Grassley Challenger Tom Fiegen Talks to Blog for Iowa about Crooks, the Fairness Doctrine, Blogs and Grassley - (Part 3) by Dave Bradley
Dave
Bradley and his wife, Carol, are activists from West Liberty. Both feel
that retiring Chuck Grassley and finding the person to do that job, are
the most important tasks for Iowa Democrats next year. Dave has known
Tom Fiegen since his re-election campaign for the Iowa Senate in 2004
in Senate District 40, where both reside. Dave and Carol met with Tom
in Tipton at a new coffee shop called "A Place To Land." Click here to read Part I and Part II of BFIA's three-part exclusive interview with Grassley challenger Tom Fiegen.
BFIA: You obviously seem to have a lot of knowledge about financial systems. Could you briefly describe your background.
[The first half of the candidate's answer to this question can be found in Part II]
Fiegen: The firm that I went in with in Brookings, South Dakota, had been the firm of George Mickelson, former Governor of South Dakota, and I had political aspirations. A partner there was a crook and he was disbarred. He would represent both sides in a lawsuit. There was also a retired farmer that owned farms, mobile home lots, and development property. By the time he had died, almost all of his property had been signed over to this lawyer and their family. The farmer's children came forward and sued him and also brought a disciplinary complaint. He did bankruptcies, and he would have clients sign over all of their assets to him before they filed their case. He had filled 2 mobile home lots with homes that he had taken from clients and he would rent them to people.
I filed a complaint against him as an employee in December of 1989 and I was fired in January of 1990. I testified against him in June of 1990 and he was disbarred in the summer of 1993. It was one of those things where I knew it wasn't going to be good, and I had a number of conversations with my priest and my dad and I said, I'm the new kid on the block, there's lots of lawyers in this town that are familiar with what he was doing, they're not turning him in, what do I do? And the question my dad asked is, can you sleep with yourself if you don't? I said I can't.
After I turned him in, I had a number of the older lawyers in town call me and say, good for you, and I always wanted to ask them, why didn't you? Where were you? That's how I got back to Iowa, and I've been practicing law in Cedar Rapids since January, 1990.
BFIA: So you've literally, not only represented people, but lived through situations, and that's given you quite a hands-on outlook on what all this means.
Fiegen: Yes.
BFIA: Earlier, you mentioned misinformation. What do you do about so much misinformation being put out there by TV and radio and media that people have come to trust as being truthful? What can you do about that, to counter that right now?
Fiegen: I think this is where the social networks come in. People are looking elsewhere for information, on blogs and on alternative sources. My daugher Kate graduated with a degree in Journalism and worked for a newspaper, and while she was there, they continued to cut reporters to the point where she didn't have time to go back and double-check and fact check her stories. It was a constant push to get stuff out the door to fill the column inches. She complained that bloggers had more time, and usually beat them on a story, and were more accurate than what they could do at the paper because of the budget cuts.
BFIA: Plus they could be more focused....
Fiegen: Correct. So how do you counter? I think you look for alternative ways to put out the information on the internet, through alternate sources, and when you can, you spoon-feed the mainstream media the accurate information and you point out how information that they may have been receiving from somebody else is inaccurate, and I have a number that call me on bankruptcy developments, because everything I've told them in the past is true and credible. I could give them factually accurate and verifiable information. You also have to give them the sources so they can go back and actually see that you are giving them the straight stuff.
BFIA: Some people say one way to do it would be through the Fairness Doctrine. Are you a believer in reinstating the Fairness Doctrine?
Fiegen: I would like to see deconsolidation in media. I certainly think that we can look at segregating ownership of TV stations from radio stations, and from newsprint. One company should not be able to cover all three. First, break that apart. Then bring in some more requirements for programming where they have to present counter points of views, they have to consider the community they're in, and they have to go back to the old public service standard where they're using the public airwaves as a public service.
BFIA: Since you mentioned news sources, what are your news sources? Where do you go for news? (laugher) Do you read all of them like Sarah Palin?
Fiegen: I'll just hit the highlights of what I have bookmarked on my computer. I have the major papers in Iowa bookmarked. I skim the Des Moines Register online, QC Times online, the Cedar Rapids Gazette online. I also go to a number of websites, including the Iowa Independent, Blog for Iowa, the AFL-CIO blog, Politico.
