An FCC commissioner, Michael Copps, has an internal report which examines the state of media journalism. The report discusses, "ways to address issues such as the rise of media conglomerates and the prevalence of opinion journalism." Known as the Notification of Inquiry, this is the first step the FCC usually takes when making new rules to regulate media.

As you can imagine, the report talks about the decline of traditional media and the rise of others such as blogging. But there are a few ideas that I want to point out. These are ideas that are circulating in the FCC and could have potential impact on yours truly, not to mention the basic concept of freedom of the press.

One idea presented in the report is using the tax code as an incentive to help struggling news outlets. We are talking about either tax breaks or government handouts. See politicians love to do that .. use the tax code to punish or entice. That is why they are so resistant to ideas like the FairTax - because it would remove this powerful weapon from their arsenal. Consider this ... if the government creates a system of government tax breaks or handouts for various elements of the media, don't you just know that media outlets that are more friendly to Obama will get the goodies? After all, that's the way its working with stimulus funding. If your area voted Obama you're more likely to get help. Here we will have government bureaucrats picking media winners and losers. Some Americans see the danger in that.

Another issue floated in the report is the possibility of "behavior rules" for broadcasters. I love this one. All we know as of right now is that "behavioral rules" might include guidelines that broadcasts serve the public interest - as defined by government.

Look ... despots know they need to control the dissemination of information to their people. They already have their control over our education processes .. now control over information is next.

You can see the despot's desire to control broadcasting in his words. Copps says, "Since we still need broadcasters to contribute to the democratic dialogue, we need clear standards that can be fairly but vigorously enforced ... It is time to say 'Good-bye' to post-card renewal every eight years and 'Hello' to license renewals every three years with some public interest teeth."

Talk radio is shaping up to be the primary gathering point for opposition to Obama's grand government schemes. This is not going to go unchallenged. Obama will most certainly shut us down if he can find a way to do so.

California State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, a Democrat, did an interview with the LA Times. Thought you may enjoy her response to the following question:

How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature's work?

Bass' response: The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: "You vote for revenue and your career is over." I don't know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it's about free speech, but it's extremely unfair.

Now that's a first. I know that politicians don't particularly like talk radio, and I know that many politicians are quietly plotting the demise of conservative talk radio wherever they can find it and by whatever means. This, though, is the first time I've heard a politician call talk show hosts terrorists. She wonders how in the world we can allow talk radio terrorism to exist.

OK .. so this is just one barking moonbat from California ... though a powerful one. Let's see how long it takes for the rest of the left to pick up the "terrorism" gambit.

Jon Sinton was the president of Air America. Air America was a miserable failure. Nobody likes to be at the controls of miserable failure. Sucks to be Sinton. So, it would seem that Jon Sinton is lashing out ... lashing out at talk radio. Against the advice of several friends I'm putting a link to Sinton's screed here. If you must, read this! Caution: Sinton has been stung. His ego is bruised and he is lashing out at those evil conservative talk shows that decimated his baby.

OK .. did you read it? Fun, don't you think! Since Sinton was unable to talk you into listening to his liberal talk show hosts, he's now begging you to quite listening to those disgusting conservatives. Sinton really needs to get some original material. You certainly noticed the liberal (pun intended) use of the word "hate." Now there's a big surprise! Sinton was really showing his originality there. Let's see; we have "spool up the hate," "hateful talkers," "hate and fear", "politics of hate" and "mastered hate." Sinton also brainstormed and came up with "spew venom", "incite violence" and "fear mongering." I've been telling you for a while now that the left likes to run out the "hate" word whenever they're presented with an idea, a thought or a critique for which they have no ready-made response. By attaching the "hate" word to the idea you can't logically refute you allow yourself to walk away from the conversation imagining you are taking the high road when you're actually taking the coward's escape route.

Sinton also came up with some statistics in his column. He says "The dirty little secret of right-wing talk radio is that the audience is largely male, almost exclusively white and averages 67 years of age." He cites no research, expecting us to take these figures at face value. Sorry ... no can do.

As a matter of fact, I have some figures that I'll actually source for you! These numbers come from the Talk Radio Research Project ™ published in Talker's Magazine. Talker's has been gathering these statistics for many years now, so they're worth a look. Let's go through a few Sinton points from his whiney little column and compare them to the real world:

• Sinton says the audience is "largely male." Talker's says that the audience is 57% male and 43% female. If that counts as "largely male" than I'm largely handsome.
   
• Then Sinton says that the audience is "almost exclusively white." Hmmmm. The Talker's research shows the talk radio audience to be 63% white, 20% black and 10% Hispanic. This would mean that blacks listen to talk radio in numbers larger than their share of the U.S. population. Largely white? Yes .. but with an overrepresentation of black listeners. I can understand why Sinton left that little goodie out. Doesn't fit well into his imaginary world.
   
