Go Back to the B3 Home Page
Complaints, compliments, arguments? Email me.
[<< "Famous last words?"] [Archive Index] [>>"Conason breaks the bat..."]
04/07/2004 Archived Entry: "Don't snap your neck reading this one"
Don't snap your neck reading this one
Interesting article, about how the DoJ seems to be moving terrorism awareness to the back of the bus again, to snag those filthy pornographers.
In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in guestrooms of major hotel chains.Department officials say they will send "ripples" through an industry that has proliferated on the Internet and grown into an estimated $10 billion-a-year colossus profiting Fortune 500 corporations such as Comcast, which offers hard-core movies on a pay-per-view channel.
The Justice Department recently hired Bruce Taylor, who was instrumental in a handful of convictions obtained over the past year and unsuccessfully represented the state in a 1981 case, Larry Flynt vs. Ohio.
Okay, terror issues aside, fair enough. But read a little further....
Cable television, meanwhile, which has found late-night lineups with "adult programming" highly profitable, is unlikely to budge, and such companies have powerful friends.Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, which offers "hard-core" porn on the Hot Network channel (at $11.99 per film in Baltimore), was co-chair of Philadelphia 2000, the host committee that brought the Republican National Convention to Philadelphia. In February, the Bush campaign honored Comcast President Stephen Burke with "Ranger" status, for agreeing to raise at least $200,000 for the president's re-election effort. Comcast's executive vice president, David Cohen, has close ties to Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
The upshot seems to be that if you're politically connected, you'll be able to deal in porn. At least that's the way I'm reading it. On the other hand, BushCo has been knpown to throw their friends in front of the bus in order to appease the hard Right (no pun intended).
Replies: 3 people speak up
The government must protect us from ourselves and our baser desires. Like the impulse to get rich(er) by manipulating the legal system to benefit one's family business at the expense of the sick and injured-- Ethics Complaint Filed Against Frist--or the temptation to raise funds for one worthy cause and then spend the loot on something completely different:
GOP "American Dream" PAC Gives Just 8.9 Percent to Minority Candidates
Posted by Xan @ 04/07/2004 06:03 PM NY
why is it they always have to fuck with everything i enjoy? im an american too, and i demand my right to watch kinky sex on my television.
also, does anyone think that trying to remove 10 billion dollars from the economy is a good thing? america no longer makes anything. we dont make computers, sewing machines, or even our own military weapons. why cant we at least work on what we are good at... smut
Posted by justin @ 04/07/2004 06:12 PM NY
Hmmm.
They curbed drugs.
Are actively curbing drinking.
And now wish to curb certain sex things.
Not long now the old joke about commiting battery on yourself will be true.
And how exactly does this seperation between church and state thing work again?
Posted by IXLNXS @ 04/07/2004 06:14 PM NY