BFIA: Huffington?
Fiegen: I get there once in a while. I check Democratic Underground every day just to see what is new. I really actively watched DU during the presidential process because I found while we were getting ready for the caucuses that the stuff on DU was more timely and accurate than the national media.
BFIA: Anything on the conservative side? Little Green Footballs, Red State?
Fiegen: There's a couple of Iowa bloggers that I check on every other week, just to see what's there, the Krusty Konservative, the Beanwalker... every so often I just go over and see what they're doing.
BFIA: We hear rumors of another primary candidate. Any feelings about that?
Fiegen: I welcome other candidates.
BFIA: Do you believe you could beat Grassley?
Fiegen: I actually think I have a better set of skills for this economy and this environment than Chuck does.
BFIA: Ok. You know, his name is literally known everywhere in Iowa.
Fiegen: He's a well known brand. He has been a U.S. Senator for thirty years. But his behavior the last year, since the President was inaugurated, has been bizarre. And I' ve had a number of media ask me, is he losing it? And my answer is, I'm not his doctor. I don't even play a doctor on TV. I can't answer that. But it's hard to explain how and why he's saying these things, like “AIG executives should apologize or commit suicide,” “If you want good health insurance go to work for John Deere, and if they're not hiring, go to work for the federal government.” You can just go down the list, his Tweets against Sonia Sotomayor, against the President. All of those either display (1) an arrogance or (2) a disconnection from reality.
This is going to be a 2-step process. One is to convince Iowans that it is time to fire Grassley and secondly, to convince them that I'm the best person for the job. That is my goal and I think I can accomplish it. ~
Check back next Wednesday for Part 4 in BFIA's series with U.S. Senate candidate Tom Fiegen. Visit Fiegenforussenate.com
An Open Letter to the Iowa DNR on Particulate Matter 2.5 Compliance
by Paul Deaton
To: Wendy Rains, Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Subject: Air Quality PM2.5 State Implementation Plan Public Comment
Dear Wendy:
As a citizen of Iowa and a member of the Johnson County
Board of Health, I have some concerns regarding the proposed State Implementation Plan (SIP) for managing
particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5).
I would note that the state appears to be in compliance
with the current standard and that is laudable. Enforcement of compliance with
the law is an important part of what citizens expect from the Iowa Department
of Natural Resources.
Here are my concerns:
As an agricultural state, during planting and harvest
times, there is an increase in the release of particulate matter due to
agricultural activity. Some of this fugitive dust escapes the property of the
agricultural activity and presents a health hazard. Any State Implementation Program should consider
how, if at all, agricultural activity should be considered as a separate issue.
There is no mention of farming or agriculture in the State Implementation Program draft, and this is a
serious omission given the scope and special circumstances that seasonal
agricultural activities in Iowa represent. I do not believe that compliance with the federal law adequately addresses this issue.
The Ambient Air Monitoring plan is approved by the
Environmental Protection Agency and we are in compliance according to that
standard, as outlined in the draft State Implementation Plan. However, the state of Iowa produces
substantially more electricity from energy sources with PM2.5 emissions than
the nationwide average. These electricity generating operations produce
substantial amounts of PM2.5 emissions, and the monitoring network does not
appear adequate to capture or evaluate the PM2.5 emissions from coal burning
facilities. For example, Iowa State University has a coal fired power plant and
there is not a monitoring station nearby. At a minimum, the Iowa DNR should
study the locations of the coal burning industrial activity in Iowa vis-Ă -vis
the monitoring network and ensure that Iowans are protected from these
emissions which have a recognized deleterious effect on the health of nearby
residents. Monitoring can help do this, but there appear to be obvious gaps in
the network coverage that need to be addressed in the SIP.
I appreciate your consideration of my comments and look
forward to a timely response.
Send a comment to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources on this issue no later than October 5, 2009 by sending an e-mail to wendy.rains@dnr.iowa.gov.
Attend the public hearing Monday, October 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Air Quality Bureau office located at 7900 Hickman Road, Suite 1, Windsor Heights, Iowa.
Health Care Reform Update: Blue Dogs Do Some Things Right by Alta Price, M.D.
