vote alone. Don't be scared, be involved. Also, as a side note: Texas is one of the largest (if not the largest) in all terms.
---------------
I realize that its popular to pick on the Republicans at the moment
Says who?
but this sort of redisticting happens every few years (I forget how many at the moment, and am to lazy to look it up for a
10 years, on the decade.
Which ever set of aristocrats are in power at the time use this redistricting to help themselves (gee, suprise). This is a normal function of our federal govenment.
Political science 101. It is a normal function of your state government. The U.S. Government has no say in districting.
Is it right, and/or benificial to us pesants? Probaly not, but please don't pretend its new, or one sided.
Move along nothing to see here...
This is the wrong attitude. If people would pay attention to what their state legislators are up to, they could hold them accountable if what they see isn't satisfactory.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Yet, Bush has yet to lie.
Riiiiight. whatever. So Saddam Hussein planned 9/11, but Ossama bin Laden planned 9/11, and Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to the US, except he destroyed them, but he didn't destroy them, and his documentation is not documentation, and if torturing prisoners is evil we don't know what is, but torturing prisoners is right, and the prisoners in guantanimo bay are not prisoners of war but they are combatants and we don't have to folow international law but of course we always follow the law. Hmmm. Tax cuts weren't for the rich but the top 1% get bigger tax cuts. Then we have the part where all the votes were counted recounted and counted again but each time they were counted they must by law stop counting yet your vote counts for Bush.
Either every one of the above contradictory statements is absolutely true or Bush is a goddamn liar. Sounds like a liar to me. face it, if his lips are moving he is lying. He is a better liar than Clinton, to be sue, but just as much a liar.
As for your ridiculous idea of what fascism is, consider that in Nazi Germany the businesses were given complete free reign by the government to do as they pleased because they funded the Party. Fascism has nothing to do with the government owning business, that would be communism which is the enemy of fascists.
It is what Gore told me.
The quote from a CNN interview: "I took the iniatative in creating the Internet". Those are his words. Check into this, and stop lying about what Gore said.
Look up invent in a dictionary or thesaurus: it means the same thing as create.
No need to go to your "howler" site: I'm sure it is one of those that defends Gore by trying to deflect attention from his actual claim.
If you think Al Gore really believed he either
1) physically or technically invented the Internet; or
2) thought he could "get away" with claiming such an absurd thing
Then IMHO you're not too bright -- come on, use your head. Clearly Gore was referring to spearheading the legislation which created the public Internet.
Did he puff his role up? Probably.
Did he mean to say he actually invented/created the Internet? Nah, that's just what you read on one of those sites that attacks Gore by trying to distort his actual claim.
Stupid troll.
I don't want to see Kim Jong-Il nuke Washington DC, but I can absolutely promise you I'm not pro-Bush.
I pretty much disagree with everything Dean says.
:-)
Bush is the closest to my political beliefs. HOWEVER, I am a very strong believer in democracy. If the people spoke, and the senate and house responded, Bush has no place vetoing it.
In some instances, I think veto is important, this is not one of them.
Kind of funny telling Bush to "pick his battles wisely."
No, Gore would have lost a statewide recount of votes. He would have only won if they had counted voteless ballots as Gore votes.
;-)
Actually, the study found that Gore would have won a statewide recount of votes if undervotes (or as you call them "votelss ballots") and overvotes had been counted, not just undervotes. In fact, just counting the undervotes would have favored Bush in the statewide count. The key for Gore was overvotes.
And that's the delicious irony of the whole thing: The Bush camp was arguing that "every vote" in the state should be counted -- and it turns out that would have led to Gore win. Meanwhile, the Gore camp was arguing that the "undervotes" in only selected counties be counted -- and it turns out that would have led to a Bush win.
Thankfully, the actual results went through.
If the study proves anything, it's that there were no "actual" results. But believe what you want to beleive if that makes you feel better.
If you read the FAIR article in the link I provided you'll see an argument to why it won't "Hush Rush" or NPR.
I guess we'll just have to see.
