Op-Eds and Blogs

In the News: Blog 02/28/2014
Wise move by the FCC
The Federal Communications Commission is pulling the plug on its plans to probe journalists’ news judgment. As I said before, federal regulators with the power to shut down broadcasters should not do anything that could possibly be interpreted as intimidation – certainly not questioning how journalists select stories. Studies by academics are one thing. Studies by federal regulators are another.
In the News: Blog 02/28/2014
De-escalate the IRS war on the First Amendment now
The IRS, which did not seem to find any lessons in its political targeting scandal last spring, is proposing new regulations to restrict political speech. I submitted comments, as did well over 100,000 other Americans. This is what I told the IRS: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is today the most widely feared federal agency, and rightly so in light of last spring’s revelations about the politically motivated targeting of certain organizations. To all but the most partisan eye, the IRS was turned into a political weapon against the opponents of the current administration. This is simply wrong. It is un-American.
In the News: Blog 02/27/2014
A Greenpeace founder says panic is not justified
It’s worth reading what Patrick Moore has to say about man-made global warming. He has a doctorate in ecology. He’s also one of the founders of Greenpeace. And he has the courage not to run with the herd. Moore told senators this about climate change: “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.” Not that a little warming would hurt, Moore went on to say: “ ‘Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species.
In the News: Blog 02/26/2014
He imagined the Affordable Care Act was about affordable care
In the News: Blog 02/26/2014
Harry Reid should take it back
Today, the Senate Democrats’ leader, Harry Reid, stood on the floor of the Senate and called thousands of Wisconsinites liars. He was talking about Obamacare. These are his exact words: “There’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue. But they’re being told all over America.” This is an astounding and offensive statement. I have heard directly from hundreds of individuals, families, and businesses in Wisconsin who are being truly harmed by the law – premiums increasing by several hundred percent or the health plans that they liked and wanted to keep are being lost.
In the News: Blog 02/25/2014
If Obamacare is so great, why not use honest math?
What is it about President Obama, that he just cannot bring himself to use honest numbers when boasting about the Orwellian-named Affordable Care Act? Even the left-leaning press feels compelled to call him out. The Washington Post, for example, dismantles his claim that expanding Medicaid has given “access to health care for the first time” to “close to 7 million Americans”:
Op-eds 02/25/2014
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Reform federal program to connect classrooms
<b> Originally printed in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 21st, 2014 </b> Based on how much we spend, every child in America should be getting a world-class education, which would include connecting our classrooms to digital opportunities. To get there, the federal government doesn't need to spend more money — the Federal Communications Commission already runs a program called E-Rate that distributes over $2 billion to schools and libraries to purchase communications services each year. What we <em>do</em> need is real reform in Washington and an end to the waste, fraud and abuse inherent in the current program.
In the News: Blog 02/25/2014
Obamacare took away his mother's cancer medicine
A son lays out the grim truth about his mother’s cancer medicine in the Obamacare era in Monday morning’s Wall Street Journal (hat tip to Right Wisconsin). Stephen Blackwood writes that his mother has been fighting off a terminal carcinoid cancer since she was 49 in 2005. What kept her alive was a semimonthly shot of Sandostatin, which slows the growth of tumors. “Then in November, along with millions of other Americans, she lost her health insurance. She'd had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan for nearly 20 years. It was expensive, but given that it covered her very expensive treatment, it was a terrific plan. It gave her access to any specialist or surgeon, and to the Sandostatin and other medications that were keeping her alive. “And then, because our lawmakers and president thought they could do better, she had nothing. Her old plan, now considered illegal under the new health law, had been canceled.”
In the News: Blog 02/24/2014
Newspaper agrees: No special deals for Congress
The Detroit News editorial board gets it on Obamacare: Congress was wrong to get a special deal from the Obama administration: “In crafting the bill, Congress specifically approved a Republican-sponsored amendment that required lawmakers and their staffs to leave their old federal insurance behind and go onto the exchanges created under the health care law. “Additionally, Congress debated and then rejected allowing the federal government to continue offering premium support. Just like all other Americans under Obamacare, members of Congress and their staffs could only qualify for subsidies if their incomes were low enough. “Democrats signed off on the amendment but later regretted the decision. Rather than accept accountability for amending the law, Congress turned to the Office of Personnel Management, which approved an exemption that the president signed off on.”
In the News: Blog 02/21/2014
If stricter guns laws were a magic wand, Chicago would be safe
While everyone in Wisconsin is right to be concerned about violent crime, I find that some people believe there’s a magic-wand solution. They feel that if only we passed yet one more law, we could end the tragedies that result from people choosing to ignore the law and shoot others. This came up when I was talking to people in Appleton this past week. A woman asked whether I had voted for some particular gun-control law that she favored. My answer was simple: No. It wasn’t a good law. I voted for a better solution to the problem of “straw buyers,” a bill offered by Sen. Grassley of Iowa. It would have cracked down on attempts by felons to illegally purchase firearms, increased penalties for gun trafficking, required the Department of Justice to explain its failure to prosecute gun cases, and improved the existing Criminal Background Check System. No magic wand – just better enforcement of the law we have.