As health care reform bills move through Congress over the next few weeks, different factions will negotiate changes to make the bill more beneficial to their constituents, or, in some cases, their donors. We progressives reflexively assume the Blue Dog Democrats will try to weaken or eliminate the public insurance option. I believe that some of the changes the Blue Dogs want in the public option are good for Iowa, other rural areas, and more fair than what some progressives demand. And I don’t believe I hold this view just because I am an Iowan or a physician. In fact, I have heard Howard Dean state several times that he thinks the Blue Dogs have improved HR 3200. Howard may be a physician and from a rural state, but no one has done more to champion our cause or to lead the fight for a strong public option.
The whole problem stems from the fact that Medicare unfairly underpays rural physicians. Many Blue Dog Democrats come from rural areas and their constituents suffer under this system. Tying provider payments in the public option to Medicare rates makes a bad problem even worse.
I have touched previously on the shortage of physicians in rural areas. The issue is complex and I want to give you a basic understanding, so I am going to oversimplify this somewhat. Also, although I am going to only talk about doctors, rural hospitals and other providers have similar problems with Medicare.
Medicare pays doctors a fee for services, and this fee varies from area to area. This variation in based on an estimate of “practice costs” – Medicare pays more to doctors in areas where it costs more to practice. In theory, that is. In reality, the formula Medicare uses is based heavily on what it costs to rent office space in an area, but that is only a small part of practice costs. Medical equipment, supplies, and malpractice insurance are at least as expensive in rural areas. In fact, medical economists have consistently found that it actually costs more to practice in a rural setting than in urban or suburban settings, even though Medicare pays rural doctors about 30% less. Meanwhile, 20% of our population lives in rural areas, but only 9% of doctors are willing to put up with the low reimbursement and hectic life style of a rural practice. Compounding the problem for rural doctors, a higher percentage of their patients are on Medicare, at least in Iowa (and I presume in other rural states).
Doctors in these areas have been trying for years (even decades) to correct the flawed formula that Medicare uses to calculate practice costs. But since rural areas have fewer representatives in Congress, efforts to correct the problem have been unsuccessful. Why? If we are getting an unfairly low amount, doctors in urban areas are getting an unfairly high amount. Representatives from urban or suburban areas don’t want to cut Medicare payments to their districts’ doctors.
So along comes HR 3200, a good bill in general, but not perfect. Not only is there no fix for the flawed Medicare payment formula for rural doctors, now the public option payments and Medicaid payments are all going to be based on Medicare rates. I actually think it is great to tie Medicaid rates to Medicare, because in far too many states Medicaid pays so little that providers won’t take Medicaid patients. One good thing about Iowa is we pay reasonable rates for Medicaid (even though it is less than Medicare). Illinois, on the other hand, pays very little to providers who care for its Medicaid patients.
Now as my good activist friend, Karen Metcalf, points out, “someone has to be 50th in reimbursement for Medicare.” But we both agree that it is not fair for the same doctors to be last in Medicare, last in public option payments, and last in Medicaid payments! It is especially unfair if it is based on a formula of practice costs that is flawed in the first place. And it will not be good for patients who live in rural areas either, because they aren’t going to have enough doctors.
The Blue Dogs generally come from rural areas and know about this problem. They figure this is their one chance to get it fixed. Representative Bruce Braley, a true progressive, has been tireless in his efforts to get a fix for the flawed Medicare formula that penalizes Iowa. And the Blue Dogs are his allies in this fight. The fix most likely will be requiring Medicare to calculate actual practice costs in different settings and correct Medicare payments to reflect those costs.
We are confident that Medicare will agree that rural doctors need higher payments. In order to get enough votes, the fix will probably have to include a provision that the doctors getting more from Medicare now won’t get their payments cut; in other words, rural doctors would just get their payments raised. Presumably over time rural doctors might see their payments go up more quickly, possibly eventually exceeding urban payments if indeed rural practice costs are higher. In the meantime, I agree with the Blue Dogs it is not a good idea to have public option payment rates tied to Medicare rates. Of course this makes the public option more expensive. But I don’t think we should save money by unfairly underpaying doctors in the very areas we need doctors the most.
