I noticed a new game the blamestream media is playing this week. It’s the same game they played with Sarah Palin last week: Blame the victim. After a slew of Democrat leaders issued open threats against talk radio, conservative radio hosts rose up to defend themselves. And now, the BSM is deriding those who work in talk radio for inserting themselves into the Tucson massacre story and for having a “persecution complex.” No, really.

This week’s column also spotlights the repeated attempts by Red Queen open-borders radicals to insert themselves into the Tucson shooting rampage that had no more to do with illegal immigration than it did with talk radio.

On a related note: The worst sheriff in America is still mugging for the cameras.

***

The Hate Speech Inquisition
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

There isn’t a shred of evidence that deranged Tucson massacre suspect Jared Loughner ever listened to talk radio or cared about illegal immigration. Indeed, after 300 exhaustive interviews, the feds “remain stumped” about his motives, according to Tuesday’s Washington Post. But that hasn’t stopped a coalition of power-grabbing politicians, progressive activists and open-borders lobbyists from plying their quack cure for the American body politic: government-sponsored speech suppression.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting rampage, Democratic leaders mused openly about reintroducing the Orwellian “Fairness Doctrine” – a legislative sledgehammer targeting conservative viewpoints on public airwaves. New York Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter assailed the Federal Communications Commission for failing to police broadcast content and vowed to “look into” more aggressive language monitoring. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ed Markey blamed “incendiary rhetoric” for triggering “unstable individuals to take violent action.” In his own manifesto calling for resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn pressed public officials to “rethink parameters on free speech.”

This week’s fashionable new media meme is to deride talk radio hosts for taking these speech-squelching threats seriously. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jay Bookman sneered at the “persecution complex” of conservative broadcasters who reacted to Slaughter and company. Politico’s Keach Hagey dismissed concerns about the Democrats’ chilling campaign against right-leaning media outlets and knocked conservative talkers’ “defensive posture.” (Sound familiar? This is the same tactic they used against Sarah Palin and all those on the right falsely accused of being accessories to the Tucson massacre: Attack ‘em. Attack ‘em for responding. Accuse the smear victims of playing the victim card. Repeat.)

Make no mistake: The Hate Speech Inquisition is real. And it’s being fought on all fronts. Last week, using the non-radio-inspired Tucson massacre as fuel, the National Hispanic Media Coalition called on the FCC to gather evidence for the left’s preconceived conclusion that conservative talk radio “hate speech” causes violence. It’s Red Queen science — sentence first, research validation later.

The head of the NHMC is Alex Nogales, who has filed more than 50 petitions to deny broadcast licenses and has led anti-corporate crusades to “force” broadcast stations across the country “to hire Latino reporters and anchors” and adopt “diversity initiatives.” Grabbing the Tucson shooting limelight, Nogales told Broadcasting and Cable magazine last week:

“We can’t stand there with our arms crossed and make like there isn’t a reason why this is happening. … We started this dialog(ue) in the last immigration debate four years ago. We could see that it was just out of control. It started with just an issue of immigration, then every pundit on radio and TV who wanted an audience started talking about it and started using the worst of language, and now it has spilled out into mainstream.”

Loughner’s wild Internet rants and creepy campus meltdowns clearly demonstrate that crazy doesn’t need a motive. But progressive censors need their bogeymen, and Nogales isn’t about to give them up for reality’s sake. The NHMC first filed a petition in October 2009 demanding that the FCC collect data, seek public comment and “explore options” for combating “hate speech” from staunch critics of illegal immigration. The petition followed on National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia’s call for media outlets to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves “even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights.”

Nogales’ group is part of a larger “media justice” coalition dedicated to curtailing and redistributing conservatives’ political speech under the guise of diversity and decency. As left-wing philanthropists at the Media Justice Fund put it: The movement “is grounded in the belief that social and economic justice will not be realized without the equitable redistribution and control of media and communication technologies.” But, hey, we better just ignore these communications control freaks lest we be accused of suffering a “persecution complex.”

