Publications

This week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked for input about PEG channels (public, educational and governmental access channels) in the states as PEG activists demanded that: Preferential spectrum be preserved for these channels and preferential menu placement of PEG channels be given; and, Video service providers be restricted from moving PEG channels from old analog technology to new digital delivery.

President Barack Obama and the U.

“Merger mania is gripping the global pharmaceutical industry” scream the headlines.

So now the Democrat-controlled Congress is pumping money out of Washington in an effort to stem a catastrophe—and lots of bad press.

Bank of America just canceled contracts to hire a batch of foreign-born business students, because Congress said its bailout recipients (the “TARP” money) should hire American first.

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is open to the idea of taxing some employee health insurance benefits.

Officials at the NTIA (the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration), the FCC and the USDA, (yes, the Department of Agriculture) held a meeting earlier this week to begin to decide how to spend the $7.

“If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of healthcare this year, in this administration,” President Barack Obama recently claimed.

The history of municipal broadband projects, especially municipal wireless programs, is a history of hubris, mismanagement and failure. Such projects have been plagued by (among other things) underestimates of costs and overestimates of subscriber take up. As federal officials consider disbursing billions of taxpayer dollars to extend broadband coverage to unserved and underserved areas, they should be wary of funding municipal broadband programs.

Forty-two seconds a page—that is how long members of Congress were given to read, understand, evaluate and consider all the implications for the largest spending bill in history.