Stupid idiots are going to undo our work on the FCC rulings: details!

[madfloridian]

Dear MoveOn member,

The campaign to block the FCC's disastrous loosening of media ownership
rules has reached a make-or-break moment in Congress.

On September 16, we won an historic victory. In response to 3 million
Americans like you who contacted the FCC and Congress demanding a rollback,
the Senate voted by an overwhelming bipartisan margin -- 55 to 40 -- to
strike down the entire package of FCC media ownership rule changes through a
"resolution of disapproval."

Now Republican leaders in the House -- Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority
Leader Tom DeLay -- are rejecting the democratic process. Hastert says he
has no plans to allow a vote on the resolution in the House (see article
below), and DeLay has called it "dead on arrival." They won't permit a
vote because they don't want it to pass.

Your phone call is the only way to force a vote. We need you to make two
calls today.

First, please call your Representative at:

Deleted......Call your own rep.

Let the staffer you speak with know that you're a constituent. Then ask
him or her to sign on to the letter calling on the Speaker to allow a
floor vote on the Resolution of Disapproval regarding the FCC media
ownership rule changes.

Then please call Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert or Majority Whip
Tom Delay and ask them to stop blocking a vote.

You can reach them at:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert
[phone]

Majority Leader Tom DeLay
[phone]

Let the staffer you speak with know that you're calling to urge the Speaker
and Majority Leader to allow a vote on the resolution of disapproval
regarding the FCC's media ownership rule changes. You may want to add that
by not allowing a vote, the Speaker and Majority Leader are ignoring the
will of the public, the courts and their own colleagues. (The resolution is
SJ Res 17, sponsored by Representative Leach)
More here:
http://www.mediareform.net/callcongress.php

Were they hoping we would not notice?? They are keeping us busy just keeping up with their outrages. This is my country, too.

[Cha]

1. Kick!

:kick:

[madfloridian]

2. Another kick.

:kick:

This really came in late tonight. Guess they mean to get on it right away. No one is in the office, though, tonight.

[gristy]

3. My congressman is Ramstad, as repuke as they come

and won't listen to me, but I'm happy to kick this.

[KoKo]

7. No! Read the Post! Just call Hastert and deLay tomorrow or fax them!

This is to get THEM to UNBLOCK THE VOTE! I will get their fax numbers and post!

[arcane1]

4. sons-o-bitches

if this happens we are SCREWED!!!
:mad:

[KoKo]

5. Okay Du'ers Forget Faux/Limbaugh for a moment and get your butt over to

this link. And notify your Senators/Congresspersons that you are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!"

[madfloridian]

6. Strange there is nothing up at Move-On yet.

I wanted to link to it. Guess the calls must wait until tomorrow. The article included in the email is from the Boston Herald from Sept. 17.
Here are portions of it:
From Boston Herald, September 17, 2003
By Greg Gatlin

Defying a White House veto threat, the U.S. Senate voted yesterday to
roll back a controversial loosening of rules governing media
ownership, pushing debate over the issue back to the House of
Representatives.

"At 11:15 this morning, hurricane-force political winds began focusing
on the House of Representatives," said Jeff Chester, executive
director of the Center for Digital Democracy. He referred to the time
of yesterday's 55-40 Senate vote to undo media ownership rules passed
in June by the Federal Communications Commission."

(Portions left out..........................)

"Meanwhile, the Senate invoked a rarely used "congressional veto" that
lets majorities in both chambers overturn regulatory moves. The White
House has vowed to veto any rule rollback.

"The Senate's unprecedented rejection of (FCC) Chairman (Michael)
Powell's media ownership rules in their entirety reflects the
widespread and growing concern of the American public over the radical
sweep of the FCC's media decision," said U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey
(D-Malden), in a statement.

Advocacy groups from both sides of the political spectrum opposed to
loosening the ownership rules said they'll push for the House to
follow the Senate's lead.

"I think there's going to be incredible pressure placed on the House
to take it up," Chester said.

But so far, it appears the House could ignore the issue.

"I know of no plans to bring it up," said a spokesman for House
Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) summed up the House
prospects after the Senate vote: "It's going nowhere - dead on
arrival."

Powell said legislation rescinding the new rules "would only muddy the
regulatory waters."

"It would bring no clarity to media regulation, only chaos," he said
in a statement. "This is a harm the FCC's media rules were designed to
avert."

Major media companies that run TV networks have argued that the
decades-old rules are outdated and prevent them from gaining enough
size to compete with cable and satellite operators. Newspaper
publishers have argued the cross-ownership ban unfairly puts them at a
competitive disadvantage.

But opponents say easing the rules would lead to more consolidation in
a media landscape already dominated by a handful of huge players.
That, they say, would undermine diversity of viewpoints and ideas."

[linazelle]

8. Thanx for the info...I'm posting it at other sites

At least it will get some attention that way.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Kick

again

[lovedems]

10. "dead on arrival" not if I have anything to say about it!

Consider it done

[madfloridian]

11. Thanks! One more kick for the night bunch (or morning?)

:kick:

[madfloridian]

12. This needs another viewing for the morning.

I did not see another thread yet. We did all that work calling and writing about this attempt to deregulate the media, and here are a couple of folks, Delay being one, who will undo it all.

We can NOT let them.

Call Hastert and DeLay today.