Employment, Television, Paris Climate Agreement, Obamacare, Drug Sentencing, Impeachment, Small Business

News from our Elected Officials

Coons, Isakson, Kaine, Portman introduce bill to help unemployed Americans find good jobs, call for swift Senate passage
Source: Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA)
November 14, 2019
U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced legislation to help more unemployed Americans reenter the workforce. The Building on Reemployment Improvements to Deliver Good Employment (BRIDGE) for Workers Act would give states more flexibility in administering existing unemployment benefits to help more Americans find good-paying jobs.

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Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) Urges VH1 To Cancel Television Series Glorifying Work Of Drug Cartels
Source: Senator John Kennedy (R-LA)
November 14, 2019
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked VH1 to cancel Cartel Crew, which glorifies the lives of people with ties to the worst drug lords in history. The latest cast addition is Emma Coronel Aispuro, who is married to the now imprisoned leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

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King Continues to Stress Need for U.S. to Reenter Paris Climate Agreement
Source: Senator Angus S. King Jr. (I-ME)
November 14, 2019
U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) advocated for the United States to reassert its global leadership on climate issues and rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. Senator King’s comments came during a hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee featuring testimony from current Acting Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, nominee to be the Secretary of Energy.

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Senator Lankford Reintroduces Bill to Remove Obamacare Ban on Physician-Owned Hospitals to Provide Greater Access to Patients
Source: Senator James Lankford (R-OK)
November 14, 2019
Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today reintroduced the Patient Access to Higher Quality Health Care Act, which removes the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) ban on the creation and expansion of new physician-owned hospitals (POHs) and allows POHs to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Lifting this ban will increase competition among hospitals, lower costs, and expand access to quality care for more Americans, especially those with Medicare and Medicaid.

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Sens. Lee, Durbin Introduce Smarter Sentencing Act
Source: Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)
November 14, 2019
“Our current federal sentencing laws are out of date and often counterproductive,” said Sen. Lee. “The Smarter Sentencing Act is a commonsense solution that will greatly reduce the financial and, more importantly, the human cost imposed on society by the broken status quo. The SSA will give judges the flexibility and discretion they need to impose stiff sentences on the most serious drug lords and cartel bosses, while enabling nonviolent offenders to return more quickly to their families and communities.”

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Democrats Focus on Impeachment Instead of Defense Funding
Source: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
November 14, 2019
“We want to pass the USMCA and the 176,000 new American jobs it would create. But Speaker Pelosi continues to block it. The far left objects to their passing anything the president likes.”

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McSally Introduces Bills to Help Small Businesses Contract with the Federal Government
Source: Senator Martha McSally (R-AZ)
November 14, 2019
“With small businesses comprising over 99 percent of our country’s businesses, our economy depends on their success,” McSally said. “When Arizona small business owners told me they were being forced to shoulder the cost of federal work for up to a month, I knew Congress had to act. Small businesses rely on quick, reliable payments so they can in turn pay their staff and fund new ventures. My bill speeds up payment processing times so that small businesses can continue to serve as the backbone of our economy.”

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HBO's Blunder: Confederate

Anyone who really knows history understands that the civil war was not about slavery, it was about state's rights. Slavery just happened to be an issue that had already been rectified in the Northern States, and it was on its way out in the South, taking longer because of the nature of the economy at that time.

HBO has decided that if the South had won, slavery would still exist today. What would the world be like then?

Their newest project "The Confederacy" explores this idea, to the chagrin of many Southerners who don't like the idea of the series.
Some newspapers claim that it hits "too close to home" being the reason for the outcries against the series.

You decide:

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PRICE, HUFFMAN INTRODUCE LOCAL AND INDEPENDENT TELEVISION PROTECTION ACT

Washington, D.C. - July 28, 2017 (The Ponder News) -- New legislation introduced by Representatives David Price (D-NC) and Jared Huffman (D-CA) would protect local television markets across the country from corporate consolidation by permanently ending the so-called “UHF discount,” an obsolete FCC loophole that the Trump Administration wants to revive to benefit right-wing media conglomerates. If the UHF discount is allowed to go into effect, a series of pending corporate mergers, including one with the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media, would dramatically reduce competition among local TV stations across the country.

“Our democracy depends on a diverse media that can address local needs and serve the public interest,” said Rep. Price.“The FCC’s decision to reinstate the technically obsolete UHF discount is a thinly veiled attempt to fast track mega mergers at the expense of Americans who want reliable and trustworthy news from their local broadcasters. The issue of continued corporate media consolidation isn’t a problem for just Democrats or just Republicans – it’s a problem for anyone who wishes to receive news and other programming from a local broadcaster that isn’t captive to a political or corporate agenda.”