It's amazing how some people feel it's their right to not financially support news sources that they don't agree with but when someone refueses to support a news source they agree with, the objecting other person is a racist, bigot, radical or fanatic.
Allow me to respond as Bill O'reilly would:
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! You should shut up right now.
Seriously, the problem people have with FOX news isn't that it is too conservative. It is that FOX news carries a blatant emotional bias in many MANY of its reports. I am fine with conservative ideas, and I enjoy listening to some conservative pundits ( ex: Tucker Carlson ), but FOX isn't looking to broadcast rational discussion of issues. They want big fights and lots of emotional content. The person who screams the loudest wins; this isn't how we should resolve disputes in the adult world.
Additionally, all Americans should feel perfectly free to boycott pretty much anything. Would you really prefer that we be forced to support specific products and services regardless of their behavior???
Hey wait, since I pay taxes to the state government and the state government funds public universitys and those public taxpayer funded universitys fund academic papers which I don't agree with, does that mean I have a right to complain about it?
Of course you can complain, but you can't boycott unless you are a student. Also, you do understand the difference between the peer review process and political debate don't you? University papers are simply statements of process and results. You are welcome to do your own study and see if you arrive at the same conclusion. Following that you can publish a paper and submit it to journals. Universities don't publish papers. Individuals do, and individuals have opinions that may be different from yours.
But wait! All those things are illegal. How do we reconcile that fact with the First Amendment, which begins, "Congress shall make no law..."? The reason is that the Supreme Court has determined, multiple times over the years, that there must be certain exceptions to the First Amendment. These exceptions are made in the belief that without them, the First Amendment would be useless -- anarchy would reign. These exceptions are *so important* that the SCOTUS has said, yes, there are exceptions. It would be more destructive to society to allow these things than it would be to restrict the Constitution.
Finite broadcast resources are another case like this. The dissemination of multiple viewpoints, of truthful news, is such a critically important thing to a democracy, that having one source monopolize control of the airwaves is a really, really bad idea.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Here's the official FCC Veto Advice letter to the White House :
FCC-veto.pdf
Robert
I don't feel that all people are idiots, but some are (besides, knowledge is more important than intelligence in these things anyway IMHO). It seems obvious to me that a person can't take the time to research every product he might want to buy (not if she wants a life anyway). Think of the loss to the GNP if we were forced to do that. So we must delegate the task. Currently, there's Consumer Reports, a handful of smaller similar organizations, the media, and then there's the government. I don't feel that regulations inherently make anything better, especially if they're not enforced, and I'm not a fan of big government for its own sake, but I believe most regulations have arisen in response to abuses. I also believe that to the extent that people can trust the government to look out for them, the productivity gained outweighs the productivity lost to regulatory compliance. Which leads me to the next comment:
Do you know how much it costs to comply with government regulations?
As a matter of fact, I do. I'm currently working on an audit project for a large pharmaceutical company (FDA 21 CFR Part 11 related, in part, if you must know). And despite the impression you may have gotten from my earlier postings, everyone in that company I have worked with has expressed a real desire to do right by the law and by the customer. However, I also know that not all businesses (or let's say CEOs) are that professional, and many are perfectly willing to use dishonest, unfair or otherwise unethical business practices in the pursuit of a buck. There are a million examples in that vein (Microsoft, anyone?). Watchdogs are still needed.
Let me clarify my position a little bit. I believe regulation is a symptom of failure, and should be enacted as a last resort, but that in many cases it is necessary (IMHO the majority of current regs are necessary. Furthermore, I believe that most people are intelligent, and when presented with the facts and encouraged to think about their choices a little bit, will choose rationally.
To bring this discussion back on topic, I don't think we're there yet. Crucial to that vision is a free, strong and diverse media, so that people can make well-informed decisions, and I believe that this is one area where there can be no compromise. Loosening restrictions on the media will result in more regulation in the end, not less.
Read my keyboard review.
It seems obvious to me that a person can't take the time to research every product he might want to buy (not if she wants a life anyway).