• The audience "averages 67 years of age." A little ageism there, but let's check the Talker's research. The audience breakdown shows that 63% of the talk radio listening audience is between 24 and 64 years old. Twenty-eight percent of the listeners are older than 55 and of that group only 7% are over 65. Nine percent and younger than 15. The numbers for my show skew even younger. Clearly I'm no math whiz, but how can the average age of talk radio listeners be 67 when only 7% of the listeners are over 65? This sounds rather like the way liberals and Democrats compute poverty statistics. It also sounds like Sinton's a liar. Poor guy .. just can't get over his failures.

Let's take it easy on Jon Sinton. He had some mighty high expectations for Air America, his liberal talk radio project. It went bankrupt within two years. I'm sure that did a hell of a lot for his resume. Now he runs a state news service that nobody has ever heard of. It didn't take long for him to realize that radio listeners just weren't going to tune in to his illogical dog squeeze. There just wasn't enough Boy's Club money to embezzle to make it work.

"Diversity" is going to be the new way to justify the regulation of talk radio. To a Democrat, how can ANYONE be against the idea of diversity? I'll tell you - if it is government mandated. And that is exactly what Nancy supports.

Dick Durbin wrote an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the FCC to "take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest." And Nancy Pelosi agrees. She says, "Diversity in media ownership is very, very, important."

Barack Obama may have said that he's not in favor of the Fairness Doctrine .. but there are many ways to skin this cat. Believe me, it's not over. As the Democrats continue their march to a government-dominated society, more and more people will turn to talk radio to understand what is going on, and to vent their frustrations. Talk radio listenership and impact will increase along with leftist frustrations at their inability to master the genre. Trouble on the horizon.

Can we give this "Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama to fail" nonsense a rest? This is one of the most absurd little arguments I've ever seen in the media. Look .. I'm not here to promote other talk show hosts, but Limbaugh is a special case. If it were not for him I would still be practicing law ... or, in the alternative, I would have made a few big hits in personal injury or medical malpractice trials and I would be retired by now. So, in reality I don't know whether to thank him or not. But this guy saved the AM band and made this living possible for me, Sean, and quite a few others. So I'm going to speak up on this one.

What did Limbaugh say? Basically this: "If Barack Obama's goal is to transform our economy into a socialist economy, I want him to fail." Now what in the world is wrong with that statement? I'm with Limbaugh on that one. I want him to fail as well. Furthermore, if Obama's goal is to create an egalitarian society where everybody has an equal amount of stuff .. .I want him to fail. If his goal is to create a nationalized health care system under which health care will have to be rationed, I want him to fail. If his goal is to completely remove 70% of Americans from any responsibility for paying any federal taxes at all, I want him to fail.

Here ... try this. "If Adolf Hitler's goal is to kill 6 million Jews, I want him to fail." Would the Democrats have damned someone who made that statement when Hitler came into power? Know what? They probably would have.

The "I want him to fail" comment was only part of Limbaugh's statement. You absolutely cannot criticize him for that statement until the "at what" part is addressed.

Democrats need to grow up.

The Boortz staff has tried to track this story back to sources ... admittedly, it's pretty sketchy, so bear that in mind as you read. The poll results are real, as is the desire of many on the left to shut down talk radio. After all, if you can't beat 'em, shut 'em down. The stuff about Henry Waxman? No solid source .. but this really sounds just like good ole Henry. Anyway ...

The latest Rasmussen polls show that 38% of Americans believe the government should resurrect the Fairness Doctrine - require radio stations to offer equal amounts of liberal and conservative commentary. This is almost a ten point drop from last August when 47% of Americans said that the government should require radio to be "balanced."

And while Jamie Dupree and others believe that there is no chance of the Fairness Doctrine being reimposed .. I'm not so convinced. Heck, I HOPE that the government holds hearings and dabbles with the idea of bringing it back. The immediate result will be more listeners for talk radio. Some will go away again, many will stay. We have a good beat and we're easy to dance to.

According to this report, senior staff working for the acting FCC Commissioner met with policy and legislative advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman. Why is that? Because they wanted to discuss ways that the committee can create openings for the FCC to reimpose some form of the Fairness Doctrine, without calling it the "Fairness Doctrine."

Apparently Henry Waxman is also interested in imposing some sort of "balance" on the Internet as well. Wow, even better news for me .. I'll have my radio show and this website for the government to "balance"!

A Democrat committee member (who remains nameless) says that the stimulus package may have opened a door for regulation of the Internet. He says, "The FCC and state and local governments also have oversight over the Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we've established that broadband networks -- the Internet -- are critical, national infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure."