The Praetorian Guards of civility keep telling us that “words matter.” Threats should be taken seriously, they insist. Except, of course, when those words and threats are uttered by those hell-bent on regulating their opponents’ discourse out of existence.

The surprise isn’t that liberal talk radio network Air America announced it is going bankrupt today.

The surprise is that they lasted so long on fumes.

Here’s an excerpt of the statement on its website pulling the plug (hat tip: Brian Stelter, who has more here):

It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business.

The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America’s business. This past year has seen a “perfect storm” in the media industry generally. National and local advertising revenues have fallen drastically, causing many media companies nationwide to fold or seek bankruptcy protection. From large to small, recent bankruptcies like Citadel Broadcasting and closures like that of the industry’s long-time trade publication Radio and Records have signaled that these are very difficult and rapidly changing times.

Those companies that remain are facing audience fragmentation as a result of new media technologies, are often saddled with crushing debt, and have generally found it difficult to obtain operating or investment capital from traditional sources of funding. In this climate, our painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success.

With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad. And though Internet/new media revenues are projected to grow, our expanding online efforts face the same monetization and profitability challenges in the short term confronting the Web operations of most media companies

When Air America Radio launched in April, 2004 with already-known personalities like Al Franken and then-unknown future stars like Rachel Maddow, it was the only full-time progressive voice in the mainstream broadcast media world. At a critical time in our nation’s history — when dissent on issues such as the Iraq war were often denounced as “un-American” — Air America and its talented team helped millions of Americans remember the importance of compelling discussion about the most pivotal events and decisions of our generation.

Through some 100 radio outlets nationwide, Air America helped build a new sense of purpose and determination among American progressives. With this revival, the progressive movement made major gains in the 2006 mid-term elections and, more recently, in the election of President Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress.

As long-time readers know, Radio Equalizer blogger Brian Maloney and I extensively investigated the shady finances of Air America’s Titanic.

And as long-time readers know, Al Franken was in the thick of the corporate meltdown. Norm Coleman’s campaign reminded voters of his failure to account:

Sen. Franken hasn’t lobbied for a bailout, as far as we know. But don’t breath a sigh of relief yet. They’re still swinging the Fairness Doctrine noose. When they can’t compete in the marketplace, the Left will use the power of government to squash their competitors.

***

Neal Boortz quips on Twitter: “Air America evidently couldn’t find another Boy’s Club to steal money from.”

***

Graveyard of left-wing radio failures:

Buh-bye, Whoopi: Another failed liberal talk radio venture
It’s over for Nova M – the liberal talknet files for bankruptcy
Left-wing Austin, Texas gives Air America the boot
DUMPED IN MADISON: Libtalk Now Canned In Four Cities
I.E. America Radio Network shuts down
‘Progressive’ Talk Host Stephanie Miller Blames Liberal Radio Struggles on Station Owners

Cue up “Do the Hustle.” Looks like the extortionists of the Congressional Black Caucus got their way.

Last week, I noted the CBC’s efforts to squeeze bailout money from the Democrats’ financial “reform” package for minority-owned businesses — specifically, the failing radio/media empire of former Malcolm X lawyer and Air America/Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton/Charlie Rangel crony Percy Sutton of Inner City Broadcasting Corp.

Well, tonight the Associated Press reports that House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank coughed up the dough. Your dough, that is. The bribe will be siphoned from the endlessly morphing TARP fund. Not that Frank really fought that hard. What’s it to him? It’s not his money:

Call it the $6 billion boycott.

By boycotting a key House committee vote last week and threatening to abandon support for banking regulations, members of the Congressional Black Caucus got $4 billion added to a Wall Street regulation bill and $2 billion to a proposed House jobs bill in spending they sought for African American communities.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., this week inserted $3 billion to the legislation to provide low-interest loans to unemployed homeowners in danger of foreclosure. He added $1 billion for neighborhood revitalization programs.

The money would come out of the $700 billion financial rescue fund.

