Use The Gov't to Silence Those With Whom You Disagree!!! What Happened to the DNC?
 

No, this is not another unhinged, methamphetamine-enhanced rant about John Ashcroft that we're all soooo fond of. It's the other side of the aisle attempting to use the power of the government to coerce silence ... but it hasn't made the "news" so much. Hmmmm.

The Democratic National Committee appealed to the Federal Elections Commission to prevent a broadcaster from televising a public-affairs program, Stolen Honor, critical of Kerry! The "reasoning" behind this in a minute...

Does anyone remember the DNC and Kerry campaign sending threatening letters to book resellers about Unfit for Command? or threatening legal action to stop the Swiftie's TV ads?

All of these are instances of free speech and expression of opinions by individuals (severally and collectively) that the supposedly tolerant, open-minded (GOD how they love to lavish that mantle on themselves), freedom-loving Dems want to use the Government to censor.

More accurately, they use the threat of litigation in terrorem to coerce silence. -- as they did with the Swifties, who haven't been sued and haven't shut up. Mmmmmmaybe it's b/c the Swifties aren't lying. Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim, after all.

However, the DNC has no problem with PBS, for example, broadcasting a positive portrayal of Kerry -- hey, that example of free, political speech somehow gets done without comment from the Left. And naturally, the Lefties aren't all wound up about the anti-W bile that's the stock-in-trade for so many media outlets.

This appeal to the FEC (and a threatening letter sent to the CEO of Sinclair, the would-be broadcaster of Stolen Honor) claims that the broadcast of the documentary violates McCain-Feingold.

This is surreal. I mean, I know the DNC has incredibly low expectations of its rank and file (bordering on contempt, IMHO) but to try this perversion of fact on an intelligent entity just confirms the intensity of the echo chamber in which the DNC operates.

NOTE TO DNC: McCain-Feingold applies to candidates, not broadcasters -- that's why PBS is not required by law to produce a pro-W piece for every pro-Kerry piece it shows. (One wonders how many pro-Kerry pieces it'd produce if it HAD to make a balancing pro-W piece -- I imagine the PBS hefties' heads exploding in a shower of granola and ... well, nothing... at the thought of having to do anything pro-W).

Similarly, the "free time" rule applies to commercials produced by the candidates, not material produced by the broadcaster.

As Frum puts it, "Sinclair has precisely the same obligations to the Kerry campaign as, say, 60 Minutes did to the Bush campaign: which is to say, none whatsoever. And as far as we know, Sinclair seems to be upholding a far higher standard of accuracy and independence in its public affairs programming than 60 Minutes met." Amen.

The Left is so used to a monopoly on the mainstream information media that it can't contain its inherent fascist intolerance of different opinion, even when the resulting display is so awfully embarrassing, and just so ... telling.

When "entertainers" like the Dixie Chicks or Linda Ronstadt want to bolster their popularity by making severely partisan political comments and the people react adversely to them (by booing, voting with their wallets, etc.) they cry "censorship". Frequently these martyrs of conscience imply or outright claim that the Government is censoring them somehow. No, Deep Thinkers, it's not the Government, it's the Market -- but the Lefties have trouble distinguishing between the two all the time, don't you?

More often than not, the Left seizes the banner of these neo-Solzhenitsyns and lionize their poor, poor likeminded "victims," calling for an end to "censorship" or "boycotts" of the artists.

The official political representatives of these same folks now want the government, in an act of actual censorship, to issue a temporary restraining order on the would-be broadcaster of Stolen Honor. This is not some fringe, lunatic group ... it's the DNC pulling this stunt. OK, well, mabye it is a fringe lunatic group ... just going by the facts on the ground.

Has the DNC become so hateful, so paranoid and extremist ... so captive to the very extreme of the people it purports to represent that this is what it's become? For the good of the Democratic party, for the good of the country ... I urge you Democrats, moderate and disturbed alike, to change your leadership. We need the Dems, no doubt, but the current crew running the DNC show are doing nobody any favors and have become what the great Democrats of times gone by would despise. Just MHO.

Hey, I told the Red Sox to get rid of Garciaparra too ... I can respect an adversary enough to give them sincere advice.

JP

PS - those of you -- you know who you are -- who would respond with some hyperbolic bologna (what a name for a band!) about the GOP being captive to the Ultra-Right... we know that's the Democratic party line and was used to limited effect in scaring moderates/independents away. But please, start your own thread about it, rather than trying to redirect the thrust of this one. McCain-Feingold doesn't require you to start a "counterbalancing" thread, though. :D

I'd love to see how tight your panties would be twisted if it was F/9-11 being shown instead.

