Yes. These are important words: "It’s time to reread Orwell. He said, “When man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom he destroys.”"

Americans had better be careful with this new administration and Democratic Party controlled Congress. Democrats HATE free speech that criticizes them or discusses the errancy of their ways. Hillary Clinton was right when she said: "We are Americans. We have a right to debate and disagree with this administration or ANY administration! Power to the people!"

Right now Congress is censoring Rush Limbaugh. He only talks. But they don't like it. Many in Congress want to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine which is inherently unfair. The Fairness Doctrine presumes there are TWO sides to an issue. We should know that there are INFINITIE sides to any issue.

A liberated Dutchmen told American liberator soldiers: "You don't know what freedom really is until you've lost it."

Beware of Obama and the Democrats in Congress, America. They want YOUR freedom.

We welcome Rush's run for President. He seems to have all the answers and he licked a nasty drug habit.

From The Huffington Post: "Politico reports that Republican House member Phil Gingrey has a message for Limbaugh: back off.

"I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach," Gingrey said. "I mean, it's easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don't have to try to do what's best for your people and your party. You know you're just on these talk shows and you're living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn't be or wouldn't be good leaders, they're not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."

Media critic Michael Wolff thinks Limbaugh is just being played by Obama:

Right now Rush is being played. The Obama dinner with conservative columnists, shortly before his inauguration, was as much about excluding Rush as coddling the columnists. Not only did the conservatives fawn, but Rush fumed. It got under his skin. Indeed, the rumor that he might in fact be there (likely coming from the Obama camp), and then his evident lack of an invitation, highlighted the slight. He's tried to make it out to be a political point ever since, but mostly he sounds like a guy who's hurt he didn't get invited to the hot party."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/gop-house-member-to-rush_n_161484.html

"We are Americans. We have a right to debate and to disagree with this administration or ANY administration! Power to the people!"

I was aware Gen. Wesley Clark (and many, many others) in 2007 urged that Limbaugh be dropped from Armed Forces Radio after he called American military personnel returning from Iraq who disagreed with Bush's war policies "the phony soldiers." I was also aware there was a similar drive three years earlier after Limbaugh scoffed at the uproar over the crimes at Abu Grahib, likening them to fraternity pranksterism. As far as I know, this chickenhawk windbag is, courtesy of the taxpayer, still spouting his nonsense to the troops .

But I was NOT aware Congress is right now censoring Limbaugh? Do tell, Freedom Lover.

Limbaugh long had an exclusive block of time locked up on AFR as the only long-format political commentator. Do you suppose the fact he now has to share his airtime with the troops along with three other designated political commentators (none of them apparently nearly so far to the right as he is) is what has his supporters wailing on his behalf?

While we're sorting out what's true, for 38 years the FCC's Fairness Doctrine sought at least in principle to ensure that the full range of political expression be given fair opportunity to use the nation's necessarily limited PUBLIC airwaves.

That's the full range, Freedoom Lover, not "two sides." I suspect you had the coin analogy at the front of your mind and got a little carried away.

Anyone who claims to be a freedom-loving all-American supporter of the First Amendment, I'd think, would have to see merit in the Fairness Doctrine. But in 1987 political pressure from corporate broadcast media got the FCC to abandon its foundation principles of fairness. Bills passed by a majority in Congress to reinstate the doctrine were vetoed by Presidents Reagan and Bush Senior. What a surprise!

It's curious how so many people who profess to love freedom and to support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are so eager to surrender these very rights and freedom, indeed to rush forward and volunteer to do so. After complaints mounted about the inherent unfairness of giving the trick-kneed Limbaugh the exclusive franchise for ranting at the troops, AFR sought in its own way to exercise the spirit of the technically defunct Fairness Doctrine. It added three more conmmentators to its lineup. This has some "freedom lovers" outraged.

I can only throw out guesses as at their motivation. A case of Stockholm syndrome? Secret adoration of raw power? Master Of The Universe wannabe? Genuine (!) MOTU? Can you believe it, those "liberals" (who, by the way, are now a MAJORITY of the American people) want to force the big media corporations that use the PUBLIC airwaves to remember who owns the PUBLIC airwaves!

In part, I have no idea what Taber is talking about. But I respect his right to malign me. It's fine. He's probably a nice guy.