“For those of us who walked out, it was absolutely essential that we have parts of that legislation directed toward helping people who have been left out of all of these bailouts,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., one of 10 black caucus members in the Financial Services Committee, said…Among the caucus’ demands were greater assistance for minority-owned auto dealerships and banks that lend in African-American communities and more government advertising in minority-owned media.

No word on how much of a cut the wealthy minority businessman Percy Sutton will get.

Or whether corruptocrat Maxine Waters’ favorite bank, OneUnited, will snag an even bigger share of TARP funds from this new deal. Rremember: she has already finagled $12 million in TARP money for OneUnited, one of her key campaign donors and a company in which both Waters and her husband own massive amounts of stock.

Mark Penn got his. The CBC’s got to get theirs.

Power to the people!

***

Related: GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann sounds the alarm on the Frank financial regulatory power grab on the Bcast.

Well, well, well.

The Congressional Black Caucus is trying to shake down the White House — and taxpayers — by holding a Democrat financial regulation “reform” bill hostage until Team Obama stuffs it with taxpayer goodies for a minority-owned radio station and other minority-owned businesses.

The story is here and here. In brief:

A clash between the Obama administration and the Congressional Black Caucus intensified Wednesday, illustrating how lawmakers’ unease about the economy has the potential to derail White House priorities. Ten black lawmakers refused to appear at a House committee vote on financial regulations Wednesday, a move that nearly allowed Republicans to kill a major Democratic bill. The move was the culmination of weeks of tension, including a testy meeting two weeks ago that included Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. In the meeting, Ms. Waters berated the administration for not doing enough to help minority-owned businesses, mentioning specifically a New York broadcaster that couldn’t get a loan reworked.

Less than two weeks after the meeting, the company, Inner City Broadcasting Corp., said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to restructure the loan. The exchange about the company, which to some administration officials sounded like a bid to have the government intervene in a corporate matter, heightened distrust on both sides, people familiar with the matter say. Caucus members at the meeting stressed they weren’t asking White House officials to do anything improper, people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear whether any government official played a role in having the loan reworked.

Of course, Goldman Sachs! Earning its “Government Sachs” nickname once again. Victor Davis Hanson notes: “Rarely has a single scandal summed up nearly all the current pathologies of the corrupt Washington scene, combining insider bailouts, revolving-door influence peddling, racial-identity politics, subsidies for failing institutions that have a proven record of partisan Democratic politics, and Democratic efforts to reward wealthy friends under the guise of social justice.” See also: Culture of Corruption.

Now, I have some back story that you may remember about the crony of color behind the CBC shakedown. Percy Sutton is head of Inner City Broadcasting Corp. The ailing radio station was in the middle of the Air America disaster several years back. Radio Equalizer blogger Brian Maloney and I collaborated on an extensive investigative series into the left-wing empire’s finances — and Sutton’s ICBC was entangled in the dealings as the minority front business/flagship station for the sinking ship. The company shunted aside its black-themed talk format at WLIB to accommodate Air America. In return, Air America made room for a few minority radio hosts and also entered into lucrative lease management agreements with Inner City Broadcasting, which owns and operates 17 radio stations in five markets.

Air America, of course, collapsed. And ICBC has apparently never recovered either.

Sutton and his son, Pierre (who now runs the business), are leaning on all their race-hustling friends to put you and me on the hook for rescuing the business. It’s not corporate welfare, you see, it’s “media justice!”

Things you should know about Sutton, as I reported in 2005:

The co-founder of Inner City Broadcasting is New York media mogul Percy Sutton, best known as Malcolm X’s lawyer and former Manhattan borough council president. Sutton helped bail Sharpton out after Sharpton was ordered to pay former Dutchess County prosecutor Steven Pagones over the Tawana Brawley race hoax. Sutton also raised and donated money for Sharpton’s 2004 presidential bid. Sharpton still broadcasts a Sunday radio show on WLIB. Sutton and Jackson are longtime friends and partners. Sutton served as Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign finance chairman. Jackson has lobbied on Sutton’s behalf. Sutton sits on Jackson’s Citizenship Education Fund. As original investors, Jackson and his wife reportedly hold more than 23,000 shares in Inner City Broadcasting.

