House GOP votes to overturn net neutrality

By Reuters
April 8, 2011 @ 5:53 pm
By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives voted on Friday to reject Internet "neutrality" rules that were adopted last year to keep big Internet service providers from blocking certain traffic

House Republicans, in a 240-179 vote, pushed through a measure disapproving the Federal Communications Commission's rules. Tech and telecom giants such as Verizon Communications Inc and Microsoft Corp could be affected.

The outlook for further progress by the Republicans in rolling back the FCC's actions was uncertain, however.

While a similar measure has been offered in the Senate and has 39 co-sponsors, the White House said on Monday that President Barack Obama's advisers would recommend that he veto any such resolution.

The FCC's rules, approved in late December, banned Internet service providers from blocking traffic on their networks, while allowing providers -- such as Verizon, Comcast Corp and AT&T Inc -- to "reasonably" manage their networks and charge consumers based on usage.

Republicans argued in House debate that the FCC's rules needlessly impose government regulation on the Internet.

"The FCC has never had the authority to regulate the Internet," said Republican Representative Cliff Stearns.

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor called the House's vote "an important step to bring down the FCC's harmful and partisan plan to regulate the Internet."

Democrats argue that the FCC rules are needed to curb the growing market power of large service providers.

Disapproving the FCC rules "would give big phone and cable companies control over what websites Americans can visit, what applications they can run, and what devices they can use," said Democratic Representative Henry Waxman.

Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo called the Republican push against the FCC's rules "an ideological assault on a federal agency and its ability to provide basic consumer protections."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday dismissed challenges to the FCC rules that had been filed by Verizon and MetroPCS Communications Inc, ruling that the challenges were premature.

"In most parts of the country, companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast have a virtual monopoly over access to the Internet," Waxman said. "Without regulation, they can choke off innovation by charging for the right to communicate with their customers."

(Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: Reuters US Online Report Internet News

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/08/house-gop-votes-to-overturn-net-neutrality/print/

Impound the Private Computer of the Katherine Harris of Wisconsin and Bring in the Feds

Submitted by mark karlin on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 4:43pm.
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The Madison Cap Times is calling for a federal probe into the two-day delayed "discovery" of 7,582 votes for David Prosser, just enough to put the election out of the range of a state-funded recount for the "presumptive" winner Joanne Kloppenburg.

Without a federal investigation - given that Gov. Scott Walker loyalists would control an administrative State Board of Elections review - we can only maintain the deepest suspicions over what is occurring, and that it may be another theft of an election by the Republicans.

You have to go back to the 2000 Florida standoff to find a figure who so matches Katherine Harris as does Waukesha County clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who claims to have made a "mistake" unheard of before in the Badger State.

As the CapTimes and other Wisconsin outlets have noted, Nickolaus kept election results on her personal computer, even though she had been formally warned not to do so. She was given immunity from prosecution in 2002 for campaigning for Republicans on taxpayer's time. Furthermore, as the CapTimes notes, Nickolaus is "a former Republican legislative staffer who worked for Prosser when he served as Assembly speaker and with Gov. Scott Walker when he was a GOP rising star."

The Republicans have already brought in the lead attorney for the GOP in Bush v. Gore to ensure Prosser gets reseated on the high court.

But nothing short of the immediate impounding of the Nickolaus personal computer in question and the ballots of Waukesha County will ensure an untainted federal investigation - that is assuming the Obama administration has the resolve to ensure that election crimes were not committed. The email from Nickolaus's personal computer - if not yet removed from the hard drive - would be valuable enough in and of itself to see if there was coordination of this 48-hour "mistake."

BuzzFlash at Truthout was publishing during the 2000 Florida election - and we can say that, based on that experience, only the full force of a federal investigation can resolve the highly suspicious emergence of 7,582 votes for Prosser, after a considerable delay, by a county election chief with a history of not following vote-counting security measures and has personal relationships with both Prosser and Walker, not to mention an ongoing history with the Republican Party as an operative.

If the White House and the Department of Justice get weak-kneed about this one, it will be like letting Bush get anointed by the Supreme Court all over again.

Let the investigation into vote fraud in the Waukesha County election clerk's office begin with experts from DC.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12581

Video: Prescience - Keith Olbermann on the Citizens United ruling

Video: Bernie Sanders - An Extraordinarily Unfair Budget, 4-6-11

Labor Battles Hit Washington State: Protesters Demand Legislature Close Corporate Tax Loopholes

First Posted: 04/ 8/11 03:37 PM ET Updated: 04/ 8/11 07:01 PM ET

This story has been updated.

