The FCC recently voted to advance the process to pass “Net Neutrality” regulations, something Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and others have called “the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet.” CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the issue in this week’s Freedom Minute. Watch the video below.
Immediately following the 2006 elections, when Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, then-Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi said, “The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.”
It wasn’t the first time Pelosi (and other current Congressional leaders) made that promise. Nor was it the last.
Today, nearly three years later, the lead story on Politico.com begins:
A leaked document shows that House ethics investigators are probing the activities of nearly three dozen lawmakers…
“The House ethics committee said Thursday that it was opening two new investigations — one into the foreclosure scandal of Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) and one involving financial questions about Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and her husband.
“But shortly after the committee met, chairs Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) interrupted proceedings on the House floor to say that an internal document on secret committee proceedings had been leaked to The Washington Post — and that it would name the names of many other members who had drawn the attention of either the committee or the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“According to the Post, the document identifies more than 30 House members.”
Read the full Politico.com story here.
The Washington Post had the scoop. The report by the Post’s Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane can be read here.
This week’s installment of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. For those readers who haven’t had a chance to read it, below is a summary of its contents:
Lee: Obama’s “Hair of the Dog” Economic Policy Creates Uncertainty, Not Lasting Recovery
Senik: Education Reform Awakens the Silent Majority
Freedom Minute Video: Government’s Next Takeover Target – The Internet
Podcast: Obama’s Foreign Policy… or Lack Thereof – Interview with Troy Senik
Jester’s Courtroom: Defective Brief Lawsuit Dismissed
Editorial Cartoons: Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz: Question of the Week
Notable Quotes: Quotes of the Week
If you are not already signed up to receive the Liberty Update, sign up here.
As President Obama’s FCC moves forward to impose burdensome Net Neutrality regulations on the Internet and just in time for Halloween, CFIF this week released the following illustration highlighting the intricate web between the Obama Administration and Google, a leading supporter of Net Neutrality. The illustration raises the question: Is Net Neutrality merely a trick on Internet users or just a treat for Google’s welfare?
James Pethokoukis, Money and Politics columnist and blogger for Reuters, notes that the FCC’s decision to proceed with a process of imposing so-called Net Neutrality rules on Internet network providers is not only “curious as well as wrongheaded,” it could result in the next “systemic risk” for the U.S. economy.
Questioning the wisdom and necessity of strict Internet regulations to be imposed under the false promise of “neutrality,” Pethokoukis wrote:
The financial crisis that has convulsed the global economy for the past two years should be a potent reminder to communications regulators that the best of government intentions can create horrible, though unintended, consequences. …
“Like physicians and Fed governors, the first goal of regulators should be to do no harm. And that is especially true when they are trying to impose a solution in search of a problem. Broadband prices, for one thing, are on the decline. The average cost of consumer broadband has dropped to less than $20 a month from $50 a month in 2001. And more people have access. As late of 2004, 70 percent of households still used dial-up modems for web access. Today, just 10 percent do with broadband speeds doubling over that period. Tough to find a market failure here. …
“But the FCC — with the full encouragement of the Obama administration — nonetheless intends to push forward with seeming little concern about the unintended consequences of intervening into a well-functioning sector vital to the American economy. At the very least, the FCC will likely face years of court battles over the rule that could serve to paralyze the sector. Now there’s your systemic risk.”
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, whose company has been lobbying hard in support of Net Neutrality, admitted recently, “It is possible for the government to screw the Internet up, big-time.”
Perhaps Google and other large corporate content providers who wish to use the heavy hand of government to continue to freeload on the backs of ordinary Internet consumers should heed Schmidt’s warning.
Below is the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez.
If you haven’t done so already, read “All the President’s Boys and Girls,” Thomas Humber’s recent commentary on this issue.
View more of Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website.
In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino comments on how the culture of corruption in Washington has gotten worse, not better, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. Watch the video below.
This week’s installment of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. For those readers who haven’t had a chance to read it, below is a summary of its contents:
Humber: All the President’s Boys and Girls
Senik: The Inconvenient Truths Behind Health Care Reform
Lee: From “Honest Abe” to “Double-Talk Barack“
Freedom Minute Video: Nancy Pelosi Coddling Corruption
Podcast: 12 Looming Questions on Health Care Reform – Interview with The Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio
Jester’s Courtroom: How Much Exactly Is a Billion Trillion Dollars?
