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Comment by CWIZO | Hacker News Reader

I was surprised there are more democrats for SOPA than there are republicans.

Why would that surprise you? Hollywood nearly owns the Democratic Party.

I'm not from the USA and my knowledge of your political system is mostly based on the daily show (& colbert report), so it always seemed to me, that SOPA is something that the republicans would be crazy about.

Those sources are definitely not unbiased. I'm sure you know this, so you need to either temper them with some Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, or seek out some neutral reporting (sadly hard to find).

They may be biased but they're nowhere near the level of make-stuff-up and outright brainwashing that Limbaugh and Hannity are at so frequently. I wouldn't recommend those characters to anyone. Plus the Daily Show is primarily comedy rather than news, the news is incidental to understanding the comedy. I get my primary news from non-US websites like BBC and Al Jazeera (and tech-specific websites like Ars for interesting news) and what floats over to HN, occasionally I'll watch a few youtube channels, if I feel like paddling down piss-creek I'll watch CNN which is probably what the GP is looking for if they want modest bias in the other direction.

Well Rush Limbaugh is comedy too, in a "Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood-want-to-throw-up-in-your-mouth-it's-so-bad" kind of way.

From a historical perspective, the Democratic support for corporate media stretches back at least as far as Lyndon Johnson. He and his wife were television station owners, and over their lives continued to grow their media holdings.

That, presumably, is one of the reasons Johnson knew how screwed he was when he (reportedly) said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Interestingly President Johnson's wikipedia page doesn't seem to make reference to the media holdings, but his wife Lady Bird Johnson's page does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Bird_Johnson#Business_care...

CWIZO,

Unfortunately many democrats live in areas where the Movie, recording industry is located...therefore they get lots of $$ from them. Thus the widespread support from both dems and republicans.

This depresses me even more:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cid=N00009638

Obama got almost $9 million from the Movie industry. I would suspect he would not veto it.

Makes you wonder how much worse things are going to get with the introduction of SuperPACs.

Exactly. Just imagine the cash flowing from the Movie/Music industry directly in their pockets. With that happening I don't see how it can be stopped. They will just keep trying.

I also think that instead of backing down from supporting legislature like SOPA in the future with all the backlash, they'll just stop supporting it publically.

Much of Hollywood/traditional media leans left. Most of the Dems against it are in the Silicon Valley.

California's Dems are co-sponsors.

Democrats tend to favor government regulations of any kind, while Republicans are somewhat more likely to oppose them in general. So it doesn't surprise me at all.

This may have been true twenty years ago, but it is certainly not true today. Neither party is in favor of limiting government these days.

While you're right, that's why I wrote "somewhat more likely". Republicans may not favor limited government today, but on average they are still less likely than Democrats to support regulation. The OP's link demonstrates this tendency.

Except for regulations regarding who you can and cannot sleep with, what religions you may belong to, and whom you may marry.

If you want a "real Republican", vote for Gary Johnson. He's pro-choice and fiscally conservative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Gary_Joh...

News flash - party lines are meaningless .

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