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Dennis Kucinich filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission yesterday over CNN's decision saying they "arbitrarily" established criteria for its scheduled Monday Presidential debate that will exclude Kucinich from participation.
The Kucinich campaign was notified by CNN on Wednesday that their criteria included having 5 per cent or better in a national poll and Kucinich's showing was at 4 per cent in the CBS News/New York Times (Page #10 shows Kucinich's 4 per cent figure- PDF file) and by the Pew Research Center polls, disqualifying him from attending.
The complaint states "The CNN criteria specifically exclude the diverse and anti-war voice of Mr. Kucinich and his grass-roots supporters. The exclusion of Mr. Kucinich undermines the purpose of the (Federal Communications) Act and is a blatant violation of the Act, including its equal time provisions."
"Mr. Kucinich is a successful candidate because of his anti-war message and strong criticism of the American healthcare system, issues that are not championed by his presidential primary opponents. In these and other policy issues, his opponents share very similar policy platforms that differ from Mr. Kucinich."
His campaign is asking the FCC to force CNN to allow Kucinich to participate.
Previously Dennis Kucinich brought a court complaint against NBC which he lost, because they excluded him from their debate in Nevada, a Las Vegas judge had sided with him against NBC but the Nevada Supreme court upheld NBC's right to exclude him stating that the Las Vegas judge had exceeded his jurisdiction.
You can see the Nevada Supreme Court's decision and reasoning here, via PDF file.
That was last week.
Kucinich lost another court battle in Texas, just yesterday, over the loyalty oath, that the Democratic party tried to force him to sign.
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Someone contact James T Kirk and see if he some left dilithium crystals for the UFO that has apparently run out of gas.
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@ Mark L Harvey
Someone contact James T Kirk and see if he some left dilithium crystals for the UFO that has apparently run out of gas.
LOL, I will admit that hell froze over and pigs flew when I actually agreed with Kucinich about the loyalty oath case, but otherwise, he and his team are spending more time in court and filing complaints than they are on issues.
Some people just do not catch fire, their numbers reflect it and as the field gets narrowed, this is what happens. -
They forgot to beam him up the other night when they flew over Texas...
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@ Mr Garibaldi
They forgot to beam him up the other night when they flew over Texas...
No, the UFO probably decided against taking him because he's dead weight. -
Ya'll are cracking me up here.
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Cracks? The gray men can fix those for ya :)
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@ Mr Garibaldi
Cracks? The gray men can fix those for ya :)
Yup and Elvis will fly the ships. -
@ Sue D.
Yup and Elvis will fly the ships.
Not Tom Cruise?? Katie riding shotgun..........? The baby speaking in alien tongues............. -
@ Helena Handbasket
Not Tom Cruise?? Katie riding shotgun..........? The baby speaking in alien tongues.............
Lost in Space, Part 2? LOL! -
More like Predator 3....
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Dennis Kucinich has been systematically excluded from the televised debates. This has nothing to do with his admission to having seen unidentified flying objects, which is a much more empirical claim than the ones offered from people who believe as an article of faith that Jesus rose from the dead and flew into heaven. You should criticize Dennis for being a Catholic before you mock him for recounting his experience with an unidentified flying objects, objects which many military aircraft pilots have confessed to have seen.
The worry for many progressives like myself is that the corporate media - not the American people are deciding the electability of the candidates. Large media corporations like MSNBC, a subsidiary of GE, are filtering the line-up and framing candidates as unelectable. The Des Moines Register excluded Kucinich from the last Iowa debates; ABC News excluded Kucinich from the New Hampshire debate; and MSNBC with the help of the Nevada Supreme Court, excluded Kucinich from participating in the Nevada debate. This is a pattern of political censorship and worthy of serious concern by those who believe in democracy.
What we need is an FCC that will prevent political censorship - not endorse it. We need a Democratic Party that cares about including progressive perspectives, like nonprofit national healthcare, an end to war as an legitimate instrument of foreign policy, and the impeachment of politicians who lie to the American people.
Instead of joking around about aliens, which Kucinich never said he saw, we should focus on restoring democracy to the electoral process, where the people - not the corporate media - get to decide who will president.
We should also admit that national polls are not the best indicator of political support because they presuppose exposure to the candidates. If the corporate media requires specific poll numbers to participate in the election, but does not provide the air time to educate the American people about the candidates, and even spends its time discrediting progressive candidates, then we cannot reasonably expect the polls to reflect an informed public opinion.
I know it's fun to joke about aliens, but as citizens we have to take the time to protect the integrity of our electoral process. -
@ wanderingwill
Dennis Kucinich has been systematically excluded from the televised debates. This has nothing to do with his admission to having seen unidentified flying objects, which is a much more empirical claim than the ones offered from people who believe as an article of faith that Jesus rose from the dead and flew into heaven. You should criticize Dennis for being a Catholic before you mock him for recounting his experience with an unidentified flying objects, objects which many military aircraft pilots have confessed to have seen.
The worry for many progressives like myself is that the corporate media - not the American people are deciding the electability of the candidates. Large media corporations like MSNBC, a subsidiary of GE, are filtering the line-up and framing candidates as unelectable. The Des Moines Register excluded Kucinich from the last Iowa debates; ABC News excluded Kucinich from the New Hampshire debate; and MSNBC with the help of the Nevada Supreme Court, excluded Kucinich from participating in the Nevada debate. This is a pattern of political censorship and worthy of serious concern by those who believe in democracy.