Editorial Cartoons: Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz: Question of the Week
Notable Quotes: Quotes of the Week
If you are not already signed up to receive the Liberty Update, sign up here.
The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines this morning to advance the process of imposing strict net neutrality regulations on the Internet.
According to a report in The Hill:
With Thursday’s vote, the five-member panel began the process to move forward with open-Internet regulations announced last month by the agency’s chairman, Juilus Genachowski. His proposal would formally codify the FCC’s current four principles intended to prevent Internet service providers from giving preferential treatment to certain content and services and therefore deciding which applications consumers have access to. He also proposed two additional principles, one to ensure providers do not discriminate between applications and another to require Internet companies to disclose their network management practices to consumers.
“Genachowski had the full support of Democratic Commissioners Micheal Copps and Mignon Clyburn, as expected. Republican Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Atwell Baker dissented to the idea that government regulation is needed to keep the Internet open, but supported the beginning of a fact-finding process to learn more about the technical and legal questions surrounding net neutrality.”
At an event put on earlier this week by the Safe Internet Alliance, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) cautioned against the imposition of net neutrality regulation, calling it the “fairness doctrine for the Internet.”
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, penned a great op-ed in Roll Call this week about the climate change legislation (aka Cap-and-Trade) being pushed by the Obama White House and the majority leadership in Congress.
No matter how many times Congress debates it, and no matter how environmentalists couch it, cap-and-trade will do virtually nothing to stop global warming, and cap-and-trade, as Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said, ‘is a tax, and a great big one.’ These are the fundamentals in the cap-and-trade debate…
We need to remind the American public, for example, that the 1,400-page Waxman-Markey monstrosity is a monument to big government that will make food, gasoline and electricity more expensive, increase mandates on small businesses, and increase the size and reach of the federal bureaucracy — all while doing nothing to affect climate change.
The Kerry-Boxer legislation introduced Sept. 30 is, in many ways, worse than the Waxman-Markey bill. This reflects the attitude of one of the bill’s sponsors, who said recently that, because of the recession, businesses should be expected to make even more expensive emissions reductions. While it’s never a good time to pass a national energy tax, one would have thought that imposing such a tax during a recession is especially bad.”
Read the full column here.
P.T. Barnum, the American businessman, politician and showman remembered most for his celebrated hoaxes, is widely credited with coining the phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Judging by the fortune he was able to acquire on his traveling band of circus freaks, one would be hard-pressed to argue Barnum’s point. Indeed today, nearly 150 years later, the so-called leaders of the current Congress are seemingly taking Barnum’s words to heart.
“Medicare for Everyone” — That’s the headline branded above the fold today on the front page of the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill. The accompanying story leads with:
Say hello to ‘Medicare Part E’ — as in, ‘Medicare for Everyone.’
“House Democrats are looking at re-branding the public health insurance option as Medicare, an established government healthcare program that is better known than the public option.
“The strategy could benefit Democrats struggling to bridge the gap between liberals in their party, who want the public option, and centrists, who are worried it would drive private insurers out of business.”
In other words, Congressional Democrats have resorted to scheming up a public relations re-branding campaign in an effort to sell their government-run public option (the hoax) to an American public (in their minds, the sucker) that has thus far rejected it at every turn.
Step right up folks! Welcome to the modern day version of “The Greatest Show on Earth” that is “health care reform.”
Below is the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez.
View more of Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website.
The Baucus Bill, passed by the Senate Finance Committee last week, has been written and filed… all 1,502 pages of it. The public posting of the bill is, of course, after the Committee passed it without reading it. After the absolute certainty that it isn’t going to be the bill on which the entire Senate votes.
You can read it here, but we wouldn’t recommend wasting your time. Harry Reid and other members of “the most open and transparent Congress in history” are presently working behind closed doors with senior aides of “the most open and transparent Administration in history” to draft yet another version of ObamaCare that will ultimately be considered by the full Senate. News reports indicate that a floor debate on the new, secret “reform” legislation could begin as early as next week. But that all depends on whether the White House and Senate negotiators are able to buy off the docs and finish their other back-room wheelings and dealings by week’s end.
Didn’t President Obama promise to air all health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN?
For all you policy junkies out there who just can’t resist, we must warn you that reading the Baucus Bill can cause severe anxiety, eye strain, sudden spikes in blood pressure, heart palpitations and chronic disgust in your government. If you decide to proceed, it’s best you read it online rather than printing it off and carrying it over to that comfy Lazy Boy. It’s still unclear whether hernia operations will be included on the final list of government-approved procedures covered by what is likely to be your new government-approved insurance plan.
