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"Your Liberty is Our Interest" |
December 27, 2004 | |
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Reason Express - December 21, 2004
Reason's Weekly Dispatch December 21, 2004 1. Wildmon in the Streets
1. Wildmon in the Streets Poor Michael Powell. The FCC chief is doomed to disappoint someone so long as he must act as cultural czar for a nation as diverse as America. The latest blow up concerns Powell saying out loud that TV stations showing Saving Private Ryan have nothing to fear from the FCC's purity police. This set off Don Wildmon and his American Family Association. "Using Powell's reasoning, a show about the sex life of two homosexuals would be free to show graphic sex because it would be an accurate representation of their sexual activity," told his followers. "There would be no limits regarding what could be shown and the law regarding indecent material would be meaningless. Any program, no matter how indecent, could claim that the material was needed in order to be an accurate representation." Yes, that's exactly what would happen. It is but one step from a historically accurate war drama to the gay sex network, all-teabagging all the time. Predictably, Wildmon urged supporters to contact Congress and the FCC to express their outrage and their opposition to opening "Pandora's Box on program content." Here's an idea. How about Congress and the FCC pledge to fund Wildmon and related groups at their current levels in perpetuity with one string: A moratorium on all such future complaints about broadcasting in America. That's gotta be win-win all around. http://capwiz.com/afanet/alert6755986a.html< Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group, manufacturers of affordable, high-performance mainframe systems and productivity software. 2. Kristol's Balls Commentator Bill Kristol signaled open season on Pentagon boss Don Rumsfeld with a strong op-ed essentially arguing that U.S. troops deserve better. Fair enough, but Kristol, who knows Washington well enough to know that staff is as important to policy as the top dog, stayed oddly focused on Rumsfeld. Simply put, if you think Rumsfled must go then you must think that his top staff and deputies must go as well. Kristol was silent on who exactly should replace Rummy, which certainly suggests that someone currently in the civilian Pentagon might be his pick. Kristol's public criticism emboldened several Republicans, notably Sen. Trent Lott, to come out in daylight and join the Rummy bashing. In starkly political terms it is probably a good idea for some Republicans to pile on Rummy, as it helps distance them from Bush's Iraq policy without directly confronting the president, who is standing behind Rumsfeld nonetheless. So, to recap, yes Rummy is flawed defense chief. And, no, he is not the whole, or even the tip, of the problem inside the Pentagon or with policy in Iraq. Jumping on one guy now is pretty gutless. http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/12/16rumsfeld_edit.html 3. Social Security Confusion There appears to be some funny business afoot over President Bush's call for Social Security reform. Bush's pronouncement a few weeks back that his reform plan does not and will not raise taxes was in direct response to Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) efforts to get a tax-increasing reform plan off the ground. Graham would bust the wage cap on Social Security taxes, which now stops at $87,000. Raising the wage cap, or perhaps removing it entirely, would be a huge tax increase on upper-income taxpayers. And unless some one can explain why they would not feel this tax hike, a very likely response will be to cut back on 401(k) contributions or other forms of saving. How this aids the nation's overall retirement picture is difficult to see. So with Bush's statements, the cap-busting idea seemed to be off the table. Until, that is, chief of staff Andy Card and Treasury Secretary John Snow refused to explicitly rule it out over the weekend during TV interviews. Both men seemed to be playing a game where increasing Social Security tax rates was not an option, but somehow cap-busting might be. To be clear, raising the wage cap is a Social Security tax increase. http://springfield.news-leader.com/business/today/1220-SocialSecu-254972.html http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak06.html 4. Quick Hits Quote of the Week "On the positive side, at least this will give officers some training on how if they're going to strike with a flashlight to do it. Before this, they could pretty much do anything." - - Ricardo Garcia, criminal justice director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, on the plan to give police officers guidelines on exactly when they can use heavy flashlights to subdue suspects. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/police_beating#heavy
eBay of Bengal The top executive of eBay's Indian affiliate is arrested after a porn tape appears for auction on the site. U.S. citizen Avnish Bajaj thought he was going to answer questions about the matter, but Indian authorities had other ideas. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/news/39104.html Pulling Back the Raines Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines may have to answer for accounting irregularities at the government-sponsored enterprise with his job. http://www.forbes.com/2004/12/20/1220autofacescan01.html Banning Broadband Ohio is the latest state to do the bidding of the phone companies by moving to ban political subdivisions, also known as cities, from offering broadband services. http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000526.html 5. New at Reason Online The True Spirit of
Xmas 6. News and Events The next issue of Reason Express will appear December 28th. Happy Holidays. Buy Reason T-shirts and coffee mugs! Click here for the latest on media appearances by Reason writers. Want even more Reason? Sign up for Reason Alert to get regular news from Reason Magazine and Reason Public Policy Instiute, as well as advance notice about media appearances and events. We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue from a forward, please subscribe. It's Free! Back Issues
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