Once again, I must bow to the superior and godlike abilities of the master wordsmith who is Chris:

And the Stevens decision would indeed be a landmark ruling, a return to sanity – if we were still in an era where the institutions of American government and society were actually functional, and office-holders felt bound by law. But if there is no political will in the American establishment to enforce the ruling – to make it mean what it manifestly says – then it will be nothing more than a pretty ornament for the Republic’s coffin.

And where does that will exist? Not in Congress, not in the media, not in the streets – and certainly not in the confused, craven Democratic opposition. Yet the true nature of the Regime’s wide-ranging war on liberty has been glaringly obvious for years. I’ve been writing about Bush’s power grab in the Moscow Times and elsewhere since November 2001, when I noted that he had given himself the right to order the killing or incarceration of anyone on earth whom he arbitrarily deemed a terrorist – or even a terrorist suspect. This was reported openly at the time, with approval from the gung-ho corporate media and the American political establishment, with record-breaking poll numbers for Bush – and nary a peep from the Democrats. The first press reports of tortured captives quickly followed, again without controversy.  Read more 

Wow. Anyone want to help me make sense of this? It’s pretty…amazing.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.

We aren’t earning anything by going on that internet. Now I’m not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people  Read more 

I think he’s talking about a Disney movie:

My secret super duper Senate sources are telling me that this bill has a long way to pass. To take a small example, the broadcast flag, which the EFF detests, passed in the Senate Committee, but Senator Sununu made it clear that he’s going to revisit the issue on the floor. There are also concerns about new tax measures in the bill, which will prompt more fighting on the floor. Stevens just doesn’t have the 60 needed to pass the measure, and it’s not clear that Frist even wants to schedule the time for it. In addition, the partisanized nature of the net neutrality vote means that Senators are becoming entrenched.  Read more 

So I just finished reading this little summary Matt had on the bill containing the “kill Net Neutrality” language we’ve all been screaming about. Matt says:

So yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee had a markup of the Stevens bill. There are 214 amendments to get through, and they didn’t really get through many of them. The Committee didn’t vote on the net neutrality issue, or the big bill itself. The Senators will pick this up again on Tuesday.

Hear that, kids! There’s still time to make some phone calls! Git busy!

The Stevens bill is being rushed through the process; it’s an extremely complicated piece of legislation with far reaching changes that extend beyond net neutrality. Typically, telecom bills take several Congressional cycles, because it’s hard stuff to understand. The bill just doesn’t need to get done this year, and the whispers that it won’t get done are getting louder. In an election year, a lot of Senators don’t want to have to vote on some of the more controversial provisions. The telecom lobbyists are leaning hard to push this through, and Ted Stevens, ever the appropriator and deal-cutter, wants this badly, so we’ll see what happens.

So that’s where we are on the political front.  Read more