1. Son of The Fairness Doctrine
The far left fully intends to use a new regulatory scheme, the Son of The Fairness Doctrine, to regulate conservative talk radio.
2. Political Cartoonists Afraid To Draw Obama
“Without a doubt, people are stepping more gingerly. People are tiptoeing their way through this.”- Ted Rall, liberal editorial cartoonist.
3. Medicaid for Millionaires
We shouldn’t have to tell Democrats not to give federal health benefits to millionaires—because they should know better.
4. DC Representation. Wrong priority. Wrong way. Wrong effect.
Not only is it a misguided priority, but they choose to push through an unconstitutional, poorly thought-out solution to the problem.
5. Obama’s Fiscal-Discipline Trial Balloon
Call it Economic Management by Press Release.™
6. Pakistan’s Ongoing Retreat from the War on Terror
Islamabad’s Latest Bid to Reduce Attrition Makes the Region, and the World, More Vulnerable to Islamist Terror
1. Son of The Fairness Doctrine
The far left fully intends to use a new regulatory scheme, the Son of The Fairness Doctrine, to regulate conservative talk radio.
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com that “As the President stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated.” Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said to The Washington Times, “I’m glad President Obama finally confirmed his opposition to the Fairness Doctrine … but many Democrats in Congress are still pushing it. With the support of the new administration, now is the time for Congress to take a stand against this kind of censorship.”
While the White House says it does not want to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine, thus far it seems to be trying to implement it via the Center for American Progress’s proposal — a proposal that would have the same results without actually passing the Fairness Doctrine itself.
The Center for American Progress’s new regulatory scheme could be termed “The Son of the Fairness Doctrine,” because the goal of this new proposal is the same as the Fairness Doctrine — to regulate conservative talk radio to force unpopular far left viewpoints on America listeners and can be explained as follows:
- Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations. National radio ownership by any one entity should not exceed 5 percent of the total number of AM and FM broadcast stations and for local ownership, no one entity should control more than 10 percent of the total commercial radio stations in a given market. This would be a direct attack on nationally syndicated conservative talk radio hosts that broadcast on a network of radio stations;
- Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing. This would be done by requiring “radio broadcast licensees to regularly show that they are operating on behalf of the public interest and provide public documentation and viewing of how they are meeting these obligations;” and,
- Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee (i.e. tax) to support public broadcasting. If the local accountability rule is violated, then the FCC would be empowered to tax “owners to directly support local, regional, and national public broadcasting.” The tax revenues would go to the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting with clear mandates to support local news and public affairs programming and to cover controversial and political issues in a fair and balanced manner.” The Center for American Progress hopes for enough fines to “net between $100 million and $250 million” to pay for new left wing government sponsored programming.
Who are the targets of the left. The Center for American Progress mapped out the networks to be targeted:
- CBS - 74% Conservative - 25% “Progressive”
- Clear Channel - 86% Conservative - 14% “Progressive”
- Citadel - 100% Conservative
- Cumulus - 100% Conservative
- Salem - 100% Conservative
2. Political Cartoonists Afraid To Draw Obama
“Without a doubt, people are stepping more gingerly. People are tiptoeing their way through this.”- Ted Rall, liberal editorial cartoonist.
Last week’s firestorm over an editorial cartoon at the New York Post is still burning it’s way through the media and the blogosphere, and in the wake of Eric Holder’s declaration that Americans (read: white Americans) are cowards and James Clyburn’s claim that rejection of stimulus funds is motivated by racism, the reactions are naturally mixed and sometimes contentious. Reverend Al Sharpton, for example, is demanding investigations and protests. MSNBC is having shouting matches. Some cartoonists are simply preparing to self-censor and nevertheless suffer unintended consequences. The controversy is not soon to die down.
In light of the cartoon war, the Associated Press ran a story Saturday, from which the above quoted material was pulled, examining the overall shift to caution by that normally incautious breed of political commentator, the editorial cartoonist. Because Barack Obama is black, to summarize the article, political cartoonists now operate under the duress of fear. In America, there is no worse stigma than that of being called “racist,” especially in the age of Obama. The armies of political correctness and so-called progressivism feel free to act more boldly, now that a man who owes his political career to the forces of the far left holds the highest office in the world. The left is, therefore, if even possible within physics, more likely than ever to throw the “racist” gauntlet.
There is a difference, though, between a thing that can be taken a certain way, and which may or may not offend the person who so takes it, and a thing that is overtly racist: racist in tone, racist in intent. It is clear, to the objective observer, that at most the Post cartoon is the former, and in no way is there any reason to think it the latter. I have ample evidence, click through to keep reading.
It is idiomatic and axiomatic in America that when something is exceedingly simple to accomplish, and someone takes inordinate credit, that the appropriate response is “a monkey could have done that job.” Likewise, when one is given a product of shoddy quality you might suggest it was created by a bunch of monkeys. Indeed, this is especially true with regard to something written. The infinite monkey theorem has long since entered the popular consciousness. The popular (if not wikipedic) understanding of the theorem is thus: a thousand monkeys chained to a thousand typewriters for an infinite amount of time will eventually produce a complete copy of the works of William Shakespeare. The notion has been boiled down and whittled down into joke form countless times, the gist of which is either that someone is actually producing material with monkeys; or more simply, when something is poorly written, a monkey must have written it.
3. Medicaid for Millionaires
We shouldn’t have to tell Democrats not to give federal health benefits to millionaires—because they should know better.
“We shouldn’t have to do that, because they should know better.”
So said President Obama in explaining why the Treasury—quite rightly—forced Citigroup to cancel the purchase of a $50 million corporate jet after the banking firm accepted tens of billions in federal bailout dollars. But he could well have been talking about his Democratic colleagues in Congress, who seem perfectly willing to give the former executives of these firms generous federal health benefits—even though they too should know better.