Hey Thom, you've made my point -- and not refuted it, issuing an ad hominem attack w/o any hint of justification for the DNC's actions.

Neither the RNC nor any Administration member called for F9/11 to be censored. If people are foolish and uninformed enought to fall for Moore's crap, they deserve pity, not governmentally sanctioned protection from his deceit.

JP

JP- true. The Bush Administration made no attempt to officially block Fahrenheit 911.

“Independent” expenditures, by corporations for example, are covered within the scope of McCain-Feingold when they meet the definition of “express advocacy” & occur within the 60 days prior to a federal election. That doesn’t make it illegal- just means that if the documentary is anti-Kerry, as you say, then Sinclair Groups expenditure on producing & broadcasting is subject to election law.

http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Newscenter.ViewPressRelease&C ontent_id=336

Modifies statutory definition of "express advocacy" to provide a clear distinction between expenditures for communications used to advocate candidates and those used to advocate issues. Candidate-related expenditures will be subject to federal election law.

The Supreme Court has ruled that only communications that contain "express advocacy" of candidates are subject to federal disclosure requirements and restrictions, and communications that are merely intended to raise issues are not covered by election law. However, "express advocacy" is defined in current law as only those communications that use the so-called magic words, such as "Vote For Candidate X" or "Oppose Candidate Y". Political parties and organizations have circumvented these laws in recent elections by running advertisements that are clearly designed to advocate candidates but stop short of using the magic words.

McCain-Feingold re-defines "express advocacy" as any broadcast television or radio communication that mentions the name of a federal candidate within 60 days of an election. If parties and groups want to run "issue ads" during the 60 day period, they are free to do so, they merely cannot mention the name of a candidate. If they choose to mention a candidate's name, they are still free to do so, but the expenditure must be disclosed and financed with funds raised under Federal election law.

McCain-Feingold further states that any communication which expresses unmistakable and unambiguous support for or opposition to a candidate is also "express advocacy". Finally, this provision specifically exempts the distribution of voting records from this definition of "express advocacy".

Ubiquity -
Sincere thanks for a principled response to my above post. The information you provide is interesting, and it's accurate up to a point...

The information you provided are the changes and interpretations as of 1997; essentially what McCain was proposing.

The text of the actual bill is found here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:s.27.es:

Title II, Subtit. A represents the legislation enacted that covers your point. To the extent that there is a "disbursement" of $10,000, I agree... a report may be required. But that is an ex post facto report, so if it's required, Sinclair hasn't "violated" Mc-F "yet". As Sinclair owns the stations on which the program is to air, I don't know if it'd be a "disbursement," frankly.

A few points to clarify from my earlier rant -
I don't know whether Stolen Honor is "anti-Kerry". What it does is juxtapose Kerry's statements from his post-Vietnam celebrity period against the statements and remembrances of contemporary POWs. So if one is hypersensitive about any critique or contextualizing of this period in Kerry's life, they'd certainly call it "anti-Kerry."

Second, Sinclair has invited Kerry to participate in the broadcast and to provide his comments/opinions contemporaneously with the broadcast -- essentially offering "equal time", though they don't have to. AFAIK, Kerry has declined the offer.

Lastly, I concede that in my zeal I did refer overbroadly to the "application of" Mc-F. The reporting requirement of "disbursements" could apply to broadcasters, though again I don't know that broadcasters make "disbursements". But if they do, a simple filing is all that's required, without the true burdens of Mc-F that apply to donors, political groups and political parties.

The claim that Stolen Honor -- or Sinclair's broadcast thereof --violates Mc-F remains spurious. If (big if) there is any requirement on Sinclair, it is only to report "disbursements" Sinclair has made following the broadcast, b/c only upon broadcast would Sinclair's obligations (if any) arise. It's still a petty DNC scare tactic.

JP

Re: Use The Gov't to Silence Those With Whom You Disagree!!! What Happened to the DNC?
 

That recent "Frontline" piece tried to keep their obvious bias to Kerry subtle . . .but oh-my they want Kerry BAD.

So much of the "news" & comentary is pimping for Kerry. Thoough I don't believe it is entirely for his uber-liberal views.

I think that, quite simply, the media HATES that Bush is so impervious to their influence.

Kerry, OTOH, would be putty, in the medias hands; as Clinton was. Always wanting to be "liked". . . wanting to be popular.

Plus, think of the drama of having Kerry as CiC with his Vietnam record. The military has got to loath him 10 fold more than they loathed Clinton. Clinton was just cowardly. . .Kerry went out of his way to screw the military.

