Should government ban talk radio?
April 19, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward
Vice President Dick Cheney speaks to Heritage members in Chicago last Friday.
Ever since the rise of conservative talk radio, liberals have been calling for a restoration of the “Fairness Doctrine” to re-regulate media and silence conservative voices. After talk radio host Don Imus—clearly no conservative—was fired last week for racially-tinged comments, calls to reinstate the Doctrine have grown louder.
When they were in force through the 1980s, Heritage regulation expert James Gattuso explains, these onerous government regulations on television and radio “required broadcasters to air both sides of controversial issues. The Doctrine’s effect was to discourage controversial issue-oriented programming.” In other words, government effectively barred conservative talk radio programs.
“It was not until this rule was repealed in the 1980s that talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh found a place on the radio dial,” Gattuso writes.
Liberals now want to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine. Click here to read more.
Cheney to Heritage members: Fund the war on terror
Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event in Chicago last Friday, Vice President Dick Cheney defended the war on terror and called on liberals in Congress to pass legislation funding the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—with no strings attached.
“The Democratic Congress has approved appropriations for a war, and attached detailed provisions for the timing and the movement of American troops,” he said. Congress has also larded up the bill with tens of billions of dollars in wasteful pork-barrel expenses unrelated to defense.
“Such an outcome raises more than a little concern about the future of fiscal discipline on Capitol Hill,” Cheney argued. “The implications for national security are equally obvious, and far more critical to the future of the country.”
A convenient fiction
“Much of what Vice President Gore says about global warming [in his film An Inconvenient Truth] is correct,” scholar Steven Hayward said yesterday at The Heritage Foundation. At the same time, large parts of Gore’s film are based on “extreme claims” that are “not backed up by science” but instead advance a left-wing agenda.
During a screening of his new counter-alarmist film—An Inconvenient Truth...or Convenient Fiction?: Sorting Out Sense from Nonsense on Global Warming—before a full crowd in Heritage’s Alison Auditorium, the American Enterprise Institute and Pacific Research Institute fellow argued that the claims of global warming alarmists like Gore are wildly overstated.
Watch Hayward’s full movie online: AConvenientFiction.com
Click here to read more about An Inconvenient Truth ... Or Convenient Fiction?
Congress urges fiscal responsibility
Congress is now promoting fiscal responsibility. Seriously. They’re scheduled to pass a resolution supporting “Financial Literacy Month.”
The resolution “expresses concern that so many Americans spend themselves into debt, do not plan for future costs, and generally fail to responsibly manage money,” Heritage Foundation budget expert Brian Riedl says.
It’s a noble goal, but maybe those supporting the resolution would do better to get their own financial house in order, Riedl continues. “This is the same Congress that spends the nation into debt, has no future plans to fund entitlements, and oversees a government whose own books cannot be verified by the Government Accountability Office. In fact, if Congress held itself to public accounting laws, they’d be in jail.”
“But it’s nice to know they are looking out for us financial illiterates!”
Get the pork out of education
Federal education spending, like that in other departments, is heavily laden with special interest earmarks, Heritage education expert Dan Lips writes. Among the special projects receiving designated funds from the government in fiscal year 2005:
- $5 million for the “Harkin Grant Program,” which helps Iowa build and remodel its schools.
- $198,000 for the Akron Zoological Park
- $248,000 for the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward, Alaska
- $99,000 for the Westchester Philharmonic in White Plains, New York
How could this money have been used better? Click here for more.
In other news
- New details about Monday’s tragic shooting at Virginia Tech continue to emerge. You can find out the latest by clicking here, or you can visit the university’s website to leave your condolences electronically.
- The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the federal prohibition on partial-birth abortions. Many analysts say the ruling is the result of President Bush’s appointment of two sound judicial conservatives to the court.
- The House of Representatives is today considering a proposal to grant the District of Columbia voting rights in Congress. The Constitution does not provide for granting representation to the nation’s capital, since it is not a state.
- The Washington Examiner reports on lawmakers’ use of taxpayer money to pay for expensive junkets—nominally “fact-finding missions”—for members of Congress and their families. Destinations have included Caribbean resorts and Europe.
- European Union bureaucrats have proposed making Holocaust denial a crime across Europe. Should there really be laws against stupid speech, offensive as it may be?
- Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore took first responders sickened at the World Trade Center site to Cuba to demonstrate the “successes” of the country’s “free” socialist medical system, The New York Post reports.
- Radical environmental activists braved unseasonably chilly weather last weekend to demand Congress “step it up” on global warming and mandate an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Needless to say, such drastic mandates would be just awful for the economy.
- Meanwhile, a new climate study suggests that global warming could actually reduce the number of Atlantic hurricanes, contrary to alarmists’ shrill claims.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend the following Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Friday, April 20 at noon, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) will discuss the “Employee Free Choice Act,” which he views as aiding big union bosses at the expense of American workers, who would lose their right to a secret ballot.
- On Tuesday, April 24 at 1:00 p.m., Tom Horne, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, will share lessons from five years of implementation experience with No Child Left Behind.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
