Congresswomen Speak on Women's Issues at Symposium

“At last [women] have a seat at the table,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D - CA) exclaimed to a crowd of cheering supporters at the Symposium for Unconventional Women in Denver. Notable Congresswomen and other champions of women’s causes spoke on the issues facing women’s participation in the federal government. Protesters from anti-war organization Code:Pink interrupted Pelosi’s speech on several occasions to voice their opposition to the American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In her speech Pelosi encouraged working women to run for federal office. “Isn’t it better to have working moms looking to Congress and seeing working moms?” she said. Pelosi’s words were echoed by Senator Claire McCaskill (D - MI) and Amy Klobuchar (D - MN) who recounted their experiences running for office as mothers.

The symposium also included women’s rights leaders Allana Goldman of She Should Run and Page Gardner of Women’s Voices, Women Vote. They noted the lack of single women running for office. Gardner said, “We can no longer afford to have single women sit on the sidelines of democracy.” Allana Goldman noted that while women tend to win elections at the same rate as men, too few are encouraged to run for office, a major reason that women constitute only 16% of Congress.

As Pelosi, the highest ranking female to hold office in the US, took the stage, members of Code:Pink rushed holding signs and pleading with the speaker to remove troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. One member denounced Pelosi from a balcony for supporting waterboarding and American military involvement in Afghanistan before being removed by security. Several members continued to interrupt Pelosi’s speech from the crowd, many insisting that Pelosi end the war. “I will stop the war,” Pelosi responded, while also saying she wished the protesters would “put their energy into voting for Barack Obama.”

Pro-Lifers March in Denver

by Emma Hills and Jessica Sall

At an anti-abortion rally today in Skyline Park downtown Denver, CO. a speaker said, “The holocaust is here.” Kaitlyn Mahoney, a coordinator of the event, described the protest as a peaceful “prayful” presence. The rally was comprised of multiple pro-life organizations from around the country, most prominently the Christian Defense Coalition and Stand True. Brian Kemper, the president of Stand True, explained their presence at the Democratic National Convention by saying, “The Democratic party says they stand for social justice. We just want them to stand for social justice where it begins: in the womb.”

The rally featured the story of Brandi Lozier, a woman whose mother tried unsuccessfully to abort her. “Just because a baby is in the womb doesn’t mean it’s not a baby,” she told the crowd. When asked if she would be voting for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) she said, “He didn’t vote for me, why should I vote for him.”

Besides the music, prayer, and the speakers in Skyline Park, members of the rally have walked to the Pepsi Center where the DNC is being held where they placed roses in the fence surrounding the center to symbolize fetuses that have been aborted. “We hope to have 3,000 roses placed for the 3,000 babies that are killed each day,” Mahoney said.

Obama campaign offers relief

The Obama campaign held a conference call advocating the creation of a National Catastrophic Insurance Fund. The call focused on describing Senator Obama’s support for such a fund, as well as the way Obama’s opponent for the presidency, Republican John McCain, has sided with current president George Bush in “letting the market work itself out” instead of helping people in need of governmental assistance.

Obama’s supporters described a system which the people in the states most in need of affordable disaster insurance could acquire it, with particular attention being paid to Florida (being that they are the most susceptible to being effected by a natural disaster). The call hosts noted that the money needed to lower insurance costs would come from private funding, and they mentioned that this would help make certain that states unwilling to pay for the insurance of people in other states would not have to do so.

Obama’s campaign painted the picture of McCain siding with insurance companies instead of helping out needy Americans. They said McCain initially supported such an insurance plan, but changed his mind after realizing President Bush opposed government intervention between citizens and insurance companies. Also, they said McCain’s belief that FEMA could help solve disaster relief problems was illogical.

UN Talk Radio Day

Every year, the Talk Radio News Service produces Talk Radio Day at the United Nations. The annual event precedes TRNS's annual talk radio conference and features high-profile guests. Previous guests have included personalities such as Al Sharpton and Alan Colmes, as well as high-level UN ambassadors and representatives. Talk Radio hosts have included Marc Bernier, Jack Rice, Lars Larson, Michael Medved, Thom Hartmann, Doug Stephan and Joe Madison.



We'll continue to update pictures, video, and audio through the day.

