Don’t look now, but there’s no independent Inspector General at the Federal Housing Finance Agency — which is responsible for overseeing federally-run finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As reported in the Huffington Post of all places, the former Inspector General, Ed Kelley was relieved of his duties in …
Should the federal government regulate what blogger’s blog? Yes, said the Federal Trade Commission yesterday — at least when it comes to product endorsements. At issue were the FTC’s guidelines concerning the use of endorsements in advertising. These guidelines, among other things, require paid endorsers of products to disclose their …
Is the Internet in clear and present danger? Yes, say proponents of neutrality regulation of the Internet. In a speech last month calling for FCC neutrality regulation, Chairman Julius Genachowski stopped short of quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes, but did all he could to paint a dire picture of the Internet’s …
Declaring access to the Internet to be like “running water or the light bulb,” FCC chairman Julius Genachowski declared today that it should be regulated. Specifically, he announced that the Commission will be voting next month on a proposal to impose so-called “net neutrality” regulation on Internet service providers such …
Does the Federal Communications Commission have a “speech czar”? That was the question before Julius Genachowski yesterday, as he testified for the first time before Congress as FCC chairman. At issue was the appointment of ex-journalist Mark Lloyd to be the agency’s “chief diversity officer,” a position quickly dubbed “the …
Remember the auto bailout? It’s not in the front pages anymore, but last week the Congressional Oversight Panel — a body created by statute to oversee TARP spending — issued a comprehensive and critical report on Washington’s foray into Detroit. The headline news, reported in most major media: the money …
It’s perhaps the most important job no one has ever heard of. Yesterday, Harvard professor Cass Sunstein was confirmed by the Senate as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, otherwise known as the nation’s “regulatory czar.” Nowadays, the mere mention of a czar tends …