Well, those who have no time could certainly buy a copy of consumer reports, but I am very much a proponent of caveat emptor, barring fraud.
Think of the loss to the GNP if we were forced to do that.
Are you smoking crack? Spending 30 minutes in research before buying a $10,000-$40,000 vehicle? That's going to bankrupt the nation? Give me a break.
I don't feel that regulations inherently make anything better, especially if they're not enforced, and I'm not a fan of big government for its own sake, but I believe most regulations have arisen in response to abuses.
They've arisen in response to violations of the law, and/or companies paying for them to give them an edge, and/or because of special interest groups that have a vested interest in them (companies that want to hanstring competetors, raise the barrier or entry, etc.).
I also believe that to the extent that people can trust the government to look out for them, the productivity gained outweighs the productivity lost to regulatory compliance.
You can only trust the government to look out for its own interests. Now, sometimes it looks out for people, sometimes it doesn't, but it ALWAYS looks after itself.
And despite the impression you may have gotten from my earlier postings, everyone in that company I have worked with has expressed a real desire to do right by the law and by the customer.
Yet they're punished. Wow, that's a great system! Let's just go ahead and punish everyone, no matter what their track record is, because we assume that if not punished, they'll not care about the customer.
However, I also know that not all businesses (or let's say CEOs) are that professional, and many are perfectly willing to use dishonest, unfair or otherwise unethical business practices in the pursuit of a buck.
So you're saying they'll break laws (words on paper backed up by enforcement) but they won't break regulations (words on paper backed up by enforcement). That makes a lot of sense. That's like expecting a fleeing bank robber to stop for a red light.
Furthermore, I believe that most people are intelligent, and when presented with the facts and encouraged to think about their choices a little bit, will choose rationally.
Yet instead of offering them that opportunity, you'd rather bury them under a mountain of regulation. Weird.
To bring this discussion back on topic, I don't think we're there yet. Crucial to that vision is a free, strong and diverse media, so that people can make well-informed decisions, and I believe that this is one area where there can be no compromise.
So by making sure that fewer companies are able to present fewer points of view (can't diversify your networks anymore), that is somehow going to bring more diversity? That's akin to telling Discovery Channel that they have to go back to one single channel, because they own like 6 channels now and they're not diverse enough. Just because it's one company doesn't mean they're not going to present different points of view. They will present whatever point of view earns them the most money from consumers at any given point in time, and far from encouraging diversity in broadcasting, these re-regs are going to result in less diversity. I don't see a million companies stepping up to provide that diversity, do you?
http://xkcd.com/386/
'Absolute ownership (and rulership) by one person or party' is a very accurate description of communism. The only difference between the communists and the other non-communist fascists in this is that the communists say that it is collective ownership. The reality of the rule, however, is identical.
You need to read a history book. A good course on political science would not hurt either. In such a state, it is no wonder you are confised, especially re Bush. Fascists declare Communists as traditional enemies, and Fascism has zero to do with the government owning business.
As I stated before, this was not the case in Nazi Germany, where Hitler rewarded German businesses who had supported the Party by letting them do whatever they liked. It did not hurt that many of them received free labour. Perhaps you are confused by the US businesses which were in fact seized as enemy property, much as German businesses in the US were seized. Surely you are not suggesting that FDR was a fascist/communist/something else nasty we will think up later as seems fashionable among Republicans these days? It is not surprising as many Republicans received money from Hitler and opposed FDR and the war at the time.
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were all dictators in totalitarian regimes. Leninism, Stalinism, and Fascism all share a common social conservatism and totalitarian control. However, they are diametrically opposed when it comes to financial matters. Nazi Germany and all other fascist states were capitalist in nature, abhored communists and communism, and allowed individuals to own property, businesses, etc. These are things that did not/ could not occur in the USSR.
Communism is not a subset of fascism. In fact they're the two opposite sides of a spectrum.
A communist is just a lying facist. (The facist says "all power to the government", the communist says "all power to the people", meaning the government.)
We can therefore conclude that Bush must be communist!