The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes. Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core…
Author: TRP
Meet the Unusual Plaintiffs Behind the Supreme Court Case That Could Destroy Obamacare
On March 4, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a lawsuit designed by conservative advocates to destroy Obamacare. If the plaintiffs prevail, about 8 million people could lose their health insurance. Premiums are likely to skyrocket by 35 percent or more, threatening coverage for millions of others. Health policy experts…
Cross-State Health Plans Prove Popular But Unsuccessful
Despite the potential to make more money, companies haven’t jumped at the opportunity in states that have lowered barriers. Insurance department officials in Georgia, Maine and Wyoming told Governing that no out-of-state insurers have expressed interest, and no such policies have been sold. Denise Burke, a senior policy and planning analyst with Wyoming’s insurance department, suspects…
Bikes Only: London Approves New Cyclist Superhighway Plan
London Mayor Boris Johnson’s ambitious plan to reshape how the city handles cyclist traffic got final approval Wednesday, clearing the way for the spread of segregated bike lanes and dedicated traffic signals. Johnson plans to create a network for cyclists that rivals the city’s transit system. “The board of Transport for London approved a plan…
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality
The internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance, if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network. The modems that enabled the internet were usable only because the FCC required the network to be open. Companies…
Outrage Over US Secret Approval of Genetically Engineered Trees
Groups from around the world today joined together to denounce the US government for allowing the first genetically engineered tree, a loblolly pine, to be legalized with no government or public oversight, with no assessment of their risks to the public or the environment, and without regard to overwhelming public opposition to GE trees….
In Which The Democrats Finally Get A Clue
There is something truly odd about the wealthiest country no longer with the wealthiest middle class, and in which every major competitor’s middle class is converging with ours’ in standards of living. This is the real end of American exceptionalism, in which working hard in the middle class is like being on a treadmill rather…
Israeli warplanes fly over Lebanon’s capital
Israeli warplanes have repeatedly violated Lebanon’s airspace in a breach of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which led to a ceasefire in the war of aggression the Israeli regime waged against Lebanon in 2006 and calls on Tel Aviv to respect Lebanon’s territorial integrity. via PressTV.
The Senate Just Cemented Obama’s Judicial Legacy
In its final act of the year, the Senate blew through a dozen U.S. district court nominees on Tuesday night. That puts Obama at a whopping 89 district court and circuit court confirmations for the year, and means he’ll wrap up his sixth year in office with a grand total of 305 district court and…
Officials: Kansas Faces $279M Budget Gap By July
For the next fiscal year, the new projection was $5.8 billion in revenues — short of the nearly $6.2 billion that legislative researchers had been assuming in their unofficial forecasts. The projected shortfall of $436 million is about 7 percent, and higher than the $282 million gap estimated unofficially. The new revenue projection for the…
I Voted – Now It’s Your Turn
. Voting has begun across the country. Today I went and cast my ballot, and you need to go and do the same. If you believe that you have any bit of responsibility for the success of the society, the state, and the city you live in, then this is your most basic responsibility –…
Israelis Chant “N*ggers Go Home” Carrying ISIS-Style Flags At Anti-African Rally
Video footage of Jewish Israelis with ISIS-style flags, chanting “niggers go home” at an anti-African rally in Tel Aviv on October 5 has surfaced. Hundreds of protesters could be heard in streets of Tel Aviv chanting anti-African racial slurs, following an Israeli High Court ruling to close down “Holot” detention facility within 90 days. Holot is…
St. Louis Cardinals fans clash with Ferguson protesters: ‘Let’s go, Darren!’
The fans then begin chanting “Darren Wilson” and clapping, and a man in a Cardinals jacket calls a protester a “crack head” and urges him to see a dentist. Some of the fans engage protesters in arguments over who is tougher, and at least one fan invites a protester to cross the guardrail into the…
Mass shooting hysteria and the death of John Crawford
…there may be unintended consequences to our oversaturated coverage of mass shootings and the widespread belief that they’re increasing, even if neither produces a single new law. In 2010, there was an incident at a Las Vegas-area Costco that bears a striking resemblance to what happened in Ohio. Police gunned down Eric Scott, 38, outside…
Obama Expands Pacific Ocean Preserve, Making It Largest In The World
President Barack Obama is carving out a wide swath the Pacific Ocean for an expanded marine preserve, putting the waters off-limits to drilling and most fishing in a bid to protect fragile underwater life. The revamped expanded Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument will cover 490,000 square miles – an area roughly three times the…
It’s Not That You’re Conservative, It’s That You’re Crazy
Chris Hayes highlights the mental disconnect on the right driven by ignorance, mental illness, egoism, and Obama Derangement Syndrome. We’ve seen this behavior for years(say one thing and do another), but the release of Bowe Bergdahl has created a new frenzy of schizophrenia.
Serviceman Denigrated, Mass Murderer Celebrated. This Is U.S.
How is it that a serviceman we know nothing about (Bergdahl) is being denigrated and questioned while someone we know a bit about and wish we didn’t (Roger) has his videos and words celebrated throughout all channels of the media. If it bleeds it leads? There’s something wrong when a society comes to a…
Virginia group hoists second huge Confederate flag along interstate
The thing about the confederate flag is that it is a secessionist battle flag. Without a doubt, the flag represents warfare, and at worst adherence to principles of racial supremacy. There are an infinite number of ways to celebrate history and heritage without the free and public flying of this flag. -SJ…
Banks Are Doing Better Than Ever. The Middle Class, Not So Much.
The nation’s banks are reporting record profits, according to new numbers out Wednesday from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Most of the rest of us aren’t faring quite so well. Bank profits topped $40.3 billion in the first three months of the year, according to the FDIC, attesting to a strong recovery… in the…
Supreme Court Upholds Warrantless Collection Of DNA
By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a Maryland law that allows police to collect DNA, without first getting a warrant, from persons who are arrested. “When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained…