Some Republicans just don’t get it
In the news lately there has been a surge of quotes about the amnesty bill winding its way through congress. One of the funniest ones has to be from senator Trent Lott:
"I'm sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk-radio people who don't even know what's in the bill," Lott said. He added that the "leadership will have to be prepared to do what needs to be done."
Yeah, nothing like a bunch of dumb voters getting in the way of passing your bill eh?
The key point to note is when Lott says, "talk-radio people who don't even know what's in the bill." If we don't know what is in the bill why don't you tell us? Are you perhaps scared that the truth of the bill is worse than what the talking heads are saying is in there?
Further, what does he mean by, "do what needs to be done." Is he saying it is time to just ignore the voters in the country and ram this thing through? When I read that line I think of a dictator and not a senator.
I am not a conservative myself, I'm more of a libertarian. I do tend to side with the conservatives in government (not republicans) because they are closer to my ideals than anyone else. senator Trent Lott may be a Republican but he is no conservative.
Who bailed him out at Strom Thurmond's party when he was accused of making a racist remark about how things would be different if Thurmond had been president? Talk Radio did.
So why is senator Trent Lott suddenly looking to get rid of Talk Radio? Could it because, like all politicians, he sees Talk Radio as a threat because they are focusing their attention on a bad bill. A bill that no one seems to know what is in it?
Other Talk Radio News
In other Talk Radio news, democrat funded group, Center for American Progress, is pushing to get legislation passed to hinder the ability of conservative Talk Radio to exist. they are trying to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and they base their information on the dominance of conservative talk radio. they clearly neglect the fact that Talk Radio is the only area of the media conservatives dominate.
What about the broadcast networks? Which way do they swing?
MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties…The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms — at least among the donors, who are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation
Those numbers lead me to believe that mainstream media folks (non-Talk Radio) lean left. What is even funnier is the policy at the Times is: "Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides."
It's not that they don't want there people to give to democrats it's that, because of the Internet, they don't want to get caught and make the paper look bad! Remember this old line, "it's not the crime, it's the cover-up" ??? I hear it ringing true today!
Talk Radio makes no bones about what side of the fence they are on. It's only the "mainstream" media that claims to be unbiased.
Return of the Fairness Doctrine
Here is the report from Think Progress, the leftie group setup by Bill Clinton's chief of staff, John Podesta, and it is run by him today. Here is also a nice breakdown of that report.
The liberals had their chance with Air America Radio. It failed. Now that they have experienced failure in the free market they are turning where all monopolists turn for protection, the government. They are trying to legislate equal results not equal access. I think that is the key point here. They don't believe in letting the market decide which opinion is wanted, they want to decide. So much for Freedom of Speech!
This then leads me to ask this question, "If they are going to enforce equal results on the radio industry will they also enforce it on broadcast and cable TV networks? Will they force CNN to host 12 hours of liberal news mixed in with 12 hours of conservative news? Why it's only fair if this Fairness Doctrine applies to everyone."
-- Danny Mc Guire
- Don’t Tase Me Bro!
- How the Democrats can win in 2008
- Democrats may have won the House, but they did not win the Senate
- Don’t Pay For Search Engine Listings
- Speed Linking for Friday May 18, 2007
Thank God for Libertarians! Bipartisan politics has become way too vitriolic to accomplish anything useful. Everything in Congress is done either to help one side or hinder the other.
The talk radio thing is hilarious. Like you said, the liberals had their chance with Air America (Can the Conservatives say THEY have an entire radio station? Last I heard, they don’t!), but because it sucked, they have to go crying and whining to Big Papa Government, whining that ‘Well, they have lots of listeners and we don’t and it’s just not fair!’ What’s not fair is the fact that they seem to think that, whenever things don’t go EXACTLY how they want them to go, they IMMEDIATELY go crying to the government, to try and get what THEY want passed through, all in the name of ‘fairness’. Yet, if Conservatives try to do something similar, the liberals immediately cry ‘foul’.
Frankly, I’m sick to death of both sides!! We need some good third-party candidates to shake things up a bit! Maybe if more third-party candidates start getting some serious votes, BOTH sides will realize that the voters are actually WORTH listening to, and will get the message that we are sick to death of their shenanigans!!
Not only did they own a whole station (WLIB in New York City, fitting no?) but they had to pay other stations to broadcast their shows!
Conservative radio shows are PAID by stations to be on their airwaves.
The libs had to buy their way onto the airwaves and they still lost out! It’s all about equal results, whether we want to hear them or not.
I love that the biggest star liberal radio had was Al Franken, who really hasn’t done much of anything since SNL, and they wonder why nobody wanted to listen to them. Conservative radio, I’ve noticed, is at least informative while liberal radio is nothing but ‘oh the republicans did this’ and ‘oh the conservatives did that’ and ‘oh it’s not fair’. How is that either informative or entertaining? Rush Limbaugh may be a bit of a blow-hard, but at least you can learn current events by listening to him!
Rush also makes no bones about where he is coming from. You know he is a conservative and that his views come from that direction. It’s the libs in the media who try to paint themselves as centrists.
I tried listening to Air America Radio when it was on in the city but I got a headache from the constant screeching of the female hosts.
LOL! Exactly! with conservative hosts like Rush, Bill O’ Reilly and such, you KNOW what you’re going to get. With lib-radio, they seem to think they can get EVERYONE to listen, and as such, like you said, they paint themselves as being centrists. Look at most media news outlets, especially CNN. There’s a reason it’s nickname in the 90’s was the ‘Clinton News Network’. They make themselves out to be ‘fair and balanced’ like Fox News (to borrow Fox News’ slogan), yet they lean so far to the left I’m amazed they haven’t fallen over. The conservative hosts may be a bit blow-hardish and full of themselves at times, but like you said, they at least make no bones about what they are or how they feel. I’ll take that honesty over liberal radios’ attempts at mass appeal by trying to coat over their opinions any day.
Air America Radio is actually alive and well,with a growing market share in many markets. Sorry to disappointed the good ole boys club.
I’m glad to hear they are thriving. Are they still PAYING stations to carry their shows?
And are they still whining to the government that the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ is getting better ratings than them?