Alta
Price is a physician practicing Pathology in Davenport, Iowa. One of
the original Deaniacs, she stays involved with Democracy for America,
Iowa, and the Quad Cities. She advocates for quality, affordable health
care for all, primarily as a volunteer with Progressive Action for the
Common Good (Health Care Reform Issue Forum).Watch for Dr. Price's Health Care Reform Update every Tuesday here on Blog for Iowa. E-Mail Alta Price
Demand Rational Radio in Iowa! Have you had enough of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dennis Miller, Michael Savage, Jan Mickelson, Steve Deace, Fred Thompson, and friends saturating the publicly owned radio airwaves across Iowa and across the nation?
Here's what we're doing about it in eastern Iowa. Let's make it a statewide effort. Please pass this on. Start a petition in your community.
Three years ago, approximately 500 citizens signed a petition to bring progressive talk programming to Iowa City Radio Station KXIC 800 AM. We made the case that it would be good business sense because of the high proportion of listeners in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids corridor area who hold progressive views. The petition, accompanying letters, and public pressure were successful, resulting in KXIC adding two progressive programs, Thom Hartmann and The Randi Rhodes Show from Air America Radio.
Shortly after these programs began airing, the 2006 mid-term elections occurred, which were disastrous for Republicans. Clear Channel subsequently pulled the plug on much of its progressive programming around the country, and Iowa lost what few progressive programs it had. Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes vanished from our local station, KXIC, and today, the most progressive geographic area in the state is forced to endure Sean Hannity from 2-5 daily in their place. In 2006 in the Quad Cities, a local station, WKBF 1270 AM, aired progressive talker Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, several Air America programs, and a locally produced progressive talk show.
WKBF 1270 AM, also a casualty of Clear Channel's 2007 mass station-flipping, is now a 24-hour Christian station (www.truth1270 - that requires listeners (owners of the airwaves) toregister and log in before you can even see the program schedule.
Again, we find ourselves three years later, asking our local station, KXIC 800 AM, to broadcast more balanced programming, because the exclusive broadcasting of conservative opinion does not reflect or represent the range of political views of our diverse community. See Action steps below.
[FYI: 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive, according to a 2007 American Progress report. Arbitron, the national radio ratings company, reports that more than 90 percent of Americans ages 12 or older listen to radio each week, “a higher penetration than television, magazines, newspapers, or the Internet.”]
2 - Please e-mail KXIC:JohnLaton@ClearChannel.com Send a brief note. Use your own words why you feel your local station should air more balanced programming.
3 - Please call KXIC
Business Lines: (319) 354-9500 [Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.]
Studio Lines: (319) 354-0800 866-609-TALK (8-2-5-5)
Fax: (319) 354-9504 Snail Mail: 3365 NE Dubuque St, Iowa City, IA 52240
Health Care Organizing Workshop in Marion Thursday Next Thursday evening, Organizing for America will be holding a special health care organizing workshop at the Marion Public Library in Marion, IA. Derek Eadon, our Iowa State Director, will be on hand to discuss the current status of health insurance reform
and how we can all help to ensure that reform gets passed this year.
Our goal with this workshop will be to provide the information and
tools needed to (1) articulate President Obama’s message on health care reform,
(2) understand the legislative process and how our advocacy fits into
each step, and (3) organize in your communities for health care reform.
If you have been waiting for the right time to really get involved,
this is the time! Passing health insurance reform is not easy, and we
need you now more than ever.
Vicious Rancor Versus Potential Future: A Commentary of This Debate Iowa Policy Research
by Tony E. Hansen
What is so troubling about most of the rancor surrounding recent proposals around Washington is that for at least 8 years (perhaps since the late 1970s) we have waited in vain for real policies to move our economy into the future. We watched as people pillaged the US Treasury to fund huge banks (as well as S&Ls), wars, and conglomerate corporation expansions, in addition to building up the bank accounts of the upper echelon. We did all of this while doing nothing to protect taxpayers, nothing to protect the middle class investments, nothing to build sustainable energy, nothing to protect the environment, nothing to change health care costs, nothing to secure a better interdependent global future for everyone and nothing to improve our schools or society.
We made ourselves vulnerable to extremists and terrorism. We kept borrowing to consume more, without any sense of the consequences.
We have made abstract fears, polarization of society and denial of equality as priorities of public policy rather than to focus upon the public well-being, the loss of living standards, or to address why prices are rising and quality lowers.