Yeah, yeah that's great, Freedom Lover. In fact I am a nice guy. You may be, too. Surely you know what I'm talking about when I ask you a simple question: would you please explain what basis you have for asserting, "Right now Congress is censoring Rush Limbaugh"?

Why are the "PUBLIC" airwaves so sacred? How about the "PUBLIC" TV waves that are causing so much of a stir recently? Or how about mandating that New York Times hire 1/2 of its employees from conservative jounalism programs? How does Mr. Taber feel about having, say, Katie Couric do the first half of the CBS Evening News and having Michelle Malking take the second half?

Any guesses as to who would get the higher ratings?

Lastly, IF these liberals are the MAJORITY of the American people, why doesn't their message sell via talk radio? Because in the marketplace of ideas, very few are buying liberal thought.

It says a lot that the only way that liberals can compete is to stack the deck in their favor.

And Annie...did the HuffPost report on Gingery's conversation with Rush earlier today? Hmmmm? Queue crickets in 3, 2, 1...

So sacred? Why are your own possessions so sacred, Dirigodad? Why should you fuss if someone were to appropriate them for their own profit? The public airwaves belong to the public. As members of the public it is our rightful concern to know who the users of our airwaves are and to be assured that in return for this privilege (I must emphasize that's privilege, not right) these users pay us back in some socially positive way. There is a limited range of broadcast frequencies available. That's a matter of physics, by the way, not economics, not politics. With those constraints in mind, Congress agreed many years ago to apportion these frequencies under a licensing arrangement for the use of as many voices as possible.

There is little comparison to be made between broadcast stations and newspapers. There is a finite number of stations possible without their broadcasts overlapping. The same isn't true of newspapers. Theoretically speaking, there can be as many newspapers as there are enterprises wealthy enough to pay for one. More importantly, newspapers do not depend on a public resource like the airwaves to conduct their business.

As to why the liberal message -- whatever that is -- doesn't sell on talk radio, that's because talk radio has largely become the home of right-wingers and other supporters of the idea that large corporations should have more rights than ordinary citizens. Don't you suppose that peculiar imbalance might have something to do with the fact that increasingly it is large corporate media empires like Clear Channel Communications (1,200 stations and counting) that dominate the broadcast business.

Fortunately for all of us, a majority of the American people don't take talk radio as it exists today very seriously. They see the sneering self-satisfied pomposity of Rush Limbaugh for what it is. They wince at the sheer viciousness of Michael Savage. They have contempt for the lying hate-filled verbal manipulations of Glenn Beck. The truth is talk radio is anything but "a marketplace of ideas."

If you are sooooo concerned about the public airwaves, let's start with television and mandate a fair and balanced approach regarding TV "news." I see that you didn't respond to my proposal regarding a co-anchored CBS evening news with Katie Couric and Michelle Malkin. Why not? Don't like the application of "fairness" to that medium? Or, let's mandate that WERU carry Rush, Hannity and Focus on the Family. After all, as you pointed out, there is a limited range of broadcast frequencies available...and we all know about the lack of thought diversity down in the Blue Hill/Surry area. Face it. Your "public airwaves" argument, when applied "fairly" gets exposed as the load of crap that it is.

While we're at it..cable TV is a privilege too, not a right. Let's come together during this era of peace and harmony and lobby together to force MSNBC to offer 1/2 of Olbermann's show to Ann Coulter. That'd be a hoot, dontcha think?

Also, who is defining "socially positive?" I would argue that there is no more socially positive medium than conservative talk radio, because as you liberals have told us time after time after time, "Dissent is patriotic!" So, by your definition, conservative talk radio is now the most patriotic thing going...and that's a good thing.

I can't get over your environmental insensitivity either. You sniff that newspapers do not depend on a public resource like the airwaves to conduct their business. Well, I and millions of trees disagree with you. How condescending...those trees are a vital resource to which you turn up your nose.

No...I don't suppose that the peculiar imbalance regarding conservative talk radio spanking the pants off liberal wingnut radio has anything to do with "large corporate media empires." Witness Maine owned Blueberry Broadcasting buying 17 Maine stations from ClearChannel. I do suppose that it results from liberalism's blame America first, spread guilt and misery in the guise of fairness and "equal opportunity" garbage. Who wants to listen to that? Ok...other than the Volvo station wagon (with a minimum of 12 bumper stickers) driving, granola eaters that listen to WERU...

