Senators Durbin & Kerry Propose Fairness Doctrine

Here it comes! More liberal idiots want to impose the fairness doctrine upon all of you. Effectively removing your opportunities for choice, and firmly putting government in control of what you hear, when you hear it, and the government will have at least some control of private businesses. Ain't communism grand?

The Hill:

House Republican lawmakers are preparing to fight anticipated Democratic efforts to regulate talk radio by reviving rules requiring stations to balance conservative hosts such as Rush Limbaugh with liberals such as Al Franken.

Conservatives fear that forcing stations to make equal time for liberal talk radio would cut into profits so drastically that radio executives would opt to scale back on conservative radio programming to avoid escalating costs and interference from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

They say radio stations would take a financial hit if forced to air balanced programming because liberal talk radio has not proved itself to be as profitable as conservative radio. Air America, the liberal counterpunch to conservative talk radio, filed for bankruptcy in October.

But Democratic leaders say that government has a compelling interest to ensure that listeners are properly informed.

Properly informed? Democrat leaders wouldn't know properly informed if it bit them in the ass! Harry Reid's most recent "the surge has failed" lie is proof of that.

It's irrelevant anyway. The government (Dems included) have official ways of "informing" the public at their discretion. Are you telling me that Pelosi will be required to provide the Republican side of an issue on her webpages? Of course not.

Will the country's newspapers that primarily lean left be required to hire right leaning reporters as contributers? Nope.

Will ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and all of their affiliates be required to stop providing biased coverage? Nope.

Why do you think that is? Simple ... the left has great success in these outlets. The left, however, sucks ass at talk radio. That's the target! The only bastion of conservative ideals is talk radio, and the left needs to take that away. Otherwise their monopoly on the media can never be reaffirmed. After talk radio is "reigned in" conservative blogs will be next. Not liberal blogs ... just conservative blogs.

“It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.”

Uh, Americans DO get both sides of the story. They get the left's side in the MSM, and the right's in talk radio. Then we debate the issues in blogs.

Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she planned to “look at the legal and constitutional aspects of” reviving the Fairness Doctrine.

“I believe very strongly that the airwaves are public and people use these airwaves for profit,” she said. “But there is a responsibility to see that both sides and not just one side of the big public questions of debate of the day are aired and are aired with some modicum of fairness.”

It's a shame Feinstein doesn't practice what she preaches. I've never heard her present the conservative point of view when she attacks the military, war, or president.

Here's audio of John Kerry saying that conservatives gained control of talk radio, and have "squeezed down" and "squeeze out" opposing opinions.



Tonight I will play the audio of Kerry's statements on my talk show ... thereby proving that I am, in fact, allowing his opinion to be expressed as he states it. I'm not squeezing out his opinion ... I'm exposing more people to it. That's what we do in conservative talk radio.

We provide links, facts, and audio of what our opponents say and do. We provide them unedited (as in we don't splice files together to make them say something they never said), and give our opinion about it. Then we take callers on all sides of an issue, and allow opposing viewpoints to be heard. We embrace opposing viewpoints ... we don't suppress them.

Liberal talk radio doesn't do this, and that's why they fail. The liberal hosts who do provide all of the above ... succeed.

I fully expect the "King George" crowd to come out against their liberal allies in Congress, and fight for freedom. Nothing Bush has done will remove any freedoms like the fairness doctrine will.

Nations that have government controlled media are nations with dictators that suppress their population. They do this by controlling what they hear, and only providing the information that the government wants them to hear. Non of us should want the government dictating what we hear.