Even in a far-left city such as San Francisco no one listens to progressive talk radio. Green 960 will be replaced by a conservative talker KNEW, and KNEW’s old spot on the dial 910 AM will be relaunched as KKSF AM, another conservative talker. Both stations are owned by Clear Channel, which was obviously tired of bleeding money on the previous failed enterprise.

Predictably, progressives immediately developed the vapors. Comments via JWF:

“Obama should have fixed this mess by nationalizing radio. Then the good stations like KGO could re-hire all the people they let go. Green 960 could stay on the air.”

“Dec 1st and near 70f here in the eastbay…and conservative radio will never even accept global warming..so Neanderthal talk will thrive.”

“Conservatives have time to listen to these cranks because they are sitting around in dead-end jobs, if they work at all, blaming their failures on liberals instead of their own stupidity. Liberals are too busy. ”

“Why don’t we liberals listen to talk radio? Because we don’t need the constant reinforcement that perpetually insecure, professionally paranoid conservatives do to valid our political ideas. Conservatives desperately need their “bubble.” But I recall seeing an article forecasting the end of conservative talk blather in the next 5-10 years, as its 55-dead demographic is both dying off and unattractive to sponsors. “

The first reaction is to blame the FCC over a private entity’s legal decision; secondly, to call for Obama to “nationalize” radio a la Mother Russia; and third, to claim that progressives are “too busy.” Really? Then why all the free time to “occupy” Wall Street?

Gren 960 makes its money from its advertisers, who are sold on ratings. For the picture book crowd: the number of listeners makes up your ratings. Clear Channel exists to make money, not to do progressives’ bidding. If operating Green 960 made money for Clear Channel, the company would keep it on the dial. All progressives had to do was listen and support the advertisers.

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Rep. James Clyburn (D- SC) went on government-funded radio Monday to advocate for censorship and government controlled “restraint on speech”.    He positively yearns for the romantic time of the 1960’s, before the internet, when the government’s “Fairness Doctrine” controlled the free-flow of opinion in our country.  Bizarrely, Rep. Clyburn concedes that the 1960’s had some “unfortunate” murders (some would call them political assassinations) but maintains that our society would be better if the government took on the role of censor.

We’ve grown accustomed to high-ranking Democrats calling for restraints on political speech.  They always seem to cite Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck and always seem to overlook the far more incendiary rantings of Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes and the odious Mike Malloy.  But in Rep. Clyburn’s NPR interview, two chilling new wrinkles to the speech-squelching movement are revealed.

Number one, why did Rep. Clyburn mention the internet as part of his tirade against free political expression?  The “Fairness Doctrine” was created to control the content of radio and television stations.  Newspapers and periodicals were never affected because, unlike TV and radio, they are not licensed by the Federal Government.  The internet (and the content that appears on it) falls under the same guidelines as newspapers.  Or, at least, it did.

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MSNBC’s Ed Schultz wants to silence Rush Limbaugh for being accurate in his assessments of the infighting for the # 2 position within the Congressional Democrat Caucus.

Schultz even went as far as to accuse Limbaugh of racism for pointing out that Congressional Democrats would seek a compromise before their infighting became too public by simply create a completely photo-op position for James Clyburn D-SC. Schultz sought to give his ranting and raving legitimately by inviting the likes of Al Sharpton and Congresswoman Shelia Jackson-Lee, to attack Limbaugh’s often humorous assessment of the whole thing.

Limbaugh was completely on point when it came to the fact that Clyburn would be appointed to some made-up position within the leadership caucus to give Americans the allusion that the Democrats are still diverse in their make up after the Tea Party Movement propelled a record number of minority candidates to local, state and federal offices during the midterm election.

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The Left nauseatingly pays lip service to the terms “tolerance” and “diversity.” In reality, they are highly intolerant and they hate diversity, particularly diversity of thought. They hate free markets and really loathe free marketplaces of ideas. As such, the stompy foot temper tantrums were in full force when it was announced that Andrew Breitbart and Dana Loesch, would be participating in ABC’s election night coverage. A coordinated effort between the usual suspects immediately, and predictably, sprung up. How dare ABC include people who won’t merely spout the Left’s talking points and somehow blame George W. Bush and people too stupid to understand the “nuance” of Democrats and their policies?  Oh, and racists, natch.

The first usual suspect to start shrieking in typical intolerant lefty fashion was the ever-inane Media Matters. Media Matters, an organization filled with tools so sanctimonious that they give themselves titles like “Senior Fellow.” Dude. You are a blogger. They, of course, offered only ad hominem attacks on Breitbart, like calling him a “propagandist.” Hello, pot! Meet kettle.  Cowardly ABC  immediately started to spin, by offering Media Matters this wuss statement:

ABC News’ David Ford told Media Matters: “He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”

Because, of course, the liberally biased Politifact would be the one to go to if Andrew Breitbart did something pesky like, you know, tell the truth. The ever buffoonish Keith Olbermann weighed in as well and, having no actual argument, resorted to fart jokes. No, really. The Huffington Post joined the fray and soon thereafter ABC spinelessly caved and issued a statement walking back Andrew Breitbart’s participation on election night; a statement full of lies, even going so far as to claim that Andrew Breitbart was never meant to be part of that night’s broadcast coverage. Alas, email is a funny thing. The emails sent from ABC to Andrew Breitbart expose the truth. ABC executives, in an attempt to cover their own hides out of fear of the Left not only caved to the Left’s intimidation attempts, but also lied when they did so. A snippet: (more…)

CNN Anchor to Shirley Sherrod: Would you like to see [Andrew Breitbart's] site to be shut down?

Shirley Sherrod: “That would be a great thing. Because I don’t see how that advances us in this country.”

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Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA on JournoList: “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull [Fox's'] broadcasting permit once it expires?”

Why so fascist?

As a proud dues-paying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, here’s a little peek behind the curtain to take home with you this weekend… (more…)

Ed Schultz from MSNBC’s The Ed Show has a bright idea: Congress should use the Fairness Doctrine to regulate talk radio.

In a laughable attempt to control ratings through government manipulation of the radio airwaves, Schultz says that conservatives are “low- information voters,” and therefore, the government has a responsibility to break up the free market supply and demand system used by radio station owners. Mr. Ed claims that because the five largest commercial talk radio station owners run a majority of conservative shows on their stations, the government should step in to balance the numbers out – a kind of liberal affirmative action program for talk radio.

But this was no April fool’s joke – it was March 31.  Schultz was serious. (more…)

Air America announced today, with little fanfare, that it is ceasing operations and filing for bankruptcy, citing “tough economic times” as the reason. Quite honestly, I’m shocked that they didn’t blame Bush. Or global warming.

It’s not the economy, stupid.

Talk radio continues to thrive and do exceptionally well – in the conservative market. There is a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with unfairness but everything to do with the free market.

Mainstream media operates as little more than a mouthpiece for the current administration. Every nightly news anchor from Katie Couric to Brian Williams has an acknowledged bias — different from people like Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck who have admitted biases, whose programming operates not as news, but as op/ed.  Newspapers more often than not also have a slant — this according to a Pew Research Center poll:

Seventy-four percent said news organizations tend to favor one side in dealing with political and social issues. Eighteen percent said they deal fairly with all sides.

The accompanying headline for this poll? “Public Trust in US Media Eroding.” (more…)