Obama threatens freedom of speech and freedom of the press
No President in the history of America has threatened freedom of speech and freedom of the press as has Barack Obama.
Obama's attacks on free speech as candidate for president
As a candidate in 2008, Obama repeatedly attacked two of our most sacred rights - freedom of speech and press.
In the fall of 2008, Obama demanded - three times - that the Department of Justice investigate and file criminal charges against the American Issues Project, its officers, board of directors, and donors for supposed campaign finance law violations. The Justice department refused to prosecute.
Ed Martin, president of the American Issues Project, responded "The American Issues Projects applauds the Department of Justice for refusing to treat as criminal the exercise of free speech during an election. The Obama campaign's tactics have been recognized for what they are - an attempt to bully a legitimate message off the air through intimidation and scare tactics."(1) The American Issues Project's ad examines the links between Sen. Obama and unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers.
Obama also sought to block TV stations from airing the commercial by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The campaign also planned to compel advertisers to pressure stations that continue to air the anti-Obama commercial.
In another attack on free speech, the Obama campaign demanded TV stations in Pennsylvania and Ohio stop airing a National Rifle Association ad critical of Obama. The letter, dated Sep. 23, 2008 is “frightening” and “dangerous,” a campaign finance expert said. “When a candidate threatens a broadcaster with government sanction over the content of an ad, it is very worrisome to the First Amendment and the guarantee of free political debate,” said Sean Parnell, president of the Center for Competitive Campaigns, an organization that focuses on money in politics.(2)
For the second time in September, Chicago radio station WGN-AM has come under attack from Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author. WGN was again the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat. Monday night's target was David Freddoso, author of “The Case Against Barack Obama” who the campaign said was scheduled to be on the station from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time.
"The author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility," an e-mail sent Monday evening to Obama supporters reads. The Tribune-owned station was flooded with calls and e-mails about an hour before an Aug. 27 interview with Stanley Kurtz, a conservative writer who examined Obama's ties to former 1960s radical William Ayers.(3)
Obama's America
As president, we face the threat of Obama’s cooperation with muslim nations to shape speech about Islam and Obama’s desire to control the media like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has done.
In June, 2009, Obama went to Cairo, Egypt and declared the US and Islam “share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”(4)
Obama declared “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”(4) What does this sentence mean?
In July 2011, Hillary Clinton co-chaired a conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)in Istanbul, Turkey.(5) The OIC is composed of 57 countries.(7) Nearly all are Muslim nations. Most have a horrible record on human rights. In some of these muslim countries, especially Egypt, you will NOT be punished by the authorities if you rape a Christian girl or beat or murder a Christian. If you are not a muslim in these muslim countries, you must pay a special tax.
The purpose of the conference was “implementation of the Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on Combating Incitement to Violence, and Intolerance based on religion or belief.”(5)(6) These resolutions have been routinely passed by the UN since 1999, but due to US involvement, this resolution differed from previous ones in that it did not specifically call for laws against “defaming” a religion - Islam.
But the resolution has language that is troubling and could be interpreted different ways. This resolution calls for the “implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.”(6) The Durban Declaration of 2001 was where the world’s leading dictatorships demanded the free world rid themselves of “Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” A second conference in 2009 to review the implementation of the 2001 resolutions was attended by none other then Iran’s lunatic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who runs a police state and has repeatedly called for the annihilation of Israel. The US and other democracies boycotted this meeting.
Resolution 16/18 also called on countries to:
Speak “out against intolerance, including advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence;”(6)
Adopt “measures to criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief;”(6)
“...make a strong effort to counter religious profiling, which is understood to be the invidious use of religion as a criterion in conducting questionings, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures;”(6)
Follwing this meeting, Clinton met with the OIC in Washington in Dec 12 - 14, 2011, discussing how to implement UN Resolution 16/18. What was decided on - if anything - has not been made public.
This whole process is a fraud. Although the US was able to get some words changed in Resolution 16/18, the mindset of the OIC members hasn't changed. Their focus is still on changing the US and Europe, not themselves. The OIC should reform their own country’s laws. There is no need for this resolution in a free country like the US, so why would Obama become involved in a process that is aimed only at the western democracies instead of the corrupt theocracies of the OIC?
Many countries in the western world in recent years have adopted laws against “hate” speech. Simply google “hate speech laws” to find out for yourself. The problem is these laws deny legitimate freedom of speech. Is this where the US under Obama is headed? What does Obama have in store for us if he would win re-election to President this November?
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On July 29, 2009, Mark Lloyd was appointed to a new position especially created for him by Obama, Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Obama’s “Diversity Czar” has made many threats against free speech under the guise of “fairness.”
At the 2005 Conference on Media Reform: Racial Justice, Lloyd declared: “... there's nothing more difficult than this. Because we have really, truly good white people in important positions. And the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions. And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions we will not change the problem.(8)
“We're in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power.”(8) Watch video.
“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration ... “ (9)
Lloyd uses the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to promote a government takeover of the media.(10) He has praised Hugo Chavez and his takeover of that country’s media.(10) Watch Video. Over several years, Chavez closed down EVERY radio and TV stations that didn’t say nice things about him.(11)(12) Lloyd wants so much government involvement in the media, that the end result would be similar to what Chavez accomplished in Venezuela. Mark Lloyd is a Marxist, like Chavez.
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On Oct 28, 2009, the Obama administration failed in its attempt to exclude Fox News from participating in an interview of an administration official, as Republicans on Capitol Hill stepped up their criticism of the hardball tactics employed by the White House. The Treasury Department on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the network pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the presidency and other Washington institutions. But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included. The pool informed Treasury that Fox News, as a member of the network pool, could not be excluded from such interviews under the rules of the pool. The administration relented, making Feinberg available for all five pool members and Bloomberg TV.(13)
Putting people in position of power who want a government takeover of the media is scary. Obama’s extreme reaction to opposing viewpoints, his desire to bypass Congress with Executive Orders is a manifestation of an authoritarian impulse extremely dangerous to our society, the Rule of Law and the Constitution. This is the mentality of the radical Left and shows why Obama has so much support on the extreme left.
Obama believes in free speech - as long as you agree with him!!
1.(from George Washington University) http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/ads08g/aip082908pr.html
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