The GOP Helps a Bad Idea Surface in the Senate

The marriage fight as just the beginning

I have defended Mitch McConnell over the 2022 election spending. Today, in Georgia, Herschel Walker is on the ballot. McConnell’s leadership PAC has outspent the Rick Scott led NRSC 11 to 1. McConnell has poured about $11 million into Georgia with a ground game designed to get Walker across the finish line.

I don’t know that McConnell can get Walker across the finish line, but I commend him for the help.

So now I hope those in McConnell land will take me seriously on this one. Breitbart News says sources credit McConnell with adding the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA is a must pass appropriations measure for national security. The JCPA is a federal welfare program for the very media that hates Republicans. It is a bailout for dying publications to be funded by Silicon Valley ad dollars generated from you. If McConnell is behind this, he needs to reverse it.

You know how you can go on Facebook or Google, find a news headline, and click through to the news site to read it? The JCPA would make Facebook and Google pay the news outlets for the kindness of displaying their news headlines and generating traffic for those news outlets. It would effectively create a “link tax.” It is nuts.

Nancy Pelosi is a big fan of it. Why any Republican would vote for this is beyond me. It sure as hell is not conservative. R Street has a good primer on just how bad it is.

Large conglomerates effectively get a vote for each of the eligible smaller outlets that they own and control, and will reap the greatest benefits. And the print and broadcast media corporations will be shielded by subsidies from the need to adapt their business models to the actual needs of their customers. Meanwhile, the smallest and newest news outlets, along with new media such as bloggers, podcasters, and other independent and freelance journalists, are entirely excluded from the JCPA’s benefits.

It really is just terrible legislation. That Congress would tie it to the NDAA is condemnable.

Republicans really should stand up and oppose this. It is terrible legislation that would allow media enterprises to become even more sclerotic while using your money and that of Silicon Valley to build up further their anti-conservative press operations.

Republicans who back this are backing the attacks against them.

I find it interesting that Meta (Facebook) has announced it will shut down all the news links on Facebook if this passes. I hope they do. Social media sites are primary traffic generators for these businesses. There is no need to allow the media to bleed dry the innovators just because the media could not innovate.

Andy Stone @andymstone

Meta statement on the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act:

On McCarthy’s Purported Speakership

Republicans have turned to an old tactic of the establishment to get their way — bullying and fear.

Do you really actually believe Republicans would pick a Democrat as Speaker over McCarthy after just getting back the House? That is what McCarthy and his surrogates are claiming. They “fear” they might vote for a Democrat if McCarthy is rejected. They have surrogates in the press now circulating the claim and attacking conservatives for daring to challenge McCarthy.

It’s like John Boehner is back. Or Denny Hastert.

Remember how they attacked conservatives, claiming the conservatives would cause default if they didn’t raise the debt ceiling? What about the time they blamed conservatives for future losses if they kept the government shutdown? If you will remember, conservatives held the line and forced sequestration through all while their establishment leaders sowed fear and used Republican mouthpieces in the press to bully the conservatives.

If you want more evidence that Kevin McCarthy is just an establishment hack, consider he has reduced himself to making the fear and bullying arguments just like the GOP leaders in the House have always done.

Next, they’ll move on to “voters won’t forgive us for a drawn out fight.” The establishment loves to argue that voters memories are so long that they’ll hold aginst the GOP two years from now, something that happens tomorrow. Rarely is that the case.

The GOP needs a better Speaker, not a man who just climbed the ladder and now demands the job.

The moderates are going to claim they’ll work with Democrats to find someone. There is no reason to believe them. The moderates are backing McCarthy and are using this as a fear and intimidation tactic. The GOP won’t put a Democrat in the Speaker’s Chair and, frankly, a principled moderate would be better than a spinless politician like McCarthy. The moderates doing this for McCarthy tells you that you should be wary of any supposed conservative backing him.