More pictures from TRNS 3rd Annual United Nations Talk Radio Day

Hell, Are We Not Talk Radio? -- A Talkers Magazine Editorial

By Michael Harrison,
Are we not talk radio?

The legally reckless FCC crackdown on broadcast indecency poses a deadly threat to the well-being of talk radio as well as the entire radio broadcasting industry. Worse, it is an affront to the American people that unabashedly infringes on First Amendment rights.


There is no clear line that stands between artistic speech and political speech. They are related and connected manifestations of the same fundamental concepts – the expression of ideas, the presentation of information, and the sharing of vision.

Any host who accepts what is happening with the justification "I don't do the type of show that Howard Stern does" is either a coward, self-delusional, or simply hasn't given enough thought to this subject.

Any observer who accepts the nebulous justification for subjective government thought control that these are the "public airwaves" and the people must be protected isn't living in the 21st century.

Terrestrial radio does not exist in a vacuum. It is connected to and a reflection of the culture in which it is embedded. To disconnect it from that culture will be to speed up its irrelevance and death. The "public airwaves" should reflect the language, ideas, culture and diversity of the public, not the political restrictions of the government.

The decision of the American public to generate a sexually-charged culture of coarseness and indignity might be regrettable, but it is the people's right to make that choice, and not the government's right to abridge it. Let indecency be challenged by parents, churches, private organizations and a reinstatement of the lost concept of shame as a guiding force within our society – not by government.

A subjective and draconian approach by government bureaucrats and politicians to the regulation of indecency can apply to anything from clinical discussions of biology to satirical exposes of hypocrisy to political dissent against the tyranny of a misinformed majority. It can easily be used as a weapon of political retaliation.

Howard Stern – the poster boy for the FCC's invasion – is a great American artist with an enormous following of mainstream American citizens. His resistance to the FCC's politically motivated aggression against his program will be looked back upon as one of talk radio's most heroic stands. If our society allows the government to shut him down for the subjective content of his art, future generations will judge our compliance as a shameful episode of ignorance and cowardice.

Artistic speech and political speech are the same thing, period. When one is attacked, the other is in peril. Sound the alarm – our most precious freedom is under assault! The American media must not sleepwalk through this dark encroachment. What is happening is appalling. In order to deal with this aggression, we must strive to approach it with clarity of thought and separate the facts from biases born of competition, emotion, and ignorance.

The federal government has radio station licensees over a barrel. This embarrassing vulnerability stems from consolidation and its stimulation of tremendously high radio station license values – values subject to the whims and subjective repression of the FCC. All across the country, radio licensees are urgently holding meetings with lawyers and talent issuing zero tolerance policies. Talent is being coerced into signing agreements allowing management to punish them and/or terminate them at will for saying anything on air that might theoretically lead to FCC indecency fines or license revocation. As we all know, great shows are being cancelled. Popular hosts are being fired. The executions have already begun.

Some are faulting large radio station ownership companies for their compliance with this pressure. The executives running these giant publicly traded entities face the uncomfortable choice between protecting their businesses and the interests of their stockholders in the face of the bone crunching power wielded over them by the politically aroused Federal Communications Commission or fighting back in the courts, a strategy wrought with danger. These are the bitter fruits of having made a deal with the devil. The government is holding a gun to their heads.

Do the talents and their middle management superiors deserve criticism for complying? Yes, but only on a philosophical level. Pragmatically, they cannot be blamed for trying to protect their livelihoods and careers. The heart and soul of the industry are – perhaps momentarily – paralyzed with fear and denial.

The English language is organic and evolving. Words have a variety of meanings to people of different generations, ethnicities and social categories. Words and the ideas they reflect are the tools and building blocks of our most basic freedom. We must not allow them to be chipped away under threat of government force.

The FCC should protect licensees from illegal transgressions against their technologies and signals. It should also protect the public from activities on the air that can prove dangerous to life and limb. Its rules and regulations should be tangible and clearly defined. It should not be in the business of protecting the minds of the American people.

Comply if you must, but be prepared to eventually do battle even if it is simply in the form of speaking out. Hell, are we not talk radio? If talk radio cannot stand up to the FCC taking away its fundamental right, it won't be long before it has lost the credibility that provides the foundation upon which its modern movement has been built. At least use the freedom of political speech to let the public know and understand what is happening – while we still have that right. Anyone who can't do that is already a casualty in a war that could easily be lost.