Obama Skinning Cats

by Kathleen McKinley | January 7, 2011 8:55 am

My D.C. trip was a mixture of emotions for me. On the one hand it was fun to see all my fellow conservative actitivists (we always have a blast when we get together), and it was exciting to go to a reception for the new Congress. But on the other hand, I learned about dangerous and infuriating legislation that was basically snuck in while all of us were Christmas shopping, traveling, and on holiday.

The amusing thing at the reception is that we didn’t know who was a Congressmen and who wasn’t. We finally got an idea of who they were with the faces of those not yet full of themselves and looking self important. I can’t tell you their names, and you wouldn’t know them otherwise probably, but it was wonderful to see so many who had never been in politics or run for office, but had been inspired by the Tea Party to make a difference and REALLY represent the people. There were small businessmen instead of lawyers. There those who were not backed by GOP establishment. Will they stay uncorrupted? Hard to say, but I’ve never felt so optimistic that they might.

I got to meet a few people I admire like Rep. Mike Pence, Herman Cain, Bill Kristol, and Philip Terizan, one of the editors of The Weekly Standard. I also got to have lunch at the Mayflower Hotel. It is rich with history and truly beautiful. But enough about my trip. I learned a great deal about what the Democrats did in the last month of the lame duck session, and it will make your head explode. There are three main things. The last of which is Net Neutrality. It’s a complicated, but very important issue and I’ll do my best to explain it you. The dangerous part is that no one is paying attention, and these things will negatively affect all of us.

You remember cap and trade? It was the Democrat’s way of forcing more regulation and stifle economic growth in the name of all things green. But the American people fought against it, and it died. But recently when Obama was asked about it, he said there was more than one way to skin a cat. In other words, who needs the voice of the people? Who needs Congress? It was just the beginning of the end run this administration made to get what they want without congressional approval, much less the approval of the American people. After all, the administration knows better, right? So how did they do this? Greenhouse gas regulations through the EPA, creating a bureacratic nightmare for the private sector. The cost is likely to run into the trillions. They are implementing an extreme tightening of ground level ozone rules that is estimated to knock a 5.4 % off the GDP by 2020 that will destroy 7.3 million jobs. The regulations fall heavily on refiners, which means higher prices for gas and heating for all of us.

In addition to all this the President invented a new federal agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Was he afraid that it would have likely failed to be approved and the head of it might not be confirmed by the Senate? Again, an end run. House Republicans are fighting these things by a provision in their Pledge to America that promises to “require congressional approval for any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more.” This would prevent bureacrats in the executive branch from making major policy decisions without accountability to the American people. The provision will be called the REINS Act. Because we have to rein in the intrusiveness of government and find a way to restrain it’s size.

Remember the failure of card check? The Union’s way of forcing workers to vote Union? Well that didn’t stop Obama. He was ready to find another way to skin that particular cat by installing some version of card check by recess appointing (can’t have Senate confirmation, of course) union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Who needs card check when they can just impose internet voting with little or no privacy?

Finally, just a few days before Christmas three Democrats at the FCC imposed potentially devastating regulations on the free market of the internet. This is called “Network Neutrality.” The FCC imposed these regulation despite no support from Congress or the American people, AND the fact that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in “Comcast v. FCC” that such regulation have no legimate basis in law.

Net Neutrality is complicated and completely boring issue, which is why no one is paying attention while the FCC does this power grab. But bascially it is the beginning of the regulation of the internet by the government. Once again, it shows an executive branch out of control. Pres. Obama is and has been a huge advocate of Net Neutrality. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is a former law school friend of Pres. Obama, and has worked closely with the administration on this issue.

As John Fund wrote in The Wall Street Journal:

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney a Univ. of Illinois communication professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney’s agenda? “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. “But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

A year earlier, Mr McChesney wrote in the Marxist Journal Monthly Review that “any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be partof a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself. “

Unlike many of my conservative colleages, I don’t really use the words, “communist” or “socialist” lightly. These are serious terms that shouldn’t just be thrown around to make a political point. But McChesney is a self described socialist, and says he is, “hesitant to say I’m not a Marxist.” Now, I don’t want to get out my chalkboard, like Glenn Beck does, to draw correlations between socialists to policy, but here is the run down. Mr. McChesney’s group, “Free Press” is far left, and funded by a network of liberal foundations. Basically they came up with “research” that said that there is a problem with the internet as it is, and it needed regulation. The FCC took this “research,” if you can believe that, and ran with it to come up with Net Neutrality that was hoisted upon us as we were busy singing Christmas carols.

For the FCC this is a radical departure of tradition. They usually are about squabbles over profits between industry segments or focus on the relationship between carriers and the customer, like user rates. So, to suddenly do this far over reach is radical, and frankly, dangerous. Especially considering what Mr. McChesney’s end goal seems to clearly be.

The FCC says all the right things about net neutrality. They say they are for innovation, investments, job creation, and free expression. But can anyone tell me that we were having ANY problems with those things on the internet? Of course not. The internet has innovated, created, and is the mother of all free expression.

Bottom line? There was and is no need for net neutrality. It is only the government getting it’s foot in the door for control on internet companies, which should make us all sick to our stomachs.

All is not lost. In addition to the court verdict, our own Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson has agreed to work for “The Resolution of Disapproval” of FCC’s open internet order, which will invalidate the order. We only need 51 votes to force a straight up or down floor vote. This should happen sometime in March. I’ll keep you updated.

If you are wondering where Google is on all of this, let me put it this way, as a friend said today, “Google is the Haliburton of this administration.” Google loves net neutrality. They just ride the wave, and pay no price.

Do you want the internet regulated? Then don’t just sit there. Call Congress and let them know you support The Resolution that will invalidate the FCC order. I just can’t imagine the internet being choked by the heavy hand of government. Look closely at who is driving this. It should scare all of us.

Now, let’s get busy.

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