USA takes another step towards banana republic status

Per Mediaite (I'd link to the Wall Street Journal piece but it's behind a paywall) the FCC wants to put monitors in the newsroom to study these issues:

• What is the news philosophy of the station?
• How do you define critical information that the community needs?
• Who decides which stories are covered?
• Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers (viewers, listeners, readers) that was rejected by management

All of these questions lead to a single question from me: What the hell?

I'm sure the idea, as proposed on paper, is to gather important information for a great study that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and will hopefully be put in a file cabinet a la Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Or not.

For broadcast media, an FCC license is life. Losing it is a death sentence.

So what happens if the government decides it doesn't like who decides the content of stories or what the content is?

Paranoia?

Ask the conservatives audited by the IRS.

We are witnessing the weaponizing of the federal bureaucracy. Citizens in Ukraine are rising up against that.

What are we doing?

The Killing

Been binge viewing The Killing and it's pretty good. The first two seasons follow a single case and have some interesting twists and turns. I don't want to put out any spoilers but it will keep you guessing.

Season three is underway on our Netflix and I hope it keeps up the qualitry.

Stupidity or strategy?

Phyllis Schlafly, via National Review, explains why amnesty is a loser for conservatives. Note that I don't say GOP or GOP leadership because, unfortunately, these are becoming two very different things.

Her thesis is simple. The tsunami of illegal immigration we have suffered has come from countries where the culture accepts, and even demands, bigger government. We would simply be importing liberal voters.

Democrats realize this. Do you honestly think they would be championing amnesty if they thought we were legalizing at least 11 million new conservatives? Of course not. Although conservatives such as Michael Medved claim that the purportedly conservative social values of the amnestied will have them lean Republican, there is little empirical evidence to support the notion this will outweigh the desire to have bigger government.

Indeed, one should look at the Catholic Church, another mover behind amnesty, and notice that its anti-abortion but very liberal in economic policy. The Pope's current "economic analysis" shows that we are only in for more on that front. And, it should be noted, that the Pope formulated his distrust for private enterprise in Argentina.

So why would the GOP go for this?

Follow the money. Regularizing millions of low skilled laborers depresses wages. Increasing H1-B visas for technically skilled laborers serves the same purpose. The GOP leadership class lives in a world where they don't cut their own grass, wash their own dishes. So they sympathize with the notion of bringing in millions of liberal voters to get their hands dirty.

That leads to the dirtiest secret of all. The GOP leadership is happy with their place at the trough. Bigger government means more favors to dole out to their own allies and cushy lobbying jobs upon retirement.

It was once said if you don't like the election resutls, replace the electorate.

The GOP leadership looks ready to do just that.

State of the Union

Apparently the State of the Union is that the union is not big enough. That is, every solution proposed in SOTU was a government solution.

More investment. Read sending tax money to connected cronies.

Higher minimum wage, because the answer to unemployment is making it more expensive to employ low skilled workers.

More regulation to save us from the horrors of global warming when temperatures have been stable for more than a decade.

Even when the President credited private sector successes like the oil sector, he neglected to mention them as private sector successes and instead implied they were the end product of government policy.

Instead of focusing on new ways to regulate our economy and the individual citizens, we should be freeing the creative forces that make this country great. Instead of praising a lowered unemployment rate - ignoring the fact that it comes from people leaving the job market and not more people finding jobs - while attacking the successful, we should help the successful create more jobs.

The state of our union is bruised and battered. But we are not out of fight.

The real Chris Christie

I'm an unapologetic conservative. I recognize that someone like Chris Christie is the best we can get in New Jersey. But that doesn't mean I want him as a Republican standard bearer.

More than his weakness on gun rights or gay marriage, it was video of him mouthing off to a guy on the street when it was clear Christie had bodyguards backing him up. It doesn't take much guts to be tough when you have muscle. I'd liked the brash, straight talking Christie. In the end, this guys was just a big talking bully.

He's the Republican version of Bill Clinton. His main policy concern is getting elected and doing what's right for Christie. That's why one of the most dangerous places in the world to be is between Christie and TV cameras if there's an opportunity for him to violate Reagan's 11th Commandment and attack other conservatives like Rand Paul.

Luckily, the thuggish nature of the Governor is showing itself in how his aides shut down traffic to punish a mayor who refused to kiss the ring. School kids were trapped in gridlock. So were emergency vehicles. An elderly woman died.

Even if Christie did not order the action, he fostered the climate. After all, his temper is not simply legend but his trademark. What aide in his right mind would pull that kind of trick if he thought Christie would blow up?

No, this is just how they get business done.

We've seen the Chicago way with Barack Obama. Imagine Christie's Jersey way. Imagine the damage a statist like him could do, especially if he has a GOP House and Senate. Remember that before Obamacare, the biggest entitlement expansion since LBJ came from GWB.

I think conservatives need guts. They need to be willing to fight in the street. Playing the civility game doesn't do much for us.

But we need the right fighter.

Christie ain't it.

Hangover 3

I watched the Hangover 3 this week. Some people panned it as the worst of the trilogy but I beg to differ. They couldn't do the same thing again. Another bachelor party for these guys would have us thinking the same thing: are these guys as stupid as the teenagers who go to the haunted lake after the fourth or fifth massacre that occurred there?

So they went a different direction and pulled some things together in a good kind of way.

Plus it's guy humor my gal can enjoy. That's priceless.

Global warming? Or hoax warning?

So what happens if a bunch of "global warming researchers" get trapped in Arctic ice, after Al Gore famously predicted that no such ice would exist by this point in time?A deafening silence from the global media.

When evangelical Christians make end time predictions, the media waits with baited breath for the prophecy to be proven wrong. When a politician who has made billions off junk science gets egg on his face, it's not a story.

It's this kind of thing, along with 15 years of temperatures not rising, that lends evidence to the notion the issue isn't global temperature but political control. Or is it simply coincidence that every solution to this "crisis" is more control of our personal and economic lives?