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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (428725)	10/20/2008 8:53:05 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1570543

>> But Jim, don't you think paying an extra $500/year in taxes is worth it when you get an extra $10K/year in services such as health care? ;-) Free money. After spending nearly a trillion dollars on warring, suddenly now, you're worrying about fiscal responsibility.

To: i-node who wrote (428725)	10/20/2008 9:45:20 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1570543

DEMS GET SET TO MUZZLE THE RIGHT By BRIAN C. ANDERSON Posted: 4:51 am October 20, 2008 SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate. Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan's FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats - including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore - strongly support the idea of mandating "fairness." Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It's doubtful. The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It's a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV. Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham's, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don't do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones. Then there's all the lawyers you'd have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged - like entertainment or sports coverage? For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of "fairness" might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer "equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary," with 39 percent opposed. Liberals, Rasmussen found, support a Fairness Doctrine by 54 percent to 26 percent, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more evenly divided. The language of "fairness" is seductive. Even with control of Washington and public support, Dems would have a big fight in passing a Fairness Doctrine. Rush Limbaugh & Co. wouldn't sit by idly and let themselves be regulated into silence, making the outcome of any battle uncertain. But Obama and the Democrats also plan other, more subtle regulations that would achieve much the same outcome. He and most Democrats want to expand broadcasters' public-interest duties. One such measure would be to impose greater "local accountability" on them - requiring stations to carry more local programming whether the public wants it or not. The reform would entail setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal. The measure is clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows. It's a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge. Obama also wants to relicense stations every two years (not eight, as is the case now), so these monitors would be a constant worry for stations. Finally, the Democrats also want more minority-owned stations and plan to intervene in the radio marketplace to ensure that outcome. It's worth noting, as Jesse Walker does in the latest Reason magazine, that Trinity Church, the controversial church Obama attended for many years, is heavily involved in the media-reform movement, having sought to restore the Fairness Doctrine, prevent media consolidation and deny licenses to stations that refuse to carry enough children's programming. Regrettably, media freedom hasn't been made an issue by the McCain campaign, perhaps because the maverick senator is himself no fan of unbridled political speech, as his long support of aggressive campaign-finance regulation underscores. But the threat to free speech is real - and profoundly disturbing. Brian C. Anderson is editor of City Journal and co-author, with Adam Thierer, of "A Manifesto for Media Freedom," just out from Encounter Books. nypost.com.

To: i-node who wrote (428725)	10/20/2008 10:09:53 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570543

Inode, speaking of free money, whatever happened to everyone's "stimulus check" this year? I hear Bush and the Feds want yet another "stimulus" ... Darn those extreme conservatives, proving once again that less government is bad because it's actually more government ... Tenchusatsu

To: i-node who wrote (428725)	10/21/2008 9:29:47 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1570543

Obama to hold jobs summit in Fla. with governors By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer Jennifer Loven, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 34 mins ago PALM BEACH, Fla. – Democrat Barack Obama is bringing several GOP-leaning states he's aiming to win together in one place. A clever campaign trick? No. He's holding a jobs summit Tuesday in economically precarious Florida, with participation by the governors of several states that went Republican four years ago and for which the Democratic presidential nominee is making a serious play this time around. With the current economic crisis creating favorable conditions for Democrats, Obama has focused his final-stretch message almost entirely on that topic — and almost entirely on traditionally Republican turf. The subject of the battered economy, and battered households, is particularly timely in Florida, which has unemployment above the national average and one of the worst foreclosure rates. So, on a two-day swing aimed at turning Florida his way, Obama planned to hammer home the message that he has the best economic plan during Tuesday's roundtable. The event, amounting to a mass public endorsement of his economic proposals, was drawing the governors of Michigan, Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado to the town of Lake Worth on Florida's east coast. All the states except Michigan, which Republican John McCain recently abandoned, voted for President Bush in 2004 and all four now have Democratic governors. In Colorado and Ohio, McCain is believed to be down, but within or close to the margin of error in polls. Florida, once solidly in McCain's corner, now is a tossup. And in New Mexico, Obama appears to have a comfortable lead. Also participating in the discussion are Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, an Obama campaign adviser. Obama has planned several other appearances in Florida on Tuesday, capped by an evening rally with his wife, Michelle, in Miami. Obama also campaigned across the state on Monday, holding a solo rally in Tampa and a joint event with former Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in Orlando that was attended by more than 50,000 people. The Democratic presidential candidate heads to more GOP states, Virginia and Indiana, on Wednesday and Thursday. After a morning rally Thursday in Indianapolis, Obama will leave the campaign trail and fly to Hawaii to visit his suddenly gravely ill, 85-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, a central figure in her grandson's life. She helped raise him. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me," Obama said in his August speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. He is to resume campaigning Saturday in an undetermined location in the West, mostly likely another state that went for Bush in 2004, such as Nevada, aides said. ___ On the Net: Obama: barackobama.com McCain: johnmccain.com