Preserve Internet Freedom!

Internet Freedom, commonly knows as “Net Neutrality” is about the preservation of access to all public internet content, access that is today in peril.

The large internet service providers want to control what you see and how fast you see it, by slowing down or even completely blocking access to many websites. They want to control traffic in such a way as to maximize profit, to the detriment of the free flow of information, opinion and ideas.

There’s new federal legislation, introduced on Feb 2, 2008 by Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Chip Pickering (R-Miss.): the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” (HR 5353).

From Rep. Markey’s web site:

The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to assure consumers, content providers, and high tech innovators that the historic, open architecture nature of the Internet will be preserved and fostered. H.R. 5353 is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers. Internet freedom generally embodies the notion that consumers and content providers should be free to send, receive, access and use the lawful applications, content, and services of their choice on broadband networks, possess the effective right to attach and use non-harmful devices to use in conjunction with their broadband services, and that content providers not be subjected to unreasonably discriminatory practices by broadband network providers.

http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3268&Itemid=141

Write your Congressman and tell them to support the Internet Freedom Preservation Act!

Update: What evangelicals want

Update of an earlier post:


980 respondents self-identified as "evangelical born again," conducted online from January 17 to January 23, 2008.:











Click chart for a larger version




These numbers may reflect a change in attitudes among evangelicals - still conservative about moral issues and the islamic threat, but becoming more progressive concerning poverty, heath care, the war and the environment.

Here's the whole survey:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/evengelres.html

Chris Wallace interviews Bush

Of course it’s hard not to shake your head whenever the idiot President opens his mouth, but this really stood out:

Bush said that the Democrats’ desire to raise taxes on the rich is a waste of time, since the rich can afford good accountants who will figure out how to avoid paying those taxes, and that the middle class will end up getting stuck with the bill (as usual). Which begs the question: why then was it necessary to cut taxes on the rich in 2001 if they’d already figured out how not to pay them? And what does that say about the opaque system of loopholes and deductions that is designed primarily to benefit the rich? It becomes cruelly ironic when you consider that some of these loopholes involve incentives for moving jobs and operations overseas; so not only do the rich get to avoid paying their fair share - a bill the middle class gets stuck with - but they do it partly by being rewarded for eliminating more and more good-paying middle class jobs.

Wake up, Middle Class!! You’re getting simultaneously screwed and stabbed in the back!

Jack Cafferty distorts McCain position on stimulus package

I sent this email today to Jack Cafferty of CNN:

This comment is in reference to one of yesterdays topics:

Jack, I like you. I really do. I agree with many, if not most, of your opinions. But based on what I just read on the Cafferty File (I missed yesterday’s broadcast) you were unfair in your characterization of McCain vis-a-vis the economic stimulus package.

While it's true he missed the vote on Wednesday's amendment, he did publicly state he would have voted against it. Now while you can argue (rightfully so, IMO) against that position, he did not deliberately miss the vote in a cowardly attempt to avoid taking a side on the issue. And on Thursday he did vote to pass the stimulus package, breaking with the party’s conservative bloc.

Give ‘em hell, Jack, but please be fair about it.

Greg

Update:

Here’s the article...

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/07/mccain-chooses-not-to-make-tough-vote/#comments

How about a little Truth for a change?

It seems the DNC is already gearing up for more of the same old campaign tactics: distortion, deception and fear-mongering.

Not that the RNC has been much better, of course.

There are very clear differences between Clinton/Obama and McCain. Differences that are obvious and clear and that will both appeal to the left-wing base and sway many undecided and independent voters. There is absolutely no need to exaggerate and distort. It insults the electorate and demeans the process.

Why not spend the time, effort, and money to explain to the voters why their candidates have better ideas and why their positions make more sense?

For example, they don’t need to distort McCain’s statements about staying in Iraq for dozens of years. The DNC knows damn well he didn’t mean he wanted to fight a war for dozens of years, but was instead referring to a stabilizing presence - just like we’ve had in Korea, Germany and the Balkans. Now there are perfectly good arguments against such a presence (frankly I think we should withdraw most of our troops from Germany and Korea), and there should be such a debate. But let’s be honest about what was said and what was meant.

Another example is the lie that McCain’s immigration position reflects the extreme right wing. What’s so extreme about this?

“As president, I will secure the border. I will restore the trust Americans should have in the basic competency of their government. A secure border is an essential element of our national security. Tight border security includes not just the entry and exit of people, but also the effective screening of cargo at our ports and other points of entry.”