National policy with respect to allocation of the airwaves has, at least in principle in the past, been about opening up the broadcast band frequencies to a diversity of individual stations. Under the Fairness Doctrine, which hasn't been applicable for more than 20 years, stations were obligated to give individuals who were attacked on air a chance to respond. I think it would be very difficult legally and certainly most unwise to attempt to mandate the basic nature of any station's programming.

The operation of cable TV outlets and newspapers -- I'll repeat this for you -- doesn't involve use of a public resource like the public airwaves. Do you understand that? The trees in the forest used to make newsprint are privately owned. In this country, the owners of those trees can cut them down and print any damn fool thing they wish on the newsprint that's made from those trees.

The legislators who established the Federal Communuications Commission meant by socially positive the allowance of a DIVERSITY of views, not any particular one. Diversity is patriotic, even when it includes the likes of Rush. Perhaps listening too much to that dishonest old windbag has blunted any idea you might once have had about what is logical. I can't see how you arrived at such a silly conclusion as "conservative talk radio is now the most patriotic thing going."

WERU, one of only two non-commercial community-supported radio stations in Maine, is one of a relative handful of stations in the U.S. that carry so-called "liberal" programs. Every weekday for an hour starting at 5 p.m., the station runs the hour-long "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodman. Every Monday at 10 a.m. David Barsamian's "Alternative Radio" airs for an additional hour. Think of it, six hours a week of ranting liberalism!

Now consider just the 17 former Clear Channel stations in Maine. Despite a recent change in ownership (to Blueberry Broadcasting), these stations have barely altered the nature of their content. Take WVOM, for instance, which beams throughout the Penobscot Valley with the claim it's "the voice of Maine." Rush occupies the premier spot there from noon to 3 five days a week, but it's talk radio straight through from 9 a.m. until midnight and every show is a "conservative" one. Don't you think, Dirigodad, it would be a little unfair to mandate that Rush, Hannity and the insufferable Dr. Dodson should also get a piece of WERU's airtime?

Dirigodad, yes the Huffington Post did report on Gingery's apology to Limbaugh, though I'm not sure why you couldn't have looked that up yourself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/28/phil-gingrey-gop-congress_n_161964.html?page=8

P.S. WERU is great and now I can listen to it with my computer via streaming audio through ITunes. Check out "WERU Live Online" at http://weru.org/

Rush limbaugh is in the entertainment business, katie couric isn't, or at least she isn't supposed to be. The liberal media got their man elected...finally. And lets not exclude oprah, she would be hurt. Bush refused to cower to them, hence the label " the administration shrouded in secrecy". I had to smile when bush was asked by a reporter "why don't you ever read what we write?" to which he responded "why don't you write what I say". I for one would love to see as dirigo suggested that we allot a 1/2 hour to each side on the nightly news. Katie couric and ann coulter would be hilarious, me personally I would rather see a show co-anchored by couric and condoleezza rice, but that would be unfair.

Nice to see Pat is back..

WOW .. quite a bit of action on this one ... the fairness doctrine isn't fair .. the dial is fair. If you like talk radio, listen .. if you don't ... move the dial ... if you can't move the dial, call Washington and maybe someone will pass a bill requiring your radio to automatically change every 5 minutes by the year 2020! Really people, there are so many issues in the world and dare I say your own back yard. Turn the TV or radio OFF and talk to your kids or bring a pan of hot soup to an elderly person down the street. Have you gone to your neighbor's house for a cup of coffee lately or better .. invited them to your house?

For all of you out there who think the fairness doctrine is fair do you also think that when Sunday sermons are broadcast that all of the other religions should be mandated the same amount of time? How about Satanic worshipers or atheists? Only seems fair if you are going to mandate political speech? I agree with DaveCoccia if you do not like what you hear turn the station. I am a bit surprised Pat LaMarche is concerned for the freedom of the press when she thinks it could effect her but has no problem curbing the freedom of someone she dose not agree with. The reality is we need to hear from Rush and the others because we are not getting the full story from the regular press. You hear news from rush and the others that simply dose not get reported by the regular media. I only listen to rush to hear news I tune out his opinions because I am perfectly capable of forming my own, but to do so I need as much information as I can get.