The Orwellian Fairness Doctrine comes in many forms.

***

More fun facts: Ben Smith recalls Percy Sutton’s claim that Saudi royalty supported Obama through proxy ex-Black Panther/Muslim confidante of the Sauds Khalid al-Mansour.

Problem: Too many damned conservative authors dominating the New York Times best-seller lists.

Solution: A Fairness Doctrine from books!

They are Marxist-inspired activists seeking to crack down on conservative political speech under the guise of combating “hate” and crusading for “diversity.”

Remember:

“Social justice” = redistribution of wealth and economic “rights.”

“Media justice” = redistribution of speech and First Amendment rights.

Noel Sheppard digs deeper into the Center for Media Justice and finds some very familiar worms.

Putting the pieces together, an organization that Jones is on the board of founded the Youth Media Council which is now the Center for Media Justice. A representative of CMJ is the contact person for this new coalition looking to target Limbaugh, Beck, Dobbs, et al.

Coincidence?

Not likely, for a look at CMJ’s Facebook page revealed an interesting post on September 29 (emphasis added):

Tell Fox News to Stop the Witch Hunts! Join CMJ and Color of Change to stop Glenn Beck’s program!

As NewsBusters reported on August 12, Jones was a founding member of Color of Change, the group that started an online petition calling for advertisers to stop sponsoring Glenn Beck’s television program.

But this gets better, for CMJ’s Facebook post sent readers to its “Actions” page. There, readers can find a September 11 headline, “Tell Fox News to Stop the Witch Hunts!” The embedded link sent readers to — wait for it!!! — Color of Change’s Beck petition.

This was posted at CMJ’s website just five days after Jones was forced to resign as Obama’s green jobs czar.

Now, roughly seven weeks later, a new coalition has been created using the same phrase “Stop the Witch Hunt” for its name, and its contact person works for CMJ which was not only founded by an organization whose Board of Directors includes Jones, but also worked with Jones’s Color of Change to get advertisers to stop sponsoring Beck.

If you still think this is all just a coincidence, might I interest you in some swampland?

Know your enemy.

Earlier this week, I introduced you to the “media justice” mob — Marxist-inspired activists seeking to crack down on conservative political speech under the guise of combating “hate” and crusading for “diversity.”

“Social justice” = redistribution of wealth and economic “rights.”

“Media justice” = redistribution of speech and First Amendment rights.

Well, they’re at it again. Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters blogs about the latest campaign:

Called StopTheWitchHunt.org, their goal is “to give voice to the millions of Americans who believe it is time for talk-show hosts and elected officials to stop stoking the racial anxieties of the fringes of America.”

They accuse the quintet of spewing “lies and hate speech…in a nationwide witch hunt” against President Obama.

They even call Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” remark “the verbal equivalent of putting a razor blade in a candy apple.”

Yes, these witch hunters are decrying witch hunters. Pot and kettle.

One of the organizers is Makani Themba- Nixon, Executive Director of The Praxis Project and a member of the Echo Justice coalition.

The Praxis Project explains its name, partly inspired by Marx:

Although there are other organizations with the name Praxis, and there’s even a Praxis Project in the Midwest, we’ve had our name since 1995.

The name is drawn from three meanings for the word Praxis. The first is from Catholic pedagogy where it means practicing one’s religion or applying the principles of religion to day to day living. This value, practicing or living out one’s beliefs—especially as they relate to social justice, is an important part of our organizational philosophy.

Karl Marx took the term to apply it more broadly to the process of applying theory through practice as a methodology for developing more informed theory and practice for social change. Of course, this requires attention to both reflection and direct action, and their relationship to each other. This process is the core of our work.

