Action Alert: Tell The FCC - Grassroots Donors Count!
By Logan Murphy Wednesday Dec 12, 2007 2:01pmVia Public Campaign:
We, the undersigned, have added our names to this letter as online members of Public Campaign, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for and educates the public about comprehensive public financing of elections. We have joined together not in support of one candidate or another, but in defense of the bedrock American principle that all people should have a voice in politics regardless of their ability to make large donations to political candidates.
We believe campaign finance regulations ought to make it easier for small donors to participate and have their voices amplified in the presidential nominating process via matching funds. Draft Opinion 2007-31, before the FEC on Friday, December 14, 2007, does the opposite.
We oppose Draft Advisory Opinion 2007-31 because it would disqualify millions of dollars from tens of thousands of small donors from the presidential matching system only because they were donated through a website called ActBlue. In doing so, this proposed Advisory Opinion would codify an outdated regulation drafted and implemented before the Internet's political potential was widely understood, let alone what it has become today: a fundraising, organizing, and democratizing force in American politics.
You can read more and fill out the form here.
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FEC
What do the grassroots smoke?
FCC Proposes Greater Media Consolidation
by Stephen Lendman http://www.opednews.com
December 13, 2007 at 07:33:03
FCC Proposes Greater Media Consolidation - by Stephen Lendman
On October 17, FCC chairman Kevin Martin proposed lifting the 1975 media cross-ownership rule that forbids a company from owning a newspaper and television or radio station in the same city even though giant conglomerates like Rupert Murdock's News Corp. and the (Chicago) Tribune Company already do. On November 13, he expanded on his earlier plan claiming changes will only allow cross ownership "in the largest markets where there exists competition and numerous voices."
Read the entire article
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__071213_fcc_proposes_gre...
FCC OKs Sale of Clear Channel Stations
By JOHN DUNBAR Associated Press Writer
Nov 30th, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission has approved the $1.3 billion sale of 35 television stations owned by Clear Channel Communication Inc. to Newport Television LLC, a private equity group, subject to certain conditions.
Newport is an investment group controlled by Providence Equity Partners. The sale will result in a violation of FCC ownership rules in nine markets and will require the divestiture of several stations. The agency announced the decision Thursday night.
The sale was conducted within the context of a much larger plan that will take Clear Channel private. The San Antonio, Texas-based company is the nation's largest operator of radio stations. Last month, shareholders approved the $19.5 billion sale of the company to a private equity group led by Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Bain Capital Partners LLC for $39.20 per share.
The sale of the 35 television stations will mean the new owner will be out of compliance with FCC rules that limit the number of stations one company may own in a single market. The market areas include Bakersfield, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Fresno and Monterey in California; Salt Lake City; Albany, New York; Jacksonville, Fla., and San Antonio, Texas.
The companies asked the FCC for waivers to operate the stations for six months until it comes into compliance with the rules. The FCC granted waivers in eight of the nine markets, denying the request for Albany.
Providence also owns a stake in Spanish language network Univision Communications Inc. and Freedom Communications Holdings Inc. and is in violation of the newspaper-broadcast station cross-ownership rule in five markets. Providence has said it would divest properties in those markets but has yet to do so, blaming "volatile conditions" in the credit markets.
As part of its reasoning for granting the waivers, the agency in its decision noted the larger sale, which will result in Clear Channel spinning off a number of radio stations. When Clear Channel announced the buyout in November of 2006, it said it would sell 448 of its 1,150 radio stations, all located in smaller markets, in deals separate from the larger transaction.
Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps, an outspoken opponent of the consolidation of ownership in the media, filed the lone dissent to the transaction.
"No one should be under any illusion that Clear Channel's sale of its 35 full-power stations strikes a blow for de-consolidation," he wrote. After the deal closes, Providence will have "attributable interests in a whopping 86 television stations and 99 radio stations in the United States" among other media properties, he added.
Copps questioned the recent trend of public media companies being taken private, and asked whether the FCC has enough information about the ownership and control of such groups to determine whether such transactions are in the public interest.
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2007/11/30/D8T842780_clear_channel_sale/in...
The Bush Push To Take Control Of Our Media and What You Can Do About It
by Cliff Carson
http://www.populistamerica.com/cliff_carson
Whoever controls the Media controls the populace
It is evident that the propaganda fed us by the Bush Administration over the past 7 years has been restrained only by laws protecting the free press. Thankfully those laws are barriers to wanna be absolute power ego's. And the Bush Administration is the epitome of power ego's.
And at this moment in time America is beset with those who would steal your liberties. So be careful and rise up every time there is a challange to those liberties. They can be very hard maybe impossible to recover.
Americans Speak Out Against FCC Media Consolidation
Bill Moyers Journal on Media Consolidation Crisis [VIDEO]
Posted by Adam Howard, AlterNet at 5:44 AM on November 19, 2007.
The FCC chairman gets chewed out by American citizens for trying to push through lifting the ban on local media market consolidation.
On November 2, 2007, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced that the Commission would hold the sixth and final public hearing on media consolidation November 9, 2007 in Seattle, Washington. Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein blasted the Chairman's decision to give the public only five business days notice before the hearing:
"With such short notice, many people will be shut out ... This is outrageous and not how important media policy should be made."
In this this video, some really feisty and patriotic everyday Americans confront the FCC chairman and take him to task for his nefarious agenda. Check out the clip to your right for more Americans who spoke out. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/mediaculture/68295/
Pelosi Knew of Spying Without Warrant
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration's eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She said she was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. But was she told that the illegal surveillance began well before 9/11? Referring to her briefing in an apologia-sans-apology Washington Post op-ed on Jan. 15, 2006, she wrote: "This is how I came to be informed of President Bush's authorization for the NSA to conduct certain types of surveillance." Demonstrating her unconstitutionally subservient attitude toward the executive branch, Pelosi wrote: "But when the administration notifies Congress in this manner, it is not seeking approval. There is a clear expectation that the information will be shared by no one, including other members of the intelligence committees. As a result, only a few members of Congress were aware of the president's surveillance program, and they were constrained from discussing it more widely." -antiwar
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=50293
What Did the Bush Admin Promise the Telco’s in Early 2001?
October 17th, 2007 by Gordon Cook
http://gordoncook.net/wp/?p=219
Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV' violating FCC Regulations
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
15 October 2007 15:19
Published: 29 May 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article621189.ece
FCC fines Comcast $4,000 for airing 'fake news' reports
Greg Wasserstrom
Published: Monday September 24, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/FCC_fines_Comcast_for_VNRs_0924.html
btw - title at top of this page still says FCC, should be FEC, then refer to all the GOP electoral fraud schemes and scams to steal electoral votes from california, see bradblog.com for more details.
sorry bout all the FCC stuff, perhaps those should be moved to another thread regarding that topic?
Until grassroots donors can fund million-dollar-a-year lobbyists, do they REALLY count?
Have YOU sent a Senator on a golf trip to Scotland this year?
Nope, me neither, and we don't freakin' count, do we?
we need to repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Being outnumbered 9-1 on talk radio sucks
Well. We DON'T count! We SHOULD, but we don't.
FreedomOfInformationAct @ 10:
If you move it, just copy it. There should be more FCC dissent in more places. It should be in peoples faces all the time.
Continue to speak up, or they'll think you agree!
FreedomOfInformationAct @ 10:
I enjoy this kind of diversity in the comments, thanks for the info!
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