First - Smoking. Ted "drive off the bridge" Kennedy and the king of fascists himself, Henry Waxman, along with Tom Davis and John Cornyn are pushing to increase the power of unelected bureaucrats over tobacco.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced legislation Thursday that would give the FDA the same authority over cigarettes and other tobacco products that it already has over countless other consumer products.
"Congress cannot in good conscience allow the federal agency most responsible for protecting the public health to remain powerless to deal with the enormous risks of tobacco, the most deadly of all consumer products," Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., said in introducing the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act with Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, and Reps. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and Tom Davis, R-Va.
This is a horse manure measure. It has no positive benefits whatsoever. We all know that smoking is dangerous. It is illegal for minors to smoke. There are warning labels on ciggy packs. It has been known for 40 years that smoking has a strong coorelation to cancer. This is no secret. People still make the choice to smoke or not smoke based on that information. How is increasing more government regulations going to help? If tobacco is so bad - ban it (at the state level to conform with the 10th amendment). Until then, shut the hell up with the grandstanding and chicken@##@ measures. Put up or shut up.
The other bipartisan measure is big government censorship being pushed by one democrat and one republican at the FCC - home of unelected bureaucrats.
"In general, what the commission's report says is that there is strong evidence that shows violent media can have an impact on children's behavior and there are some things that can be done about it," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday.
The issue is bipartisan. Martin, a Republican, gave a joint interview to The Associated Press with Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps.
"The pressure to do something on this is building right now," Copps said, noting that TV violence comes up regularly during media ownership hearings he conducts across the country. "People really feel strongly about this issue all across this land. This is not a red state or a blue state issue."
The report also suggests that cable and satellite TV could be subjected to an "a la carte" regime that would let viewers choose their channels, a measure long supported by Martin.
"We can't just deal with the three or four broadcast channels — we have to be looking at what's on cable as well" Martin said.
It's called an on/off switch. Let's use it.
Are hockey games going to be censored? They have fights and people hitting each other with sticks. What about the UFC? John McCain tried to ban it once. Boxing? Kickboxing? What about the A-Team? They have (gasp) shootings on that show. This is a major can of worms.
I have a better idea. Disband the FCC's content regulation division.
0 comments:
Post a Comment