We congratulate ourselves for obtaining "low" price on a tag without realizing we paid through taxes for the building and the parking lot, before we even walked into the store. We congratulate ourselves for a low price despite having a continuous cost to replace the item. We congratulate the low price despite neighbors losing their jobs, as companies move operations across the border, or communities turning entire main streets into ghost towns as big box retail move that business elsewhere.
Today, we are witnessing what happens when one keeps kicking the can down the street because we have ignored the issues for decades. We can no longer wait on these issues. We can not take them one at a time because each affects the other and we have let all of them get wildly out of control and too big to ignore (or to fail). Sooner or later, you have to take care of the problem rather than continue to ignore them and all of these contribute to the massive over-spending that we have encouraged for the past few decades.
Further, we cannot be so blind to believe that what appeared to work in the past will work in 2010 or 2050. The world is constantly changing; we have to be ready and be competitive. We need to be forward thinking rather than ego boasting and work with cooperative proposals to lead our country into the new technology age.
If we do nothing constructive towards those ends or let the inconsequential differences define us, we sacrifice valuable time and resources as well as our future generations. Above all, we must break these gluttonous selfish instincts that plague and fragment our society, and instead, we must rebuild our social framework in order to build our future. We cannot let petty differences keep us from our common potential and common good. Only then, can we heal the wounds created by the recent divisions and only then, can we move forward to save our great country.
An Iowa Nuclear Disarmament Primer, Part 1 by Paul Deaton
Many of us were sleeping when President Obama addressed nuclear disarmament to a crowd in Prague on April 5, 2009. It seems the whole United States has been asleep regarding nuclear disarmament. Whatever your politics, we should be ready to say that our nuclear weapons are no longer on high alert and that we have backed away from being an hour away from launching an attack that would end life as we know it on earth. President Obama has taken to this idea and the Prague speech is where he articulated his policy. It is time to wake up and smell the plutonium! In a series of posts on Blog for Iowa, I will address the history and legislative aspects of implementation of the Obama nuclear disarmament policy. A reason many of us may not recently have been focusing on nuclear disarmament is that the George W. Bush administration was not in favor of disarmament. In fact, the Bush Administration was in favor of new U.S. nuclear weapons and delivery systems. During the last two years of the Bush administration, they proposed reliable replacement weapons to keep the U. S. nuclear arsenal moving forward in technology, a multi-decade plan to upgrade the bombers and submarines that launch nuclear weapons, a deal with India to provide nuclear technology and through the efforts of Ambassador John Bolton, attempted to remove the United States’ signature from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In contrast, President Obama brings what we hope will be change we can believe in to the United States nuclear disarmament discussion: a path to zero nuclear weapons in the world. On Tuesday, September 22, former Ambassador Nancy Soderberg described nuclear disarmament as an “alphabet soup” of treaties and agreements to the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council. There is the LTBT (Limited Test Ban Treaty), the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), NPR (Nuclear Posture Review), the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) and many more. In a series of posts on Blog for Iowa I will discuss these treaties as they relate to nuclear disarmament and follow the legislative climate for ratification of the New START Treaty between Russia and the United States and the CTBT. Let’s start with the NPT.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was proposed by Ireland and Finland and signed first by these countries in 1968. The NPT has three basic tenants: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right of sovereign nations to peacefully use nuclear technology. It is in force with 189 of the 193 countries in the world with India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea being non-signatory. North Korea signed the treaty, but withdrew in 2003. Of the 189 countries that have signed the NPT, five possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom. Originally, the NPT was intended to be a 25 year treaty, and during the 1995 NPT review conference in New York, the signing parties to the treaty agreed to extend the treaty indefinitely and without conditions. The NPT is reviewed every five years by parties to the treaty and a series of preparatory meetings is being held before the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference in New York.
The significance of the NPT is that most nations have signed it. The four who have not, each assert their sovereignty and their desire to equip a nuclear weapons arsenal for defense purposes. During the Bush administration, it appears that little was been done to bring these four states into the world community and sign the NPT. The current administration sees the value of getting to zero nuclear weapons, and even though the four non-signatory states have a relatively small number of nuclear weapons compared to the United States and Russia, their participation in the NPT is important. My next post will be about nuclear weapons testing.