Last month, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski laid out his plan to impose new “net neutrality” regulations on Internet service providers, a move which could severely restrict their ability to adequately manage the flow of data and information through their broadband and wireless networks.
CFIF and others have warned on numerous occasions (see here and here and here) that the imposition of strict “net neutrality” rules would stifle the very innovation that Internet and wireless consumers have grown to demand and expect of an industry that’s been able to rapidly evolve during a time when most other sectors of the economy continue to struggle.
Even The Washington Post editorialized that Genachowski’s net neutrality regulations “will jeopardize [‘an unfettered platform for competition, creativity and entrepreneurial activity’] — and stifle further investments by ISPs — with attempts to micromanage what has been a vibrant and well-functioning marketplace.”
Now, some Members of Congress are ramping up their opposition as well.
Questioning the necessity for and warning against the new rules, 18 Republican Senators, led by Senator Sam Brownback, sent a letter yesterday to Chairman Genachowski:
We fear that the proposals you announced during your September 21, 2009 speech will be counterproductive and risk harming the great advancements in broadband speed and deployment that we have witnessed in recent years and will limit the freedom of the Internet.”
The letter goes on to read:
You recognize that significant progress with respect to broadband deployment has been made ‘thanks to substantial investment and technological ingenuity.’ Broadband service providers have invested billions of dollars in building and upgrading their networks to better serve their customers. However, burdensome regulations will have a chilling effect on further private sector investment, at a time when the U.S. economy can least afford such an impact.
“It is because of significant competition among broadband service providers that consumers have more choices and are enjoying the best online experience that has ever been available. … Mobile networks are getting faster, making such networks even stronger competitors to wireline networks. Market-based solutions and competition is working.”
Read the full letter here (.pdf).
The FCC is scheduled to vote next week on whether to unveil the proposed regulations, which are reportedly still a work in progress, to the public.
Despite expressing “concerns” about the Baucus “health care reform” bill, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) announced she will vote “yes” today in the Senate Finance Committee.
CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case currently before the Supreme Court that could determine once and for all whether the right to keep and bear arms is a “fundamental” right.
With the Senate Finance Committee set to vote tomorrow on Senator Max Buacus’ $839 billion “health care reform” bill, the health insurance industry is out with a new study warning that the legislation will dramatically increase health insurance premiums for U.S. families.
The study, commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans (“AHIP”) and prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, “makes clear that several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system,” said AHIP President and CEO Karen Ignagni. “Between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system.”
Those provisions in the Baucus bill analyzed by the study include:
The White House and Congressional proponents of “reform” immediately responded with a typical “shoot-the-messenger” reaction. They have yet to substantively dispute the study’s actual findings.
In response to questions being raised about the justification for President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, a Democratic National Committee official is accusing the GOP of siding with terrorists.
DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse earlier today told Politico:
The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.”
Among those praising the surprise decision by the Nobel Committee? CNN reports:
Praise came from … a senior official from Hamas — the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza.”
This week’s installment of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. For those readers who haven’t had a chance to read it, below is a summary of its contents:
Senik: ObamaCare – Fiction, by Acclamation
Lee: Political Opposition to Destructive “Net Neutrality” Gains Momentum
CFIF Staff Commentary: Jubilation over the “Health Care Reform” Bill that Isn’t a Bill and Isn’t Going To Be the Bill
Batkins: Big Business, Big Liberals
Freedom Minute Video: Gunning for the Second Amendment
Podcast: One Nation, Without God – Interview with GOPUSA.com’s Bobby Eberle
Jester’s Courtroom: Tired of the Legal System
Editorial Cartoons: Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz: Question of the Week
Notable Quotes: Quotes of the Week
If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.
Washington Post – Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
London Times – Absurd Decision Makes a Mockery of the Prize
WSJ – ObamaCare: The Greatest Show on Earth
The Examiner – Health Care Tab to be Paid by Taxpayers, Businesses, Seniors
CNSNews.com — Hoyer Won’t Rule Out Voting on Senate Health Bill Without Changes and Sending it Directly to President
Washington Times — Key Democrats Align With Military on Buildup
Michelle Malkin – Crime, Census and Censorship
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