DC desk: Hawley’s Clueless Crusade
“Conservatives celebrated when the Supreme Court ruled” in Citizens United “corporations have a right to free speech. Now Sen. Josh Hawley” wants “to silence publicly traded corporations because he doesn’t like what some have to say,” scoffs Bradley A. Smith in The Wall Street Journal.
The Missouri Republican’s bill to repeal the ruling isn’t just unconstitutional — it would “do nothing to mitigate the spread of woke ideology.”
Hawley complains woke corporations are “buying our elections.” But for-profit businesses, Smith notes, “account for roughly 2% of total political spending.”
Hawley target TikTok “spends millions lobbying” but has never “made independent political campaign expenditures or contributions to super PACs,” which is what Hawley wants to ban.
“Repealing Citizens United wouldn’t stop Target from featuring ‘women’s’ swimsuits with extra room for male genitalia” — or any other “woke capital” he doesn’t like.
Elex watch: Dem Panic on Joe’s Polls
Polls showing President Biden trailing ex-Prez Donald Trump in multiple swing states have Democrats freaking out, smirks Jay Cost at the Washington Examiner.
Fact is, “Biden is and has been a deeply unpopular president” who has “been ‘underwater’ in his approval (more disapprovers than approvers) since the summer of 2021, shortly after he scuttled out of Afghanistan.”
Per a CNN/SSRS late-October poll, a “majority disagrees that Biden . . . ‘is honest and trustworthy’ (58%) . . . and ‘has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president’ (74%).”
The first shows “the damage done to his reputation by his family’s shady international business dealings.
As for the ‘stamina and sharpness’ question, voters have eyes and ears. They see him every day. They can tell he is not what he once was. He is tottering.”
Eye on Albany: Hochul’s Aimless Health Commission
Although Gov. Hochul finally named members of her Commission on the Future of Health Care, she didn’t say which “of the many problems in New York’s health care system” her expert panel is “supposed to tackle as a top priority,” grumbles the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond.
Even “the best health-care minds aren’t likely to get much done if they lack a clear mission or if their work is subject to interference from vested interests.”
A yet-to-be-named Stakeholder Advisory Board may be a “vehicle for the Albany insiders who were excluded from the commission.”
A big unanswered question: “How much influence will stakeholders have over the commission’s reports and recommendations?”
From the left: Dems’ 2024 Senate Peril
“Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will not run for reelection” — which “likely means Democrats will lose a Senate seat in the narrowly divided chamber in 2024,” moans Vox’s Andrew Prokop.
Worse, Dems’ “2024 Senate challenges go far beyond West Virginia.” For starters, “Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are both running again” but in states Donald Trump carried in 2020.
“Democrats are also defending seats in five states Joe Biden very narrowly won in 2020,” those “held by Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).”
In all, they must defend 23 seats to just 10 for the GOP; a bad year will put them “at a serious deficit in the Senate that it could take many years to climb out of.”
Tech beat: Net Neutrality’s Revolving Door
“As broadband accelerates, 5G networks grow, and Starlink satellites proliferate,” the Federal Communications Commission has “reintroduced ‘net neutrality’ rules that would subject broadband to onerous common-carrier regulation,” sighs Corbin K. Barthold at City Journal.
Seems “the Biden FCC is striving to undo the Trump FCC’s undoing of what the Obama FCC did.” Yet the Supreme Court’s been “sharpening its major-questions rule” — requiring clear congressional authority for major agency rules.
Reimposing such regulation would be a major-rule change lacking clear authority, so it would flunk the test.
Republican commissioner Brendan Carr says courts, Congress or a future FCC would overturn any reimposition. That’s “a bold claim,” concedes Barthold, “but by no means an incorrect one.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
Source link: https://nypost.com/2023/11/12/opinion/hawleys-clueless-crusade-dem-panic-on-joes-polls-and-other-commentary/