I would point out, my friend mentioned Clear Channel, which was the company that really sprouted after radio deregulation in 1996 and now owns some 1,200 radio stations. It is important to recognize that Clear Channel not only owns radio…

there is another aspect of this issue, and that is the aspects of localism. Vermont is different from Oregon, and we should pride ourselves on our differences and not see us become homogeneous. From 1981 to 1989, I was the mayor of the…

If there is anything good about what has happened in the last few months, what has been good is that more and more people are now aware of what is happening in this issue than was previously the case. As my friend from Washington…

when people go to a newsstand and they see hundreds, if not thousands, of magazines, they say, Wow, look at the diversity of opinion. And we all know there are hundreds and hundreds of television stations out there. I would remind the…

the issue that we are now going to be discussing, which is the concentration of ownership in the media and the implication of more media deregulation as proposed by the Bush administration and passed today by a three to two vote by the…

Just dealing with General Electric, the point here again is that sometimes people turn on the television and they say there is NBC. Well, no, it is not NBC. This is a subsidiary of General Electric. For many, many years, General Electric…

I want to mention to my friend from Ohio on issues that I know he and I share similar concerns just what the implications of concentration of media are. I know that my friend from Ohio is deeply concerned about our trade policy, a policy…

But he is still losing. The polls are very clear. The people want health care and Social Security.

my friend says it cuts taxes for almost everybody. The last tax proposal the gentleman brought up here gave as much in tax breaks to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent, those people who are millionaires, as to the bottom 89 percent of the…

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a fraud. It will do devastating harm to this country. It is an embarrassment that the Republican leadership brings it up, and it should be defeated. Mr. Speaker, point number one. This bill is grossly unfair. My…

The Wall Street Journal poll today showed massive opposition to this tax proposal and that more than half of the American people, 55 percent, said they would prefer the government to spend more money on health care coverage. The people…

If I could interrupt for a moment, we are a Nation which, as I think everybody knows, is pretty equally divided. The last election, Mr. Gore and Mr. Nader received somewhat more votes than Mr. Bush and Mr. Buchanan. Congress is almost…

The issue here is that in a democratic society, we do not know what goes on unless all issues of importance are discussed. It is not whether somebody gets a good story or whether they are on TV or not; it is whether whole segments of…

I want to pick up on a point that the gentlewoman made. She mentioned Clear Channel; and some people say yes, well, Clear Channel is a radio network, but they are much more than a radio network. And the point that I am trying to make and…

in my view the issue that I and some of my colleagues are about to discuss, which is concentration of ownership in the media and the implications of more media deregulation as proposed by the Bush administration and FCC Chairman Michael…

What we have now, and I think people should be aware of this, is it a bad situation when the media does not provide adequate coverage for different points of view, and that is what we are seeing. What the gentlewoman is saying is that when…

if I might, I would mention to my friend that the FCC has a Web site that people can currently e-mail to, and the overwhelming majority of people who are contacting the FCC are saying, do not go forward with more deregulation, which I find…

What people are not aware of is the degree, the number of separate companies that one large corporation owns. Let me start off with an example and go to Viacom. I suspect that most people have never even heard of Viacom. Who is Viacom…

my friend said that we do not have to do anything. My friend said that it should be voluntary. What happened at IBM is that thousands of workers stood up and fought back. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other…

I recently held a town meeting at St. Michael's College in Vermont to discuss an issue that for obvious reasons does not get much media coverage, and we had over 600 people, Vermonters, coming out to this meeting to discuss the issue of…

Mr. Chairman, today we live in an age of exploding technological advances. Many of these new technologies offer the potential to improve the lives of people in the United States and around the world. But, Mr. Chairman, some of this new…

Mr. Speaker, I do not think any Member of this body disagrees that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant, a murderer, and a man who has started two wars. He is clearly someone who cannot be trusted or believed. The question, Mr. Speaker, is not…

Mr. Speaker, our Nation was changed forever on the morning of September 11. The goal of Osama bin Laden was to demoralize us, was to create fear and uncertainty, to bring about instability in our country; and, obviously and thankfully, he…

Mr. Speaker, fast track essentially extends our current trade policies. And why in God's name would we want to do that when our current trade policy is an absolute disaster that has cost this country millions of decent-paying jobs and has…

This amendment is about corporate accountability. Today corporation after corporation has been caught misleading their investors. Many of these same companies are doing exactly the same thing with respect to employees' pensions. Mr…