Max Boot calling for the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to reign in Fox News Channel is what happens when a columnist writes with great passion and doesn’t bother to look up the specifics of what he’s writing

For starters, Fox News - and Fox Business News, One America Network, and NewsMax TV — are cable stations and do not broadcast over public airwaves.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
The Federal Communications Commission has little authority over cable channels. The FCC might have a little more authority over Fox News Sunday and other news programs that carried by the Fox Broadcasting Company.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
The FCC commissioners decided to revoke the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, a unanimous 4–0 decision involving two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
The FCC counsel concluded that the rule had become counterproductive, as broadcasters “had shied away from covering controversial issues in news, documentaries and editorial advertisements.”

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
After the decision, Floyd Abrams, a lawyer who specializes in First Amendment cases, told the New York Times, “This is the beginning of the end of Governmental control over the content of what appears on television.”

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
In short, Boot wants to _reinstate_ government control over the content of what appears on television.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
Again, the FD applied to broadcast networks because they used the public spectrum to get their signal from their station or broadcast tower to your antennae. Cable and satellite-television providers didn’t use public airwaves, so the FCC had less authority to regulate them.
Cable news existed at the time — CNN was founded in 1980 — but no one paid much attention to that network until Baby Jessica fell down the well.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
In the agency’s own words, “the FCC’s authority to respond to these complaints [of bias, inaccuracy, or poor coverage] is narrow in scope & the agency is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.”

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
"Expressions of views that do not involve a 'clear and present danger of serious, substantive evil' come under the protection of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press and prevents suppression of these expressions by the FCC."
That phrase “clear and present danger of serious, substantive evil” comes from the Supreme Court case Terminiello v. City of Chicago…

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
… which held that a city ordinance banning speech that “stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance” was unconstitutional under the First and 14th Amendments.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
Take a moment to read Justice William Douglas, writing for the majority:

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
Then again, “standardization of ideas by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups” might be precisely what some people aim to achieve.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
Biden can “reinvigorate” the FCC all he or Boot likes, but the federal agency is not going to have the authority to start telling cable channels what they can and can’t say…

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP
…unless - deviating from the Morning Jolt text here - they want 5 to 9 Supreme Court justices kicking their keister up and down the bench in the near future, for egregiously violating the First Amendment.

https://t.co/hVGla6P5TP

More from For later read

Every single public defender. Every single day.


Bail arguments, motions, oral arguments, hearings. Judges don’t know, follow, or care about the law. Prosecutors are willing to take advantage of it. And mandatory minimums, withheld evidence, & pretrial detention coerces people to plead before trial. When theres a jury. A shot.

But defenders still fight. And still win. Most times wins aren’t “Justice.” It’s power of repetition of argument in front of same judges. Introducing those in power to the people they oppress. Not just a RAP sheet or words on a page. Defenders make it harder to be brutal & cruel.

I worked as a public defender at an office as well resourced as any in the country. Social workers, team of investigators, a reentry team, support staff, specialist attorneys in immigration, housing, education, family. Relatively low caseloads (80-100). And yet still injustice.

Most think that balancing the scales of justice means more funding for defenders. Thats part of it. Enough a attorneys to actually be at bail hearings. Wrap around services to be able to help people trapped in the system end up better off in their communities. Lower caseloads.

You May Also Like

1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
@EricTopol @NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad B.1.1.7 reveals clearly that SARS-CoV-2 is reverting to its original pre-outbreak condition, i.e. adapted to transgenic hACE2 mice (either Baric's BALB/c ones or others used at WIV labs during chimeric bat coronavirus experiments aimed at developing a pan betacoronavirus vaccine)

@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad 1. From Day 1, SARS-COV-2 was very well adapted to humans .....and transgenic hACE2 Mice


@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad 2. High Probability of serial passaging in Transgenic Mice expressing hACE2 in genesis of SARS-COV-2


@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, ... found to date in mouse-adapted SARS-CoV2 and is also seen in ferret infections.
https://t.co/9Z4oJmkcKj


@NBA @StephenKissler @yhgrad We adapted a clinical isolate of SARS-CoV-2 by serial passaging in the ... Thus, this mouse-adapted strain and associated challenge model should be ... (B) SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA loads in mouse lung homogenates at P0 to P6.
https://t.co/I90OOCJg7o