The giant telecom companies aren’t going to quietly give up their plans to control what you are allowed to see and hear.
Net neutrality, a guiding principle for preserving a free and fair Internet, means that Internet service providers are not allowed to discriminate based on content for its customers. However, telecommunications firms — like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and others — are firmly against net neutrality because they would like to increase their profits by deciding which websites customers can see, and at what speed. The telecom industry has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a lobby campaign against net neutrality. As the FCC now takes up net neutrality rule making, the industry is pushing an “outside approach” of hiring front groups and astroturf operatives.
This morning, representatives from various front groups launched a new coordinated campaign to kill net neutrality. Speaking on Capitol Hill, these front groups took turns decrying the evils of the principle of a fair and unbiased Internet. LULAC, which is funded by AT&T, called Net Neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet.” Americans for Prosperity — a corporate front group founded by oil billionaire David Koch but also funded by telecom interests — unveiled a new ad smearing net neutrality as a “government takeover” (the initial ad buy is $1.4 million [corprocon delinked] dollars). And Grover Norquist, representing his “Americans for Tax Reform” corporate front group, said net neutrality is like what China does, “putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” Watch it:
ThinkProgress has obtained a PowerPoint document which reveals how the telecom industry is orchestrating the latest campaign against Net Neutrality. Authored by representatives from the Atlas Network — a shell think tank used to coordinate corporate front group efforts worldwide — the document lays out the following strategy:
– Slides 7-8 calls for the campaign to target “libertarian minded internet users and video gamers” and “social conservative activists” with anti-government messages and a rebranding of net neutrality as “Net Brutality.”
– Slide 9 calls for a strategy of creating a Chinese blog to compare net neutrality to Chinese government censorship, outreach via social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
– Slides 10-11 detail how representatives met at Grover Norquist’s infamous “Wednesday morning meeting” to orchestrate the new campaign. Norquist is known to use his Wednesday meetings to plot strategy and conservative coalition building towards lobbying goals.
The PowerPoint was created on April 14th, shortly before the campaign website officially launched. The “Net Brutality” [corporocon delinked] website relies heavily on Americans for Prosperity sources, as well as a website called NetCompetition.org — which is openly funded ][corporocon delinked] by the American Cable Association, At&T, Comcast, and the US Telecom Association.
During the Jack Abramoff investigation, Norquist was exposed for selling support from his front groups to corporations. In one damning e-mail, Norquist is promised $50,000 dollars in exchange for providing his Americans for Tax Reform support to one of Abramoff’s clients. Today, Norquist was not only parroting the PowerPoint talking points at the press conference, but he also brought in other key conservative movement leaders and Republican lawmakers to the event.
In addition to the front groups, the loudest voice against net neutrality is still Glenn Beck, who has smeared free Internet proponents as Marxists and Communists, and has adopted the attack that net neutrality constitutes a “government takeover.” However, it is important to realize that even Beck is being fed with opposition research dug up by operatives at Americans for Prosperity. This research document, compiled by Americans for Prosperity staffers, lays out point by point the attacks Beck has used in the past few weeks to disparage net neutrality supporters. If Beck picks up this new outreach to video game enthusiasts and the false comparison to Chinese censorship, then the impact of the “Net Brutality” PowerPoint will be even more apparent… [emphasis original]
If you need a better understanding of why Net Neutrality is so important to keep, I explained it on May 6. Be sure of this. If the giant telecoms has an honest explanation for their position, they would not be planning a phony Chinese blog to deceive you. This is a fight we must win.
Today a right-left coalition scored a victory for the American people when Senators voted 96-0 to audit the Federal Reserve.
The Center for Media and Democracy’s Wall Street Bailout Tally shows that since 2008, the U.S. government has flooded Wall Street banks and financial institutions with $4.7 trillion dollars in taxpayer money, mostly in the form of loans from the Fed reserve. The Fed has never told us which firms got these loans and what type of collateral American taxpayers got in return. This will now be revealed. We will also get an accounting of the Fed’s “stealth” bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It is important to note that in November 2008, Bloomberg News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the most basic of bailout information, but the Fed stalled forcing Bloomberg into court. Two sets of judges have ordered the Fed to turn over the information, but the Fed keeps stonewalling, appealing the case again last week. The Senate bill now forces the Fed to turn over this critical information. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont pulled together a right-left coalition that got the job done.
Even though the Senators were not able to garner enough support to secure a regulator annual audit as they had hoped, their measure broke through the Fed’s stonewall and will reveal important “Secrets of the Temple.”