The final meaning is drawn from more modern roots—Star Trek lore. (If you have no idea about Star Trek, please bear with us while we talk to other trekkies…)

Praxis was a Klingon moon that imploded leaving their world in disarray. The Klingon people had little choice but to make a strategic alliance with the Federation in order to save their world. Klingons had long warred with the Federation. They were an “exotic”, messy addition to the Federation’s fairly homogenous alliance…

The Praxis Project is a signatory to the FCC/left-wing churches/open-borders alliance’s petition to shut up illegal immigration critics on the airwaves.

Know your enemies.

My syndicated column today (reprinted below) probes the FCC/left-wing church alliance to silence conservative critics of illegal immigration through “hate speech” regulation. Tip of the iceberg.

Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator first broke the story of how United Church of Christ officials met with kindred spirit/FCC Commissioner Michael Copps earlier this month before launching a nationwide campaign to pressure the FCC to crack down on cable TV and talk radio figures.

The motto of the “So We Might See” anti-”hate speech” campaign is: “Without media justice, there will be no social justice!” The same Marx-loving “social justice” crowd is behind the “media justice” mob — including George Soros’s Open Society Institute, Media Democracy Fund, and Media Matters; the Ford Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; etc., etc., etc. Their goal: government redistribution of media wealth. As “The Media Justice Fund” put it: The movement “is grounded in the belief that social and economic justice will not be realized without the equitable redistribution and control of media and communication technologies.” And there’s that phrase “transformative change” again:

* Media change of all kinds must expose and directly confront the mechanics of structural racism and systemic oppression.
* Leaders from historically marginalized communities must be developed as effective media activists and strategic movement communicators.
* Media policy advocacy and strategic communications are more effective when clearly relevant to the primary justice issues of the movement for racial justice, economic and gender equity, and youth rights.
* Compelling communications and media activism campaigns must be both rooted in critical issues and coordinated across issue, sector, and region for national impact.
* When justice sectors strengthen communications strategies, center the use of culture as a communications tool, employ winning frames and messages, and strengthen their influence over media rules and rights, the possibilities for transformative change skyrocket.

“Transformative change” = a media landscape purged of the Right’s most powerful voices.

The White House communications shop gives two thumbs up, no doubt.

***

How the FCC and liberal churches are scheming to shut you up
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

The war on conservative speech has moved from the White House to your neighborhood pews. Left-wing church leaders want the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on “hate speech” over cable TV and right-leaning talk radio airwaves. President Obama’s speech-stifling bureaucrats seem all too happy to oblige.

Over the past week, an outfit called “So We Might See” has conducted a nationwide fast to protest “media violence” – specifically, “anti-immigrant hate speech, which employs flawed arguments to appeal to fears rather than facts.” Their ire is currently aimed at Fox News and conservative talk show giants. But how long before they target ordinary citizens who call in to complain about the government’s systemic refusal to enforce federal sanctions on illegal alien employers or the bloody consequences of lax deportation policies?

The “interfaith coalition for media justice” is led by the United Church of Christ. Yes, that’s the same church of Obama’s race-baiting, Jew-bashing ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright. Other members include the Presbyterian News Service, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the National Council of Churches. (The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has denied being a part of the campaign, despite being listed as a coalition member. So has the Methodist church.) These religious liberals have partnered with the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which filed a petition in January demanding that the FCC collect data, seek public comment, and “explore options” for combating “hate speech” from staunch critics of illegal immigration.

Open-borders groups have sought to marginalize, criminalize, and demonize those of us who have raised our voices for years about lax immigration enforcement — and to impose an Orwellian Fairness Doctrine-style policy on illegal alien amnesty opponents. During the presidential campaign, the National Council of La Raza launched a “We Can Stop the Hate” project to redefine tough policy criticism from the Right as “hate.” La Raza president Janet Murguia called for TV networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves and argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, “even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights,” according to the NYTimes.

Now, the gag-wielders have a friend in the White House – and they won’t let him forget it. Their FCC petition calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration critics cites Obama’s own words in a fall 2008 speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Obama told his amnesty-supporting audience that he knew they were “counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling the airwaves.”

