The Stop Online Piracy Act resistance continues to draw players from both sides of the ideological aisle.

This week, the Free Press Action Fund blasted MPAA President Chris Dodd for threatening to cut off money to politicians who dared to block the unpopular legislation.

As a result, the media reform group wants politicians who previously pocketed Hollywood cash to return those checks, or at the least send the money to a charitable cause instead.

It all started with a tersely worded statement Dodd gave to Fox News regarding SOPA, according to a press release Free Press fired off this week:

After Congress shelved two controversial Web-censorship bills, Dodd told Fox News: “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

Free Press Action Fund President and CEO Craig Aaron made the following statement:

“The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV. We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.

“Last week’s unprecedented grassroots uprising, in which millions mobilized against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, clearly got Washington’s attention. And we’ve since seen dozens of legislators scrambling to show they were really against these bills all along. But the real test is whether they will put their money where their mouths are by returning the MPAA’s dirty money.”

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For those of us fighting for free speech on American airwaves, this is a major setback. The Broadcaster Freedom Amendment sponsored by Congressmen Greg Walden of Oregon and Mike Pence of Indiana has been defeated. The amendment would have prevented any form of the Fairness Doctrine from returning, including the new Fairness Doctrine disguised in localism rules and programming advisory boards for radio stations.

Plain and simple, this is censorship. If Congress truly believed in free speech, it would have allowed a vote on this. To do otherwise is a slap in the face of all Americans, the First Amendment, and those who drafted the First Amendment in 1791. To not allow a vote on this freedom of speech issue telegraphs one thing – Democrats in charge of the House want to censor the airwaves, and in particular conservative talk radio. (more…)

In times past there was a prevailing wisdom that the violence stemming from the drug war equated to just one drug dealer killing another and after they finished killing each other off, things would go back to being peaceful and all would be well— this theory is no longer valid. The escalated violence and corruption the cartels are exhibiting today are quickly eroding Mexico and its democratic institutions to the point that they have caused a serious shift in the entire geopolitical landscape and represent the greatest threat to national security to both the U.S. and Mexico.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the narco-insurgency in North America is the effect it is having on the free press in Mexico. Our own history has proven that exposing the truth in a free press has done more for positive change in government and corporate accountability in our nation than perhaps any other single component, but that simply does not fit in the world of terror that the narcos create and perpetuate. Hardly a single Mexican media outlet in the country operates freely and without fear when it comes to reporting on the narcos and their activities. (more…)