Obama Comes Out Strong (Again) For Net Neutrality

First Google vehemently denied the Wall Street Journal's article about an alleged change of stance concerning Net Neutrality. Now Barack Obama is making a forceful statement of his own in reference to what was said about his policies concerning the freedom of the Internet from corporate dominance. It looks like the Journal is letting their irresponsible Editorial section up and over into the front.

From TPM:

Obama transition spokesperson Nick Shapiro told us moments ago that Obama's position -- strong support for net neutrality -- hasn't changed.

As we noted below, The Wall Street Journal set off a bit of a Web explosion today by reporting that support for net neutrality is eroding and asserting that that Google is supposedly turning against the idea and has approached major cable and phone companies with a secret proposal to "fast track" its content.

The Journal story (which was strongly disputed by Google and many others) also suggests, based on scant evidence, that Obama's position may have softened. But the paper didn't appear to contact the Obama team for any comment.

So we did. Asked if the Obama camp had shifted its stance in any way on net neutrality or softened its commitment to it, Shapiro answered: "No." Even limited public declarations (such as this one) from the Obama transition team about the incoming administration's priorities have been few and far between.

Ouch. Multiple smackdowns for the Journal today. Maybe they should do a little more research when trying to claim that Net Neutrality is under attack from left-leaning Google and the President-Elect. The backlash over the WSJ reporting is fantastic (except for the writer and editors) because it allows Net Neutrality advocates to get reaffirming statements from the big names that have spoken up for the important issue in the past such as the next President.

Bush's Lies About S-CHIP

As the S-CHIP override veto vote is coming up in two days, it is important to know what we are dealing with here. The President is trying to communicate that his proposal still increases S-CHIP, but only for the poorest of the poor.

Basically he could care less about people that consider themselves "middle class." The successful passage of this bill would serve as a tremendous blow to his ideology that government must not help average Americans. But for PR's sake, he does not want to look as mean as he is so he favors a "20 percent increase in funding" or so you would believe. The traditional media is reporting it as fact, but we can never count on them to discern facts or practice journalism here. Thankfully we have Media Matters.

From Media Matters:

An October 13 Wall Street Journal editorial criticizing the response by congressional Democrats to President Bush's veto of legislation that would increase funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by $35 billion over five years asserted that "in truth, the Bush Administration endorses a modest expansion" of the program. The editorial went on to claim that "after his veto Mr. Bush repeatedly signaled a willingness to compromise and spend more than the $5 billion he would prefer to pump in -- which is by itself a 20% expansion." In fact, Bush's plan to "pump in" an additional $5 billion over five years would underfund the program by $9 billion during that period, according to the Congressional Budget Office. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, in May, the CBO estimated that "maintaining the states' current programs under SCHIP would require funding of $39 billion for the 2007-2012 period." But a $5 billion increase from baseline funding -- Bush's proposal -- over five years would total $30 billion.

Bush and his handlers try to be clever, but this isn't fuzzy math here. The CBO knows what it's doing and easily exposes the President's bullshit. See, he would rather crush and underfund the program more than anything. His blind devotion to his so-called ideology is sickening to say the least.

Place Your Bets!

If you can wager money on something, chances are someone has set up a booking facility to make it happen. Here in the political world it has been taken care of well in advance of the 2008 Presidential nominations. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Iowa Electronic Markets and Intrade.com have opened up their own markets on who is going to win the Democratic and Republican nomination for the White House.

The odds are 2008 looks good for the Democrats. With a 54% chance to win the White House and a 70% chance to hold the Congress, this next election is looking pretty damn good. The numbers are based on generic matchups, though Hillary leads the pack along with McCain in his corner. This is easily explained by the long held assumptions that these two would be the nominees for some time now. Of course current events tell otherwise. Edwards and Obama are surging on the left, while McCain is being hampered by Giuliani and the rest of the pack due to his lack of religious winger support.

Giuliani declares Iraq is like New York

Okay, take a deep breath New Yorkers. It seems our former Mayor may have decided to run for President of the loony-bin rather than for the United States of America. An Op-Ed published early this morning by Giuliani and another possible Presidential contender Newt Gingrich in the Wall Street Journal is raising a lot of eyebrows.

First off they realize that civil projects are necessary and that military solutions will not work. Whew, at least they are smarter than the current President. Their main idea is to create a job corps protected by U.S. troops to improve the city with public works and what not. Then they can buy goods with the money they earn and in turn everyone can be happy and peaceful. Why will this work when things have been falling to pieces for the last four years? I'll let them say it in their own words.

There are many lessons from the successful welfare reforms in New York City that can be readily applied in Iraq. In the early 1990s, New York City suffered an average of 2,000 murders a year while more than 1.1 million people--one out of every seven New Yorkers--were unemployed and on welfare. Too many neighborhoods were pervaded by a sense of hopelessness that came from a combination of high crime, high unemployment and despair. "Workfare" proved an excellent method to change this destructive decades-long paradigm. It required able-bodied welfare recipients to work 20 hours a week in exchange for their benefits. In the process, we reasserted the value of the social contract, which says that for every right there is a responsibility, for every benefit an obligation.

Time to wake up boys. Iraq is NOTHING like New York City. Not now, not in the early 90s, not ever! Two thousand murders in a year is a terrible statistic in any city, but in Baghdad the death toll easily top 2,000 each month and is constantly rising! Their solution is utterly implausible because Giuliani and Gingrich are ignoring the reality of what is going on in Baghdad and Iraq.


The picture posted in the WSJ says more than enough regarding the opinion of this piece. Uncle Sam is gloriously bringing aid from the U.S. government (that can't fix it's own cities by the way) to the grateful citizens of Iraq. This is typical 'White Man's Burden' bullshit. The Iraqi people want us to leave as soon as possible. They know we have done far too much in regards to the decimation of their country. It is time to leave now, not to make more of a mess.