Dumping

A cortege of senior officials exited the Adams administration in a flash. They all want to spend more time with their families. This yearning for domesticity and familial bonding tends to dovetail with federal set-ups or bona-fide investigations of potential scandal. 

It's hard to focus on counting paper clips while in the line of fire. The selective loosening of constitutional restraints, sacrifice of rules of evidence and compromised presumption of innocence make self-defense more arduous. Like surgery that is deemed successful even when the patient dies, there's no replenishing the lost time and money or restoring the smeared reputation of a vindicated target.

When Edward Caban resigned as NYPD commissioner, he was replaced by Thomas Donlon, who was viewed as an interim caretaker, pending a permanent replacement. Less than two weeks later, after federal search warrants were executed on his homes, it seemed that his departure would be expedited, and the odds-on favorite to succeed him, Commissioner of Sanitation Jessica Tisch, would slip with unseemly seamlessness into the role. She was on top of the heap.

The vultures of political punditry were mystified when Donlon didn't take the bait. Instead of hitting the road he stayed put. Good for him. No allegations of corruption or wrongdoing have been lodged so far.

An exhaustive process entailing canvassing the nation for the best person for the job would have taken a fraction of a nanosecond. Tisch's credentials would render competing CVs laughably unviable. Forbes estimates her family's pecuniary resources at over $10 billion. A panoramic screenshot of their portfolio would be a passport to A-list heaven.

All the neurons in our cerebral cortexes and spinal cords don't have the connections of the Tisch clan. When a member has a hankering for the guilty pleasure of public service, there's no stopping them or standing in their way. Their entry level is always chief. Jessica's mom, Meryl, is the former chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents.

They are all competent and honest, but there must be other candidates who would have proven equally so, but never had a chance. I admit to having a personal, though indirect grudge against philanthropist Jessica Tisch in her other capacity as the trash czarina who injected her compost gendarmes with quota lust as a revenue-enhancement scheme.

As a resident of a ZIP code singled out for petty persecution, I recently got a summons for failure to segregate a few items of recyclable garbage. Probably I didn't separate my cat's digestive byproducts from the print media on which it had rested in the litter box.

My bad.

I got two summonses on the same day for the same offense. Inside envelopes boldly stamped "Personal and Confidential,” were multi-paged documents with the warning that I "may lose the ability to keep or get a city license, permit or registration" and "the City might also take legal action." Had I sucker-punched a wheelchair patient or shoplifted $999 twice a day, the official admonitions would have been milder.  

I called the city and was told that the summons would be voided if I provided evidence that it was issued in error. Two weeks had elapsed from the date of the violation and the receipt of the summons. I guess that meant tracking and identifying the landfill where the garbage bag was dumped, and making a positive identification (which should be easy, since it was black) in the presence of notarized witnesses who had passed background checks.

You'd have a better chance surviving a guillotine execution than fighting City Hall. Nice to know it's our democratic right, though. But if venting your indignation makes you feel better, you could still call a radio talk show, although that freedom may be on the chopping block too.

Most of these stations are conservative-oriented. 

Audacy is the second biggest radio company in the country. It is almost $1.6 billion in the red, which makes them worthy of entrepreneurial predation. The investment firm of George Soros has received expedited approval from the Federal Communications Commission to be its majority shareholder.  

Soros' detractors, including many of the talk show hosts on the radio stations he has acquired, including Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, regard him as the evil genius who installed dozens of anarchistic district attorneys who have emboldened violent criminals and ignited civil unrest.

Muting conservative voices would mean, according to Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), a "risk to our national security" and a breach of Section 310 (b) (4) of the Communications Act.

After investigating "major challenges to the historic marketplace dynamic of conservative radio dominance,” the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability warned of "backroom deals to .. .rig our media landscape" and "consolidate left-wing control over a massive portfolio of stations." They suspect that Soros Fund Management convinced the FCC to fast-track approval by having them "bypass the traditional national security review, despite raising $400 million for the purchase with foreign investments.”

They demand to know whether circumventing standard FCC protocols for foreign ownership of U.S. stations was requested and if so, whether it was granted or denied. They also question whether an opportunity was provided for oppositional testimony, and "what efforts were made to undergo a legitimate public-interest analysis.”

The Media Research Center condemned the FCC's approval of restructuring, license transfer and issuance of "special warrant" and common stock and dubbed it the "Soros Shortcut.”

Billionaire propagandists George Soros and Rupert Murdoch, pretty much on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, have expanded their spheres of influence as media emperors by legally exploiting free market principles and purchasing the access necessary to reduce the minds of their readers to protectorates. 

They have not gamed the system by playing it as it is.

Decades ago, the federal government thwarted monopolies by restricting the media properties a single owner could possess within a single market. Regulations exist to stifle or vivify competition, depending on who is in power and whose ox is gored.

Any changes in tone, talent and editorial stance that Soros may decree for his new radio stations are likely to be gradual. He won't want to replicate the debacle of Air America (not the secret CIA airline, but the liberal radio network that fizzled in 2010 after only six years).

As a social activist he'll lease his soul, but as a businessman, he won't sell it.

He'll keep a steady hand on Audacy.  If he needs help, there's probably a Tisch not only waiting in the wings but riding them.