"Democrats push bill to silence conservative talk radio,"

"Democratic allies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have drafted legislation that would impose the "Fairness Doctrine," which could throw off the air such conservative radio hosts as Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, as well as thousands of smaller broadcasters.

Conservatives said the Democrats have been encouraged by the removal of Don Imus from his radio and television shows, and warn that liberals could use the Federal Communications Commission to re-impose a Fairness Doctrine without congressional approval.

"It is a strategy that is intended to silence voices with whom the left disagrees," said Ken Blackwell, a leading conservative.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey, New York Democrat, has introduced legislation, entitled the "Media Ownership Reform Act." The bill would empower the FCC to monitor and alter radio and television content."

"Monitor and alter radio and television content" was the same thing the Gestapo did under Hitler, and the KGB in its various incarnations in the Soviet Union.

Censorship.

The government deciding what we hear on radio and see on television.

I'd add "pure and simple," but nothing the Democratic leadership does is ever pure or ever simple.

If that were the case, then we'd be calling it the "Censorship Doctrine," not the "Fairness Doctrine."

Think about it. All the Democrats say they want to do is make sure all political viewpoints are "fairly" represented. But do they?

If privately-owned radio stations are making money presenting overwhelmingly conservative (or at least non-leftist) political comment, who's buying?

It sounds to me as though the radio listening public is.

Otherwise, all those radios would be tuned in to the less-than-overwhelmingly popular, tax-supported "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition," and Al Franken's fiscally (and morally) bankrupt "Air America" network.

They wouldn't need to revive Federally-enforced censorship of the airwaves.

"The Media Ownership Reform Act also stipulates that all views be given equal time on radio in a return of the "Fairness Doctrine" passed in the 1940s. In 1987, the FCC, saying it was unconstitutional, decided to no longer enforce the Fairness Doctrine."

All views?

David Duke's and Lyndon LaRouche's?  Osama bin Laden's?  Kim Jong-Il's?  The Reverend Sun Myung Moon's?

Because "All" means "All." Not just "the viewpoints we like."  That is what the liberals are thinking - "what we think is reasonable should be represented on the air, even if we must engage in political censorship to make it happen."

In Oliver Twist, Dickens' Mr. Bumble said "the law is a ass."  And once the government gets involved in telling radio and TV stations which political content they can put on the air, the law has no way of sorting out "reasonable" from "unreasonable" - as the Supreme Court-approved Nazi marches through Skokie, Illinois showed.

"Conservatives said Democrats in Congress, pressed by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have sought to exploit the Fairness Doctrine to intimidate and silence conservative broadcasters on radio and television. They said liberal Democrats were specifically targeting Savage, Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly.

"Make no mistake about it, this campaign is all about censorship," said Cliff Kincaid, editor of the Accuracy in Media Report. "Led by Sharpton, the new hero of this media-reform movement, the political left has tasted blood in the Imus affair."

In an address to the Free Congress Foundation on April 13, Kincaid envisioned that conservative broadcasters would be subpoenaed by Congress. He said these broadcasters would be accused of racism, sexism and homophobia.

"It's an emergency issue in our view," said Bill Lind, a leading member of the Free Congress Foundation. "This is a move to very directly kill conservative radio and leave us voiceless to the American people."

Hinchey and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-styled social democrat and Vermont independent, have called on the new Congress to use the Fairness Doctrine to target conservative voices on television and radio. The two liberal members of Congress outlined their intentions during the recent National Conference for Media Reform, sponsored by Free Press, a Massachusetts-based organization that is subsidized by leftist billionaire George Soros."

George Soros, we should remember, ponied up billions of dollars in a vain attempt to get John Kerry into the White House. Most of that money went to buy those endearing TV ads which made the period between August and November 2004 so memorable. He also is known for engineering leftist takeovers in several former Soviet republics by pumping money into various pockets.

Soros' "Open Society Initiative" openly advocates such things as giving convicts the right to vote (and "volunteers" here in Colorado who were paid partially by Soros tried to jump the gun by registering convicted felons still serving time in our prisons to vote in the 2004 Presidential election).

"Now is the time to begin asking that if networks provide their listeners with 99 percent of talk shows being with right-wing extremists, whether that really is what public trust is about," Sanders said in an address in January. "Now is the time to open the question of the Fairness Doctrine again."

Apparently Sen. Sanders doesn't trust the American public to listen to the political programs of its own choice. The "Fairness Doctrine" would require our privately-owned radio stations to give free air time to people we don't want to hear on the radio.

Real  fairness would involve letting the free market (another thing that activist Democrats seem to hate) determine what privately-owned radio stations, their advertisers, and their listeners decide between them is broadcast on our airwaves.

But real fairness and the Fairness Doctrine couldn't be farther apart.

During the conference, Hinchey said Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts were responsible for the war in Iraq and preparing to attack Iran and Syria. He said these talk shows endangered the United States and would be terminated under his legislation.

"All of that stuff will end," Hinchey said.

Two Democrats on the FCC have already suggested that the commission could sabotage conservative broadcasters. FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein said this could be assured should a Democrat be elected president in 2008.

"We tried for more, but could only get you just two years to try to make equal access permanent," Adelstein said.

Supporters of the bill said conservatives have dominated talk radio while left-wing public broadcasting has been starved of funds. Sanders, who has led the Senate drive for the return of the Fairness Doctrine, said the legislation would restrict conservative broadcasters, particularly in discussing the Islamic threat to the United States."

This, it appears, is one of the places where radical Islamist lobbies like CAIR are getting their political money's worth from their support of the new Democratic majority in Congress. Once again, the taxpayer gets to stand behind all the lobbyists for influence in Congress.

The Democrats, it seems, have found someone NEW to sell their country out to. If we can't talk about the threat Islamic terror poses to the United States, we can't build a consensus on how to manage the threat posed when Iranian nuclear weapons fall into the hands of Muslim terrorists.

And 9/11 will be thrust in the shadows by what happens then.

The Democrats won't have the character or honesty to admit what they helped happen, any more than they now admit to what they did by neglecting the threat posed by Al-Qaeda up to 2000.  (Remember all those lawsuits against ABC's documentary on how Clinton mishandled the hunt for Osama bin Laden?  All the howling and screaming by the Left?)

"I happen to believe that we are reaching a moment where critical mass is kicking in," Sanders said. "Not only in the House is there a media caucus where it is reaching a higher level than ever before. I can only tell you that it will happen in the Senate as well."

Another bill, entitled the "Fairness in Broadcasting Act," has been sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter, the chairman of the House Rules Committee. The legislation is similar to that introduced by Hinchey.

Under the Democratic-controlled Congress, the FCC has already sought to regulate programming. On April 25, the FCC said in a report that Congress could regulate violence on cable, satellite and broadcast television without violating the First Amendment.

"Congress could provide parents more tools to limit their children's exposure to violent programming in a constitutional way," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said."

Wouldn't you think so?

What the Democrats want is to use the United States Government to force privately-owned radio stations to present their ideas for free.

Conservatives don't have to resort to such measures, apparently.  Advertisers pay for time on conservative talk radio because they know people are listening when conservative leaders speak.