Marxist Censorship Dreams, and the FCC

This makes the threat of the "fairness doctrine" look like nothing. This so-called "Government Broadband Plan" may actually be a first step in setting the stage for the governmental usurpation of all private media:

Diversity Czar Lloyd and Marxist McChesney's Censorship Dream: The FCC's Plan for Government Broadband

The Wall Street Journal's intrepid and very good Amy Schatz has a piece today updating us on the progress of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s National Broadband Plan.

With all that we have thus far seen, things look quite grim from a free speech, free market perspective. The groundwork for government information totalitarianism - favored by people like Hugo Chavez-loving FCC "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd and Marxist "media reform"-outfit Free Press founder Robert McChesney - is being laid in the Plan being crafted by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

As we first reported, the Center for American Progress (at which Lloyd was then a Senior Fellow) and McChesney's Free Press co-authored the deeply flawed, anti-conservative and Christian talk radio "report" entitled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.

But their shared disdain for free speech and the free market extend way beyond just this. These "media reformers" seek to eradicate most or all private ownership of all information delivery - be it by radio, television or the internet - thereby leaving the federal government as sole purveyor. [...]

If that sounds alarmist to you, then you need to read the rest. See what Lloyd and McChesney have actually said. Dang! Marxist is certainly NOT too strong a word. It's absolutely frightening to think what these people would try to do, to subvert the FCC for their purposes.

The source article also has embedded links.


Also see:

How much longer will our Republic last?

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government"
 
   

Get the Czars out of our Government

Despite the fact that the Democrats managed to kill an amendment that would have imposed congressional oversight on some of Obama's Czars, there are still bipartisan efforts to hold hearings about the growing number of Czars in our government:

Feingold Plans Hearing on Czars

Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, plans to hold a hearing next week on the subject of the so-called “czars,” appointees who don’t go through the usual vetting process like presidential nominees needing confirmation by the Senate.

Mr. Feingold, the chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, has been one of the Democrats lending a bipartisan edge to what had been largely Republican complaints about the number of Obama “czars.” (The White House and leading Democrats have forcefully rebutted the notion that the president has too many; former President Bush had placed many officials in the same/or similar positions.) [...]

I've complained before about this Czar crap:

"Czars" have no place in American politics

And yes, it was George Bush who opened the door for this. It was wrong then and it's wrong now, and worse too if you consider the growing number of "Czars". One of several bad precedents set by our former President.
     

"Czars" have no place in American politics

This is another bad idea that the Obama Administration has taken from the Bush Administration, and expanded and strengthened. It was bad when Bush did it and it's even worse now:

Obama’s Unconstitutional ‘Czars’

Here’s a question that has been nagging me for months. Are Obama’s ever-growing number of “czars” constitutional? I am not a constitutional scholar, but I have read the document.

[...]

The Republican National Committee’s conservative caucus recently passed a resolution expressing their concern noting that “The U.S. Constitution explicitly states government officers with significant authority (called ‘principal officers’) must be nominated by the President and are subject to a vote of the U.S. Senate.”

Obama’s appointments are clearly “principal officers” though it will be argued that they are only advisors to the office of the President. Clearly, Obama’s appointments are not heads of departments, but they appear to have been granted an unknown degree of influence and control as regards their responsibilities. They function “in the dark.”

[...]

...there is an enormous amount of overlap going on and it involves appointees who give the appearance of being doppelgangers to the existing Secretaries and the huge bureaucracies they oversee. They answer directly to the President, but presumably so do the Secretaries whom we occasionally see gathered around a huge table in cabinet meetings.

If these people who have not been approved by the Senate or occupy positions that have not been “established by law” and are not “heads of departments” exist solely at the pleasure of the President, are we not hip deep in some very muddy waters concerning who is answerable to the Senate or House committees?

I am of the belief that Obama has methodically gone about creating a shadow government of men and women with undefined powers, but who likely have even more influence with the Oval Office than those who hold office under the mandates of the Constitution. [...]

It goes on to say there are 30 or more "Czars" right now, and the number is growing.

George Bush opened the door for this with his "drug Czar" nonsense. I was extremely offended at the time, by the term being used to describe anyone holding a position in our government. But at least Bush only had one. Now we have THIRTY?

Read the whole thing, for details about some of them. It's chilling. Isn't this unconstitutional? And where is it going?
     

Obama Supporters Can't Take a Joke

Or even a joker, apparently:

Obama Joker Poster Stirs Outrage, Bush Joker Poster Not So Much

Not surprisingly, the Obama Joker Poster reported by NewsBusters Saturday is already drawing some outrage.

According to a television station where the posters have been spotted, "Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson is calling the depiction, politically mean spirited and dangerous." [...]

And when the same thing happens to a Republican President, what happens? Why nothing, of course:

[...] Yet, when Vanity Fair's Politics & Power blog published a somewhat similar visual representation of George W. Bush last July, nobody seemed to complain. In fact, throughout the Bush years, demeaning drawings of the President and Vice President Dick Cheney were quite commonplace.

[...]

In reality, if I wanted to, I could likely produce hundreds of disgusting drawings of Bush, Cheney, and others in their Administration plastered at publications across the fruited plain the last eight years.

That was acceptable commentary and political satire back then.

Now that Obama is in the White House, it's called "mean-spirited and dangerous."

Any questions?

Follow the link to see the depiction of Bush as a Vampire feeding of the statue of liberty. Heck, what about all the assassination "jokes" the Left used to do about Bush?

I guess the people who dish it out most heavily, can't take even a little bit of it shoveled back in their own direction. It's always All Their Way, or Nothing.

How long before the White House appoints an "Opinion Czar", to make sure we only express politically correct opinions?

I'd like to think that remark is over the top, but the "Health Czar" is already looking for "Big Brother" snitches to spy for them.

Maybe the Obama Team needs to learn to tolerate criticism, and even listen to it sometimes, like every other American Administration that has gone before them has had to do.


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Poking fun at politicians is our third favorite sport after baseball and football