Consider the case of Henry Waxman, a Democrat who has represented Beverly Hills in Congress for over 30 years. Last fall, as Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he led hearings on the financial crisis, and criticized companies for taking “massive risk. When the bottom fell out, senior management walked away with millions of dollars, while shareholders and taxpayers lost billions.”
Fast forward to this year and a new Congress, where Mr. Waxman assumed the Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I sit. As Chairman, Waxman wrote major health-related sections of the economic “stimulus” legislation which Congress is currently considering. The proposal Mr. Waxman presented to the Committee spent more than $100 billion on various health spending projects, and created two new federal entitlements—one expanding Medicaid to individuals receiving unemployment compensation, and the second providing subsidies to individuals who choose continuation coverage from their former employers.
But for the new entitlements, there was a massive loophole. Because the bill explicitly prohibited income or asset tests from being applied to people receiving the new health care entitlements, anyone who recently lost their job—including the former CEOs who Mr. Waxman said last fall “walked away with millions”—could receive free or subsidized health care courtesy of federal taxpayers. At a time when all Americans are struggling to make ends meet, I viewed these uncapped subsidies as a poor use of taxpayers’ hard-earned money—and an unnecessary expansion of government to boot.
4. DC Representation. Wrong priority. Wrong way. Wrong effect.
Not only is it a misguided priority, but they choose to push through an unconstitutional, poorly thought-out solution to the problem.
Putting aside the irrationality of Democrats pushing forward a solution to D.C. voting rights that many believe to be clearly unconstitutional, there are two larger problems with the whole mess.
First. The use of “injustice” here is just a little more than I can possibly swallow. Is it “technically” an injustice? Perhaps. No one denies that in a perfect world, we would prefer not to have a situation where several hundred thousand Americans do not have direct representation in Congress. But, seriously? We have 305 million Americans (give or take). Some 304.5 million of them (to the extent that number is accurate) are represented because they live in states. So, the great democratic republic is functioning with less than one third of one percent existing, technically, without representation.
When I said people had a “free will.” I meant it. It matters. Free will means something. And that you were born in DC does not mean you both still do not have a free will now and that you are not a product of the free will of your parent, your grandparent or someone else.
Second. Injustice or not, we must always balance interests when deciding how to solve supposed problems. It is far more dangerous to me to reflexively respond to the problem identified (citizens without a direct representative) by throwing out other equally important – if not more important – principles.
Our system of government was the product of significant thought, struggle, negotiation and compromise. At its core are a number of principles – including representation and (with the addition of the Bill of Rights) protection of individual liberty. But also at its core – and arguably most fundamentally at its core – is a unique federalist structure that brings together the people through the several states. It doesn’t take a deep reading of the Constitution to see throughout it a deference to the state as a sovereign unto itself.
5. Obama’s Fiscal-Discipline Trial Balloon
Call it Economic Management by Press Release.™
Peter Orszag, a capable guy that you wouldn’t make for a liar or a political hack, said that they’re going to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of Obama’s first term. That’s the political spin you’re supposed to take away from this: Fiscal discipline is something Republicans promise but Democrats achieve.
Except that Bush’s highest deficit was last year’s, at about $450 bn, or 3% of GDP. Obama’s first year in office will feature a deficit of $1.2 TRILLION, 8% of GDP, a post-WWII high.
WaPo says that cutting this deficit in half by 2013 would mean a deficit in that year of over $500 bn. The cut-in-half deficit we’re supposed to be all streamy about will be higher than that of any of the Bush years.
And they’re not even counting the stimulus plan and the increased debt-service payments from it! They could easily run a trillion dollar deficit in 2013 and say they kept their promise.
Ok, so much for political theater. On to brass tacks. Federal spending this year will be a whopping 26% of GDP, far above the postwar norm of about 22%, with tax collections about 16% of GDP. By 2013, Obama wants spending down to 22% and taxes up to 19%, for a deficit that would amount to about 2% of GDP or a bit less. I can’t make that figure tie out with Orszag’s projection of a $500 bn deficit unless you assume the economy is going to be growing at just about the fastest rate in history. Who knows, maybe they actually believe their own rhetoric.
It’s considerably more likely that the economy will not grow appreciably in real terms over the next five years. You can’t pump federal spending 4 or 5 percent of GDP above trend and not suffer major reductions in overall productivity. The government doesn’t invest, it spends. That’s one point.
The other point is that you can’t increase aggregate production in the economy unless you increase real rates of return on capital. And that’s the one thing this budgetary trial balloon doesn’t talk about. Let’s look at how they want to cut the deficit from 8% of GDP to less than 3% (keeping in mind that 3% was the high range of the Bush years, and the level that caused Democrats to eviscerate us in the campaign as fiscal profligates).
6. Pakistan’s Ongoing Retreat from the War on Terror
Islamabad’s Latest Bid to Reduce Attrition Makes the Region, and the World, More Vulnerable to Islamist Terror
Faced with a losing battle against strengthening Taliban elements in its Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA), the Pakistani government officially threw in the towel last week on its already halfhearted efforts to combat terrorism in the key Malakand Division of the country’s northwest, agreeing to a peace treaty with local Taliban leaders that paves the way for terrorist-administered Shari’a law in the region.
Under the agreement, called the “Malakand Accord,” official responsibility for political administration and the implementation of Shari’a law in the region will fall to Sufi Mohammed, a senior Taliban leader who was released from prison in April 2008 as part of an earlier unsuccessful peace agreement between NWFP Taliban leaders and Islamabad. Mohammed, who leads an organization called the “Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad’s Shari’a Law” (TNSM), which provided the ideological basis for the pre-2001 Afghan Taliban, had been in Pakistani custody since 2002.
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