So, the "public" channels like PBS and NPR, along with all the other news organizations in the world (except Fox News of course) are slanted and liberal? Are you guys just now noticing that pretty much ALL OF THE WORLD stands substantially to the left of you neocons? As I recently posted on another thread, our democratic party would be the conservative party in most other countries.

But I guess all the people of the world are incorrect. No wonder you guys don't accept dissenting opinions.

Here's the gratuitous "we're open minded" crap again ... making precisely my point for me. Supe, are you irony-proof? This is about the Left acting to suppress dissenting opinions through threats of lawsuits and injunctions!!! Yet it's only us "neocons" (an unimaginative pejorative label that doesn't exactly convey open-mindedness by its invoker) that are intolerant of dissenting opinions. Riiiiiiiight.

The point is that the RNC and the Administration took no steps to censor something like F9/11, fraught with lies and distortions, catalogued exhaustively elsewhere.

The DNC and the Kerry campaign have taken numerous steps this year to stifle free speech under the threat of lawsuits and injuctions. That's open minded to you? That's acceptance of dissenting opinions? Is Tenino, WA in Oceana b/c that is absolutely Orwellian.

And, yes, PBS and NPR are slanted and liberal, though if you define overt acts of censorship by the DNC and the Kerry Krew as "openminded" maybe you view "liberal" through an Orwellian filter too. Yes, many other news media are liberal and slanted -- the denials of media people invested in this myth of objectivity should be taken no more seriously than Big Tobacco executives insisting there's "no proof that cigarettes are harmful." Really, why would you defer so completely to the statements of interested parties about their prejudices? That's not a bright thing to do.

Just b/c they're slanted doesn't mean they're wrong, however. I didn't say that. Say what you gotta say and I'll evaluate it on its own merits, but don't come out of Left field (so to speak) all the while telling me yours is the middle of the road position. I won't trust the messenger at that point, so the message is tainted. Don't act like you're not pulling for one candidate when you so obviously are -- just come out and say it, get it off your chest and be honest about it. I can't fault someone for being honest and up front about their bias, but I certainly hold their lying to me against them.

And finally, I realize the point of the piece was subtle, but it was censorship by the DNC and the Kerry Kamp and trying to use the government to suppress individual opinion. I put it right in the title of the thread and everything. Seizing on a couple of gratuitous digs at PBS and the media, obiter dictum, you've tried feebly to disintegrate the points involving the attempted censorship. Not a spectacular rhetorical technique.

A professor of mine, lamenting a particularly ... challenged ... student (not yours truly :D) sighed and said "some people go for the jugular by instinct, others ... can never lose that instinct for the capillaries."

JP

Hey JP, just how many employees of the Republican Re-elect Campaign(who work on your floor that is) are active in using this BBS as free advertisment for the Republican party?

They've got to spend all that money some way......

The tactic of this administration seems to be to cover up news of every one of their immoral manuevers with 10 related stories about nothing, so that the average viewer would start sagging mentally after pages and pages of random nonsence.


How is that technical section? Haven't used that brain to contribute anything to the participaters of an auto repair BBS in a while have you?

JP,
Ah.. that’s what I was looking for (the full text).
I haven’t had time to go through it at all. I still believe that Sinclair Group are held to the same laws as any other corporation i.e. would not get a free ride by virtue of being in the broadcast industry. IMO the disbursements would be the cost of airtime (the loss of advertising revenue of the 250 stations due to pulling the scheduled programming ($$$$$)).

The DNC hardly has a monopoly on attempting to censor stuff they don’t like:

CNN reporting on RNC action against MoveOn ads:
"As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity," said the RNC's chief counsel, Jill Holtzman Vogel, in a letter sent to about 250 stations Friday.
"Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station's broadcast rotation."


Action against CBS
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican National Committee Friday asked CBS to allow a team of historians and friends of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife to review a miniseries about the couple before it airs.

Republicans have expressed concern that the miniseries, titled "The Reagans," may inaccurately portray the couple.

In a conference call with reporters, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said he sent the request to CBS Television President Leslie Moonves.

Gillespie said that if CBS denies the request, he will ask the network to run a note across the bottom of the screen every 10 minutes during the program's presentation informing viewers that the miniseries is not accurate
I believe the movie was dropped by CBS after the pressuring but not sure?

Nicely spoken JP.

I think it was you, around a decade ago, who rhetorically queried, in response to yet ANOTHER example of the left's double standards: "Have you become what you despise, or what?" I find myself using that with increasing frequency these days.

