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

To: SiouxPal who wrote (770220)	2/19/2014 7:42:28 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By longnshort Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577191

Why is the Obama Administration Putting Government Monitors in Newsrooms? .......................................................................................................... By: Matthew Clark ( Diary) \| February 18th, 2014 redstate.com The Obama Administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media. Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the Tea Party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC Commissioner. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reveals a brand new Obama Administration program that he fears could be used in “pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.” As Commissioner Pai explains in the Wall Street Journal: Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring. The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.” In fact, the FCC is now expanding the bounds of regulatory powers to include newspapers, which it has absolutely no authority over, in its new government monitoring program. The FCC has apparently already selected eight categories of “critical information” “that it believes local newscasters should cover.” *That’s right, the Obama Administration has developed a formula of what it believes* the free press should cover, and it is going to send government monitors into newsrooms across America to stand over the shoulders of the press as they make editorial decisions. This poses a monumental danger to constitutionally protected free speech and freedom of the press. Every major repressive regime of the modern era has begun with an attempt to control and intimidate the press. As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” The federal government has absolutely no business determining what stories should and should not be run, what is critical for the American public and what is not, whether it perceives a bias, and whose interests are and are not being served by the free press. It’s an unconscionable assault on our free society. Imagine a government monitor telling Fox News it needed to cover stories in the same way as MSNBC or Al Jazeera. Imagine an Obama Administration official walking in to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and telling it that the American public would be better served if it is stopped reporting on the IRS scandal or maybe that reporting on ObamaCare “glitches” is driving down enrollment. It’s hard to imagine anything more brazenly Orwellian than government monitors in newsrooms. Is it any wonder that the U.S. now ranks 46th in the world for freedom of the press? Reporters Without Borders called America’s precipitous drop of 13 places in its recent global rankings “one of the most significant declines” in freedom of the press in the world. Freedom of the press is proudly extolled in the First Amendment, yet our nation now barely makes the top fifty for media freedom. We cannot allow the unfathomable encroachment on our free speech and freedom of the press to continue. We’ve seen, and defeated, this kind of attempt to squelch free speech before in the likes of the Fairness Doctrine and the Grassroots Lobbying Bill (incidentally one of my first projects at the ACLJ). Each one of these euphemistically named government programs is nothing more than an underhanded attempt to circumvent the Constitution and limit free speech – speech that the government finds inconvenient.** They’re equally unconstitutional, and they each must be defeated.

To: SiouxPal who wrote (770220)	2/19/2014 7:49:01 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1577191

SiouxPill's commie 'president' salutes the flag

To: SiouxPal who wrote (770220)	2/19/2014 7:51:10 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1577191

Did SiouxPill's Obama Violate U.S. Code Mutilating the Flag With His Own Ego? breitbart.com by John Nolte 20 Sep 2012 For thirty-five dollars you can own this print. The Barack Obama Store advertises the print as "Our Stripes: Flag Print," and in place of the stars representing our fifty states we have the Obama logo -- which, I guess, is supposed to represent the United States of President FailureTeleprompter. By now, we're pretty much used to this creepy, narcissistic cult of personality merchandise from Team Obama. But does this print violate the United States Flag Code, which clearly states in part: The United States Flag Code establishes advisory rules for display and care of the flag of the United States. It is Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C. § 1 et seq). This is a U.S. federal law, but there is no penalty for failure to comply with it. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.[1] This etiquette is as applied within U.S. jurisdiction. In other countries and places, local etiquette applies. The flag must not be marked with any insignia, letter, word, signature, picture or drawing. The obvious response from the Obama campaign (not that the media will demand one) will be that this is art, not the flag,. But the Obama campaign is advertising this as "Our Stripes: Flag Print," so by their own description they are admitting this is "our" "flag," and it most certainly has been marked with an "insignia, picture or drawing" -- however you want to describe that noxious O. And if the argument is "since we made it, it's not THE flag," I guess that means that every flag manufacturer is exempt from the rules surrounding flag etiquette. If this were Mitt Romney putting his "R" logo in place of our stripes,the media would be in Armageddon mode right now over how egotistical the move is and how incompetent any campaign must be to sell something that so clearly violates the flag code of the United States. Whatever. The media won't hold Obama accountable for Fast and Furious, the deficit, the faltering economy, or lying about a lack of security that cost four Americans their lives in Libya -- so this isn't about to earn any kind of narrative. On a personal note, to see a sitting president replace the stars of our stars and stripes with his own campaign logo is simply depressing. At the very least, couldn't our president be the kind of man who would shudder at the sight of such a thing?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (770220)	2/19/2014 7:54:02 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Respond to of 1577191

SiouxPill's FLAG LOVING PRESIDENT OBAMA AND HIS TWENTY YEAR MENTOR REVEREND "GOD DAMN AMERICA" WRIGHT

To: SiouxPal who wrote (770220)	2/19/2014 7:56:55 PM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Recommended By simplicity Respond to of 1577191

Obama's image on American flag angers vets Stars and Stripes flag featuring a portrait of President Barack Obama. By msnbc.com news services usnews.msnbc.msn.com A group of veterans angered by an American flag bearing the image of President Barack Obama descended on the local Democratic party headquarters in central Florida and demanded it be taken down. It was, but not before heated words were exchanged between the two sides, media reports say. Obama’s face filled the blue-and-stars section of the flag, which was flying underneath the traditional American one on a flagpole at the Lake County Democratic Party headquarters. "It's a cult of personality to show his face, like Stalin or Mao,"John Masterjohn, a former Marine and retired schoolteacher from Leesburg, told the Orlando Sentinel. "It's despicable. They don't realize how sick they are." The Obama flag had been flying two months before it was noticed by Leesburg veteran Jim Bradford, who spotted it over the weekend and then sent pictures of it to friends and veterans groups. "When I saw the picture on the flag, I thought this is wrong," he told the Daily Commercial. "I really hate seeing the flag not being respected, and to me this was not respectful." He added that the issue wasn’t about politics: "I really don't care what party it is. If it had been a picture of Romney on the flag, I would have done the same thing." A small group of veterans went to the office Tuesday afternoon and demanded it be removed – or they would take it down themselves. They alleged it was in violation of the federal flag code, though altering an American flag doesn't constitute a crime, Jim Lake, an adjunct professor at the Stetson University College of Law in Tampa, told the Sentinel. "For good reason, these folks want to encourage respect for the flag, and while such an alteration may be considered disrespectful, the federal government doesn't allow penalties against those who disrespect the flag," Lake said. The federal flag code is “just standards on how civilians might use the flag," he said, noting that the Supreme Court has ruled that those who burn or intentionally desecrate the flag are protected by the First Amendment. Nancy Hurlbert, chairwoman of the local Democratic party, told the group that they could not remove the flag, which was given as a gift: "We are proud of our president, we're proud of the United States, and we felt it was time to display that." She eventually took it down after Don Van Beck, executive director of the Veterans Memorial and a Korean War veteran, read a portion of the federal flag code that the article “should never have placed upon it or any part of it, any marks, insignia, letters, words, figures, designs, picture or drawings of any nature." "If somebody had just called ahead of time, we could have avoided all of this," Hurlbert said, according to the Daily Commercial. Van Beck said he was “sorry it had to come to this.” “ ... You don't desecrate the flag, especially for the veterans who fought the wars and died for it. In dictatorships, they have a picture of their dictator on some of the flags, but we haven't arrived at having a dictator, yet." Conservatives took to social media to decry the flag, a reproduction of which is selling on ebay for $27.