Thread: RED ALERT! Free Speech Sneak Attack in DC! Call now!

I could only find this statement by Durbin during the discussion of Fairness Doctrine with DeMint at time of debate over amendment 160


Durbin says.... "My amendment says two things.

It is the first amendment we will vote on. First, the existing statutory requirement for diversity in media ownership is going to be encouraged so we have more and more different people applying for licenses for radio and TV stations. There is nothing wrong with that, as I see it. It is already in the law. "

"Secondly, do not take away the FCC's power to say to public licensees of television and radio: Operate in the public interest. Make sure you have local news and weather. Make sure you do not have sexual content and violence on children's shows--basic things that are common sense."

" I do not think the Senator from South Carolina wanted to change that. He did inadvertently. My amendment cleans it up. If the Durbin amendment is adopted, I encourage people to support both the Durbin amendment and the DeMint amendment. If my amendment is not adopted, I hope they will reconsider their support for Senator s conversation during the session found at Thomas."

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D ... w:/bss/|

The day after the vote, it shows up on Thomas for the public to read.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:SP00591:

S.AMDT.591
Amends: S.160
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] (submitted 2/26/2009) (proposed 2/26/2009)

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest.

TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S2574

STATUS:

2/26/2009:
Amendment SA 591 proposed by Senator Durbin. (consideration: CR S2517-2520, S2522-2524; text: CR S2522)
2/26/2009:
Amendment SA 591 agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 57 - 41. Record Vote Number: 70.


TEXT OF AMENDMENTS -- (Senate - February 26, 2009)


[Page: S2574] GPO's PDF
---

SA 591. Mr. DURBIN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 160, to provide the District of Columbia a voting seat and the State of Utah an additional seat in the House of Representatives; as follows:


At the end of the bill add the following:

SEC. 9. FCC AUTHORITIES.

(a) Clarification of General Powers.--Title III of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended by inserting after section 303 (47 U.S.C. 303) the following new section:

``SEC. 303B. CLARIFICATION OF GENERAL POWERS.

``(a) Certain Affirmative Actions Required.--The Commission shall take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.

``(b) Construction.--Nothing in section 303A shall be construed to limit the authority of the Commission regarding matters unrelated to a requirement that broadcasters present or ascertain opposing viewpoints on issues of public importance.''.

(b) Severability.--Notwithstanding section 7(a), if any provision of section 2(a)(1), 2(b)(1), or 3 or any amendment made by those sections is declared or held invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the amendment made by subsection (a) and the application of such amendment to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected by such holding.

Maybe it is me, but are these politicians that ignorant. How could these democrats vote Yes for Durbin's bill for the fairness doctrine and Yes for DeMints bill which is against the fairness doctrine. They must use magnifying glasses to read what is going on. I am so upset about this. Can anyone make sense of this.

Originally Posted by annamarie

Maybe it is me, but are these politicians that ignorant. How could these democrats vote Yes for Durbin's bill for the fairness doctrine and Yes for DeMints bill which is against the fairness doctrine. They must use magnifying glasses to read what is going on. I am so upset about this. Can anyone make sense of this.

WELCOME TO ALIPAC annamarie

They don't read the bills they vote on, they just do what the puppeteers tell them to do. The DeMint amendment was attached to a bill destined never to become law and is already tabled. They KNOW the American people are against the fairness doctrine, so this way they get their cake and eat it too. They can claim they voted against it, which technically they did, while still getting it passed.

I just sent Durbin a scathing letter telling him what I thought about his sneaky tactics of shoving an amendment in our faces at the last minute without giving anyone a chance to read it. I also told him how I felt about all the sneaky and underhanded tactics I've seen the Democrats pull ever since they gained power in Congress. I also told him that their sneaky ways are going to hand the majority right back to the Republicans in the next election. We'll see how he likes that.

Originally Posted by tinybobidaho

I just sent Durbin a scathing letter telling him what I thought about his sneaky tactics of shoving an amendment in our faces at the last minute without giving anyone a chance to read it. I also told him how I felt about all the sneaky and underhanded tactics I've seen the Democrats pull ever since they gained power in Congress. I also told him that their sneaky ways are going to hand the majority right back to the Republicans in the next election. We'll see how he likes that.

off subject, but "sneaky" reminded me of something, how are your dairy farmers doing tinybob?

Originally Posted by cayla99

Originally Posted by tinybobidaho

I just sent Durbin a scathing letter telling him what I thought about his sneaky tactics of shoving an amendment in our faces at the last minute without giving anyone a chance to read it. I also told him how I felt about all the sneaky and underhanded tactics I've seen the Democrats pull ever since they gained power in Congress. I also told him that their sneaky ways are going to hand the majority right back to the Republicans in the next election. We'll see how he likes that.

off subject, but "sneaky" reminded me of something, how are your dairy farmers doing tinybob?

The Idaho Dairymen's Association has apologized to my Senator Jorgenson for publishing the LaRaza "How To Avoid The Law" Handbook on their website. We are gearing up for a big fight. I talked to Senator Jorgenson last week, and his employer enforcement bill has gone to print. And I just talked to the editor at my local paper and I think he's going to publish an editorial I sent him that I wrote about the illegal aliens in Idaho. I'll let you know how that works out.

