As I wrote yesterday, Shelly Moore Capito won the ‘Pub primary for US Senate in West Virginia. She left an open House seat in West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District to run for the Senate. Four different ‘Pub candidates ran in the Primary to fill her 2nd District seat; Capito declined to endorse any of those candidate.
The winner of that four-way primary was the Tea Party candidate, Alex Moony, the former GOP ‘Pub Chairman for Maryland. Moony’s win once again exposed the lie that Tea Party candidates can’t win; he won handily over his other three opponents.
Moony had the backing of Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservative Fund (SCF) and grassroots organizations throughout the 2nd District. A number of other Tea Party groups, including the Tea Party Express, congratulated Moony on his win.
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Obama’s FCC has, in spite of widespread criticism and Congressional warnings, approved a Rule that, in affect, implements Net Neutrality. The Washington Post reports:
FCC approves plan to allow for paid priority on Internet
By Cecilia Kang,
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted in favor of advancing a proposal that could dramatically reshape the way consumers experience the Internet, opening the possibility of Internet service providers charging Web sites for higher-quality delivery of their content to American consumers.
The plan, approved in a three-to-two vote along party lines, could unleash a new economy on the Web where an Internet service provider such as Verizon would charge a Web site such as Netflix for the guarantee of flawless video streaming.
Smaller companies that can’t afford to pay for faster delivery would likely face additional obstacles against bigger rivals. And consumers could see a trickle-down effect of higher prices as Web sites try to pass along new costs of doing business with Internet service providers.
The proposal is not a final rule, but the three-to-two vote on Thursday is a significant step forward on a controversial idea that has invited fierce opposition from consumer advocates, Silicon Valley heavyweights, and Democratic lawmakers.
Even one of the Democratic commissioners who voted yes on Thursday expressed some misgivings about how the proposal had been handled.
“I would have done this differently. I would have taken the time to consider the future,” said Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who said the proposal can’t allow for clear fast lanes for the most privileged companies. She said she supported a proposal allowing the agency to consider questions on how it could prevent certain Web sites from being blocked, in addition to figuring out the overall oversight of broadband Internet providers.
“I believe the process that got us to rulemaking today was flawed,” she said. “I would have preferred a delay.”
The column continues here. FOX News chimed in with this article.
FCC to cripple the Internet
The Federal Communications Commission thinks the Internet in the United States can be run at two speeds. Backtracking from an earlier proposal, the FCC now believes it will be just fine to let Internet service providers (ISPs) control what you access online, with a few exceptions that the FCC would police.
While this new proposal might not kill the Internet, as it exists now, it would certainly cripple it – at least for American consumers and businesses.
Multiple leaks about FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to the commission, which will be presented on Thursday, indicate that the agency would not allow ISPs to give preferential treatment – faster Internet access – to their own subsidiaries. But it would allow other companies to pay for faster, more reliable access. (No matter that such a similar restriction has already failed in the case of Comcast giving preferential treatment to its own Golf Channel.)
If the Internet does not maintain net neutrality, wherein all digital data is treated the same, countless businesses will suffer.
Unfortunately, there is no halfway approach to how data should flow over the Internet. It’s a binary proposition: Either access to the Internet is equal, no matter the type or size of the business, or it is not. Letting Amazon have better access because it can pay and because it is not owned by AT&T will not make the situation more equal.
If the Internet does not maintain net neutrality, wherein all digital data is treated the same, countless businesses – tech companies in Silicon Valley, auto companies in Detroit, health care providers in Houston, startups in New York – will suffer. And, of course, you and I will pay for diminishing service and be denied the option of choosing what we want to read, view and listen to at faster speeds.
Representatives of the country’s largest ISPs are claiming that the one solution to preserving net neutrality in the U.S. – legally classifying broadband Internet utilities as utilities – “would threaten new investment in broadband infrastructure and jeopardize the spread of broadband technology across America, holding back Internet speeds and ultimately deepening the digital divide.” That’s according to a press release attached to a letter signed by Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In the first place, those companies are proposing to introduce their own digital divide, in which consumers would have no choice. Faster, more reliable Internet access would be granted only to those companies that would pay AT&T, Time Warner, et al. Want better access to your child’s school website? Too bad, Verizon will say no – unless the school can fork over the kind of fees that an Amazon or Facebook would pay. Thus, the digital divide would grow exponentially if these CEOs have their way.
Secondly, there is no “threat to new investment in broadband.” Indeed, the situation is quite the opposite. There is constant improvement in optical switches, which increase speeds. And there is plenty of motivation for ISPs to upgrade: It’s called competition (can you say Google Fiber?). You and I pay dearly for these services every month, but if it’s not enough to run their businesses properly, then AT&T, Time Warner and Verizon should start charging subscribers more up front and providing better service. Crippling the Internet for their own profit, with no promise of improvement, is not a solution. It’s a disincentive for ISPs to upgrade.
Moreover, access to and the flexibility of the Internet have done nothing but improve under the de facto standard of net neutrality since the early ’90s. Suddenly handing over control of how reliably and how fast certain content gets sent to a few companies would kneecap the U.S. economy.
There is more to the article at the FOX website. Go and read it all. The reality of this move by the Obama government is to control the use, access and content of the Internet. If they can’t restrict the free flow of information by act of Congress, they will do so through the back-door via regulation. The real purpose is to violate the 1st Amendment rights of the free flow of news and information.