WASHINGTON -- Inspired by the uprising in Wisconsin over workers' rights, Washington state residents have turned out at the state Capitol this week to protest deep budget cuts the legislature is considering to address a looming $5 billion deficit.

The protesters are arguing the state should close tax loopholes for corporations and wealthy individuals before cutting valuable public services. Organizers are expecting anywhere from 4,000-6,000 people on Friday and said it could end up as one of the largest protests in the state in years.

"The main message is directed at the legislature," said Tim Welch, spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees. "Budget cuts are going so deep and we're cutting so deeply into the safety net that we really want them to consider closing several billion in closing tax loopholes. We just don't think it makes sense to give big tax breaks to banks and to those who own private jets...when you've got potentially more slots closing up at state colleges and universities."

The anger at corporations has been reflected in protesters' chants: "Hey hey, ho ho. Corporate greed has got to go!" and "Cut tax loopholes!" Fuse Washington, the state's largest progressive organization, also launched "Living Greedy" site -- a parody based on the popular Living Social site focusing on how the state can fix its budget problems.

One tax deduction targeted by protesters "exempts banks from paying taxes on the interest income they make from first mortgages," according to The Olympian. It would bring in about $86.6 million in taxes in 2011 if eliminated.

"Every single proposal that has come out of the legislature has made cuts on the back of the working people, the poor people, the immigrants, the students," said Kathy Cummings, communications director for the Washington State Labor Council. "Not one single tax exemption for corporations has been touched. We had something like $6.5 billion in business tax loopholes just last year. It's getting way out of hand. The only way we can get their attention is by banging on their doors, sleeping in the Capitol, having rally after rally."

Organizers said they believe the protests are already starting to have an effect. They're hearing from legislators who are sympathetic to the message and are starting to talk about closing tax loopholes. Some lawmakers even handed out food, coffee and other provisions to protesters who spent the night in the Legislative Building.

But advocates are facing a tough uphill battle. Under a ballot measure adopted last year, the legislature needs a 2/3 majority to approve any tax increase -- including closing loopholes -- or it must be directly approved by voters.

The state House of Representatives is expected to vote on a budget proposal on Friday or Saturday that would reduce state spending by $4.4 billion in the 2011-2013 budget cycle. According to the Associated Press, Senate leaders will be unveiling their plan next week.

Though the protesters are taking inspiration from their Midwest brethren in Wisconsin, there are some key differences between the situations facing the two states. Washington's protests are not directly related to collective bargaining rights, and the rallies are more organized by a coalition of labor and community groups. In Washington, Democrats control both chambers of the legislature and the governor's office, although the state Senate has a group of moderate Democrats who often cross the aisle and vote with Republicans.

On Thursday, police arrested 17 people who tried to storm Gov. Christine Gregoire's (D) office. Protesters reportedly shouted, “let us in” and “we want the governor.” Just one person was charged. Many of the protesters, according to organizers, were trying to get arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles has sponsored legislation that would add sunset dates to about 300 tax exemptions in the state. In a recent Seattle Times letter to the editor, she explained, "While it is true that eliminating tax preferences is by no means the silver bullet to our historic budget challenges, the hundreds of tax loopholes and exemptions currently in state law cost taxpayers billions each year. Two examples are tax breaks for elective cosmetic surgery and private airplanes."

She told The Olympian that she believes the protests have helped strengthen the case for her proposal, and Gregoire has agreed to meet with a group of protesters.

The actions are being led by a coalition calling itself, "We Are One, Put People First." It's made up of labor unions and community organizations in Washington state.

On Tuesday, approximately 100 members of the Olympia community slept overnight in the Capitol. On Wednesday, the focus was on a group called Washington Community Action Network, a statewide group that lobbies on behalf of lower-wage earners, immigrants and people of color. They brought 500 people down to the Capitol.

The focus on Thursday was on health care, including mental health services for seniors and people with disabilities. Adam Glickman with SEIU Healthcare 775NW told The Huffington Post that approximately 500 in-home care and mental health workers came to the Capitol to engage in civil disobedience. Some of the patients of these workers also came to the capitol to lobby their legislators against cuts to social services.

Linnea Riesen, communications director for SEIU Local 1199NW, which represents mental health workers, said that the union's members were on strike on Thursday -- But instead of a traditional strike against employers, it was a strike against the state.

"Community mental health agencies get 90 percent of their funding from the state," she said. "For the last several years, the governor and the legislature have underfunded critical community health services, and they've been taking away the health care supports in our communities that keep people off the streets and safe. ... So our message really was, our community and our state leaders have gone on strike against the state every day through their actions."

