In 1952, during the Korean War, the United Steel Workers of America had gone out on strike. The union was demanding pay increases beyond what steel firms said they could afford to pay, unless they were to raise prices beyond what would be approved by the government’s Wage Stablization Board (set up for the war to attempt to keep costs in line despite inflationary government policies).

President Harry Truman, Democrat, unilaterally declared the steel firms to be at fault for the strikes, which were set to cripple Defense contractors’ ability to keep the war supplied. So, the President nationalized America’s steel manufacturing plants with the plan of dictating his own terms to the unions, appeasing them as part of his political base, while keeping afloat an early front of the Cold War.

The Supreme Court two months later shut the President down, denying the administration’s claim that he had broad implied or residual powers to do whatever he wanted as President of the United States. Had he relied on the Selective Service Act to take control, he might have gotten away with it, but he refused to use it because it had too many pesky controls to protect property rights. Had he relied on Taft-Hartley to stop the strikes, he might have gotten away with it, but he refused to use it because the unions were his allies.

So today, it is surely with the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube co. vs Sawyer in mind that the Congress debates giving President Barack Obama, Democrat, sweeping authority over Internet Service Providers, including the authority to nationalize whatever Internet resources he declares to be important.

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Updated at the bottom.

Attention leftists: hypocrisy is not a failure to live up to one’s own ideals. Hypocrisy is a willful professing of a belief, that one that does not truly believe. An outspoken Christian who commits adultery is not a hypocrite. An outspoken atheist who prays is a hypocrite. In today’s extended lesson Google must either accept that it is undermining the Internet, or be a hypocrite.

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The FCC is currently in the process of developing a National Broadband strategy. Being that this is under the Obama administration, this strategy is unlikely to be a sensible one. Early word suggests that the administration plans to take the Internet in this country and consolidate it into a single, centralized, government-run entity. ‘Competition’ will be allowed, but only under strict government controls and over government wires. Just like in China.

There’s no coincidence there, either. Obama’s good buddy and source of advice Google is well-acquainted with being a tool of totalitarianism. I’m all for the profit motive in general, but Google lets it trump basic human rights when it does whatever the fascist dictatorship in China tells it to. Google loves it because the reduced competition acts as a subsidy for favored firms such as itself, and now it wants the same to happen in our country through its ‘Net Neutrality’ plan, which the Obama FCC just might start to promote.

Americans for Tax Reform and the Competitive Enterprise Institute held a conference call today to detail their opposition to such efforts.

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I hope I have this story all wrong, I really do. But it seems that Representative Mark Kirk has signed onto an effort that could criminalize the free political speech of bloggers or anyone else that uses the Internet to communicate. Kirk, a Republican who has been making noises about running for governor of Illinois, has his name attached as a sponsor to the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act (HR 1966 IH), a bill in the House proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez (D, CA), that would make it a federal felony to use the Internet to cause “emotional distress” through “severe, repeated, and hostile” speech.

Why is Representative Kirk signing onto a bill constructed with such overbroad language that it could criminalize bloggers?

Perhaps he doesn’t realize he’s doing so? The bill is supposed to stop “cyberbullying” and does not seem to be intentionally aimed at political blogs. The title refers to Megan Meier, the 13-year-old Missouri girl that committed suicide in 2006 over scurrilous messages that she found about herself posted on the Internet by Lori Drew, the mother of one of her classmates.

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Meet Susan Crawford, the co-chair for the Federal Communications Commission transition team for Barack Obama, and special assistant to the President in the Obama Administration (she has a blog here). A former law professor at the University of Michigan–one presumes that she has either departed permanently, or is on leave–Professor Crawford has some interesting ideas concerning the Internet. Namely, she wants it treated like a public utility (subscription required):

Crawford stressed that the stimulus money is a down payment on future government investments in the Internet. “We should do a better job as a nation of making sure fast, affordable broadband is as ubiquitous as electricity, water, snail mail or any other public utility,” she said.

Of course, the use of the term “public utility” denotes nationalization:

Most of the time when I talk about the need to treat internet access like a utility, I get amused smiles.

That’s the thing we have to change — the idea that it’s unthinkable (amusing, even) that we could take this increasingly singular but private relationship of people to broadband internet access and make it a public relationship.