“Preventing monopolies in local media and turning back the tide of corporate consolidation has never been more vital than it is today,” said Rep. Huffman.“In Eureka, California alone, the FCC’s recent decision to reinstate the discredited and antiquated UHF discount means that a single right-wing media owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, will control a majority of the news that my constituents in Eureka see on television, no matter which news broadcast they choose to watch. This is not the Soviet Union: Americans deserve a meaningful choice in their local news, and our Local and Independent Television Protection Act would ensure that every American has access to a variety of local news sources that report on the local – and national – issues they care most about.”

"Local television remains an important source of local news. It's especially important for people of color, Spanish speakers, elderly populations, low-income individuals, and others less likely to have cable TV and affordable internet access. Yet we're not getting the diversity of competing viewpoints and local content that we need from broadcasters because of runaway consolidation, aided and abetted by loopholes like the UHF Discount,”said Free Press Action Fund Deputy Director and Senior Counsel, Jessica J. González. “That discount is a relic of a bygone era, from a time when UHF signals were too weak to reach everyone. With today's technology, these signals are actually stronger than other broadcast channels. Yet the current FCC, despite its supposed focus on getting rid of obsolete technical rules, revived this one to pave the way for mega-mergers proposed by conglomerates like Sinclair. We thank Reps. Huffman and Price for introducing this bill to close that loophole."

As John Oliver recently pointed out, the Sinclair Broadcast Group has “must-run” segments and slanted polls that it requires all of their stations to run.

On April 20, 2017, President Trump’s Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai called a vote to reinstate the UHF discount, which allows television station owners to significantly increase their national reach. Federal law establishes a national television ownership cap to prevent any single company from owning television stations that collectively reach more than 39% of the country, a competition requirement to ensure the continuation of the diverse and local news sources essential to a robust democracy. The UHF discount, by contrast, makes this cap meaningless, letting media companies “discount” UHF stations (channels 14-83) by half when calculating whether the company is subject to the national television ownership cap. With the UHF discountreinstated, a single company can buy enough local TV stations to reach up to 78% of Americans, dramatically increasing their national scope, public influence, and control of household news content.

One day after the FCC’s reinstatement of the UHF discount, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it had entered an agreement to purchase Bonten Media Group for $240 million, expanding its reach in Northern California and elsewhere across the nation. With this purchase, Sinclair will own four of the seven commercial television stations in the Eureka, CA, community. The Trump administration’s reinstatement of the UHF discount is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after a lawsuit was filed by several public interest groups.

Specifically, the Local and Independent Television Protection Act:

· Requires the FCC to act within 90 days to permanently end the UHF discount; and

· Grandfathers any stations owned prior to September 26, 2013, which is commensurate with the FCC’s previous efforts to end the UHF discount.

The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Jerry McNerney (D-CA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Jackie Speier (D-CA).

The legislation is supported by: Free Press Action Fund, Public Knowledge, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Common Cause, and Consumers Union.

Media and the Press

RSF’s index stresses threats against journalists in Asia, audiences’ need for free press
Broadcasting Board of Governors
April 26, 2017
The media environment in Radio Free Asia’s broadcast region further declined, according to Reporters Without Borders’s 2017 Press Freedom Index. Radio Free Asia (RFA) President Libby Liu said the report’s findings underscore the importance of RFA’s mission in countries that censor and restrict access to independent, reliable news and information. Seven of RFA’s nine language services operate in countries that were ranked in the bottom 10 percent of the survey, with North Korea ranked dead last, and China and Vietnam named the world’s biggest jailers of bloggers and journalists.
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9th Circuit urged to uphold First Amendment freedoms of investigative journalists
Alliance Defending Freedom
April 21, 2017
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund filed a friend-of-the-court brief Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that encourages the full court to take up the case of David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress and uphold First Amendment freedoms for investigative journalists.
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Communications

ISAKSON FIGHTS FOR RURAL BROADBAND ACCESS
Senator Johnny Isakson - (R - GA)
April 11, 2017
Under current rules, Universal Service Fund (USF) support for broadband in rural areas comes with the outdated requirement that customers also sign up for traditional landline phone service. When rural customers decide they no longer need traditional landline phone service in favor of wireless or Internet-based phone services, rural communities served by smaller telecommunication providers lose access to USF support for broadband deployment, even if the customer continues to pay for broadband Internet service.
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Fischer, Klobuchar Lead Bipartisan Letter to FCC on Rural Broadband
Senator Deb Fischer- (R - NE)
April 11, 2017
In the letter, addressed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, and FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, the senators urged the agency to take additional steps to continue advancing broadband deployment in our nation’s rural areas. They also expressed concerns about the high cost of these critical services in many rural communities and stressed that more Americans should have the opportunity to purchase affordable broadband to keep them connected.
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