Unsurprisingly, far Left billionaire George Soros’s money is backing the “So We Might See”/National Hispanic Media Coalition effort. And remember that the Soros-funded Center for American Progress has provided the Obama White House with its Fairness Doctrine-embracing “diversity czar,” Mark Lloyd.

Last week, United Church of Christ officials met privately with Obama FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps in advance of the “So We Might See” campaign. Copps then delivered a lecture at the UCC’s Riverside Church in New York City, expressing solidarity with the liberal church leaders’ goals and egging the congregants to take action on “media reform: ”We are taking huge risks with our democracy. We need to change that and we need to do it now. We need to get a grip on what’s happening and we need to fix it.”

Jeffrey Lord, who happens to belong to the United Church of Christ, reported in the American Spectator that not long after that speech, the UCC sent out a mass e-mail to its millions of members urging them to join the nationwide fast and regulatory drive. The church-state alliance missive directed its followers: “As a participant, you will be asked to sign a petition to the Federal Communications Commission asking that it open a notice of inquiry into hate speech in the media.”

No word on when they’ll be launching an inquiry into the fear-based, fact-free “hate speech” from the mouth of Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson, who accused Republicans of wanting sick patients to “die quickly,” likened health care problems to the “Holocaust,” and attacked an adviser to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as a “K Street whore.”

Or when they’ll be going after MSNBC and Air America radio hate-mongers who have openly wished on their airwaves for the deaths of George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck.

But I digress. In the age of Obama, the targets of left-wing hate speech don’t have a prayer.

The criminalization of conservative speech has been a recurring theme on this blog.

In particular, I’ve spotlighted the efforts of open-borders groups to marginalize, criminalize, and demonize those of us who have raised our voices for years about lax immigration enforcement — and to impose a Fairness Doctrine-style policy on amnesty opponents.

Keep all that in mind as you read this important investigative piece by Jeffrey Lord into collaboration between FCC officials and far Left members of the UCC church on ginning up petition signatures for a federal probe into “hate speech” against “immigrants.”

Lord’s conclusion and wake-up call:

Leading this charge or involved in some capacity are at least one Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, seven national churches, one left-wing billionaire who helps as always with the funding — and last but certainly not least, the White House. Specifically that would be Messrs. Emanuel, Axelrod and Ms. Dunn.

Hello? Is anyone home here? Is the First Amendment — which interestingly protects these very same churches — going to be assaulted like this while everyone just sits by and says nothing?

At a minimum, if you belong to one of these churches — churches that have apparently quite willingly handed themselves over to be political pawns of the FCC and the sentiments as expressed by the White House — this is disgraceful.

Three words seem appropriate: Let us pray.

Because we sure haven’t heard the last of this.

In case you missed it yesterday, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck spotlighted Team Obama’s direct and indirect threats to free speech — and how the Fairness Doctrine (or some stealthier form of it) might be reinstituted.

Watch the whole thing.

Rush has the full transcript. An excerpt:

BECK: Now joining me on the phone is radio talk show host Mr. Rush Limbaugh. Rush?

RUSH: Glenn Beck. How are you, sir?

BECK: Very good, sir. I want to play something for you. I don’t know if you just saw it, but I want to play it again. This is the new diversity officer for the FCC, a newly created position. This is what he said at a speech or talk he was giving about Chavez’s Venezuela and how the media work down there. Watch this.

MARK LLOYD: In Venezuela, with Chavez, you really had an incredible revolution — democratic revolution — to begin to put in place things that were going to have impact on the people of Venezuela. The property owners and the folks who were then controlling the media in Venezuela rebelled — worked, frankly, with folks here in the US government — worked to oust him. He came back and had another revolution, and Chavez then started to take the media very seriously in his country.

BECK: Rush, I find that breathtaking.