On Friday, expected to be the largest day of action yet, there will be a special guest of honor: Wisconsin state Sen. Spencer Coggs, one of the Democrats who left the state in order to protest Gov. Scott Walker's (R) budget repair bill.

WATCH VIDEO OF THE PROTESTS, 4/6/11:

Mauro Mora contributed reporting.

UPDATE: 6:47 p.m. -- Jared Miller is a mental health worker who primarily works with children, and he's also a member of SEIU Local 1199NW. He attended the protests on both Thursday and Friday, and on Thursday, he was one of the few union members who was able to meet with Gregoire. According to Miller, there were five union members and two union employees at the meeting.

"She definitely still feels like she still has a lot of obstacles in front of her in order to close tax loopholes," relayed Miller. "The legislature feels like their hands are tied by our initiative that requires 2/3 a vote of the legislature to enact any new taxes. The positive note was that she definitely doesn't believe in what's going on. She agrees with us that it's immoral, the cuts that are coming across our state. She said she's there with us. She just needs us...to continue to speak out to the public to make sure the public understands it's not about paying extra money on soda. It's not about paying a few dimes here on candy. It's about people's health care. It's about people having stable lives."

According to the AP, thousands of people flooded the capitol on Friday, making it by far the largest protest this week. The Washington State Patrol estimated the crowd size to be about 7,000 people, while labor organizers estimated 12,000.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/08/washington-protests_n_846659.html?view=print

Poll: 46 percent of Mississippi Republicans want interracial marriage ban

And more of those who oppose interracial marriage have a favorable view of Sarah Palin, a new poll reports

By Justin Elliott
Thursday, Apr 7, 2011 15:15 ET

The Dem-leaning firm Public Policy Polling has a new survey out that's sure to raise some eyebrows.

When usual Republican primary voters in the state of Mississippi were asked if they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal, a whopping 46 percent said it should be illegal, compared to 40 percent who think it should be legal. The remaining 14 percent were unsure.

PPP also breaks down how these voters view the GOP presidential field, with some interesting results. Here's how those respondents would vote:

As PPP's Tom Jensen notes, there are some interesting differences between the candidates' favorability ratings when broken down according to respondents' views of interracial marriage:

Palin's net favorability with folks who think interracial marriage should be illegal (+55 at 74/19) is 17 points higher than it is with folks who think interracial marriage should be legal (+38 at 64/26.) Meanwhile Romney's favorability numbers see the opposite trend. He's at +23 (53/30) with voters who think interracial marriage should be legal but 19 points worse at +4 (44/40) with those who think it should be illegal

Dustin Ingalls, assistant to the director at PPP, tells me that the firm also asked non-Republican voters the interracial marriage question, and he expects those results will be released sometime in the future. He added that PPP also asked whether respondents believe the right side won the Civil War. Those results should also prove interesting.

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/07/poll_mississippi_interracial_marriage

Johnson & Johnson fined for bribing doctors

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, April 8th, 2011 -- 11:53 pm

WASHINGTON — US authorities fined cosmetics and drugs giant Johnson & Johnson $70 million on Friday for bribing doctors in Europe and paying kickbacks for contracts under a UN relief program in Iraq.

The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission said since 1998 the firm had paid doctors and hospital administrators in Greece, Poland and Romania for contracts and to promote its drugs and medical devices.

Johnson & Johnson also paid kickbacks between 2000-2003 for 19 contracts under the UN Oil for Food Program, which provided humanitarian supplies to Iraqis while the country, still ruled by Saddam Hussein.

The firm, the 15th largest US company by market capitalization, agreed to pay US authorities $70 million to settle the charges, including $48.6 million to the SEC and $21.4 million to the Justice Department.

US prosecutor Mythili Raman that the company had "cooperated extensively" with the investigation.

"The message ... is plain -- any competitive advantage gained through corruption is a mirage," said SEC enforcement director Robert Khuzami.

"J&J chose profit margins over compliance with the law by acquiring a private company for the purpose of paying bribes, and using sham contracts, offshore companies, and slush funds to cover its tracks."

The charges detailed that J&J subsidiaries Cilag AG International and Janssen Pharaceutica made $858,000 dollars in payoffs to Saddam Hussein's government to win $9.0 million in contracts under the deeply corrupted Oil for Food Program.

"The kickbacks were concealed from the United Nations by inflating Janssen and Cilag's contract prices by 10 percent," they said.

