The prosecutor in Contra Costa County, California won’t prosecute shoplifters anymore, citing budget cuts. It’s open season on retailers in that large suburban country. But rather than focusing on that, many prosecutor associations are stupidly supporting the federal hate-crimes bill, which would waste taxpayers’ money by allowing people who have been acquitted in state court to be reprosecuted in federal court.

The FCC is wasting time fining broadcasters for fleeting expletives under an indecency policy that is applied broader than the FCC’s own…

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Eric Holder, Obama’s choice for attorney general, is hostile to civil liberties. He has previously expressed veiled support for using the misnamed “Fairness Doctrine” to squelch “conservative critiques” and “conservative media,” such as Fox News (which Holder believes is anything but “Fair and Balanced,” contrary to its slogan). The “Fairness Doctrine” is designed to shut down conservative Talk Radio.

Holder also has advocated hate-crimes legislation to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify…

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George Will has an interesting column on how the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that many liberal lawmakers want to reimpose in order to shut down Talk Radio squelched discussion of controversial issues in the past, and how it was used as a deliberate tool of censorship by past liberal administrations. (We discussed the Fairness Doctrine operates in practice a few weeks ago). Other liberal activists wish to undermine Talk Radio by imposing “localism” requirements that would eliminate opportunities for discussion of national…

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My colleague Cord asked me about proposing a tech agenda for Congress given the ascendancy today of Henry Waxman to Energy and Commerce Chairmanship; my immediate answer was “Adjourn.”

Anyway, the big news is that Rep Henry Waxman challenged John Dingell for Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship, and won. E&C has jurisdiction over, well, everything.

Waxman has been a member of Congress since 1975, reminding us of the saliency of term limits. What matters, one might argue, is not that…

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Fidel Castro has endorsed Obama. 

But liberal lawmakers want to curtail the ability of American citizens to endorse or criticize candidates on the radio.  Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is advocating a return to the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” which the Kennedy and Johnson administrations used to squelch their critics on talk radio.  Schumer likens conservative talk radio to pornography.  Other influential liberal Senators, like Dick Durbin (D-IL) are also calling for the reimposition of the “Fairness Doctrine.” 

Under the Fairness Doctrine, a radio station that carries a conservative broadcaster…

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