Didn't I mention that politicians just love to control things? I think I may have said that somewhere before.

The attacks on the Godfather of Talk Radio (that would be Rush Limbaugh) are stepping up ... and they're coming from all sides! First .. and I think I can speak for many of my talk radio colleagues here .. we couldn't be more thrilled: Not because Limbaugh is under attack, but because millions of people are turning to talk radio who haven't listened before just to see what in the world is going on. Some will tune back out, but some will stick around. Good for our side.

Now it's perhaps understandable why the left - why Democrats - are on the attack. The Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee now has an online petition so that Democrat myrmidons can put their outrage against Rush Limbaugh on the record. Sure, I feel left out here .. but the truth is I'm doing quite well with Limbaugh's scraps. Besides .. the nail that sticks out the furthest gets pounded down first. I'm happy with my nail not sticking out all that far.

Oddly, Republicans are joining in here. Georgia Republican Congressman groinocoligist Phil Gingrey told Politico that it was "easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh .. to stand back and throw bricks." Yeah .. that poor Republican leadership, they're so misunderstood. They're just trying to get along.

In the meantime - Brent Bozell at the Media Research Center is saying that the attack on conservative talk radio has begun. Bozell says that Obama is "setting the stage for the Fairness Doctrine."

Let's see how many Democrats and assorted leftist moonbats join in the Amen Chorus here.

OK .. so it was actually a shot at the Godfather, but we're all in the crosshairs. And no, I'm not at all outraged by this. It's great! Who knows how many new listeners are listening to talk radio today trying to see just what it is that PrezBo is so upset about.

On Friday, Barack Obama had some sound advice for Congressional Republicans ... stop listening to talk radio. Well to be more specific, stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. Obama said, "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done." A White House official says that Obama meant that "there are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats ... We shouldn't let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done."

Translation: We have the Republicans right where we want them. They're kowtowing to Barack Obama and giving up pretty much everything we want without much of a fight. We don't need them listening to anyone that could possibly cause them to see the light."

Yes, but when one party wants to spend billions of dollars on their party platform in the name of "economic stimulus" .. somebody has to talk about it. And when one party wants the government to be in charge of your healthcare, someone has to say something. And when one party supports the unionization by intimidation, someone has to say something.

Are you getting my point, folks? The reason why Barack Obama doesn't want people listening to talk radio is because it is a major speed bump in the way of his massive government spending and national socialist schemes. Talk radio is really the only form of media that is willing to challenge Barack Obama .. somehow we just don't seem to get tingles up its leg every time he speaks. Talk radio is willing to ask the tough questions. And now, more than ever, is the time for tough questions.

A Congresswoman from California by the name of Anna Eshoo (bless you) says that she is going to work fiercely to make sure that hate radio is shut down! Okay, so she didn't exactly say that .. but she did say that she is going to work to restore the Fairness Doctrine in the new Congress. She also wants the Fairness Doctrine to apply to cable and satellite programming as well as radio and TV.

She says, "I'll work on bringing it back. I still believe in it ... It should and will affect everyone." She says that the current system is "unfair" and that there needs to be "equal time for the spoken word."

My gag reflex gets triggered big time every time I hear that absurd "the public's airwaves" phrase when a discussion of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" comes up.

Do any of you really doubt that if broadcasting had been around when the Bill of Rights was written that the broadcast freedom would have been included in the protections of the First Amendment? You know the answer to that one. Of course it would have been there. Back then there were only two ways to spread information. You either spread it by word or in written form. Both were protected. Today you have electronic communication. The same protections should be offered there.

One of the first lessons despots learn is that they must control the means by which information is disseminated if they are to cement their hold on power. By the time broadcasting came along the politician's love for freedom of the press had subsided somewhat. They knew what a powerful force for information broadcasting would be, and they just had to come up with a way to exert government control. This brought us the precursors to the FCC. The excuse? This ridiculous "public's airwaves" nonsense.

So ... here is the question I want one of you liberal bedwetters to answer. If broadcasting should be controlled by the government - including content control - because it comes over the "public's airwaves," then why should your morning newspaper be similarly controlled? After all, your newspaper comes to you over the public's roads. In fact .. the people actually paid for those roads with their tax money, unlike the airwaves, so the argument for control of newspapers should actually be a stronger one! OK all you brilliant liberals out there ... your response is ...????

Have you noticed these articles lately? I've seen more and more popping up around the Internet ... declaring talk radio to be, essentially, dead. My advice to these naysayers is don't count your chickens. Remember when much of talk radio (excluding the Talkmaster) once declared liberalism to be dead? Yeah, that was stupid. And look where that got us.

