State of Emergency?

Good luck shutting down the CB radio band and pirates.

I saw something about that on the news, some other official (forget who) had commented something like:

"Emergency? What emergency? He can't do it, there is no emergent in this situation, there must be a genuine emergency for the president to execute that authority, there isn't.

Not sure why but the robot from the old Lost in Space keeps popping onto my head saying "Danger! Danger!..

Something happened at least one president ago, on a pro broadcast forum I frequently visit. There once was a participant who, after hearing about changes made to EAS where the President was made able to go on the air and address the entire nation in an extreme emergency, made it his daily mission to scream at us how President Obama, anytime he wanted to, could just push a button and be on all radios and TVs everywhere.

He bolstered his postings with fears that Obama would come on the air, take away all our freedoms, order troops to remove us from our homes, steal our legally-owned weapons, etc.  Clearly this dude did not like Obama and his paranoia had completely gotten the best of him.

Yes, EAS is set up to do this: upon activation, announcements from the White House can be made, daisy-chaining from one box to another. I don't ever seeing this coming to pass, but technically it is possible.

But I need some clarification: where does it say the president can order radio, TV and telephone communications suspended nationally in an emergency? That's one I've never seen but would sure like to know where that's written down.

BillyBurg: "Where does it say the president can order radio, TV and telephone communications suspended nationally in an emergency? "

I heard Thom Hartmann say it on his radio program today... I think there's an "Act" giving such power which followed the NYC attack on 9/11.

Tonight's address will be carried by all networks starting at 9 PM EST, according to the New York Times, even though networks are not obligated to carry presidential addresses.

The Democratic response will follow, delivered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer.

If anyone knows where we can pick up a live audio stream please let us know.

A Deep Explanation

Here is a detailed guide explaining the president's emergency powers

From the New York Times

Much Ado About Very Little

I spent 3-hours looking for an available streaming source and thought I had one but the station we linked with didn't carry the Address.

So I checked locally and both network stations were running sports except the right-wing hate station which was carrying comments about what had already happened and the gist seemed to be that it was the same talking-points we've already been hearing and the internet will not be shut down and no changes were announced.

Nothing to see here keep on going.

You sound down Carl. Here's something from Lost Notes that I listened to today and really enjoyed:

Don't bother scrolling the page, just hit the play button.

Not a stream though.

Carl asked, "If anyone knows where we can pick up a live audio stream..."

Wasn't whitehouse.gov sending out a stream in real time?

Taking a feed of the standalone presidential audio from a cable TV box or passthru from a TV set into your console would have been fine. There is a tacit reciprocal agreement among broadcasters to share source audio.

As it turned out, it was nine minutes of meh. You would have made better use of the airwaves just by playing the long mix of Paradise By The Dashboard Lights.

A Day Late Borrowed Dollar

Now he says (BillyBurg): " You would have made better use of the airwaves just by playing the long mix of Paradise By The Dashboard Lights."

Wish we'd done that.