Can you imagine the response from the so-called Civil Liberterians here (who are neither Civil nor Liberterians) if the White House raised its craggy hand against the Carbohydrate-Augmented Mr. Moore? Can you speculate as to the extent of the STRIDENT DIN that would come yowling forth from the donkey's mouth?

And yet silence here.

I believe the FEC is being asked to comment on Kerry being used as a poster boy in a birth control commercial.

John -- deep breaths, buddy.
I'm the only VRWC member on my floor ... that I know of. We're organized in isolated cadres so when the Revolution comes and we're put against the wall by our open-minded Liberators we won't know any other paleocons' names to reveal under interrogation. As an obvious, ardent conspiracist yourself, you know what I mean...

How, exactly, does the Admin get these 10 stories into the press? Just curious b/c I'd love to see that in action. Think CBS would just swallow an admin story whole and put it on the air without even rudimentary, Journalism 101 fact checking?

The Technical Boards are getting on fine w/o me. I haven't had a car in my possession in a year, so no questions to ask (or when I have questions I ask Ron or Cramer, frankly). And I don't know enough about most of the technical stuff to be able to offer a whole lot of what you'd call mechanical guidance w/o fear of being sued for gross negligence. I jump in on the occasional "what color is the best" or "how 'bout a fall get-together" or "I agree: Rod Birch rules!!!" thread, and though I like Jack Olsen's car, I've seen enough pix of it for a while. So, while I lurk on the Technical Board, I post here. Do you miss me or something, you old softie?

My thanks, and the thanks of the GOP for checking out my ad, though!

BC04!!!

Ubiquity --
I believe (but I'm willing to be educated otherwise) that Mc-F does not contemplate the opportunity costs you refer to as "disbursements." Also, even if they're going to "bump" another program to run the documentary, it almost certainly won't "cost" them anything, given viewership and ratings/advertising.

Unfortunately, there's nobody available to do the non-Euclidian conjectural accounting involved in valuing the time, the revenues and the ratings against the possible opportunity cost, as they're all working on Kerry's "plans". {snicker}.

That first quote is a bit out of context for me, what was the illegal activity at issue? Maybe it actually was illegal? That does happen sometimes.

As for the Reagans, CBS (hmm... CBS....) "moved" it to one of the pay channels owned by its gargantuan parent entity... maybe Showtime? Moonves himself said it was a disgrace (OK, I'm putting words in his mouth. He was not comfortable with it, let's say).

And, really, that's the RNC appealing to the decency, such as it is, of CBS not to defile the memory of Reagan with what was almost universally described as a vicious partisan hack job. The RNC didn't run to court or to the FCC AFAIK. And they made no stink about it showing on some pay channel.

Kos -- that was Krier's line about the capillaries. Who did he say that about? I can vividly picture the pained look on his face when he said it, in class, in front of everyone, but I can't remember the target of his lament.

JP

JP,

I don't remember either: I'm happy it wasn't ME.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1097794612.gif

I've mused over this for a day or two now, and I think the DNC is missing the chance to take the moral high ground.

They have become what they despise.

Not quite, Sinclair is ordering the piece to be run “commercial free”. I guess the local channels would be free to find a sponsor for the piece that would defray the loss. Some channels it may actually boost viewership, but imagine in as many it would decrease.
I can’t say anything about the opportunity-cost / disbursement issue. Are broadcast companies the ‘new’ soft-money???


The RNC threat to the tv networks was related to the Moveon ad competition of a few months back. Moveon had some type of online anti-Bush ad competiton (one of the entries was the Bush-Hitler ad) and the winning ad (showing children performing heavy-labor jobs) was broadcast in several states. I don’t know the basis of why the RNC thought it was illegal, just that their intent was to make the networks believe that it was (Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station's broadcast rotation.). The ads ran, Moveon and the networks haven’t been charged with anything, leading me to believe it was a scare tactic- make them fear us & they won’t dare run the ad.

The request to review ‘The Reagans’ before screening for accuracy in the RNC’s eyes was made by the head censor (Ed Gillespie, obviously also the RNC chairman). Admittedly their goal was not to prevent the movie showing (well maybe that would have been the next step if CBS conceded to the demands, based on how bad the movie sounds), rather to force their own message claiming inaccuracy to run over it. I wonder if Sinclair would allow similar demands from the DNC regarding the Kerry documentary. If they are allowed a prescreening & determine, in their judgment, that it is not accurate would Sinclair be ok with adding a similar message? Would that be a more appropriate way for the DNC to proceed on this matter? If Sinclair acquiesced & put the piece on an obscure pay channel rather than 250 local free-to-view channels would the DNC reaction be tempered? :)