         [ ... ]

“Recognize the importance of a flexible labor market to keep employers in business and our economy on top. It should provide skilled Americans and immigrants with opportunity. Our education system should ensure skills for our younger workers, and our retraining and assistance programs for displaced workers must be modernized so they can pursue those opportunities“

Doesn’t exactly sound like Ann Coulter, does it? This is from Hillary’s issue statement on her website:

”Hillary has consistently called for comprehensive immigration reform that respects our immigrant heritage and honors the rule of law. She believes comprehensive reform must have as essential ingredients a strengthening of our borders, greater cross-cooperation with our neighbors, strict but fair enforcement of our laws, federal assistance to our state and local governments, strict penalties for those who exploit undocumented workers, and a path to earned legal status for those who are here, working hard, paying taxes, respecting the law, and willing to meet a high bar.

Hillary strongly believes we need to do more to know who is in our country by securing our borders and ensuring that employers comply with the law against hiring and exploiting undocumented workers. She supports deploying new technology that can help stop the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country and an employer verification system that is universal, accurate, timely, and does not lead to discrimination and abuse by employers.“

Sounds to me like they’re not that terribly far from each other, frankly. I’d like to hear an intelligent arguments about the subtleties of their positions. But if people just listen to the national committees, moveon.org, Rush Limbaugh, et. al., then they’ll have the impression that the candidates are shrieking left/right wing radicals bent on the destruction of our democracy.

Note to the DNC/RNC: if you really believe in your candidates, if you really believe that they have better ideas, why do you feel that it’s necessary to distort and lie? Isn’t the truth enough?

Read the whole story:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/smear_or_be_smeared.html

Billionaire Schwartzmann doesn't consider himself wealthy

Ah, the Wall Street Journal. Seems that they feel there's some resentment out there that all of America's increase in wealth (and then some) over the last quite a few years has gone to the richest few while the majority have been steadily losing financial ground. They perceive this feeling as jealousy when in fact it's anger over the inequity and unfairness of forced wealth redistribution.



Click for larger version

The above graph is quite interesting when you consider that for the bottom three groups over those 35 years hours worked per person increased significantly, the number of 2-earner households increased dramatically, and the relative cost of basic necessities increased (especially health care), yet the income lines are nearly flat. This means that in from 1967 to 2003 the middle and lower classes have effectively become poorer while the top bar graph illustrates how much filthier the filthy rich have become.

And if that's not depressing enough, consider that the trend has accelerated since 2003.

Ponder all of this the next time you hear the far-right argument that lowering taxes on the rich is good for you.

The U.S. has 432 billionaires at last count, a bit less than half of the world's 946, who have a combined net worth of $3.5 trillion. In 1982 there were 13 billionaires in the U.S. of A.

------------------------
A billionaire fun fact: the greatest concentration is in New York, no surprise, followed by Los Angeles, not too surprising, with Moscow (!!!) in third place. I would have guessed London or Tokyo or even Dubai.
------------------------

Anyway, back to the WSJ article....

Don't read this if you have a blood pressure problem:

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/02/05/billionaire-schwarzman-im-not-wealthy/

Romney quits the race

So Mitt Romney has acknowledged the reality of his situation - that he has no chance of getting the Republican nomination. Now it’s time for all true Republicans to mend fences and work together to win in November.

On behalf of McCain and Huckabee supporters, let me be the first to offer an olive branch to the folks in the Romney camp:

Let's shake hands

The widening gap between the rich and the super-rich

This is a real problem that should concern all of us:

Huckabee candidacy NOT hurting Romney

According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, Huckabee supporters a far more likely to have a favorable opinion of John McCain than of Mitt Romney:



So much for the theory that Huckabee hurts Romney more than McCain. Some of the so-called pundits really neeed to get out more.

Here’s the whole report:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=392

The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth

An interesting report. The majority of Americans - about 2/3 - identify themselves as moderates or liberals. But about 1/3 of Americans cannot identify which of the two major parties is considered more conservative, demonstrating once again that we have too many ignorant people in this country.

As all the data presented in this report make clear, whatever Americans choose to call themselves, on issue after issue -- economic, social, security, and more -- majorities of the public find themselves on the progressive side. And on many of the most contentious "culture war" issues, the public has been growing more progressive year after year. Much of the news media seems not to have noticed. But the facts are too clear to ignore.

http://mediamatters.org/progmaj/report

Fix the primary system

You know what I think? Okay, I'll tell you:

The presidential election process takes too long and costs too much. It gives too much influence to special interests, media pundits, and party activists on the extreme left and right.

What would I do? I would: (1) reform campaign financing, (b) have all of the primaries on the same day - probably a Saturday, (III) move the primaries much later in the season - possibly May, and (furthermore) make every state’s primary delegate assignments proportional to the primary/caucus vote results.

So there.

Mmmmm.... yummy!

