31 October 2010
Dan Riehl
RiehlWorldView
10/29/2010
Alaska Radio Station Pulls Pro Miller Host After Murkowski Legal Threat
…Dan Fagan, the conservative talk show host who lately spends much of his three-hour radio show slamming U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and extolling the virtues of Republican Joe Miller, has been yanked off the air.
Fagan said a member of the Murkowski campaign called his general manager, Dennis Bookey, to say that Fagan had been electioneering and should be taken off the air. Fagan said Bookey said he was off the air today and they would evaluate the situation Monday…
Still Googling, but I’m sure the FEC has ruled in this area and talk radio is NOT electioneering.
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Rob Port
Say Anything
10/30/2010
Palin: Murkowski Threatened Radio Station Into Taking Host Off Air
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Dan Riehl
RiehlWorldView
10/30/2010
Just out via Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer.
Sore loser liberal Republican Murkowski only wants HER right to be a write-in candidate. Everybody else need not apply.
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Instapundit
10/31/2010
JOURNALISM: “Last night news broke that Anchorage’s CBS affiliate KTVA News 11 reporters were caught on tape discussing ways in which they could potentially embarrass the Senate campaign of Republican Joe Miller.” Funny, there was a time when I would have found this inherently unlikely. Has the press changed, or is it just easier to get caught now?
UPDATE: A reader emails that it’s not “journalism,” it’s “journolistism.” Good point!
ANOTHER UPDATE: “It’s easier to get caught.”
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Jim Hoft
GatewayPundit
10/31/2010
Sarah Palin: We Have Tape of Those “Corrupt Bastards” In Media Conspiring Against Joe Miller
…Sarah Palin told Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday this morning that “we have the tape that proves it” of the “corrupt bastards” in the media conspiring against Joe Miller.
Sarah Palin weighs in on the corrupt bastards in the Alaska media:
“Just last night it was revealed that the rally that I had for Joe Miller on Thursday, it was revealed and we have the tape to prove it, that the CBS reporters, the affiliate in Alaska, conspired to make up stories about Joe Miller. We have the tape Chris, and I can’t wait until it busts out all over the nation, that shows what it is that we… kinda what I put up with for two years now from the media… but what Joe Miller is faced with in someone like Lisa Murkowsky who feels so entitled to that seat, that she and some of her people including some complicit in the media will do anything, they will stop at nothing, to allow Lisa Murkowsky to get back elected.”
I am saying that we have on tape the CBS reporters in the affiliate up there in Alaska saying, “Let’s find a child molester in the crowd as a supporter of Joe Miller. Let’s blast that. Let’s concoct a Rand Paul moment there. Let’s find any kind of chaos so we can tweet, “Ooh, there’s chaos. Joe Miller got punched.”” That’s sick. Those are corrupt bastards, Chris…
Update: Palin: Lisa, are you going to shut down my Facebook page for writing this?
Big Government has a transcript and audio of the voice mail: Anchorage CBS Affiliate Caught on Voicemail Conspiring Against Alaska’s GOP Senate Candidate
Update 2: HotAir: KTVA: Yeah, that was us, but it’s not what you think
RiehlWorldView: Cornyn, NRSC, Establishment GOP Betraying Miller Campaign
ABC’s Jonathan Karl reports: A high-level GOP source tells me that party leaders have essentially given up on Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller and are now banking on a victory by write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski as the best bet for Republicans to keep the Alaska Senate seat.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has been forced to spend precious resources in Alaska. But take a look at the latest ad running in Alaska: It spends 25 seconds attacking Democrat McAdams and less than five seconds mentioning Joe Miller.
If the NRSC really wanted to help Miller, it would be attacking Murkowski. Indeed, an anti-McAdams ad may be the last thing Miller needs right now. At this point, what he really needs is for McAdams to siphon anti-Miller votes away from Murkowski.
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TheRightScoop has the entire video of the Palin/Wallace interview today.
Update 3: HotAir.com, Palin rips Murkowski, says “hired guns threatened” talk show host.
Want to know how the world will look if Congress reinstates the Fairness Doctrine? [emphasis CAJ] Take a long look at what happened in Alaska when a radio talk-show host ran afoul of the political Establishment. After running a contest to get Alaskans to add themselves to a list of write-in candidates for the Senate race, Lisa Murkowski’s ad buyer threatened to get the FCC involved in Dan Fagan’s “electioneering” — and got him taken off the air. Now Sarah Palin has launched a broadside from her Facebook site against Murkowski for attacking free speech and political discourse:
Yesterday, Lisa Murkowski’s hired guns threatened radio host Dan Fagan, and more importantly, the station that airs Fagan’s show, with legal action for allegedly illegal “electioneering.” The station, unlike Murkowski, who is flush with millions of dollars from vested corporate interests, does not have a budget for a legal defense. So it did what any small market station would do when threatened by Beltway lawyers charging $500 to $1000 an hour – they pulled Dan Fagan off the air.
Does all this sound heavy handed? It is. It is an interference with Dan Fagan’s constitutional right to free speech. It is also a shocking indictment against Lisa Murkowski. How low will she go to hold onto power?…
…Murkowski didn’t need the FCC and the FEC to act in order to silence Fagan’s dissent; she only needed to use her power to threaten an intervention to succeed….
Update 4: Assessing Joe Miller at RedState.com:
A lot of people have accused Joe Miller in Alaska of running a “paranoid” campaign. I admit that I’ve thought it.
Turns out he has been right to do so.
We have the local CBS affiliate in Alaska out to get him — caught on tape no less.
We have John Cornyn on TV giving a muddled message about who he supports, forcing the NRSC to come out and claim it supports Joe Miller and yet, despite a lot of bluster and some show, is doing little to help him.
We have the Senate GOP Conference refusing to kick Lisa Murkowski off the Energy Committee because, in the words of Orrin Hatch, they “like her.”
We have the Alaska Supreme Court and Alaska Elections Officials in clear disregard of actual, easy to understand, election law in Alaska handing out lists of write-in candidates.
And yet Joe Miller is leading in the latest PPP poll.
Miller is the guy we want in the Senate. It is not just that he is conservative and not Murkowski. Miller now has unabiding contempt for the Republican Leadership in the Senate after what they’ve done to him.
For conservatives, that is a very, very good thing. The hour is late. The need is great. Let’s do what we can for Joe Miller.