The SEC said J&J was under a related investigation by Britain's Serious Fraud Office and that a resolution was also expected.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/08/johnson-johnson-fined-for-bribing-doctors/print/

'Long dance' that ended in a deal to avoid a government shutdown

By: Glenn Thrush and JonathanAllen
April 9, 2011 02:50 AM EDT

The low point may have come Thursday night.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had spent more than an hour meeting with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, inching towards a deal to avert a shutdown, but he kept insisting that it include a prohibition against federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

That was a non-starter for Obama. As the meeting was breaking up, Vice President Joe Biden told the speaker, in no uncertain terms, that his demand was unacceptable. If that became the deal-breaker, Biden said, he would “take it to the American people,” who would presumably punish the GOP for shutting down the government over an ideological issue.

“They were faced with a choice - they would either have to give in or shut down the government,” said a senior administration official, describing how the negotiations went from there.

In the end, Boehner agreed to a package of $38.5 billion in cuts, a significant victory for a man who said his goal was to extract as much as possible from the federal budget. He also won limited victories on a handful of policy riders attached to the bill. But Boehner was forced to abandon some major demands, including Planned Parenthood, restrictions on the Environmental Protection Agency and efforts to restrict Obama’s health reform bill.

Administration officials cast the deal as proof Obama and Boehner can forge a longer-lasting relationship to negotiate the perils of divided government, but it was a rough week punctuated by several near deals, a few blow-ups and a resolution that came 90 minutes before the government shuttered.

“It’s been a long dance,” said an Obama aide involved in the talks.

The tense negotiations have been less a high-stakes game of chicken – like most budget wrangling — than an effort to jerry-rig a deal that would be acceptable to House conservatives, Senate Democrats and a president intent on proving he could pull off a bipartisan deal for the second time in five months.

Compared to Boehner’s juggling act, the president’s objectives have been relatively simple: Craft a bipartisan deal that proved he was willing to make deep spending cuts, look like a grown-up, and hold the line on GOP challenges to core Democratic programs.

The drama ended – for now - shortly before 11 p.m. on Friday, when Boehner announced the deal after what he said was “a lot of discussion and a long fight.”


Next up: negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, which Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has described as “Armageddon.”

That challenge would be even more daunting if the budget deal had collapsed – as it nearly did Thursday night and in the early hours of Friday morning.

After Boehner left the White House, negotations were supposed to resume on the staff level. Although the Planned Parenthood issue was still in dispute, Obama’s aides, led by Hill liaison Rob Nabors and budget chief Jack Lew, believed Boehner had agreed to a broad overall cut – about $78 billion in annual terms.

Yet when the groggy delegation arrived in the speaker’s Capitol office, they were greeted by Boehner’s chief of staff, Barry Jackson, who told them he wanted to see cuts in excess of $80 billion, administration officials say.

Obama’s senior aides didn’t view the setback so much as a breach of faith as an unsettling reminder that Boehner – as companionable and trustworthy as they regard him to be — was an unpredictable bargaining partner who didn’t quite have the measure of his membership. Now, instead of having agreement on everything except the riders, they had to re-litigate the size of the cuts.

By the time the sun rose on a rainy Friday morning, Obama and his staff were completely fed up and exhausted, according to people familiar with the process. At around 10:45 Obama called Boehner with a firm message.

“I’m the president of the United States and you’re the Speaker of the House,” he told Boehner, according to a senior administration official. “We are the two most consequential leaders in the U.S. government. We had a discussion last night and the [staff] negotiations don’t reflect that.”

For his part, Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said the speaker never made any commitment or suggested there was ever a deal: “It became clear very quickly they weren’t serious about making real cuts,” he said. “When talks broke up around 3 a.m., it was still over inadequate spending cuts – both the number and the composition.”

Boehner and Obama talked another three times during the day, making steady progress, despite the increasing acrimony of their public surrogates - and Boehner himself.

“Almost all of the policy issues have been dealt with,” he told reporters at the Capitol. “The big issue is over the spending … We’re not going to roll over and sell out the American people like has been done time and time again in Washington … We’re damn serious.”

But privately, the two sides kept on talking.

The intensity and frequency of their communication was new. For weeks, Obama largely held himself back from direct negotiations, leaving the heavy lifting to Boehner, Reid and aides Lew and Nabors, chief of staff Bill Daley, and Biden.

Obama spoke with Boehner directly only twice between March 4th and April 2nd, prompting complaints from both parties that he waited too long to wade into the process. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) at one point accused Obama of having “failed to lead” as the government lurched toward a shutdown – and Boehner himself used almost the same language earlier in the week.

