Freedom Line Blog

With its tough anti-illegal immigration law headed to the Supreme Court, the State of Arizona is opening up another legal front in its 10^th Amendment tussle with Eric Holder’s Justice Department.  NBC News reports that the issue this time is the Voting Rights Act:

Arizona is challenging the law’s requirement that the state seek Justice Department approval for any changes in how elections are conducted. Many states are subject to the law’s pre-clearance requirement, generally to remedy past restrictions that discouraged minority voting.

“Arizona is still penalized for archaic violations that were corrected with the implementation of bilingual ballots prior to the 1974 elections,” said the state’s Attorney General Tom Horne. He noted that in 1974, Arizona became the second state to elect a Hispanic governor.

In his response, Attorney General Holder showed how tone deaf he is to any claim of federal overreach:

Vowing to fight the challenge, Holder said the provisions challenged in this case, including the pre-clearance requirement, “were reauthorized by Congress in 2006 with overwhelming and bipartisan support. The Justice Department will continue to enforce the Voting Rights Act, including each of the provisions challenged today,” he said.

So, a law is constitutional because Congress reauthorized it with “overwhelming and bipartisan support”?  There isn’t a justice on the Supreme Court who has let that kind of vapid thinking dissuade him or her from overturning a law.

If that’s the best defense Holder can muster, Arizona may have found the perfect foil to (unwittingly) help it downsize the federal government.

“Americans don’t blame Mr. Obama for the oil spill, but they are beginning to doubt the competence of a President whose decisions suggest political panic more than careful policy.”

That was the cogent observation of The Wall Street Journal today, and it captures the essence of why Americans now rate the federal government’s response to the Gulf oil spill even worse than its 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina.  It obviously wasn’t Barack Obama that caused the oil rig collapse, but he’s ultimately responsible for the manner in which his administration has reacted.  For example, Obama’s order of a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling has exacerbated job loss in the region and further eroded our ability to access non-foreign oil sources.

And now, the same Barack Obama who breezily offered to meet such dictators as Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without preconditions” now refuses to even meet with the CEO of the corporation desperately trying to cap the oil leak and minimize the damage that will ultimately hit its bottom line.  In a video interview for NBC’s Today show, Obama proclaimed his childish refusal to sit down with British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward:

I have not spoken to [BP CEO Tony Hayward] directly, and here’s the reason.  Because, uh, my experience is, uh, when you talk to, uh, uh, a guy like, uh, a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me.  I’m not interested in words, I’m interested in actions.”

And precisely what do you expect from murderous dictators with whom you gladly offer to meet?  Earnest concessions?  Honest negotiation?  Substantive results?

Is it possible that Barack Obama actually holds corporations and their CEOs in higher contempt than genocidal dictators?

Apparently, consumers still like options and the technology that provides them.  Since late night host Jay Leno moved down the clock to the 10pm hour, NBC’s ratings have taken a substantial nosedive because people are recording his show on DVR while watching other shows when they air.  The problem for NBC doesn’t just stop at drops in air time viewers.  NBC’s advertisers are feeling the pinch because later viewings on DVR recordings make it possible to skip commercials.  The less people watch ads, the less companies will pay to air them, which means the less money networks like NBC will make to produce television shows.

Obviously, something must be done.  Simply put, it’s time for Congress to act because Jay Leno is too big (a chin) to fail.  Network television executives just need a little help from Big Brother in “equalizing” the market in their favor.  Think of it as “net neutrality” for broadcasters and advertisers.  Since the mantra around Washington right now is to do anything that increases consumption, it’s time to ban the DVR as an impediment to economic growth.