It now looks like Durbin's "real" intention was to convolute the DC voting rights issue, with an add-on issue about the Fairness Doctrine, or perhaps he meant it as the other way around.
Either way, he wanted to get DC voting rights. Now, that "should not" stand the constitutional test in court. This has been reviewed in the past by the courts, I think & they then said not to such a proposal.
On the Fairness Doctrine it is clear many want it to pass to silence specific individuals & specific groups. They see "conservative talk radio" as an obstacle to getting their special legislation done, whatever it may be.
Even some Republicans favor a Fairness Doctrine "type" of legislative or regulatory action. Many in Washington think those outside the beltway, such as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mike Savage & a host of others, have too much influence.
these politicians also know that if a subject comes up & the talk radio guys go after it, the emails, the phone calls, the letters, the personal visits, multiply by the thousands in some cases.
So, to shut up those voices, they want media "diversity." This amounts to nebulous demands for ownership to reflect the community (whether its color of skin or religion or whatever someone comes up with), & to reflect "community standards" which means, anything someone wants to say it means when they file lawsuits & cause station owners to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to defend themselves form frivolous claims about something no one could possibly figure out what it is!
That is what the Fairness Doctrine was used for in the first place. Many knew it would not stand up in courts. But they also knew station owners could not afford to fight ten thousand legal battles over ten thousand inane issues that some activist community organizer came up with. Someone funded by activist groups like MoveOn.org or the Open Society Institute, etc. Most are liberal activist groups who use the courts to create havoc & cost people more money than they have so these folks can force through social changes "they" think are right. Never mind 80% of America hates what they want to do, few can afford the legal battles to stop them form making us into a socialist nation full of perverts, drug addicts, religion haters, etc.
So, Durbin wants one or perhaps even both issues passed, but he was going to settle for one to pass as a victory for his decision to aid a liberal agenda.

I posted an email on this I received on 2/23 from Eagle Forum. Below is the email and the thread:

D.C. Voting Bill is Unconstitutional!
Senate Votes Tuesday: D.C. Voting Bill is Unconstitutional!

Take Action! http://capwiz.com/eagleforum/issues/ale ... 6&queueid=[capwiz:queue_id]
Tell your Senators to Vote NO on S. 160

February 23, 2009

The Presidents' Day Recess is over and Congress is back in session ready to wreak more havoc. First up on this week's Senate agenda is a piece of legislation which may be more accurately described as an unconstitutional power-grab. Sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 (S. 160), would establish full House of Representatives voting rights for the District of Columbia while adding an additional seat to Utah, a traditionally Republican stronghold and the next state in line to pick up a Congressional seat in reapportionment. However, there is one small problem: D.C. is NOT a congressional district or a state!

The D.C. House Voting Rights Act aims to accomplish the following:

* Subvert the District Clause of the U.S. Constitution - Article I, Section 8, clause 17 - which makes clear that D.C. is a federal city, not a state, with final governing authority resting with Congress. The U.S. Constitution states that the House shall be composed of "Members chosen...by the People of the several States," not delegates representing non-state territories.

* Silence critics of D.C. voting rights by buying them off with a "sure Republican" seat because they know the D.C. seat will be a solid Democrat. In the last 12 elections since D.C. was granted the right to cast presidential electoral votes, it has never cast less than 74.8 percent of its popular vote for the Democratic presidential candidate. This move is simply a partisan trade-off by the congressional liberal Majority wanting to add a permanent Democrat vote to their tallies.

* Bribe Republicans to favor the idea by including a provision to increase the number of House Members from 435 to 437 and give the extra Representative to Utah.

* Lay the first step for achieving the ultimate goal of establishing two permanent Democrat Senate seats for the District. If the initial inclination is for D.C. to be "considered a Congressional district for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives," then the idea for D.C. to be "considered a state for the purposes of representation in the U.S. Senate," will not be far down the road.

Simply introducing a bill such as this is unconstitutional! D.C. cannot be "treated as though it were a state," unless it were formally made a state via a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress as well as three-fourths of the states to ratify it.

This is nothing new, as congressional liberals have been trying to grant full voting rights to the District of Columbia since the 1980s. The maiden attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution through the "D.C. Representation" Amendment, which passed Congress but was rejected by the American people and died on August 22, 1985 after a decisive majority of 34 of the 50 states refused to ratify it, was unsuccessful. Now, Members of Congress are attempting to forgo the constitutional process and slip one past the American people in order to accommodate their political agenda!

The Senate is scheduled to vote to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to debate of S. 160 tomorrow, Tuesday, February 24th at 11am! Please begin calling and emailing your Senators and tell them to vote NO on this openly unconstitutional bill! Be sure to focus your calls on Republicans and Democrats alike, as various Republican "moderates" have been known to support this attempted scheme in the past and some Democrat "moderates" have opposed it. Senators to target:

* Voinovich (R-OH)
* Specter (R-PA)
* Snowe (R-ME)
* Lugar (R-IN)
* Bennett (R-UT)
* Hatch (R-UT)
* Collins (R-ME)
* Tester (D-MT)
* Baucus (D-MT)
* Risch (R-ID) freshman Senator
* Johanns (R-NE) freshman Senator


Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Further Reading:

* Liberal Plans to Subvert the U.S. Constitution

* DC is Not a Congressional District The Unconstitutional Compromise, by George Will.

* Dems' Unconstitutional Plot to Invent New Congressmen
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-854799-.html#854799