The talks, which began in earnest on Monday and ratcheted up as the week dragged on, followed a familiar and, to the White House, depressing pattern: Obama would demand that Boehner abandon dozens of the riders – including the Planned Parenthood cuts, the health care reform rollback, and the EPA restrictions.

For leverage, Boehner crafted a short-term spending measure that included long-term funding for the Pentagon – a move Republicans hoped would force Obama into accepting a third temporary spending bill. On Thursday, the Office of Management and Budget responded unequivocally – Obama would veto any such measure.

As the hours passed on Friday and the midnight deadline to prevent a shutdown drew near, there were encouraging signs that the Planned Parenthood issue could be overcome.

Rep. Chris Smith, a leading abortion foe who once ran the New Jersey Right to Life Committee, blasted Planned Parenthood but declined to say whether he could accept a bill that didn’t end its federal funding. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), both with impeccable records in opposing abortion, said Republicans should take the spending cuts agreed to by the White House and leave social policy “riders” alone.

So, too, did the Wisconsin freshman, Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea party favorite.

“I encourage all my colleagues – Democrats and Republicans – to stay focused on the issue: restoring fiscal sanity,” Johnson said in a statement. “We need to get past this year’s budget, and move onto the more serious discussion of our nation’s long-term fiscal health.”

It all added up to a major turning point. By saying it was better to keep a scaled-back government operating than shut it down over a quixotic bid to win on a hot-button social issue, they were giving cover to other skittish Republicans.

And in the end, Democrats agreed to about two-thirds of the spending cuts Boehner initially requested, signing off on nearly $40 billion worth. For every fit and start that frustrated the White House and Senate Democrats, Boehner had won another few billion dollars.

For several hours Friday evening, Republican leaders and aides vetted a final White House counterproposal. Some time after 8 p.m., a small clutch of the top Republican leaders and their aides gathered in Boehner’s suite of offices on the second floor of the Capitol to discuss the latest offer — and their plan of action.

“Sounds like we’re probably a go,” one GOP aide told POLITICO as the plan was being reviewed.

At 9 p.m. Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told reporters there was no deal yet and that the rank and file would have to be called together to discuss the latest proposal. After gaining their approval, Boehner emerged to make his brief announcement that a deal had been struck.

Obama made his own statement at the White House a few minutes later.

But there’s still no guarantee that some new snag will scuttle the current deal next week – or that the compromise crafted this week makes it more likely future deals can be cut.

“It may be a good night for the future here,” said a senior administration official. “It’s a pretty important demonstration that our divided government can come together.”

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3905F4EE-EC9D-DBA1-487311D820E433C3

Kathy Nickolaus: the history is staggering

Just Trust Her: Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus - (R)

by KeepItReal
Thu Apr-07-11 08:02 PM

WI's Waukesha County Clerk to Keep Elections Results on Her Personal Computer

Waukesha - Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' decision to go it alone in how she collects and maintains election results has some county officials raising a red flag about the integrity of the system.

Nickolaus said she decided to take the election data collection and storage system off the county's computer network - and keep it on stand-alone personal computers accessible only in her office - for security reasons. "What it gave me was good security of the elections from start to finish, without the ability of someone unauthorized to be involved," she said.

Nonetheless, Director of Administration Norman A. Cummings said because Nickolaus has kept them out of the loop, the county's information technology specialists have not been able to verify Nickolaus' claim that the system is secure from failure.

"How does anybody else in the county know, except for her verbal word, that there are backups, and that the software she has out there is performing as it should?" he said. "There's no way I can assure that the election system is going to be fine for the next presidential election."

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7988

HERES MORE:

An audit of Nickolaus' handling of the 2010 election found that she needed to take steps to improve security and backup procedures, like stop sharing passwords. The audit was requested after the county's director of administration said Nickolaus had been uncooperative with attempts to have county experts review her systems and confirm backups were in place.

Nickolaus was given immunity from prosecution in a 2002 criminal investigation into illegal activity by members of the assembly Republican Caucus. She worked for 13 years as a data analyst and computer specialist for the caucus.

She resigned from her state job in 2002 just before launching her county clerk campaign.

The corruption probe took down then-Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, a Republican; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, D-Madison; Sen. Brian Burke, D-Milwaukee, co-chairman of the powerful Joint Finance Committee; Assembly Majority Leader Steve Foti, R-Oconomowoc; and Rep. Bonnie Ladwig, R-Racine. They all reached plea deals.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42483089/ns/us_news /

(edited to add more content on her past)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x838721