In the meantime, I suggest you to learn more about the Obama administration nuclear disarmament initiative by viewing the Prague speech. ~Paul Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County.Check out his blog, Big Grove Garden. E-mail Paul Deaton
Former FCC Commissioner: Congress, FCC Abandon Citizens - Appeal to Rupert Murdoch Our Only Hope FromDC2Iowa
by Nicholas Johnson
"Rupert
Murdoch, this Australian-born, 78-year-old media mogul, and 132nd
richest person in the world, controls the News Corporation, which owns
Fox. And today, unlike 1932, he can legally use his media to spew forth
hatred-for-ratings of a sort that would have resulted in the loss of
his licenses in the Commission's early days."
~ "Congress shall make . . . no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; . . .." So reads the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
"What part of 'no' do our judges not understand?" Justice Hugo Black, for whom I clerked, took the view that because the drafters knew how to use qualifiers, such as "unreasonable searches and seizures" in the Fourth Amendment, we should assume when they said "no law" they meant "no law."
When the FCC exacts substantial fines for relatively trivial "indecency" (which, unlike "obscenity," is constitutionally protected speech), when the post office sets postal rates for newspapers on the basis of the quantity of advertising they contain, when the airport security rules forbid humor near the metal detector machines, when corporations are required to put revelations in a stock prospectus they would rather keep to themselves, when the FTC finds advertising "false and misleading," when cigarette makers are required to tell potential customers that their product will kill them - each constitutes an "abridgment" of speech the judges say is consistent with the "no law" prohibition.
Sometimes the judges just say the speech in question isn't "speech." Obscenity, defamation (until the Sullivan case), "fighting words," speech that might lead to "imminent lawless action," commercial speech (for the first half of the 20th Century), military secrets in time of war, and child pornography are simply defined as "non-speech" outside of the First Amendment's protection.
(To remove any possible ambiguity, I am not voicing objection to the ultimate result in these cases. I'm certainly not making the case for the social benefits of child pornography or, as in the next paragraph, visual depictions of animal cruelty. All I'm saying is that coming to these results as an interpretation of a constitutional provision that there shall be "no law" abridging free speech really does require three years in a law school.)
On October 6th the Supreme Court will consider adding another category of speech to this long list of exemptions: dog fight videos (under a 1999 federal law that forbids trafficking in “depictions of animal cruelty”). Adam Liptak, "A Free Speech Battle Arises From Videos of Fighting Dogs," New York Times, September 19, 2009, p. A1.
I recently came upon a letter from a citizen to Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox broadcasting enterprise, in which she expresses her concern about the impact of Fox's programming on our nation, including the potential physical risk to our President from those
who actually believe President Obama is the equivalent of Adolph Hitler . . . someone to be feared. They get these ideas from your media organizations.
And it makes them dangerous and sick . . ..
[Y]ou are hurting people in our country, and I would like you and your stations to start showing some restraint before one of these individuals thinks they are doing the right thing by actually committing an act of violence.
For a more detailed documentation of similar serious concerns and their connection to the media, see Larry Keller, "The Second Wave; Evidence Grows of Far-Right Militia Resurgence," Intellegence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 135, Fall 2009, p. 30.
A part of what I omitted (the entire letter is reproduced below) is, "Maybe you have the right to do whatever you want . . .."
And indeed Murdoch does. Because hate speech - especially political hate speech - including that which reflects inaccurate sources of information, is protected speech under our courts' interpretations of the First Amendment. The Court may find that "animal cruelty" is outside the protection of the First Amendment. But depictions of, and incitement to, human cruelty are protected. Unless the "lawless action" from speech is "imminent" it's OK.
It was not always thus. In 1932 a court upheld the old Radio Commission (predecessor to the FCC in 1934) in its denial of a license renewal to Reverend Dr. Shuler of the Trinty Church in Los Angeles, licensee of station KGEF. Based on the record in the case it would seem that his speech was no more inaccurate, mean spirited and hateful than what passes for talk shows on Fox. The court, while upholding Shuler's First Amendment rights to hold and speak his views elsewhere, drew a distinction in terms of his right to use a station licensed to serve "the public interest" for such purposes. Judge Groner wrote:
[If broadcasters are permitted to] use these facilities, reaching out, as they do, from one corner of the country to the other, to obstruct the administration of justice, offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic discord . . . and be answerable for slander only at the instance of the one offended, then this great science [of radio broadcasting], instead of a boon, will become a scourge, and the nation a theater for the display of individual passions and the collision of personal interests. This [restriction on a broadcaster's speech, in this case resulting in the Commission's refusal to renew Shuler's license] is neither censorship nor previous restraint, nor is it a whittling away of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, or an impairment of their free exercise.
