AIM: Congressional Liberals Bare Plan to Muzzle Conservative Speech

AIM: Congressional Liberals Bare Plan to Muzzle Conservative Speech

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Less than two weeks after Democrats took control of both houses of Congress, Accuracy in Media has exposed a plan by congressional liberals to use the federal government to silence conservative voices in the media.

Reporting from a so-called National Conference on Media Reform, organized by "progressive" activists, AIM editor Cliff Kincaid has revealed, in an exclusive report now available on the AIM web site (http://www.aim.org/), that liberals in the House and Senate intend to push legislation giving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the authority to monitor and restrict what conservatives in the media say and how they say it. Kincaid quotes Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) as saying that he wants to put an end to the influence of conservative media personalities he finds to be "neo-fascist" and "neo-con." Their legislative vehicle is revival of a "fairness doctrine" giving FCC bureaucrats the ability to grant liberal activists "equal access" to conservative programs on radio and television. Senator Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, told the conference he would push such a measure in the Senate.

Kincaid calls the approach "authoritarian" and a threat to freedom of speech in the U.S.

In his Special Report on the conference, which featured Bill Moyers and Jesse Jackson and Hollywood celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Kincaid said that the event "turned out to be an effort to push the Democratic Party further to the left and get more 'progressive' voices in the media, while proposing to use the power of the federal government to silence conservatives."

At the same time, Kincaid noted that one conference speaker, freshman Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), pledged to protect or even increase taxpayer funding for public broadcasting that he admits is on the "left hand side of the dial."

Kincaid documents funding for the organizers of the conference from George Soros, who has made billions of dollars from secretive financial transactions, and notes evidence that participants were so far to the left that Senator Hillary Clinton was considered by them to be "too conservative." Kincaid also documents the active involvement in the conference by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Accuracy in Media (AIM), founded in 1969, is America's oldest media watchdog organization. For more information, please visit http://www.aim.org/.

To schedule an interview with AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid, contact Sarah Schaerr Norton at +1-202-364-4401, ext. 107 or Carisa E. Bergen at +1-202-364-4401, ext. 110.

Source: Accuracy in Media

CONTACT: Sarah Schaerr Norton of Accuracy in Media, +1-202-364-4401,
ext. 107, Sarah.Schaerr@aim.org

Web site: http://www.aim.org/

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