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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (69641)	2/18/2009 8:16:32 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

"so-called Fairness Doctrine." that's the rub, Obama will call it something else, like how liberals changed their name to 'progressive'

To: Sully- who wrote (69641)	2/18/2009 8:24:13 PM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 90947

Obama Rushes To Capitalize On Emergency By THOMAS SOWELL Investor's Business Daily Editorials Tuesday, February 17, 2009 4:20 PM PT The big story last week was the incredible congressional rush to pass a bill that was more than a thousand pages long in just two days — after which it sat on the president's desk for three days while the Obamas were away on a holiday. There is the same complete inconsistency in the bill itself. Despite the urgency in President Obama's rhetoric, as well as in Congress' haste in passing a bill that few — if any — members had time to read, much less consider, most of the actual spending will take place next year, at the earliest. Not even the most Alice-in-Wonderland actions will arouse the suspicions of those who have what William James once called "the will to believe." Nowhere was that will to believe greater than in the election of Barack Obama to be president of the United States, not on the basis of any actual accomplishment, but as the repository of hopes and symbolism. His supporters among the voters and in the media are not going to stop believing now. It will take a lot more than blatant inconsistency for the faithful to lose faith. It may take catastrophe — and there may well be catastrophe. For some, even catastrophe under Obama can be blamed on George W. Bush. After all, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third term in 1940, after two terms in which the unemployment rate never fell below 10% and was above 20% for 21 consecutive months. FDR also inspired the will to believe — and he also had Herbert Hoover to blame for all the country's troubles. It may seem strange, to those who never lived through those times, that someone could be president of the United States for eight straight years and nevertheless escape responsibility for mass unemployment by blaming his long-departed predecessor. But we may yet see a rerun of that scenario in our own time. Amateurism In Action Nothing in the amateurish way the current administration has begun suggests that it has mastered even the mechanics of governing, much less the complexities of the huge national problems looming ahead, at home and abroad. The multiple Cabinet nominees withdrawing before their nomination can come to a vote in the Senate are just one example of this amateurism. Another example was the secretary of the Treasury holding a much heralded unveiling of his recovery plan, only to publicly embarrass himself and the administration when his speech made painfully clear that there is no plan, but only pious hopes. The plunge in the stock market after his speech suggests how much confidence he inspired. There is far more to fear from this administration than its amateurism in governing. The urgency with which it has rushed through a monumental spending bill, whose actual spending will not be completed even after 2010, ought to set off alarm bells among those who are not in thrall to the euphoria of Obama's presidency. No Debates The urgency was real, even if the reason given was phony. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, let slip a valuable clue when he said that a crisis should not go to waste, that a crisis is an opportunity to do things that you could not do otherwise. Think about the utter cynicism of that. During a crisis, a panicked public will let you get away with things you couldn't get away with otherwise. A corollary of that is that you had better act quickly while the crisis is at hand, without congressional hearings or public debates about what you are doing. Above all, you must act before the economy begins to recover on its own. The party line is that the market has failed so disastrously that only the government can save us. It is proclaimed in Washington and echoed in the media. The last thing the administration can risk is delay that could allow the market to begin recovering on its own. That would undermine, if not destroy, a golden opportunity to restructure the U.S. economy in ways that would allow politicians to micromanage other sectors of the economy the way they have micromanaged the housing market into disaster. Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc ibdeditorials.com

To: Sully- who wrote (69641)	2/20/2009 9:52:46 AM
From: Peter Dierks	3 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Mr. President, Keep the Airwaves Free As a former law professor, surely you understand the Bill of Rights. FEBRUARY 20, 2009, 12:21 A.M. ET Dear President Obama: I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as "local content," "diversity of ownership," and "public interest" rules -- all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band? You have singled me out directly, admonishing members of Congress not to listen to my show. Bill Clinton has since chimed in, complaining about the lack of balance on radio. And a number of members of your party, in and out of Congress, are forming a chorus of advocates for government control over radio content. This is both chilling and ominous. As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, you are more familiar than most with the purpose of the Bill of Rights: to protect the citizen from the possible excesses of the federal government. The First Amendment says, in part, that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of ... Message 25429034