[Avoiding_Sulla]

The story of its derailment is one of Senate Democrats playing a double game -- with constituents who favor action on the fires on the one hand, and extreme green groups who pay election bills on the other.

Please note, folks, the underlined phrase. Ever since Paul Gigot became editorial director of the Wall Street Journal, taking over from the incomparable Robert Bartley, you can expect to see cutsey little phrases like that.

There is little doubt that the phrase is correct.

But just where is the most important "conservative" mainstream newspaper helping expose those playing this rotten, fuel providing, little game?

• What are the names of these extreme green groups who pay election bills?
• Why do they still have 501(C)3 tax exemptions?
• Who are their largest contributers to these extreme green groups?

  So many important questions, and the most important serious newspaper in the country has no front page exposure, explosive or otherwise, of these unholy alliances? Or has Mr. Gigot somehow not gotten around to discussing his insinuations it with the newsroom?

  Will somebody please remind me why the Wall Street Journal is a conservative icon? I would really like to know. They seem to be long on irritating us by telling us of the political shenanigans going on in the Senate but short on fingering the culprits (they imply they know who) pay the freight for the obvious obstruction. This all the while forests are placed off-limits, and decay and burn. And when deaths occur because the political class wants to make respective hay through delaying tactics, the deaths are tantamount to criminal manslaughter if not murder.

RonDog, you are free to link and excerpt this little rant of mine to your new thread. The main thread article above is too important relative to our complaints for me to insert this at your thread. So bring this to the attention of your new "friend," Mr. Block.

Look. He's of the hostile-to-us-non-elites TV medium.
By what magic do you suppose such a creature is about to be allowed to provide a different view of us?
Do you really think this man is one of a crew of new brooms who will clean up the seemingly-everyday-more-disreputable world of TV news and change it into even a fair minded medium, let alone a conservative ally?
How can you really think he's really your friend or capable of being our future friend if when even the WSJ can't or won't inform us with enough information that would provide us the means to demand that government financially ruin these miscreants and thereby defund their political stooges?

You have even claimed that Hugh Hewitt would be interested in Carry_okie's ideas. Yet that man has never referenced any of C_O's wonderful ideas, or hinted at even a single of his links between enviro-groups and their questionable government and business cronies and funders of those groups. Hewitt hasn't done it anymore than has Paul Gigot with extreme green groups, which is so typical of his cutsey little phrases that hint but don't reveal.

This is the kind of thing that makes me question the judgment of any person at FR who thinks any broadcast media, even that of "conxervative" talkshow hosts, are anywhere as really concerned as the average FReeper with the dirty dealings that go on at the higher, money-manipulating levels of our society.

That level, in case you haven't figured it out, includes those who pay talkshow hosts and TV media commentators and pundits who get multi-million dollar bookdeals.

And you know I have good reason for my skepticism when even the venerable WSJ can't be counted on to deliver all the facts we need to know.

[Carry_Okie]

Hi RonDog, no, I didn't put him up to this.

Here's what I think is Avoiding_Sulla's important question:

Will somebody please remind me why the Wall Street Journal is a conservative icon?

There is a reason that much of corporate America is no longer conservative (what there is left is because of its remnant of entrepreneurs); it is because the unconstitutional regulatory power of government has become power for sale. It's play or die. I think this excerpt from my book explains the more visible mechanics:

High-level executives in target industries are usually smart people. Once government gets its hands upon the factors of production, it isn’t long before industry leaders recognize a patronage system for what it is. Those with sufficient political pull are obviously tempted to sell out their competitors and manipulate the deal. They can salve their guilt with the excuse that, when a system is capable of either handing them an oligopoly or destroying them, they had better take advantage of it to survive. Of course, being one of the winners in the marketplace doesn’t hurt so much either. Once they learn the game and start to take control of it, the temptation to dominate the market with public money becomes addicting.

The corporate winners can then use their profits to start a tax-exempt foundation with which to fund political advocacy without the annoyance of campaign contribution limits. They use the funding to lobby politicians and direct groups of NGO activists to gather data supporting specific action.

The regulatory system thus ends up as a troika of NGOs, industry oligopoly, and government regulators. The strategies take several forms. To provide an intuitive framework with which to understand some of the behavioral undercurrents, we will use those famous fables from Uncle Remus, respectfully and faithfully recovered from Afro-American Oral History by that noted (and unjustly maligned) anthropologist, Joel Chandler Harris. We will refer to this example as “The Briar Patch Effect.” The principles are as follows:

1. There are economies of scale associated with regulatory compliance, as with any other cost of production. Capable compliance to rules becomes a barrier to entry and a means to target existing competitors.

2. Rules can be tailored to the advantage of those possessing property with favored attributes. Competitors can be targeted by similar means.

3. Selective enforcement, through bribes, friendships, and political connections, is a problem as old as government itself.

4. Regulatory constraint of supply can raise the capital value of remaining assets in production through monopoly profits. Advocacy can be a very a good investment.

For a more detailed exposition from first principles of why the system works this way, consider the first chapter. Warning: it's a pretty deep read.

[OESY]

What are the names of these extreme green groups who pay election bills?
Why do they still have 501(C)3 tax exemptions?
Who are their largest contributors to these extreme green groups?

Excellent questions -- in need of answers. Unfortunately, the WSJ doesn't begin to get venerable until one gets to the editorial pages, so we'll never find the answers in the columns of their Washington bureau staff. However, John Fund of the opinionjournal.com often does a good, credible job. Bartley, Noonan and Morrison are favorites also.