2025 & 2026 Elections
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StrangePackage
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Citizens United was the death knell of democracy
I know how much you love political betting markets, but Kalshi has the democrat at 82% right now.
Mulberry Heel
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Yep, that and the rise of Fox News and other right-wing propaganda networks. Those two events were body blows from which we may never fully recover, at least not unless Citizens is overturned and networks like Fox are somehow forced to do more straight news than blatant propaganda. Neither of which is likely to happen anytime soon, if ever.
Other than defamation lawsuits, how could anyone possibly force Fox to do more straight news?
Mulberry Heel
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Given that they're not a real press organization, I don't think Freedom of the Press should apply to them or news organizations like them. Having said that, any attempt at all (especially by a Democrat) to go after Fox and try to regulate them would lead to Fox and most other news organizations screaming bloody murder, so it will never happen. At the same time I'm not at all sure that our democracy and Fox News can continue to coexist - either one goes or the other. So we're all screwed, basically. Just as we also are with Citizens United, as it is also extremely unlikely to be overturned, at least in my lifetime.
Freedom of speech applies to non-press, too. You can't have the government regulating speech -- provided it is not actually false speech about a factual matter. Opinion is protected by the First Amendment.
Mulberry Heel
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The government did regulate television for literally decades under some pretty strict censorship rules - and Fox News does tell lies and fake facts all the time. Individual opinion is protected under the First Amendment, but what about a mass media organization that is deliberately spreading propaganda that is shown to frequently be false?
At any rate I'm not going to argue this because as I have said nothing is going to change. Even if Fox could be regulated it will never happen as both they and most other "news" organizations would scream like a cut dog if even mild regulatory attempts happened, so my opinion is a moot point and thus not worth arguing. And there is no doubt in my mind that if anything did happen to Fox that their viewing base would rise in revolt, perhaps violently. It would be like cutting off a drug addict from his drug.
The FCC regulated broadcast TV (under a dubious theory about public licenses for airwaves) but not cable networks.
In any event, the government can regulate publication of false facts (and Fox has already had to pay $750 million on that score), but it can't make Fox air "straight news".
Mulberry Heel
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If broadcast TV was regulated (for what you consider dubious reasons or not) then I see no reason why cable TV couldn't be as well. At any rate it simply doesn't matter as it's never going to happen, so my opinion is moot.
The theory for regulating broadcast radio and TV was the belief that broadcast frequencies were a limited public good (there are a limited number of VHF and AM/FM frequencies) and so corporations needed to commit to promoting the public good as a condition of receiving one of those limited licenses.
Cable channels are not limited and do not require a license from the FCC. Hence, there is a limited constitutional basis on which to regulate their speech.
Mulberry Heel
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I disagree, but for the third time it doesn't matter as no such attempt will ever be made, at least in my lifetime. Fox will continue to be free to spread their poison until our democracy is dead and the Bill of Rights and "Freedom of Speech" and "Freedom of the Press" doesn't matter, which I find terribly ironic. And I'll leave at that.
We have had propaganda news for the vast majority of our history as our country. There is a reason why so many newspapers had "Democrat" and "Republican" in the title. Read some of the yellow journalism from the 18th and 19th century. Listen to Rachel Maddow's Ultra podcast, which talks about the huge reach of Father Coughlin's radio show in the first half of the 20th Century.
Straight news, as we think of it today, is a fairly new concept. And yet, this democracy has managed to survive for nearly 250 years.
I absolutely would not want to live in a society where Donald Trump gets to tell MSNBC to publish "straight news." The government should not be in the business of deciding what is straight news and what is propaganda.
Mulberry Heel
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I certainly don't think our democracy has been doing very well under Fox News, and I would argue that with modern technology we are facing something that is far more powerful and insidious that we have ever faced before. William Randolph Hearst or Walter Winchell or Father Coughlin would have killed to have the kind of power and influence that Fox and other right-wing media have, and I think it's rather clearly already poisoning our society and democracy. So no, I don't we've ever faced anything quite like this before in our history.
And how is having right-wing billionaires buy up more and more of our news and social media and dictate what it can and cannot say any better than having a government agency like the FCC regulate the news. Why should "news" networks be allowed to run nothing but editorial opinion shows from 7 PM until midnight every single night, and present them as straight news (and they do - Fox certainly does). Donald Trump doesn't need to tell MSNBC to publish "straight" news - he's already on the verge of doing it right now via intimidation and threatened lawsuits, and he's already got a right-wing media ecosystem that is vastly more powerful than MSNBC. It's all been a fucking disaster, imo, and is a major reason why we are in the mess we're in.
Coughlin had 30 million weekly listeners, when the total US population was 120 million.
Fox averages 5 million weekly viewers, with a total US population of 350 million.
Coughlin was a far, far more influential broadcaster than Fox could ever hope to be.
Mulberry Heel
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And you know that Fox News has far more influence than those 5 million viewers. It also seen in gyms, restaurants, doctor's offices, and pretty much everywhere that has a television set. And that likely doesn't take into account website hits either. And Coughlin never had the political influence over either political party that Fox currently has over the GOP. Could he determine presidential nominees or the Congressional agenda of one of the major political parties to the extent that Fox and the Murdochs have been able to?
I think you are conflating Fox News with the entire conservative media ecosystem, which includes OAN, Newsmax, Breitbart, Facebook, X, Youtube, Daily Wire, 4chan, etc., etc. Fox simply doesn't have the power you think it does, and getting Fox to publish straight news isn't going to get democrats on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Mulberry Heel
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I don't at all believe I'm conflating the power of Fox - I actually think you're being unduly complacent about its influence and power over our current political system. And of course it won't help democrats get elected to a specific office, but it sure as hell would help lessen the divisions and hate that have been rending the country these last twenty years. It's no accident that the rise of Fox (and yes, other right-wing networks, I'm well aware they exist and haven't discounted them) has coincided with the political bitterness and hate that we've seen over the past twenty or so years. There are certainly other reasons as well, but I think it's foolish and naive to discount what Fox and other right-wing networks and websites and podcasts and talk radio have done. The "Fox News Orphan" phenomenon is real and poisonous.
ETA: And again, for the fourth time, my opinion doesn't matter as regulation is never going to happen. Ironically at least in part because Fox itself and other right-wing networks have more than enough influence to keep it from happening.
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Louisiana voters reject all four constitutional amendments on March ballot
Louisiana voters rejected all four of the constitutional amendments in the municipal primary election on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
Amendment 1
Amendment 1 proposed giving the state Supreme Court explicit permission to punish out-of-state attorneys.Amendment 2 asked if certain tax revisions should be made.
Amendment 2 would bring significant change to Louisiana constitution; opponents call it deceptive
Critics say Amendment 2's ballot language gives a false impression
Amendment 3 asked if the legislature should determine which crimes committed by a person under 17 would constitute trying the suspect as an adult.
Amendment 4 asked if the earliest election dates available should be used to fill judicial vacancies.
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You are 100% correct about broadcast.
When the cable cases were litigated in the 90s, cable channels weren't unlimited but they were considerably less scarce than broadcast frequencies. I would say there's no constitutional basis to regulate their speech, depending on what is meant by speech. Some of the justices in the Turner case were pretty loose with the definition, taking a play from "money is speech" campaign finance nonsense. If the court is honest about its characterizations, then there is a limited constitutional basis to regulate their conduct.