Obama “Fairness Doctrine” Czar to decide what you hear on the radio!

Just another intrusion into your life – not unlike teaching indoctrination songs to your school kids

Redacted from article by Aaron Klein
The Jewish Press September 25, 2009

President Obama’s newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, drew up a “First Amendment New Deal,” a new “Fairness Doctrine” that would include the establishment of a panel of ”nonpartisan experts” to ensure “diversity of view” on the airwaves, this column has learned. Sunstein compared the need for the government to regulate broadcasting to the moral obligation the U.S. had to enact laws that outlawed segregation. Until now, Sunstein’s radical proposal, set forth in his 1993 book The Partial Constitution, received no news media attention and scant scrutiny.In the book, Sunstein promotes the “fairness doctrine.” the abolished FCC policy that required holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance in a manner the government deemed was equitable and balanced.

Sunstein introduces what he terms his “First Amendment New Deal” to regulate broadcasting in the US. His proposal includes a government requirement that “purely commercial stations provide financial subsidies to public television or to commercial stations that agree to provide less profitable but high-quality programming” Sunstein writes that it is “worthwhile to consider more dramatic approaches as well.” He proposes “compulsory public-affairs programming, right of reply, content review by non-partisan experts or guidelines to encourage attention to public issues and diversity of view.”

In a more recent publication, Sunstein advances another controversial position. In a 2006 Yale Law School paper, “Beyond Marbury: The Executive’s Power to Say What the Law Is,” Sunstein argues that the interpretation of federal law should be made not by judges but by the beliefs and commitments of the U.S. president and those around him!! “There is no reason to believe that in the face of statutory ambiguity, the meaning of federal law should be settled by the inclinations and predispositions of federal judges. The outcome should instead depend on the commitment and beliefs of the President and those who operate under him,” he writes.

(That is, if you allow Obama and his ever increasing coterie of like-minded ideology Czars, run the country, by-passing your elected representatives.) jsk

Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman