The Daily Stern
: CLEAR QUISLING: Clear Channel is settling its indecency case with the FCC. The New York Times reports they will pay $1.75 million (beating the prior record Stern/Viacom settlement of $1.70 million) on top of the $495k they agreed to pay because of Bubba the Love Sponge. The Washington Post’s report here.
Clear Channel will also admit that it aired indecent programming.
Quislings.
If they had balls or a spine or a soul or a brain, they’d fight this as a matter of Constitutional principle, as a defense of the First Amendment, and simply as good business. For now that they have knuckled under to the FCC, there’s no telling what’s next.
: SPEAKING OF QUISLINGS: Ernie Miller reports that John Kerry has “clarified” his stance on FCC regulation of cable content.
[Kerry spokesperson] Davis suggested that Kerry was not seeking either a crackdown or a free pass for cable and satellite, but a middle ground.
Well, that’s as clear as Clear Channel.
Man, Kerry, that fence must hurt when you plop down on it like that. Or maybe you’re used to it by now.
: AND MORE QUISLINGS: Kerry would grow balls or a spine on this issue if just one thing happened: If Hollywood rose up to defend free speech and demand that Kerry defend it — or else they wouldn’t raise money for him. But Hollywood isn’t because, of course, Hollywood has not balls, spine, heart, soul, brain, or good sense. They don’t understand that once censorship starts, it only grows.
: UPDATE: Boortz says: “There is no greater threat to free speech than the government deciding what you get to see and hear.”
