CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder how long it will take for Americans to figure out what they have done to themselves. I think the first hint is going to be the day they turn on the car radio and can't find anything except "How to Live Green" shows and holistic health tips.

The "Fairness" Doctrine is coming. This is how it will effect your life: you will still be able to watch all of the thrill up my leg MSM stations. You'll still get all the fair and balanced news Keith Olbermann has time to bring to you. (And he's going to have lots of time, because anyone who would inspire one of his psycho rants will have been long since removed from the national radar.) But in the name of "fairness" you will not be able to hear an opposing view. If Dear Leader Barack Obama doesn't approve of it, you won't be hearing it.  I'm so old, I remember when we would have thought that was a very un-American idea. (Mabe we need to bring

Here's how it works: the "Fairness" Doctrine says a radio station owner has to follow up an hour of Rush with an hour of ... I don't know. Name one of those Air America guys who couldn't pay their own relatives enough to listen to their shows. For the owner of the radio station, this means that for every hour of Rush he airs, he has to air one hour of stuff the Rush audience (or anyone else) won't listen to. Now, if you tell a fruit stand that for every lovely cantalope they sell, they have to sell a rotten one to balance it out, the fruit stand will very soon turn into a closed fruit stand. Or a shoe store. At any rate, no one will be eating catalope. No more cantalope. Your only option would be government-approved honeydew melon, even if it makes you wretch.  That's what the government has decided you should eat, so that's what you've got.

In all the worry over what kind of pooch will be moving into the White House in January, there hasn't been much made over this: Obama has found yet another radical loon! And he no longer has to distance himself from the radical loons. Now he can appoint them to powerful positions.

Meet Henry Rivera, Obama's new FCC transition head. Henry Rivera lives to make sure we can't hear anything about the Party Line.

Henry Rivera, a longtime radical leftist, lawyer and former FCC commissioner, is expected to lead the push to dismantle commercial talk radio that is favored by a number of Democratic Party senators. Rivera will play a pivotal role in preventing critics from having a public voice during Obama's tenure in office.

Rivera, who resigned from the FCC nearly a quarter-century ago during the Reagan years, believes in a doctrine of "communications policy as a civil rights issue".

His exit during the Reagan Administration paved the way for the Fairness Doctrine's repeal when the late president appointed Patricia Diaz Dennis in 1986 to fill out the rest of Rivera's term. Had this not occurred, talk radio as we know it today would not exist.

That gives Rivera's new task a great deal of personal urgency: it's a late-career, second chance opportunity to shut down opposition voices that have been allowed to flourish since his depature from the commission.

In particular, Rivera is known for his push for more minority broadcasting ownership, but this issue has largely been rendered obsolete as former commercial broadcasting empires teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.

Rivera's first opportunity to eliminate commercial talk radio will occur in June 2009, as the term of Republican Robert McDowell expires and he can be replaced with a pro-Fairness Doctrine Democrat. That will give the commission a three-vote Democratic majority, though the final two seats must remain in Republican hands.

If they can strong-arm one of the three Republicans into leaving early, this can be implemented even sooner. [source]

CHANGE!!!!!

Yes indeed. Silencing the oposition is CHANGE!!!

I'd rather have the same tired old free exchange of ideas. But that's just me.

Comments

[Mike]

I don't see why everyone is so worried about the Fairness Act getting passed. Obama's said really specifically he *opposes* reintroducing it:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/129228.html

And the thing died in the House in, what, 2005, with an anemic number of cosponsors. I agree it would be a lousy idea, but the thing is, so does just about everyone else, so I think Rush et. al. making so much noise about it is just a way for him to call attention to a non-existent piece of legislation that nobody with power is pushing for.

[Karen]

Obama has said a great many things, many of which directly contradict each other. I'm going to be watching what he DOES.

So I'm noting Henry Rivera. See above.