But end-users really don’t care whether their provider is a cable company or a telephone company — they think they’re getting the internet. They’re probably not even aware that a private company is providing internet access to them. And there are even a few people out there in the U.S., despite our best efforts, who don’t understand that these private companies have every incentive to prioritize and manipulate their way into showing us “channels” instead of the internet.

One wonders whether the Obama Administration’s penchant for nationalizing anything and everything under the sun will ever be abated.

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From the Book of Obama, Chapter and Verse 1:

In thebeginning was Obama, Worker of light and the Hope of People unhappy with that which had made their Country great.

And Obama saw that the world was without Internet, and He knew such a world to be void and formless

So he decided to bestow upon the World the gift of Internet

And some said to Obama, “But Obama! the World already has Internet, as was bestowed upon us by the Gore, Great in his girth and his gift of hyperbole!”

But Obama heard them not; for He knew the world began with His ascension to the Promised Land of the office which He currently Holds

And so He bestowed upon them an Internet, giving it, through His power, for the first time to the People, though some still cried out that this gift was false…

There’s always been a creepy sense of vanguard-esque self-importance among the members of the Obama White House staff. Yesterday, we got more evidence of that, as the White House put out a press release declaring that this first year of Obama marks “the first time the activities at the White House Easter Egg Roll have been broadcast online” (screencap here in case of memoryholing).

The problem? George W. Bush’s White House started offering a live webcast of the Easter Egg Roll in 2002 (screencap here in case of memoryholing)

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When you visit a blog and read a report taking the Associated Press to task for its continuous leftward bias, are you reading “stolen” AP content, or are you reading legitimate news? Is criticism of AP’s work fair use? What is “fair use,” anyway? Could the AP sue critics?

These questions might be on the AP’s radar if a recent report in The New York Times is any indication. AP is attempting to create new policies to govern who uses AP content and where it is used. The APs attention to these issues could have long range impact on blogs and newsfeeds on the Internet.

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We live in an age where online communication thrives. The Internet has created countless new opportunities for commerce and communication. With that progress, unfortunately, comes exploitation by some, including criminals looking to do harm. For example, sexual predators are using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to identify and target victims – particularly young children. Just this month, MySpace announced that about 90,000 sex offenders had been identified and removed from their website. That is no doubt a positive step, but we know from experience that child predators and child pornographers will find other means to exploit children.

To strengthen penalties against these predators and enhance safety measures in place to protect our children, I joined forces with my colleague on the House side, Congressman Lamar Smith, to introduce the Internet Safety Act. While Internet crimes like the distribution of child pornography are not new challenges, we recognize more resources and tools need to be available to further combat crimes against children.

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Here’s an interesting, if unsurprising, little tidbit about the photos of President Obama on display at WhiteHouse.gov: they’re all uploaded to a folder called “hero.”

Take the one below for example:

If you’re using FireFox, right click on the photo and select “View Image.” Then, take a look at the url in your address bar, which should read: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/hero/624×351/P023009PS_dng_1.jpg (For those of you who can’t do this little exercise, I’ve grabbed a copy of the picture and posted it here with url properties displayed).

This is consistent for all of the featured photos of Obama on the new WH.gov site. For another example, here is Our Hero announcing former New Hampshire Senator Jim Jeffords Judd Gregg as his second nominee for Commerce Secretary (after the epic Bill Richardson whoopsie): http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/hero/624×351/gregg_announcement.jpg

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Google may be a name that evokes thoughts of flashy, new Internet technologies, or of a friendly relationship with the greater Internet community, but us critics have seen what they were up to all along. Just like any other industry titan, it takes what it can get, with government help when it must. What’s news, though, is that even the LA Times is taking notice:

“Google is not just a benign corporate entity. It has a variety of special interests,” said Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, who has sparred with Google over data-privacy issues. “They’re in a great position to push their agenda through with the support of the [P]resident and the Democrats in Congress.”

….Competitors worry about Google’s close relationship with the Obama administration, said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

“The question going forward is: Will Google turn into just another business entity looking for favors in Washington, or will it manage to keep the 767 flying at 30,000 feet above the political din?” he said, a reference to the Google founders’ private plane.

Going forward? Going forward? They’ve been this way all along.

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