A mystery that House would love. Seems a number of pork workers in Austin, Minnesota have come down with a nervous system disorder that Mayo doctors determined was due to an auto-immune response from exposure to pig brains. Here’s the graphic description of the process that led to the exposure:

“On Nov. 28, DeVries's boss, Dr. Ruth Lynfield, the state epidemiologist, toured the plant. She and the owner, Kelly Wadding, paid special attention to the head table. Lynfield became transfixed by one procedure in particular, called "blowing brains."

As each head reached the end of the table, a worker would insert a metal hose into the foramen magnum, the opening that the spinal cord passes through. High-pressure blasts of compressed air then turned the brain into a slurry that squirted out through the same hole in the skull, often spraying brain tissue around and splattering the hose operator in the process.

The brains were pooled, poured into 10-pound containers and shipped to be sold as food — mostly in China and Korea, where cooks stir-fry them, but also in some parts of the American South, where people like them scrambled up with eggs.

The person blowing brains was separated from the other workers by a plexiglass shield that had enough space under it to allow the heads to ride through on a conveyor belt. There was also enough space for brain tissue to splatter nearby employees.

"You could see aerosolization of brain tissue," Lynfield said.

The workers wore hard hats, gloves, lab coats and safety glasses, but many had bare arms, and none had masks or face shields to prevent swallowing or inhaling the mist of brain tissue.”

Lovely!

Here’s the article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/05/healthscience/05pork.php

Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?

Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110102_wellstone.html


“In a senate that is one heartbeat away from Republican control, Wellstone was more than just another Democrat. He was often the lone voice standing firm against the status-quo policies of both the Democrats and the Republicans. As such, he earned the special ire of the Bush administration and the Republican Party, who made Wellstone's defeat that party's number one priority this year.

Various White House figures made numerous recent campaign stops in Minnesota to stump for the ailing campaign of Wellstone's Republican opponent, Norm Coleman. Despite being outspent and outgunned, however, polls show that Wellstone's popularity surged after he voted to oppose the Senate resolution authorizing George Bush to wage war in Iraq. He was pulling ahead of Coleman and moving toward a victory that would both be an embarrassment to the Bush administration and to Democratic Quislings such as Hillary Clinton who voted to support "the president."

Then he died.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/14399/


“Shortly before he died in a mysterious airplane crash 11 days prior to the 2002 elections, Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone met with Vice President Dick Cheney, probably the Bush administration's most evil public face.

Cheney was rounding up Senate support for the October 2002 vote on giving the administration carte blanche to invade Iraq, with or without blessing from the United Nations. Cheney strong-armed opposing politicians like the most vindictive of mafioso leaders, and opponents usually gave in.

But not Wellstone. Whatever you thought of his progressive brand of politics, he wasn't a wimp. And that's what made him more than dangerous in the eyes of people like Cheney.

At a meeting full of war veterans in Willmar, Minn., days before his death, Wellstone told attendees that Cheney told him, "If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota."

http://www.opednews.com/thoreau1203_wellstone_assassinated.htm

Buyer’s Remorse, by David Michael Green

“You can add to the list of formerly-deluded-but-now-just-disaffected one David Kuo, who joined Bush, Inc. thinking he was helping to bring religion into government and government into religion. Leave aside for the moment that these are two of the most spectacularly stupid ideas ever (can you say, "Ayatollah Khomeini"?), so lame that they were denounced over two-hundred years ago by a group of people even Kuo may have heard of - they're called "The Founders". Regardless, Kuo went to work on this project only to discover that Bush was never even remotely serious about any of that clap-trap. Rove and the gang mocked religious dupes over beers and laughed their butts off at how easily these hopeless saps could be mobilized into Republican shock troops. How Kuo ever fell for it in the first place is beyond me, but eventually he figured out that the sap club had one more member than he had originally realized.”

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/10185

The Stupefaction Of A Nation

The Stupefaction Of A Nation
Corporate Media Propaganda And Its
Weapons Of Mass Distraction
By Manuel Valenzuela:

“America has become a nation of obedient drones, aimlessly walking empty streets devoid of an informed and participatory population. Our nation is being pillaged in front of our eyes, the government is now in the hands of our masters. Apathetic puppets we have become, free thinking minds we have none. The light that once shined so bright has disappeared in a fictional world of fright. The elite that pull our strings are becoming stronger, objective information is disappearing. The powerful few now control the nation's media and its ideas, and soon our free will and freedom to think as well. Democracy is disappearing, the Leviathan is swallowing us whole little by little, assuring itself of allegiance from a people who once questioned, were once curious and who once had control of this great nation.”

http://www.rense.com/general45/stup.htm

Rush Limbaugh - 8 million people listen to this guy?