What we need is an FCC that will prevent political censorship - not endorse it. We need a Democratic Party that cares about including progressive perspectives, like nonprofit national healthcare, an end to war as an legitimate instrument of foreign policy, and the impeachment of politicians who lie to the American people.
Instead of joking around about aliens, which Kucinich never said he saw, we should focus on restoring democracy to the electoral process, where the people - not the corporate media - get to decide who will president.
We should also admit that national polls are not the best indicator of political support because they presuppose exposure to the candidates. If the corporate media requires specific poll numbers to participate in the election, but does not provide the air time to educate the American people about the candidates, and even spends its time discrediting progressive candidates, then we cannot reasonably expect the polls to reflect an informed public opinion.
I know it's fun to joke about aliens, but as citizens we have to take the time to protect the integrity of our electoral process.
First off the people that run the media stations get one vote as does everyone else.
Secondly, there are ample stations and media outlets to cover every aspect of every political field, hence the FCC staying out of most of these battles because these stations are not state owned but privately owned, unless you suggest that we should be like Iran and have every news station be run by the state.
We have choice and it is OUR job to use that choice, which means if you don't like how a particular outlet is doing their job....change the channel.
This isn't 30 years ago where there were a "limited" amount of outlets to balance out.
The people need to judge things for themselves and not let their televisions, radios or media sources make their decisions for them and if they are not capable of doing that, they get what they deserve. -
@ Sue D.
Yup and Elvis will fly the ships.
Thou shalt NOT pick on Elvis! He is sitting right here next to me and he is offended. -
Lordy, rubber room for you for a while...LOL
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@ Sue D.
First off the people that run the media stations get one vote as does everyone else.
Secondly, there are ample stations and media outlets to cover every aspect of every political field, hence the FCC staying out of most of these battles because these stations are not state owned but privately owned, unless you suggest that we should be like Iran and have every news station be run by the state.
We have choice and it is OUR job to use that choice, which means if you don't like how a particular outlet is doing their job....change the channel.
This isn't 30 years ago where there were a "limited" amount of outlets to balance out.
The people need to judge things for themselves and not let their televisions, radios or media sources make their decisions for them and if they are not capable of doing that, they get what they deserve.
First off, "progressive" is a pretty term for "socialist". In case no one has noticed, "progressive/socialist" cannot co-exist with a Federal Republic in the same place...period.
The ideology or "progressivism/socialism" is in direct conflict with and is the polar opposite of the United States Constitution.
Period.
Dot.
Com.
If we wanted Socialism, we would face North, face South and across both Great Ponds.
Thanks, but, no thanks. -
UP 15
Have you all seen that a HUGE space ship was seen over Texas by two women.. It landed in the wrong state and 5,000 aliens missed voting for Dennis K. The space Kadet.. He gave them the wrong coordinates....But then what can one expect.. something RIGHT from space boy??
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@ Sue D.
First off the people that run the media stations get one vote as does everyone else.
Secondly, there are ample stations and media outlets to cover every aspect of every political field, hence the FCC staying out of most of these battles because these stations are not state owned but privately owned, unless you suggest that we should be like Iran and have every news station be run by the state.
We have choice and it is OUR job to use that choice, which means if you don't like how a particular outlet is doing their job....change the channel.
This isn't 30 years ago where there were a "limited" amount of outlets to balance out.
The people need to judge things for themselves and not let their televisions, radios or media sources make their decisions for them and if they are not capable of doing that, they get what they deserve.
While I agree that the people who run the media stations also have the right to vote, it is important to understand that they do not have the right to prevent the public from learning about the candidates. I disagree with the view that the FCC should not regulate the content of privately owned media corporations when it intervenes to stop political censorship. This is not an instance of the state preventing free speech, but mandating more free speech.
I also disagree with your view that there "are ample stations and media outlets to cover every aspect of every political field", and your suggestion that consumers of media are in control of the situation because they can simply change the channel. The fact of the matter is that big media is big business and almost all of the major broadcasters are run by a handful of corporations. GE owns the MSNBC, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation owns Fox News and Facebook, Time Warner owns CNN, and Disney owns ABC News. Simply put, to assume that we have choice presupposes that we have a competitive market, but when it comes to broadcast television, we are facing increased consolidation and monopolistic market.
I must also address Snooper's assertions:
@ Mark L Harvey
First off, "progressive" is a pretty term for "socialist". In case no one has noticed, "progressive/socialist" cannot co-exist with a Federal Republic in the same place...period.
The ideology or "progressivism/socialism" is in direct conflict with and is the polar opposite of the United States Constitution.
Period.
Dot.
Com.
Progressivism as it is understood by many people, is not a statist political philosophy, one which uniformly suppresses people by executive order, but a democratic movement that relies on the perspectives and decision making abilities of everyone. This philosophy is NOT the polar opposite of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but a reflection of it.
One of the reasons why progressive's like myself want the FCC to intervene is to protect the First Amendment. Everyone deserves an opportunity to express their views in a public forum, and when the public forum on national television is controlled by the corporate media, the FCC has an obligation to intervene and mandate the inclusion of all candidates. They can do this by either requiring the monopoly to break itself up, or by requiring the monopoly to provide equal opportunity to all candidates. We have seen neither action taken by the FCC. But they must intervene because they have an obligation to protect the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, especially with respect to the electoral process.
But it is not just the FCC that must defend democratic governance; we all have that obligation. Add a Comment
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