But More Needs to be Done! Defend Lincoln Language
Late in the game, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas), Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, demanded that provisions be put into the bill that would force the biggest banks to spin off their swaps (or derivatives) desks into a separate entity. That entity can remain part of the bank holding company, but it no longer has access to the Federal Reserve’s flow of funds, FDIC insurance and the taxpayer guarantee.
In one fell swoop, her measure effectively forces banks to spin off their destructive gambling arms, protects the taxpayers and downsizes the behemoth banks. What’s not to love? The howls from Wall Street could be heard in Wisconsin. Senator Judd Gregg is offering an amendment to strip this language from the bill, and Senator Chambliss will offer other weakening amendments. If you have a chance, tell your Senators to support Lincoln and defeat weakening amendments, the Senate switchboard is (202) 224-3121.
Support Merkley-Levin, a Ban on Conflict-of-Interest Trading
Also ask your Senators where they stand on the “Merkley-Levin Amendment,” cosponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin. This amendment would stop banks from engaging in Goldman-Sachs-style bets against their own clients. Reining in this practice, called “proprietary trading,” would significantly strengthen the financial reform bill. Other great amendments are in the works if Senator Reid will leave enough time for meaningful debate, including Senator Dorgan’s measure to ban "naked" credit default swaps, the worst "weapons of economic destruction." Tell the Senate to "Break Up the Banks" at BanksterUSA.org, if you have not yet had a chance to contact your Senator… [emphasis original]
Frankly, I think Bernie was being more diplomatic than honest. This was no coalition of grass roots organizations from left and right. The Teabaggers are astroturf, and he knows it. However, the Teabaggers are also heavily infiltrated by supporters of Ron Paul. The GOP caved, making a big show of bipartisanship only because they could not keep their storm troopers in line on this one issue.
Also, I consider it poor policy for progressive organizations to ally themselves with right-wing organizations. Supporting the same bill is fine, but active cooperation lends such monsters as Grover Norquist credibility they do not deserve.
The Obama administration is proposing to split up an Interior Department agency that oversees offshore drilling, as part of its response to the Gulf Coast oil spill.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called for a plan to split the Minerals Management Service in two. One agency would be charged with inspecting oil rigs, investigating oil companies and enforcing safety regulations, while the other would oversee leases for drilling and collection of billions of dollars in royalties. That would separate the agency’s two core responsibilities, which critics say are diametrically opposed — making money off the industry, while also cracking down on it in ways that may affect the industry’s bottom line.
"The tragedy aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the massive spill for which BP is responsible has made the importance and urgency of our reform agenda even clearer," Salazar said. Salazar said he was making the changes "so there is no conflict, real or perceived, with respect to those functions."
He said the administration has been aggressive in its response to the Gulf Coast spill, "but we must also aggressively expand the activities, resources and independence of federal inspectors so they can ensure that offshore oil and gas operations are following the law, protecting their workers, and guarding against the type of disaster that happened on the Deepwater Horizon."
The Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department, oversees the nation’s natural gas, oil and other mineral resources. The agency collects and distributes more than $13 billion per year in revenues from federal leases for offshore and onshore drilling. It also enforces laws and regulations that apply to drilling operations.
Some critics have said the two roles are in conflict and are one reason the agency has long been accused of being too cozy with the oil and natural gas industry. There is growing bipartisan sentiment in Congress in favor of toughening oversight of MMS. At a minimum, lawmakers want to ensure that the agency’s director is a Senate-confirmed position…
Since Cheney gutted the MMS and staffed it with his own cronies, the MMS has virtually ceased to function as a regulatory agency. These is the same agency whose personnel were attending orgies with industry supplied prostitutes in Denver. To say that the regulators are in bed with the companies they regulate is an understatement. Not only does this agency need to be split up, but also, the GOP moles (political appointees who transferred to permanent nonpartisan positions) need to be flushed.
Yesterday I caught up with comments, but got no visiting in. Don’t expect much from me today, because it’s my volunteer day to co-facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:09. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From TPM: Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) has been defeated for renomination in his Democratic primary by a more conservative opponent after 14 terms in office.
Dang! We lose a blue dog and the best we can get in that district is another blue dog with even more GOP fleas. 🙁
From Public Policy Polling: For the first time since October a majority of Americans express approval of Barack Obama’s job performance on PPP’s monthly national poll. 50% give him good marks to 46% who disapprove.
I wonder if this reflects the report that Americans now pay less (proportionately) in taxes than at any time since the Truman administration.
