I would absolutely love to see a “Universal Medicare and Ban On the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2009” just so that when Republicans vote against it, snarky Democrats can go on cable news and shout, “OMG!  They support the Fairness Doctrine!!!!”

I think Dems could learn a little bit about presenting a united front, but not to the point of giving in to the type of delusions Republican suffer from, such as some Republicans’ continued belief that Bush was a good president.

Firstly, the Fairness Doctrine has “passed constitutional muster several times in the past. Secondly, the Fairness Doctrine simply stated that content on the public airwaves cannot be limited to a single point of view in areas of public policy. Thirdly, the main argument against the Fairness Doctrine is that cable/satellite TV and the Internet have created enough diversity of content that the original policy is now antiquated. Fourthly, the Fairness Doctrine should be mentioned in a positive light as often as possible as it always results in a hilarity of panty bunching by the right.

I hope the GOP keep illegal immigration hysteria going at a steady rolling boil.  They can’t help but regularly slip into Hispanic bashing, alienating a constituency that would otherwise tilt in their favor over issues like abortion and gay marriage.  That it’s also a particularly fast growing constituency is nice, too.

jesse, if you’d been dutifully reading OneNewsNow you’d realize that the correct term is not “abortionarium”, but rather “abortuary”. gotta keep on top of these neologisms.

jesse, if you’d been dutifully reading OneNewsNow you’d realize that the correct term is not “abortionarium”, but rather “abortuary”. gotta keep on top of these neologisms.

Personally, I prefer “abortatasium,” so we can cheer on the ongoing abortions and wave little flags and foam fingers. 

I think we should do two bills.  One, we should change the name of the DC airport from Ronnie International back to just National and that we change the name of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan to the U.S.S. Harvy Milk.  That oughta keep them distracted for awhile.

How about the “Ethnic Cuisine (Juvenile Canines) Bill”?  That ought to get them typing so madly their little fingers combust.

Wow, Jesse: that was great. That was one of the few truly original and valid insights I’ve read on the political internets in months.

Yesss ... this is so like when I used to hand my baby son a pan and a spoon to bang while I went downstairs to put in the laundry.

Here - make some inconsequential noise while I get some work done.

I got it: introduce a bill to name an airport in Michigan after Michael Moore.

They love obsessing over Michael Moore.

Logically, anyone who insists the media is chock full of liberal bias would welcome the return of the of the Fairness Doctrine, since it would force the liberal media to balance all that liberal propaganda with god-fearing conservative truth.

And yet in spite of all the lying liberals on TV, somehow the ring wingnuts oppose the Fairness Doctrine violently. It’s almost like they’re full of shit or something…

Conservatives either don’t understand the Fairness Doctrine or are lying about it. Fundamentally it’s a technical doctrine more than a content doctrine—there’s only so much spectrum and only so much time in the week, and the Fairness Doctrine is a communications equivalent of the Sherman Antitrust Act (along with ownership limitations, which also went by the boards years ago).

The simple fact is that if the Fairness Doctrine was reintroduced, it wouldn’t affect the net or Cable TV. But its opponents tend to avoid mentioning that.

So, when the Fairness Doctrine is resurrected, and talk radio is required to give equal time with Rush Limbaigh to Air America, you’ll be completely understanding when it also means that CBS News ½ hour of Katie Couric has to be balanced by CBS airing ½ hour of Sean Hannity. 

Dana, I was thinking more along the lines of when Rush Limbaugh get 4-hours each day to spew his brand of sewage on the air, Amanda, Jesse, and Pam get 4-hours on his stations in balance.

It’s interesting that you assume this (which isn’t even being proposed or even talked about except among the Reichwing douchocracy) would affect CBS more than it would affect your favorite wingnut channels/stations…

Dana, I find it interesting that you think Katie Couric is more or less the same as Sean Hannity, just from the other side of the aisle. Care to provide evidence that Couric is a left-wing polemicist, or are you just dutifully reciting someone else’s talking points (again)?

Actually Dana, I wouldn’t mind that at all.  Why?  Because boneheads like my BIL listen to way too much right wing hate radio because they are working or commuting long distances at the time and not able to watch TV.

Mr Ess, when I look at your argument, I note that there was a counter to Rush Limbaugh created the American way: private entrepreneurs got together to create the Air America radio network.  With great fanfare it was launched, but for some incredible reason, it failed miserably.  Surely, surely! it couldn’t have been due to lousy programming failing to draw an audience? 

Conservatives dominate exactly one medium: talk radio.  Liberals seem to dominate the newspaper industry pretty thoroughly, and the broadcast media to a lesser extent; Fox News is notable precisely because it is the exception.  The internet is probably close to even.

I just don’t see where anyone is somehow being denied information, where the liberals are somehow being suppressed.  Your message is getting out; hadn’t you noticed?

Ms Kate wrote:

Actually Dana, I wouldn’t mind that at all.  Why?  Because boneheads like my BIL listen to way too much right wing hate radio because they are working or commuting long distances at the time and not able to watch TV.

Really?  Considering all of the other things to which they might listen—music of all sorts of genres, to sports, to National Public Radio—doesn’t that mean if they are listening to “right wing hate radio” it is because that is what they choose to do?

With very few exceptions—the Bitter Scribe and the Phoenician—I get very few people on this site checking out my own, even though all are welcomed and no one has ever been banned.  By using the logic I see displayed here, why shouldn’t we see your computers restricted to Pandagon and other liberal sites for twelve hours—I’ll be nice and suggest four three-hour shifts—and conservative sites for the other twelve?  Hey, that might get me a lot more traffic! 

What is it about freedom of speech that liberals find so objectionable?

Mr Ess wrote:

Dana, I was thinking more along the lines of when Rush Limbaugh get 4-hours each day to spew his brand of sewage on the air, Amanda, Jesse, and Pam get 4-hours on his stations in balance.

I have noticed that Amanda has branched out into podcasting, so she just might be working her way in that direction.  And if Amanda, Jesse, Pam and we can’t forget Auguste happen to try talk radio and are good enough at it, I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to broadcast 24 hours a day, if they are popular enough for a station or network to want to put them on that long.

With very few exceptions—the Bitter Scribe and the Phoenician—I get very few people on this site checking out my own, even though all are welcomed and no one has ever been banned.

True enough.  Much as I might mock his boneheaded ignorance, Dana is more honourable in this respect than some liberal sites suuch as Shakespeare’s Sister.

What Democrats have never gotten is that this is a perfect way to deal with the GOP: give them a stupid thing to obsess over, and then watch them obsess over it endlessly, with no concern for their overall well-being.

This could be a real opportunity for parody trolls. I’m actually serious, and I don’t just mean on the internet. I mean people who lead conservatives farther and farther into the cloud-cuckoo-land that they now inhabit, encouraging them to embrace the most repulsive aspects of their own ideology. In this way, conservatism could be rendered completely incapable of interfacing with political, social, military or economic reality in any way. It would not take much, as they’re almost there already.