The Fairness Doctrine's Trojan Horse

by Chris Carter

Rep. Mike Pence spoke before the US House of Representatives about the Broadcaster Freedom Amendment on July 14.Monday marked the twenty-second anniversary of the F.C.C.'s abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine, but today the potential for a return to government broadcast censorship is still alive and well. After a recent series of procedures in Congress two weeks ago, Democrats managed to keep the threat alive by killing an amendment seeking to prohibit Congress from funding either the Fairness Doctrine or its Trojan Horse –a series of regulations that have the same chilling effect on free speech.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi twice blocked a vote on an amendment protecting free speech for broadcasters. The Broadcaster Freedom Amendment proposed by congressmen Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) sought to prohibit Congress from funding the Fairness Doctrine and part of its Trojan Horse, broadcast localism regulations. When the Reagan administration abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, it did so on the basis that it was unconstitutional and no longer served the public interest. If the FCC were to re-institute the Fairness Doctrine - or more likely its Trojan Horse - the result would be the destruction of Conservative and Christian talk radio.

Speaker Pelosi used special House rules to block the Walden-Pence Broadcaster Freedom Amendment from an up-or-down vote. According to Rep. Pence, “If [this amendment] is brought to the floor of this Congress, it will surely pass; because every time freedom gets an up-or-down vote in the People's House, freedom always wins.”

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The term ‘illegal immigrants’ confuses Pelosi on healthcare

Updated on Monday, July 27, 2009 at 10:56AM by Kay B. Day, Editor

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested five teens within 24 hours last week for the attempted smuggling of narcotics strapped to their torsos and legs. The CBP noted some teens are US citizens.There’s a telling response in Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) response to a question about what the reporter called ‘illegal immigrants’ during a Real Clear Politics interview. Here’s the exchange:

KING: What about illegal immigrants, what should happen to them if we have national health care reform? Should they be able...
PELOSI: I'm sorry?
KING: Illegal immigrants.
PELOSI: Illegal immigrants?
KING: If you're in this country illegally, should you be able to get health care?
PELOSI: No, illegal immigrants are not covered by this plan.

Pelosi knew just what the interviewer meant—her questions made a subliminal statement. Like other politicos from both parties, Pelosi refuses to uphold laws governing immigration.

The interview continues:
KING: And so what happens to a public hospital then if they walk into the emergency room? Again, the hospital I was at this week, they said, you know, they do 6,000 births a year there and 70 percent of them are for undocumented.
PELOSI: I don't know about that. But I do know that the law requires that if somebody comes in off the street and needs care, that it is extended. What we see in this legislation is that people will have access to affordable health care, and it will diminish the number of people going into those private -- public hospitals in the manner in which you described.

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CIA inquiry—witch hunt to back up Pelosi or legit investigation?

Former president Bill Clinton told Fox News' Mike Wallace he authorized the CIA to get groups together to kill bin Laden.Who knows what to believe anymore? The US government is presently being run by two left hands—the Executive Branch is headed by a charismatic president struggling to learn the ropes quickly because his experience running a government is nonexistent. Congress is dominated by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who fulfilled Rush Limbaugh’s prediction she’d bring “San Francisco values” to Washington policy. Pelosi’s home state of California, despite having one of the largest economies in the world, is flat broke.

And now, Democrats who seem to be obsessed with investigations, and some Republicans quite naturally obsessed with whether Pelosi lied about what she knew, have clamored loudly enough that, according to The Philadelphia Enquirer, the House intelligence committee plans to “investigate whether the CIA broke the law by not informing Congress promptly about a secret program to deploy teams of killers to target al-Qaeda leaders.”

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'Nancy State' Climate bill vastly expands bureaucracy, runs on Copenhagen time

Rush Limbaugh predicted the 'Nancy State' when he said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would bring San Francisco values to Washington. California is flat broke, by the way.[Photo from rushlimbaugh.com.]Neoliberal Democrats are in a hurry to accommodate President Barack Obama who wants the deal done before climate talks are held in Copenhagen in December. The president called “Senator Government” by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the campaign will, according to one of many newspapers enamored of the Dem agenda, once again vastly expand government power and expend taxpayer money. The militaristic sounding Clean Energy Deployment Administration will see to financing and other matters as carbon credit trading gets down and dirty. Democrats do love their economic bubbles—dot coms, mortgage lending and the like.

The bill spans approximately 1,000 pages. The Wall Street Journal reported Democrats hired a speed reader who is not an elected official. At least someone in Washington read the bill. We taxpayers paid for that too.

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Pelosi and fellow Dems bamboozle reporters; no comment on CIA

Pelosi briefed reporters May 22; we caught her trademark scowl with this screenshot.Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took the podium on Friday for her weekly Washington briefing with reinforcements alongside her. Elbow to elbow the speaker stood with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Xavier Becerra (Calif.); the quartet performed with the skill of Grammy winners. Pointing out that it’s been “a great 5 months,” Pelosi called Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) “a virtuoso” in crafting the climate change bill that will cost Americans thousands of dollars per household and impact every single move we make, from driving (or giving up) our cars to paying more for household energy and certainly paying more taxes. Anybody who calls Waxman a “virtuoso” ought to have her head examined.

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Pelosi implies more than 70 percent of Americans 'un-American,' encourages breaking federal laws

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is top of the lead list at present because she called people who want America’s immigration laws enforced “un-American.” Pelosi was speaking at an event organizers say aimed at putting a “human face” on the immigration debate. For most of us, immigration is at the heart of the American melting pot. But illegal entry into the country is not acceptable because such an act not only undermines US law, it creates in these troubled times a security issue and a drain on federal dollars. Illegal entry is not the same as immigration.

I’ve often mentioned the predicament—how do you differentiate those who come here without malice from those intent on harm? And the answer is clear-cut. You can’t because there is no documentation. Another question arises when financials are considered. Is it right to promise some Americans a tax increase, but to use federal dollars to assist those who have in fact broken our nation’s laws, rather than applying those dollars to legal citizens? Does the government have a right to extract tax dollars and give those dollars to people who have broken federal law? Note: I realize that question may also apply to some who serve in our current Congress, but that is an argument for another essay. So how do the numbers crunch?

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Judicial Watch finds Pelosi uses military as air taxi; $22,000 per hour for luxury jet

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced Tuesday that it has obtained documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's multiple requests for military air travel. [Ed. Note: The Republican National Congressional Committee said the military "luxury jet" costs taxpayers $22,000 per hour. Watch the video below for more on Pelosi's first 100 days after the Democrats regained control of Congress almost three years ago.]

The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's last minute cancellations and changes. The following are a few highlights from the documents; links to the docs are available on the JW website:

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