From BBC: Britain has its first full coalition government for 70 years after David Cameron was confirmed as Prime Minister of a Tory-Liberal Democrat leadership.
If he follows in Margaret Thatcher’s footsteps, he will transfer wealth to the rich while balancing the budget on the backs of the UK’s poor and middle classes.
Barack Obama may have had an excellent reason for choosing Elena Kagan, according to Glen Greenwald.
It’s anything but surprising that President Obama has chosen Elena Kagan to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Nothing is a better fit for this White House than a blank slate, institution-loyal, seemingly principle-free careerist who spent the last 15 months as the Obama administration’s lawyer vigorously defending every one of his assertions of extremely broad executive authority. The Obama administration is filled to the brim with exactly such individuals — as is reflected by its actions and policies — and this is just one more to add to the pile. The fact that she’ll be replacing someone like John Paul Stevens and likely sitting on the Supreme Court for the next three decades or so makes it much more consequential than most, but it is not a departure from the standard Obama approach.
The New York Times this morning reports that "Mr. Obama effectively framed the choice so that he could seemingly take the middle road by picking Ms. Kagan, who correctly or not was viewed as ideologically between Judge Wood on the left and Judge Garland in the center." That’s consummate Barack Obama. The Right appoints people like John Roberts and Sam Alito, with long and clear records of what they believe because they’re eager to publicly defend their judicial philosophy and have the Court reflect their values. Beltway Democrats do the opposite: the last thing they want is to defend what progressives have always claimed is their worldview, either because they fear the debate or because they don’t really believe those things, so the path that enables them to avoid confrontation of ideas is always the most attractive, even if it risks moving the Court to the Right.
Why would the American public possibly embrace a set of beliefs when even its leading advocates are unwilling to publicly defend them and instead seek to avoid that debate at every turn? Hence: Obama chooses an individual with very few stated beliefs who makes the Right quite comfortable [National Review delinked] (even as they go through the motions of opposing her). As Kevin Drum writes:
[R]ight now Obama has the biggest Democratic majority in the Senate he’s ever going to have. So why not use it to ensure a solidly progressive nominee like Diane Wood instead of an ideological cipher like Kagan? . . . . When Obama compromises on something like healthcare reform, that’s one thing. Politics sometimes forces tough choices on a president. But why compromise on presidential nominees? Why Ben Bernanke? Why Elena Kagan? He doesn’t have to do this. Unfortunately, the most likely answer is: he does it because he wants to… [emphasis original]
It’s even less surprising that Obama would not want to choose someone like Diane Wood. If you were Barack Obama, would you want someone on the Supreme Court who has bravely insisted on the need for Constitutional limits on executive authority, resolutely condemned the use of Terrorism fear-mongering for greater government power, explicitly argued against military commissions and indefinite detention, repeatedly applied the progressive approach to interpreting the Constitution on a wide array of issues, insisted upon the need for robust transparency and checks and balances, and demonstrated a willingness to defy institutional orthodoxies even when doing so is unpopular? Of course you wouldn’t. Why would you want someone on the Court who has expressed serious Constitutional and legal doubts about your core policies? Do you think that an administration that just yesterday announced it wants legislation to dilute Miranda rights in the name of Scary Terrorists — and has seized the power to assassinate American citizens with no due process — wants someone like Diane Wood on the Supreme Court?
One final thought about Kagan for now. As I said from the beginning, the real opportunity to derail her nomination was before it was made, because the vast majority of progressives and Democrats will get behind anyone, no matter who it is, chosen by Obama. That’s just how things work. They’ll ignore most of the substantive concerns that have been raised about her, cling to appeals to authority, seize on personal testimonials from her Good Progressive friends, and try to cobble together blurry little snippets to assure themselves that she’s a fine pick. In reality, no matter what they know about her (and, more to the point, don’t know), they’ll support her because she’s now Obama’s choice, which means, by definition, that she’s a good addition to the Supreme Court. Our politics is nothing if not tribal, and the duty of Every Good Democrat is now to favor Kagan’s confirmation. Conservatives refused to succumb to those rules and ended up with Sam Alito instead of Harriet Miers, but they had a much different relationship to George Bush than progressives have to Obama (i.e., conservatives — as they proved several times late in Bush’s second term [Miers, immigration, Dubai Ports] — were willing to oppose their leader whey they disagreed). The White House knows that progressives will never try to oppose any important Obama initiative, and even if they were inclined, they lack the power to do so (largely because unconditional support guarantees impotence).
