Five years to the day before 9/11, first responders told us they needed vastly more communications capacity in order to cope with a large emergency. Instead, we gave them silence, and the absence of reliable communications was held responsible for many deaths inside the World Trade Center. More years have passed since 9/11, and they’re still waiting for our help.

The scheduled Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting will give first responders the functioning equipment and broadcast frequencies they need. In fact, help was on the way for three years before the Obama transition team panicked and told Congress to delay. Last week, Congress tried to accommodate the White House, but the Senate’s DTV-delay bill failed to gain sufficient support to skirt normal rules in the House.

Now, all of us have work to do. Contrary to what you have heard, the digital TV transition program is neither stuck nor broke, and there’s no need for further delay. In fact, a delay could actually cause fewer people to be ready when their stations transition to digital.

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The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (”LCCR”) is a far left interest group.

The group opposed conservative judges. The group agitates for card check. The group is in favor of the Fairness Doctrine. It is chiefly an agitator for affirmative action programs and tries to pressure banks into giving high risk loans like those that caused the housing crisis. If you oppose them, they label you a racist.

LCCR operates like ACORN. And the Senate Democrats are about to give the $90 million of your money.

Under the cover of the digital television conversion delay, the Senate Democrats want to give the LCCR $90 million.

On page 38 of the Senate version of the stimulus, under the section “Digital-to-Analog Converter Program”, the Senate carves out “$90,000,000.00 . . . for education and out-reach, including grants to organizations for programs to educate vulnerable populations, including senior citizens, minority communities, people with disabilities, low-income individuals, and people living in rural areas, about the transition.”

Sounds innocuous. Here’s the catch:

The program is managed by the Department of Commerce. The program is managed by the Department of Commerce. And the Department of Commerce gave access to the DTV education money to only two groups exclusively: the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (N4A) and the LCCR’s Education Fund.: the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (N4A) and the LCCR’s Education Fund.

Here’s where it gets funny. Each group is now only getting about $2 million.

The Senate believes it needs to give $90 million more — and only these organizations will be able to get their hands on the money. Only these two groups — one group that helps senior citizens and one group whose members were Democrat foot soldiers in 2008 and, with the “administrative costs” they’ll be able to take in overhead, will be well funded for coming elections.

President Obama wants to delay the long-announced, long-planned, long-desired-by-first-responders transition from analog to digital television broadcasts. By replacing the old, large-bandwidth-consuming NTSC standard with the new, sharper, narrow-bandwidth ATSC, we create lots of room in the radio spectrum for other broadcasts, including those by firefighters, police, and other public safety workers.

However Obama wants to delay it for a few months, claiming that people aren’t ready. This despite the fact that anyone with cable or satellite is unaffected, vouchers for free set-top boxes have been around for months, and every broadcast station has been warning about the transition. The President thinks we’re idiots, it seems.

No matter, the Senate agreed and passed a bill implementing his wishes unanimously. On it went to the House for another easy pass? Not so fast. Democrats got confident and tried to do a quick-and-easy passage according to the suspension of the rules procedure. That procedure bypasses the normal process but requires a supermajority vote.

The Obama delay bill did not get that supermajority vote. It got a majority, but to pass notwithstanding the rules it needed significant Republican support. 258-168 was the final vote, but 290 were needed for passage.

Let’s cheer the House Republican Caucus for a job well done. He won. He doesn’t need us, remember?