Appellant may continue to indulge his strictures upon the characters of men in public office. He may just as freely as ever criticize religious practices of which he does not approve [which were Roman Catholicism].
He may even indulge private malice or personal slander - subject, of course, to be required to answer for the abuse thereof - but he may not, as we think, demand, of right, the continued use of an instrumentality of commerce for such purposes, or any other, except in subordination to all reasonable rules and regulations Congress, acting through the Commission, may prescribe.
Trinity Methodist Church, South v. Federal Radio Commission, 62 F.2d 850, 852-53 (C.A.D.C. 1932).
Suffice it to say, Trinity is no longer the law either at the FCC or among the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit.
Rupert Murdoch, this Australian-born, 78-year-old media mogul, and 132nd richest person in the world, controls the News Corporation, which owns Fox. And today, unlike 1932, he can legally use his media to spew forth hatred-for-ratings of a sort that would have resulted in the loss of his licenses in the Commission's early days.
When I was an FCC commissioner, major media operations were owned and controlled by, and identified with, individual human beings. Bill Paley was the one to give the credit, or blame, for CBS' programming; as was David Sarnoff for NBC. Today, all too often, media corporations are run by hired hands (albeit very well compensated hired hands) and controlled by Wall Street.
But in the case of Fox we still have a person, Rupert Murdoch.
So in the absence of any prospect for action from Congress, the FCC, or the courts, Ms. Trish Nelson wrote directly to Rupert Murdoch:
Rupert Murdoch Chairman and Chief Executive News Corporation 1211 Avenue of Americas 8th Floor New York NY 10036-8701
Dear Mr. Murdoch:
I am writing to you because I understand you own and control a large number of newspapers, television stations and other kinds of media outlets.
I have been sickened and saddened by the choices your news organizations have made to show, over and over, on TV, horrible, hate inspired images against President Obama, and people carrying signs with messages of violence.
You are taking advantage of a few sad, ignorant people, who don't know any better, because they believe Fox and people like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly care about them and are telling them the truth. They don't understand that these people are just doing what they do because they are TV and radio personalities. The people in those crowds don't understand that they are being used, and that the ideas they are supporting are actually harmful to them. This is not right.
Do you do this for the money? How much money do you and yours need? Are you trying to start full-blown civil unrest so that you can make even more money?
Do you have any idea what it is like out here, having to live and work alongside people who are so horribly misinformed about how the world works? Who actually believe Obama was not born in this country, who actually believe in death panels, who actually believe President Obama is the equivalent of Adolph Hitler, and is someone to be feared? They get these ideas from your media organizations.
And it makes them dangerous and sick on an individual level.
Maybe you have the right to do whatever you want, but you are hurting people in our country, and I would like you and your stations to start showing some restraint before one of these individuals thinks they are doing the right thing by actually committing an act of violence.
Trish Nelson Iowa City, Iowa
Murdoch's address is at the top of the letter. You might want to consider writing him, as I will - making reference to Ms. Nelson's letter, or not, as you choose. Given our Constitution and courts - and corporate control of Congress - Murdoch is these days about the only power to which you can appeal.
Nicholas Johnson, who
held three presidential appointments in the federal government during
the 1960s and 1970s, now teaches communications law at the UI College
of Law. Photo at right is the April, 1971 cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, by Annie Leibovitz.
*IBLTV is a group of citizens from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area who are concerned about the decline in the quality of local television. Fight local media consolidation, as it leads to an unaccountable medium that enriches itself while disregarding the need to serve the public good.
*The rational counter to 'The Point,' 'The Counterpoint' critiques and corrects the daily editorial by Sinclair Broadcasting's corporate vice president, Mark Hyman, that is broadcast on all Sinclair-owned television stations across the country
by Dave Bradley
To: 
Have you had enough of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dennis Miller, Michael Savage, Jan Mickelson, Steve Deace, Fred Thompson, and friends saturating the 
Nicholas Johnson, who
held three presidential appointments in the federal government during
the 1960s and 1970s, now teaches communications law at the UI College
of Law. Photo at right is the April, 1971 cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, by Annie Leibovitz.