All that said, I’ve said everything I had to say about Kagan in the pre-nomination process in order to enable as informed a public discussion as possible, and am not going to endlessly repeat those criticisms now just for the sake of doing so. Perhaps the confirmation process, for once, will yield some valuable information about the nominee and we’ll acquire at least some insight into how she thinks and what her judicial values and methods will be. I’m willing to keep an open mind… [emphasis added]
The Republican National Committee (RNC) caused a firestorm Monday after questioning Elena Kagan’s support for the judicial philosophy of the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.
The initial charge from the RNC arrived even before Kagan stepped up to the White House lectern to accept her nomination.
RNC Chairman Michael Steele targeted her praise for the jurisprudence of Marshall, a liberal icon, and a speech in which Marshall called the Constitution “defective.”
By the end of the day, the RNC was defending its statement, responding to criticism from bloggers that Steele had overlooked the stain of slavery on the nation’s history.
The memo the RNC sent to reporters Monday morning stopped short of directly attacking Kagan for her use of Marshall’s words, but it offered a preview of the lines of criticism that may come from Republican senators opposed to her nomination.
However, Senate Republicans did not immediately follow Steele’s lead.
The GOP document also pointed to Kagan’s support for a lawsuit against the government’s efforts to deny federal funding to law schools that banned military recruiters from their campus in protest of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays.
The comments in question came from a 1993 tribute to Marshall that Kagan penned in the Texas Law Review. She quoted from a speech Marshall gave in 1987 in which he said the Constitution as originally conceived and drafted was “defective.”
Marshall cited in particular the definition in the original Constitution to slaves as representing three-fifths of “free Persons” when counting the nation’s population. That reference was rendered moot after the Civil War with the ratification of the 13th and 14th amendments abolishing slavery and granting full citizenship to all people born in the U.S.
Kagan also quoted Marshall as saying the Supreme Court’s mission was to “show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged.”
“Given Kagan’s opposition to allowing military recruiters access to her law school’s campus, her endorsement of the liberal agenda and her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution ‘as originally drafted and conceived,’ was ‘defective,’ you can expect Senate Republicans to respectfully raise serious and tough questions to ensure the American people can thoroughly and thoughtfully examine Kagan’s qualifications and legal philosophy before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment,” Steele said in the statement.
The RNC document is likely just the opening salvo from GOP researchers, who have spent months examining the public records of all of Obama’s potential Supreme Court nominees. Yet an effort to associate Kagan negatively with Marshall, who is revered by liberals and African-Americans, could prove explosive.
Kagan, currently the solicitor general, is a former law clerk for Marshall… [emphasis added]
Marshall and Kagan are right. Until amended, the Constitution was defective. The GOP is wrong. So this reveals little about Kagan. Since the GOP believes that slavery was not a defect, it says a lot about where they stand.
Here’s Keith again with Ezra Kilen and some of Kagan’s problems
So what now? We can expect obstruction from the GOP. maybe even a filibuster.
TWI’s Mike Lillis catches Mitch McConnel mid flip-flop. Last month, he ruled out a Republican filibuster of any Obama nominee, unless that person had "really bizarre fews. [sic]"
But today he’s saying that "it’s way to early to be making a decision about the issue of whether there should be a 60 vote threshold on the nominee." Way too early, because it’s not like they’ve already been through a nomination process for Kagan when she received confirmation as Solicitor General, or as Lillis put it, as if she "just arrived in a coffee can from Pluto."
What could have changed McConnells’ mind? Could it have been this?
In an April 22 conference call with RNC members, which was recorded and passed my way by a source, activist Curt Levey, director of the conservative Committee for Justice, offered Republican operatives candid strategic advice, pressing them to put up a fight against even the most moderate of judges, and providing a glimpse of the GOP’s playbook for obstructing Obama nominees.
The crux of the GOP’s strategy is to use Obama’s nominee to wedge vulnerable Democratic senators away from the party, and drag the confirmation fight out until the August congressional recess, to eat up precious time Democrats need to round out their agenda.
"[I]t wouldn’t take much GOP resistance to push a final vote into early August," Levey advised. "And, look, the closer we could get it to the election, frankly, the better. It would be great if we could push it past the August recess because that forces the red and purple state Democrats to have to go home and face their constituents."
To make matters worse, from Diane’s source, I learned that the major corporate players degenerated to playing “It’s their fault”.
Early finger-pointing erupted Monday among companies involved in the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and unstopped leak of millions of gallons of oil, on the eve of the first congressional hearings into the accident.
