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(81,700 posts)Goddamn asshole
cyclonefence
(4,483 posts)That same Reagan FCC abolished the restrictions on how many minutes per hour of TV could be devoted to commercials. Old folks remember half-hour shows that actually had 25 minutes of content.
Gothmog
(145,839 posts)Grins
(7,258 posts)Clipped from the always great Driftglass:
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For the record, the two federal judges who helped Reagan kill the Fairness Doctrine were future-Supreme Court incubus Antonin Scalia, and disgraced Nixon henchman Robert Bork. After helping to hold down the Fairness Doctrine while Reagan smothered it, both men went on to enjoy long and fruitful careers as wingnut icons and ruiners of American democracy.
Also in 1987, immediately after the Fall of the Fairness Doctrine came the Rise of Conservative Hate Radio:
Daniel Henninger wrote, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, "Ronald Reagan tore down this wall (the Fairness Doctrine) in 1987 ... and Rush Limbaugh was the first man to proclaim himself liberated from the East Germany of liberal media domination."
Then, in 1990, immediately after the Rise of Conservative Hate Radio began normalizing a Republican vocabulary of lies, slander, casual racism and hate-mongering via millions of AM radios and "Rush Rooms" across the country. an up-and-coming pervert named Newton Leroy Gingrich began teaching a cohort of ambitious sociopaths inside the Republican Party to relentlessly parrot exactly the same hate-speech coming from Limbaugh and his imitators outside the party.
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If you don't read - and contribute to - Driftglass, you should!
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2017/06/in-beginning.html