Viewpoints: Clear Channel violates First Amendment rights Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/25/4362382/clear-channel-violates-first-amendment.html#storylink=cpy

By Sue Wilson
Special to The Bee

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/25/4362382/clear-channel-violates-first-amendment.html#storylink=cpy

The First Amendment protection of freedom of speech is a treasure. I stand up for the rights of Rush Limbaugh, Garry Trudeau, Bill Maher and everyone else to have their say, whether I agree or not (outside incitement to violence). I do not condone censorship.

But private censorship has crept into our public airwaves, and we must stand against it.

I'm not talking about newspapers that didn't print Trudeau's Doonesbury strip, a daily 30-second read. Newspapers are private enterprise: Anyone with enough capital can start a newspaper and write what they will. Nor cable programs like "Real Time with Bill Maher," which produced 35 hours of lefty snark in 2011. Cable TV is private enterprise: when people write a check to Comcast or Direct TV, they pay private contractors, via cable or satellite, to bring programs from Playboy to Disney into their homes.

I'm talking about local TV and especially local radio, where a host like Limbaugh dominates the dial with right-wing commentary for about 750 hours each year. Broadcasting is a public-private partnership: The public owns the airwaves needed for transmission; private businesses own the buildings, equipment, etc. needed to broadcast programming. When private business goes into broadcasting, it makes a deal with the public: a free license from the Federal Communication Commission if it agrees to "serve the public interest, convenience and necessity."

Broadcasting differs from newspapers and cable; the number of frequencies available in one community are few, so only a limited number of local stations are possible. Physical scarcity is the foundation of all broadcast law.

In Sacramento, Clear Channel Communications broadcasts about 190 hours per week of one-sided political talk over three giant stations, KFBK-AM, KGBY-FM and AMFM Holding's KSTE-AM. Clear Channel management disputed that at a recent meeting with Media Action Center, Sacramento Media Group and Occupy Sacramento. But general manager Jeff Holden said he's very comfortable airing only one-sided political talk on three stations – during an election year.

But Clear Channel is violating the First Amendment rights of all who equally own the public airwaves, disagree with right-wing politics, but are not allowed to be heard at all. It is a matter of access, says the Supreme Court.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/25/4362382/clear-channel-violates-first-amendment.html#storylink=cpy

Missouri Caucus Anecdotes: Arguments, Arrests, and a Good Day for Ron Paul

At University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Missouri caucuses may have marked Ron Paul’s most successful day of the 2012 campaign, as anecdotes from across the state indicate a strong showing.
To varying degrees, proceedings grew contentious between Paul supporters and local GOP officials. The gist of the disputes: GOP organizers said the Paul backers were boisterous and obstructive. Paul backers wanted to be heard.

While speculation has been noted on a national level that Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are somehow colluding in the 2012 race, anecdotal evidence from Missouri suggests some cooperation: In counties where Paul supporters showed well, Romney supporters and Paul supporters appeared together on mixed delegate slates. Local GOP officials said they couldn’t say, one way or another, whether Paul and Romney backers seemed to be cooperating in any organized way at individual caucus sites.

In St. Charles County, organizers and police shut down the caucus amid a bitter dispute between Ron Paul supporters and the caucus chairman. Two Ron Paul supporters were arrested, then released. A police helicopter showed up. The caucus was held in a high school gym, and about 2,500 people attended. “It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys around here,” former St. Charles GOP chairman Tom Kipers said of the ongoing dispute between county GOP leaders and Paul supporters.

The Kansas City Star reports that things got contentious in Clay County, too: ”In Clay County, arguments between Paul supporters and others became so intense that the caucus chairman threatened to have voters removed by force. … [Paul supporter:] ‘We raised a number of points of order, points of information, points of parliamentary inquiry, many of which have been ignored.’” http://bit.ly/zV6XxR

Boone County, which encompasses Columbia and the University of Missouri, elected a slate of Ron Paul-backing delegates, after Paul supporters succeeded in electing their own caucus chair. (That’s a normal part of caucus procedure: the first vote taken is on who will chair the meeting.) One GOP member described the Paul supporters as “loud, boisterous,” and “obnoxious” at the meeting — although the local GOP chairman said things were civil and that GOP officials get along fine with the Paul people there. The caucus elected 48 Ron Paul delegates and 5 Mitt Romney delegates, according to a local GOP official.

Greene County (a large GOP county in Southwest Missouri, encompassing Springfield) elected a mixed slate of 65 Ron Paul delegates, 40 Mitt Romney delegates, and six Rick Santorum delegates. “A few [caucus attendees] got a little loud,” said Danette Proctor, the county GOP chair who presided over the caucus. “But I just said, ‘Be quiet.’”

In keeping with what seems to be a trend, a Ron Paul supporter in Lincoln County alleged that GOP officials violated caucus rules in an attempt to silence Paul supporters. Quote from a Ron Paul supporter, as posted on a blog: “They practically ignored the State GOP guidelines and rules. The severely butchered Robert’s Rules of Order.” Note: GOP caucuses (in Missouri, as well as in Iowa) are governed by Robert’s Rules of Order, although Missouri counties can use their own rules … and then adopt new rules after electing a caucus chairman.

In Christian County, south of Springfield, a local GOP official said Rick Santorum supporters came out as winners, electing a mixed slate of mostly Santorum backers and some Romney backers.

Rick Santorum spoke at the Chesterfield, Mo., caucus site in St. Louis County this morning — but his supporters only narrowly won out. A slate of Santorum-backing delegates narrowly defeated a mixed slate of Paul and Romney supporters, according to a Chesterfield GOP official.

Photo of Santorum drinking a Guinness: https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelBiundo/status/181063517514907648/photo/1
The state GOP acknowledged that it had heard of a few disagreements at caucuses around the state, but nothing else on par with what happened in St. Charles.