RUSH: I find the whole administration breathtaking, Glenn. You’re doing great job this whole week. I mean I saw Sarah Palin even “tweeted” about what you’re doing, urging people to watch. This whole administration is as radical and far left as any that the country has ever had, and what they’re trying to do here to communications is simply stifle dissenting voices. They’re trying to wipe out any opposition. If you look at Barack Obama and his track record as a politician, it is to clear the playing field. He doesn’t even like debating his opponents. He just wants to get rid of them. And this “diversity czar” comes from a fringe, radical, Saul Alinsky-type of background; and the things that he’s talking about doing — and I watched your show for the first half hour today — but the things he’s talking about doing to shut down radio are simply un-American. It’s not enough to say that it’s not constitutional.

It’s simply un-American, and make no bones about it, folks, Glenn is right — and I think he’s maybe underselling a little bit about as far as their intentions are concerned. The stimulus plan! Glenn, look at what they’re doing to the US economy. Anybody with a sense of economic literacy would know this is not how you create jobs. You do not rebuild the private sector. This is being done on purpose. All of these disasters are exactly what Obama wants. The more crises, the better. The more opportunity for government to say, “Let us come in and fix the problem.” His number one opposition is on radio and Fox News. His number one opposition is on radio. They can’t go Fairness Doctrine because it’s too obvious. So they’re trying to do this backdoor route with “diversity” and ownership, a 100% tax on operating in order to pay public radio because they’re supposedly fair. It’s insidious. But I don’t think it’s gonna work in the end because the American people are too informed, Glenn. They’re too aware of it. Their radio means too much to them. Their free speech — freedom in general — means way too much to them. And just as they’re fighting back on health care and a number of other things, so will they fight back on this.

***

Flashback:

Barack Obama has a stunning lack of tolerance for free speech. And one thing Americans can expect from an Obama administration, and a Democratic-controlled Congress, is a legislative attempt to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which will limit free speech and diminish the conservative influence on talk radio.

A new ATI-News/Zogby International poll released on Oct. 26 made it clear that those who intend to vote for Obama support re-establishing the Fairness Doctrine.

The poll asked likely voters, “Some members of Congress have discussed reinstating the Fairness Doctrine for broadcasting. The Fairness Doctrine requires radio stations to provide equal air time for opposing viewpoints.”

“If reinstated, regulators determine if both sides of an issue are equally presented. There is concern among some broadcasters that this equal presentation could lead to dropping some popular conservative talk shows in an effort to avoid airing less popular liberal talk shows. Knowing this, do you support or oppose reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine?”

Those likely to vote for Obama support reinstating the Fairness Doctrine by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent, and Democrats support it 47 to 38 percent. Independents marginally support the fairness doctrine 42 percent to 40 percent, though this is within the poll’s margin of error. (The remaining respondents all replied “not sure.”)

Those polled were then asked, “Some say the Fairness Doctrine could result in popular radio shows, such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, to be taken off the air in some markets. Knowing this, do you support or oppose reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine?”

When informed that the Fairness Doctrine might take Limbaugh and Hannity off the air, the percentage of Democrat likely voters who support the Fairness Doctrine rose to 53 percent. The percentage of Obama supporters supporting the Doctrine rose four points to 53 percent. However, the percentage of Independents opposed to the Fairness Doctrine rose to 49 percent.

Dissent must not be tolerated.

Jeff Poor reports on the left-wing boycott of Glenn Beck’s advertisers here.

Matthew Vadum connects the dots to Obama’s Green Czar, Van Jones, co-founder of Color of Change.

Erick Erickson launches a counter-boycott.

Michelle Oddis reports on the Hollywood ties.

A reader e-mails a link to a Support Glenn Beck site.

***

In Britain, the latest developments in the war on Michael Savage:

The government in the United Kingdom has dispatched a letter to talk radio icon Michael Savage that he must “repudiate” the views the government has attributed to him before he even can be considered for removal from a banned-in-Britain government list.

“It was emphasized that the onus is on your client to publicly renounce the statements which formed the basis of the decision to exclude him,” said a recent letter from the Litigation and Employment Group at the Treasury Solicitor’s Department in London.

