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FEC Rules Bloggers Are Journalists
Dotnaught writes "The Federal Election Commission today issued an advisory opinion that finds the Fired Up network of blogs qualifies for the 'press exemption' to federal campaign finance laws. The press exemption, as defined by Congress, is meant to assure 'the unfettered right of the newspapers, TV networks, and other media to cover and comment on political campaigns.' The full ruling is available at the FEC site. A noteworthy passage: '...an entity otherwise eligible for the press exception would not lose its eligibility merely because of a lack of objectivity...'"
At least you started with Fox News...fair and balanced my ass. Fox News is enough to make me sick. I can appreciate that the news will not always be "on my side" and that I will disagree with a lot of things news agencies say, but I'm not sure where the "balanced" part of Fox News is. Is that the part where Bill O'Reilly tells me to shut up and turns off my mic?
But you're right, most of the news I consider balanced and fair comes from the international news agencies. Some of them like the US policy, some don't but at least they are a little bit less biased.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
When is FEC going to declare journalists as journalist? Never. Because they always want to put a slant or spin on a story to make their side look better.
Coderz 4 Life
I have never understood how any rational person could consider libertarian philosophies justifiable if your goal is promoting the general well-being of the populations they are supposed to cover. If you're simply self-interested and want to hole up in a cave with a shotgun and a bible and have no interest in other people's well-being, and if you want jungle-law and think you can claw your way over the rest of your fellow humans to the top of the pack, then fine. I get that. But don't expect other people, who actually care about fostering an equitable society with equal opportunity for all its members, to go along with your paranoid ramblings.
At the very least, give me something to go on. Stop mumbling incoherently about "freedom" and tell me what you mean by freedom. Do you mean freedom to do anything you want at any time? Like shoot someone you don't like? If not, where do you draw the limits? And if creating your free-for-all, anything goes state eventually results in the formation of warring (economically if not militarily) kingdoms where a few people control most of the resources and dole them out at their whim to the other 99% of the population, do you regard that as a "free" society? Is being "unencumbered" by laws and taxes so tantamount that you're willing to live with the ultimate consequences of not having them, which by most measures would be a far more restrictive and frankly more miserable society for most people than if you put up with them?
I find it amusing that you think Fox News is somehow more worthy of scrutiny than CBS
Pop quiz, asshole: which news shows promotes itself as 'Fair and Balanced'?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Whil Wheaton? Snort! Look, I respect the guy and used to find his 'blog interesting (before he became fixated on his cat), and I even bought and enjoyed his book; but face it, the guy's an actor for bog's sake. He didn't get to where he is via incredible political acumen, he got there by playing a nerd on a sci-fi show. The sad fact is that people who pretend to be other people for a living are generally... how to put it... well, they're generally not very deep. Listening to Wil on politics and the media is as insane as relying on Ted Danson for a technical understanding of global warming. Actors find it easy to feel very deeply about things, and love to tell us about how deep their feelings are. People point the camera at them so much that they start believing that what they're saying is worth hearing, that their opinions are somehow more insightful. But frankly, I've yet to see the one of them who had more than the most rudimentary understanding of what they feel so deeply about.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
A good arguement on why all campaign finance laws and limits on free political speech should be repealed: Campaign Finance Laws.
I think, therefore I doh.
Go look up the statistics, and see if there's a correlation between candidates outspending opponents and candidates winning elections.
... or maybe people recognize winners and bet on them.
Wowa there. Before you go looking up statistics, you should go grab an intro to stats book. I think rule number one is CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSTATION.
With your kind of logic at work you would take a look at gambling bets on boxers and see that the guy who gets the most money bet on him wins. Clearly, betting on boxers is what makes them win!
Finally, lets go ahead and assume for the sake of argument that the guy with the most money wins. If that is the case, fuck it. I say all campaign laws should be eliminated and we should just live in a system where bribery is legal. Why? If people are such dumb sheep that if they see one ad from candidate A and two candidate B they will vote for candidate B because he advertised more, we don't deserve to have a democracy. We might as well simply concede that are too stupid to have any say in government, and let the politicians fight it out for control.
I would rather politicians prove their intelligence with wit playing a political game then have dumb cow voters elect them based who has the most money for marketing. If people really are that worthless, they don't deserve a democracy. If the democracy has degraded that far, no rule manipulations that alter who gets what money is going to save us.