A top American executive for BP, Lamar McKay, said a critical safety device known as a blowout-preventer failed catastrophically. Separately, the owner of the rig off Louisiana’s coast said BP managed it and was responsible for all work conducted at the site. A third company defended work that it performed on the deepwater oil well as "accepted industry practice" before last month’s explosion.
"We are looking at why the blowout preventer did not work because that was to be the fail-safe in case of an accident," McKay, chairman and president of BP America, said in testimony prepared for a Senate hearing Tuesday. A copy of his testimony was obtained by The Associated Press. "Transocean’s blowout preventer failed to operate."
The chief executive for Swiss-based Transocean, which owned the oil rig and the blowout preventer, shifted blame to BP.
"All offshore oil and gas production projects begin and end with the operator, in this case BP," CEO Steven Newman said in his Senate testimony, also obtained by the AP. Newman said BP was responsible for submitting a detailed plan specifying where and how a well is to be drilled, cased, cemented and completed.
Newman also said BP’s contractor, Halliburton Inc., was responsible for encasing the well in cement, putting a temporary plug in the top of the well and ensuring the cement’s integrity. That cementing process was dictated by BP’s well plan, Newman said.
A Halliburton executive, Tim Probert, said the company safely finished a cementing operation 20 hours before the rig went up in flames. Probert said Halliburton completed work on the well according to accepted industry practice and at the direction of federal regulators.
The blame-game took hold on Capitol Hill as Congress and federal investigators were to begin a series of hearings in Washington and on the Gulf Coast. Two Senate hearings were set for Tuesday, and a House hearing was scheduled for Wednesday. In Louisiana, near the disaster site, a six-member panel that includes investigators from the Interior Department and Coast Guard was to begin two days of hearings.
McKay, the BP executive, said the company wants answers itself. He disclosed that the company has at least 40 people internally investigating the accident, but he acknowledged that the cause is still a mystery. Transocean has its own investigative team, Newman said.
"We are looking at our own actions and those of our contractors," McKay wrote in his Senate testimony.
Newman said it makes no sense to suggest the blowout preventer caused the accident. He said it was ironic that attention was being focused on the blowout preventer because at the time of the explosion drilling at the site was finished.
The blowout preventer, made by Houston-based Cameron Inc., is a 450-ton piece of equipment that sits on top of the wellhead during drilling operations. It contains valves that can be closed remotely in case of an accident or increase in pressure.
"The systems are intended to be fail-safe; sadly and for reasons we do not yet understand, in this case, they were not," McKay said.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation, but lawsuits filed after the disaster have alleged it occurred when Halliburton workers improperly capped the well — a process known as cementing. Halliburton denies wrongdoing.
According to a 2007 study by the Minerals Management Service, an agency within the Interior Department, cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 rig blowouts in the gulf between 1992 and 2006… [emphasis added]
Yesterday I kept up with comments and returned visits. Today, I have volunteer paperwork to do, so we’ll see how the day goes.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:57. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Raw Story: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Monday he will stand down as Labour leader by September, and that his party is to hold formal talks on a power-sharing deal with the Liberal Democrats.
Brown said he would "ask the Labour party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership contest" but he would "play no part", adding he hoped a successor will be in place for Labour’s annual conference in September.
I understand that the Liberal Democrats demanded Brown’s head as a precondition to discussing a coalition. Bravo!
From The Borowitz Report: Howling in protest over Obama Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s lack of judging experience, leading Republicans today urged the President to withdraw Kagan and instead nominate Paula Abdul.
“The American people have had years of watching Paula’s judging expertise, and they know that she is fair,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 😉
Paula Abdul, whack-job though she may be, would be an improvement over Roberts, Scalia, Thomas or Alito.
From Maine Politics: An overwhelming majority of delegates to the Maine Republican convention tonight voted to scrap the proposed party platform and replace it with a document created by a group of Tea Party activists.
Dang! Poor Maine! Now the only reason I’d go to the other Portland is to meet Kay.
Net neutrality, a guiding principle for preserving a free and fair Internet, means that Internet service providers are not allowed to discriminate based on content for its customers. However, telecommunications firms — like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and others — are firmly against net neutrality because they would like to increase their profits by deciding which websites customers can see, and at what speed. The telecom industry has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into a lobby campaign against net neutrality. As the FCC now takes up net neutrality rule making, the industry is pushing an “outside approach” of hiring front groups and astroturf operatives.
