Ok, all.  You really need to weigh in on this.  How is this even possible, given the restrictions on political activity by 501c3’s and the prohibition against call to action?

From Tom Taylor on Radio-info.com:

                        Obama ads in “Masterpiece Theater”? Romney spots in “All Things Considered”?

A stunning free speech case out of San Francisco – A 2-1 decision from two Republican-appointed judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco strikes down a lower court decision in the case of a public TV station that had been fined $10,000 by the FCC for running commercials. Public broadcasters can accept underwriting announcements, but the Commission has longstanding guidelines about what constitutes a “commercial.” The two judges rule that the FCC policy is over-broad – regarding issue and political advertising – and infringes on free speech. Judge Carlos Bea said “public issue and political speech in particular is at the very core of the First Amendment’s protection.” You still won’t hear any Geico ads on NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” – this decision doesn’t affect ads from for-profit businesses. Dissenting judge John Noonan writes that “for almost 60 years, public broadcasters have been effectively insulated from the lure of paid advertising. The court’s judgment…could jeopardize the future of public broadcasting.” More from Reuters. You wonder – if pubcasters take political ads, does that make it easier to argue for de-funding public broadcasting?

From the New York Times:

The ruling could prompt some noncommercial stations to start including ads from candidates and political action committees on their broadcasts, just as commercial stations do. Hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be spent on advertising in the prelude to the elections this fall…

According to Judge Carlos T. Bea, who wrote the main opinion on Thursday, Minority argued that a federal statute prohibiting ads on public stations violated the First Amendment “because its restriction on advertising was not narrowly tailored to the government’s interest in preserving the educational programs on public broadcast stations.”

The court said on Thursday that the ban on political ads was unconstitutional, but it upheld the ban on ads for “goods and services by for-profit entities.”

YIKES!  Another Citizen’s United decision, where money = free speech.  Just what we needed.  What do you think?????