Kerry Condemns Hasty FCC Vote, Will Pursue FCC Funding Freeze

[ProSense]

WASHINGTON D.C. - Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) condemned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin’s decision today to rush through a vote on media consolidation. The vote to relax the rules regarding cross media ownership of newspapers and radio stations passed by a 3-2 party line vote today. The FCC vote will allow media companies to further consolidate. Martin’s decision to the hold the vote ignores the expressed will of the Senate Commerce Committee. Sens. Kerry and Obama made clear last week that if Martin forced through the vote today, they would ask the Appropriations Committee to deny funding for implementation of the rule produced by the forced vote.

more.

[globalvillage]

1. K&R

Martin is a little weasel.

[Donnachaidh]

2. I wish they would investigate the FCC charges we all get hit with

With all the phones being used today, the FCC must be raking in HUGE amounts of money. WHAT is it being used on? Where is it going? I wish Mr. Kerry would look into this as well.

[karynnj]

6. I don't think those charges go to the FCC

They are levied by the FCC but they are designed to support service in high cost - rural - areas where the cost for local service and connecting it to the network would otherwise be exorbitant.

[Breeze54]

3. Go Kerry and Stop the money!!!

Take Action: Stop Big Media

Sign the open letter to Congress urging them to stop the FCC and stand with the public interest.

Help us reach our goal of 100,000 Signatures - Progress: 14,370 so far...
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/sbmopenletter

:kick: & Recommended!

[ProSense]

4. Excellent,

nearly 16,000 signatures.

[Breeze54]

5. Passed it 15 mins. ago! - Progress: 16,917

:D

[ProSense]

7. More than 39,500.

Cool!

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

8. I am sick to death of these people consolidating wealth and power AND information!!!

Do NOT pretend like democracy is being spread when it's being destroyed in the USA.

I'm so sick of this abuse,...and the American people just take it and take it.

Why should I believe my people are above those willingly submissive to fucking Hitler? Why?

[ProSense]

9. Kick!

Seems a lot of people don't understand media consolidation or antitrust issues.

With the NFL, as with MLB, public access, tax subsidies and antitrust issues are in play.

More here and here (these are about baseball, but same issues.)

[KharmaTrain]

10. Too Little, Too Late....Again

No sooner did Martin ramrod this vote then Sam Zell bought the Tribune company with all those new waivers...newspapers and TV stations and the speculation is now who he'll sell these properties to...Murdoch is salivating at some real prime real estate...and it's all above board and legal now.

Something about this could have been done in the House and Senate before deals closed...or would have put them on hold, but instead, the longer the delay on any action, the more deals are done and the harder this latest media grab becomes cemmented.

Shameful...Kerry and others knew this vote was coming for months...and this is the tepid response? Again...too little too late.

[ProSense]

11. Question:

Tell me what Kerry did before this, and what you think he should have done?

[KharmaTrain]

12. Kerry Did Little Before, Too

In 2003 the FCC attempted to ramrod similar changes through and they were stopped by, of all people, John McCain. He got people like Kerry and other Democrats along with such diverse groups as the People For The American Way and the NRA to not only oppose the change, but force the commission to repeal their rule making before it became official.

Last July, I heard Michael Copps discuss this issue at YearlyKos and his disappointment that few Democratic Senators and candidates were putting up any resistance to this change and have a strategy in place to block any rule changes. Threats to funding could have been issued BEFORE the budget was passed last week...Kerry's claim holds little weight at the 2008 budget already has been approved and this would hurt the FCC in 2009 when Martin surely will be gone.

[ProSense]

13. "Threats to funding could have been issued BEFORE the budget was passed last week"

You haven't been paying attention because he's been pushing this for the past couple of months in an attempt to have them reconsider the vote. There is every opportunity to cut funding for the measure and reverse the vote with legislation.

[KharmaTrain]

14. Pushing? How About Enacting?

Yes, I saw Senator Kerry's statements and he wasn't the only being a paper tiger here. I've followed this issue very closely and have been disappointed by the tepid response from the Democratic "leadership". I only bring up his name since you have, but I think it's the failure of all the Democrats on the Commerce Committee who aaw this thing coming and did little to either cut funding to the agency or strip Martin of the ability to hold a vote.

Now with deals done it's hard to roll back the clock...the pressures from the corporates will make reversal all but impossible and I suspect we'll hear of more deals being done after the first of the year that will make things worse. Any attempt to repeal now will be met with a court challenge that could take years to settle.

BTW, you can't reconsider a vote that hadn't been taken...the key here was to block the vote. It didn't happen. All we got were hearing that were another exercize in mental masturbation.

[ProSense]

15. Enacting what?

Cutting funding for a measure that doesn't exist? This was a measure enacted by three Republican cronies. You need to read up on the issue. Congress can reverse it.

Start here by signing the open letter to Congress.

[KharmaTrain]

16. Cutting Funding To The Agency

The Commerce Committee controls the budget and approved the '08 budget in the midst of all this coming down. They could have withheld funding to the entire agency to prevent this bill from coming up for a vote. In the end they were all but begging to delay a vote...there was never any serious threat to the Commission to stop the vote...hell, Martin all but rubbed it in their faces.

Yes, Congress can reverse it, but in the 25 plus years I've watched "dereg", I have yet to see a ruling that has been. Once its on the books, the landgrab begins. Be assured that any attempts to roll back will be met with lawsuits and other tactics that will prevent Congress from acting and then outta sight, outta mind.

I've signed the petition, but I speak with cynicism as I've been down this road many times before. The public spoke loudly on this issue...and not only didn't the commission hear it, but neither did the members of the Commerce committee. Yes, they could have stopped it...they didn't. Any repeal will require a full House vote...and I'm not so certain our "leadership" there wants to piss off corporate media feathers in an election year.

I would hope this awful measure is repealed and I want to go even further. I want the full accounting of DeReg '96 that was supposed to have been done and reported to Congress back in 2002 that wasn't bothered with. I want to re-open the whole DeReg issue and look at how media consolidation has destroyed local media and has put the control of what we see, read and hear in fewer and fewer hands.

Cheers...

[Breeze54]

17. The congress could NOT block the FCC vote.

But they can over turn it.