Times and WaPo Take Up Arms // John Hinderaker
They don’t, they aren’t. It is absurd to think that liberal news outlets could actually contribute to our national defense instead of undermining it. Yet, they are: The defense authorization bill is being held hostage by the Democrats who insist that the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act” be included.
Whatever the merits, the JCPA has absolutely nothing to do national defense. It should be taken out of the defense appropriations bills and considered on its merits. If they believed it could withstand scrutiny, it is clear that the Democrats would not have attempted to pass it in this way.
Tom Cotton is a good barometer. says Republican Senators need to filibuster defense authorization act until media preservation act is removed.
Cotton stated that Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker (D.CA), and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader (D.NY) are holding the bill hostage by moving to add “all sorts of extraneous antidefense measures” to the bill. These include the JCPA, the SAFE Banking Act which would allow banks and other financial institutions to handle marijuana-related business. Or Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D.WV) natural gas-and-oil permitting bill as a reward to him voting for the Inflation Reduction Act.
Cotton referred to JCPA as a “payoff to liberal media companies to create a cartel to deal with big tech that will harm center-right outlets.”
That’s enough for me. What does the JCPA actually say? You can find the text. It is complicated. It creates a system in which antitrust laws are not applied so media outlets can work together to negotiate royalty agreements for news stories that are shared with social media platforms.
What would the result be? From a quick review of this bill, I don’t know. It creates a Rube Goldberg system, whose consequences are likely unforeseeable. It is not liked by social media companies. Facebook has stated that it may remove all news from its platform if the JCPA passes. Is it a threat? It sounds fine to me.
Although I cannot predict what the consequences will be if the Journal Competition and Preservation Act passes-you always know that preserving competition is the goal when the bill’s centerpiece is a waiver from antitrust laws-the only thing I know is that it has no connection to the national defense. Republicans should halt the defense authorization act’s passage until all non-essential measures, including JCPA, are removed.