“Any such repudiation must be genuine and comprehensive, and persuade my client that this is a true shift of position, in which case, my client would be prepared to consider this,” said the letter signed only “Treasury Solicitors” on the stationery that included the names Simon Harker, head of division, and Anne Werbicki, team leader.

I noted in my column on the Internet Snitch Brigade this morning that former CAP operatives have been installed at HHS and work closely with the health care czar.

At Newsbusters, Seton Motley reports on the new FCC “Diversity Officer” — a racial engineering czar who has been targeting conservative talk radio since his days working for CAP.

Know your enemy:

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a new “Chief Diversity Officer,” communications attorney Mark Lloyd.

But Doctor of Jurisprudence Lloyd is far more than merely a communications attorney. He was at one time a Senior Fellow at the uber-liberal Center for American Progress (CAP), for whom he co-wrote a June 2007 report entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.”

Which rails against the fact that the American people overwhelmingly prefer to listen to conservative (and Christian) talk radio rather than the liberal alternative, and suggests ways the federal government can remedy this free-market created “problem.”

* Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.
* Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.
* Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

These last two get perilously close to the use of “localism” to silence conservative (and Christian) radio stations, about which we have been warning for quite some time.

So they’re putting pressure on the government to make Arbitron change its measurement tools to ensure politically correct results.

Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer reports.

Who needs the Fairness Doctrine? The race-based enforcers on the FCC are in the house.

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Previous: Fairness Doctrine Watch: The FCC’s “Diversity Panel”

Previous: FCC: Funding Cronyism of Color

FCC Chairman Michael Copps denied that the panel would move to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. But the social engineering/racial bean-counting efforts are underway.

Moreover, Judicial Watch yesterday announced that it had obtained documents that undermine the FCC chairman’s denial:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concerning the “Fairness Doctrine,” a policy abolished in 1987, and other governmental means to limit free speech in the media. Judicial Watch obtained the documents in response to a December 2008 Freedom of Information Act request.

While President Obama is on record opposing the return of the Fairness Doctrine, which is viewed by many as an attempt to squelch the free speech of conservatives in the media, these documents show that the FCC is considering alternative proposals that may also regulate free speech in the media under the professed goal of “diversity.”

For example, in December 2007, the FCC proposed new “localism” measures to force broadcast stations to offer programming more “responsive to the needs and interests of the communities that they are licensed to serve.” These proposed measures, highlighted in a document entitled, “The Report on Broadcast Localism and Notice of Approved Rulemaking,” included a requirement that broadcasters, “provide 3 hours per week of locally-produced program,” and that licensees establish “permanent advisory boards (including representatives of underserved community segments).” The FCC noted that these measures would become part of the application renewal process to make sure broadcasters “meet their responsibilities.”

Problems with “localism” are highlighted in a legal memo written by Kathleen Kirby of the law firm Wiley Rein and submitted to Rosemary Harold, serving as legal counsel to FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. In the document, which was distributed internally at the FCC, Ms. Kirby advises that the Fairness Doctrine “would do well to stay dead.” Ms. Kirby then turns her attention to “localism,” advising that such a policy could represent a “stealth enactment” of the Fairness Doctrine. Ms. Kirby states: “Convene permanent advisory boards? Give aggrieved listeners ‘more straightforward guidance’ on ‘how individuals can directly participate in the license renewal process?’ That sounds mild. But then again, so did the Fairness Doctrine.”

“These documents are a useful insight into the internal debates at the FCC about the Fairness Doctrine and its cousin, ‘localism,’ said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We’re going to have to keep an eye on this FCC. The last thing our country needs is bureaucrats in the Obama administration stomping on the First Amendment rights of conservatives.”

Press Advisory: Judicial Watch will host a panel discussion regarding the “Fairness Doctrine” May 14th, 12:30 – 2 p.m., in the First Amendment Lounge of the National Press Club, 14th & F Streets, NW, Washington, DC.

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Related: New book on the Fairness Doctrone by Brian Jennings. Review here.
What does the Obama FCC stand for? Funding Cronyism of Color.