But this is an example of what I am talking about. Here's an article from the Boston Globe declaring "The rising irrelevance of talk radio." It says that one of the most significant outcomes of the 2008 election is to declare that talk radio had no major impact on the election. And this is apparently because people grew brains "that are available for persuasion."

The reasons they site include the rise of opinion television programs, the fact that talk radio "no longer pretends to be a 'town meeting on the air,'" and because Americans no longer expect talk radio hosts to be reasonable or rational.

Gawd, wouldn't it be boring to turn on your radio every day and be subjected to my rational arguments? Guess this is just the warm up article. The next one I expect is why this is justification for the Fairness Doctrine. But wait a minute, if talk radio is so irrelevant, why would liberals even care we say?

Here's part of an email that has been sent to MediaMyrmidons by the Democrat Party's MediaMatters. It would seem that now with complete Democrat control of the government apparatus in Washington the liberals want to step up their attacks on freedom of expression .. especially expression of ideas with which they do not agree. When and if the Democrats get the idiotically-named "Fairness Doctrine" implemented again it is clear that MediaMatters wants to be THE clearing house for challenges and demands for equal time on the nation's talk radio stations. This message to their followers is part of that process:

I'm tellin' ya ... I would have been very disappointed if they hadn't included me in their examples. Glad to know that all my hard work isn't going for naught. Now you folks sign up out there! There's no sense standing for freedom of expression when Erin Hofteig and MediaMatters is standing ready to help you strike it down! The people they're signing up here will be the shock troops when Pelosi gets her Fairness Doctrine. MediaMatters will send them their ACTION ALERT! emails and they'll be instructed as to just how to contact their local Limbaugh, Hannity or Boortz affiliate to make a demand for equal time.

They don't have the skill to play with the big boys, so they want to close the playground.

If you want a good laugh ... and some insight into the mind of a liberal who just can't stand the thought of me "spewing hate" out of a microphone for 4 1/2 hours a day ... just read this column by Douglas Turner in The Buffalo News. Here's the title, "Virulent talk radio may be a loser, too." I'll give you a little taste, maybe with some of the usual Boortz commentary.

"Talk radio lost this federal election in two big ways. Its candidate, Republican John McCain, got creamed. And its most dedicated enemies, who want to trim talk radio's sails, were massively empowered.

Elements of the team of President-elect Barack "Hussein" Obama, as they were fond of calling him, and the expanded Democratic majority will move to remind broadcasters of a fundamental tenet of broadcast law.

That is, that the airwaves do not belong to the station "owners," as they call themselves, but to the people of the United States of America ... As station ownership became more consolidated, talk radio became more virulent, if not violent, and one-sided ...

The basic service that a broadcast licensee owes a community is truth. As the election neared, that commodity was in short supply.

Obama was compared to Hitler on the "Mark Levin Show." Obama would open the United States to an "invasion" of Muslims, according to the "Gunny" Bob Newman show. On the Lee Rodgers show, critics of Obama were going to "be jailed or killed." Host Neal Boortz wanted to know how many prayer rugs Obama owns ...

There are constitutional issues related to imposing equal time. So the Democratic route seems to be to roll-back media consolidation."

We really need to put this stupid "the public's airwaves" nonsense to rest - but that idiotic idea has been hammered into the heard of Americans for so long it's going to be difficult. This whole "public's airwaves" stuff came about with the ascendancy of broadcasting. Politicians realized the great information dissemination potential of radio (and then television) and intuitively knew that if they did not find a way to control broadcasting it could spell big trouble for them. There can be no doubt that the framers of our Constitution would have included broadcasting in the protections offered by the First Amendment - if they could have foreseen broadcasting. By the time broadcasting came around the goal was more about protecting government than it was protecting free expression .. hence this "public's airwaves" idiocy. Any excuse ... the political class just needed any excuse.

Note, please, that whenever despots try to seize control of a government, and with it a country, they first seize control of the means of communication. How can you observe this in country after country with despot after despot engaged in coup after coup and not understand that this is exactly what our own politicians do when they try to increases their control over broadcasting? How will the Democrat's looming attempt to reign in talk radio be any different than Hugo Chavez' attempts to shut down opposition newspapers in Venezuela? And trust me ... the Republicans would have tried the same thing during the Bush Administration if talk radio had been overwhelming liberal. Richard Nixon used to brag about how he used the "Fairness Doctrine" to harass left-wing commentary on television. Democrats and liberals generally fail miserably at talk radio .. therefore it must be destroyed.

One more point about this "public's airwaves" dog squeeze. How does your newspaper get to you every day? Do you think it just magically appears at your doorstep? Hardly .. it is delivered over --- guess what? --- publicly owned highways and roads! Yeah! The "public's highways!" How about a Fairness Doctrine for newspaper editorial pages! Oh, wait .. there's that darn Constitution in the way again. Don't you just hate that?