From a broadcast transcript on his site:

HUCKABEE: A lot of the Wall Street Republicans who don't really like the Wal-Mart Republicans, and that's who I represent. I represent rank-and-file people that aren't the powerful. They may not be the swells that go to the nice cocktail parties, but there are a whole lot of people in this party that if they get abandoned and they get left out, it's going to be real hard for Republicans to win this fall. And I think people ought to be thinking very seriously about dumping a lot of the folks that gave the Republicans their victories, that people who hammer in the yard signs, the people who go out there and work for the candidates. They may not write the biggest checks, but they have in many ways the biggest role to play because they're the foot soldiers in this whole process.

RUSH: All right, here comes the class envy and the populism again, and Governor Huckabee has it 180 degrees out of phase. It is those very people he's talking about who are being told by the powers that be, call them the Wall Street crowd or whatever, we don't want you in our party anymore. You embarrass us, and we don't want you there. That's what they're saying of the social conservatives: we don't want you there, we're embarrassed to have you here. The idea that Huckabee represents them is what's crazy. He's not getting enough of a percentage here to propel himself to victory. By the way, a lot of people are saying, "Mike, get out of the race. You have no chance of winning and all you're doing is splitting up the vote." Huckabee came back and said, "I think Mitt should get out of the race." (laughing) "I think Romney should get out of the race."

What the hell? I’m having trouble deciphering this incoherent ramble. Maybe he’s back on the pills again?


Here’s the rest of it: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_020408/content/01125111.guest.html.guest.html

Gary Demar: Franklin Graham Speaks Out, and He's Only Half Right

“When a warning is raised that a thief is about to come in and steal from you, or that a murderer is on the loose, you better drop everything and get busy protecting yourself and your family. Civil government is stealing from us in the way it taxes our income. Civil government has made killing preborn babies a legal right. Civil government has created a near educational monopoly that is making children subjects and wards of the State. Civil government has created a perpetual underclass, a form of institutional slavery, through confiscatory taxation and wealth redistribution.”

http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/11-30-04.asp


I agree about taxation and wealth redistribution, but not the way Demar does. There is wealth distribution going on - from the middle class to the rich. See: this post.

Christian Coalition of America's Agenda for the 110th Congress, Second Session (2008)

1. Confirming as many conservative judges as possible, especially U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges


2. Passing "Net Neutrality" to ensure fairness for all on the Internet


3. Protecting television religious programming


4. Keeping votes for human embryonic stem cell destruction research bill to a minimum/increasing funding for successful adult stem cell research


5. Ensuring all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted into law and due to expire in just 2 years (2010) are protected including child tax credits, income tax cuts, small business tax cuts, death tax cuts, etc.


6. Attempting to get a vote on a Federal Marriage Amendment


7. Supporting legislation stopping religious discrimination against evangelical Christians in the military

http://www.cc.org/issues.cfm

"What Evangelicals Want" Poll Results

980 respondents self-identified as "evangelical born again," conducted online from January 17 to January 23, 2008.:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/evengelres.html

Evangelical panelists say Christian voters broadening political agenda

“We are no longer single-issue voters, number one, and we’re not going to blindly follow prominent leaders in the Religious Right or otherwise who are telling us what we have to believe,” said Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. Cizik, who opposes abortion and gay rights and twice voted for President Bush, is an outspoken proponent for Christians to combat global warming.

“For a lot of the young people I meet, the Religious Right has been replaced by Jesus,” said Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, an evangelical social-justice group. “Politics is stuck in its polarities -- every issue has only two sides, and both sides do it.”

http://www.abpnews.com/2986.article

2-3-08 Super Tuesday Roundtable

Tim Russert, Mike Murphy and especially Mary Matalin, argued that Huckabee’s continued presence in the race helps McCain and hurts Romney, which Matalin argued is “unfair”. Matalin seemed particularly incensed about that “fact” - resorting to offensive and childish name-calling.

I’m very skeptical about their assessment. I believe, in fact, that Huckabee draws support away from McCain more than he does from Romney. Here’s my reasoning:

1. Huckabee’s support comes largely from social conservatives who are especially concerned about the abortion issue. Romney’s alleged pro-life stance is very suspect given his public pronouncements made prior to his presidential candidacy. His position “change” just looks like more of the same dishonest and cynical pandering that we’ve seen in the last 2 presidential elections.


2. Huckabee is a populist and his middle-class supporters understand that the old G.O.P doesn’t have their best interests at heart. Romney represents the traditional Republican positions that result in the transfer of wealth and power to the corporate elites at the expense of the middle and lower classes.


3. McCain’s sincere pro-life stance, along with his integrity and courage, make him the obvious second choice for the typical evangelical Huckabee supporter.

As far as unfairness is concerned: isn’t is “fair” if the rules are the same for all of the candidates? Was it “fair” that the extremely non-viable Fred Thompson kept Huckabee from winning South Carolina? Where’s the outrage about that?