When Anita Hill testified about the sexual abuse she'd suffered at Clarence Thomas's hands, Senate Republicans and the press pilloried her, calling her a liar and worse, and going on to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Read the rest
Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was so determined to ram through a Net Neutrality repeal that he ignored the fact that the FCC's public comment inbox was flooded with fake comments from anti-Net Neutrality bots -- at least a million of them -- who indiscriminately stole identities from the dead and alive alike (Pai said he'd treat these fake comments with the same weight that he gave to comments from humans, refusing to help law enforcement track down the botmasters, so that the Congressional Budget Office had to step in). Read the rest
Back in March, the House passed the Music Modernization Act, a welcome bill made it easier for musicians to get paid reliably for digital streaming. Read the rest
The Senate has successfully voted to overrule FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and save Net Neutrality (provided that Congress and Trump agree); the vote was a squeaker on near straight party lines: all the Dems and independents voted to keep Net Neutrality, and they won the day thanks to help from three Republicans who split from their party: Susan M Collins [R-ME]; John Kennedy [R-LA] and Lisa Murkowski [R-AK]. Read the rest
Today, Senate Democrats will force a vote on whether to rescue Net Neutrality from the depredations of Vichy nerd Ajit Pai; the debate is streaming now and will continue until 3PM Eastern/12PM Pacific, when the Senate will vote. Read the rest
Net Neutrality is extraordinarily, improbably popular with Americans: 87% of Americans have both heard of Net Neutrality and believe it should be protected; virtually the only opponents Net Neutrality has are telcoms lobbyists and politicians who've had money funneled their way through telcoms PACs and direct contributions. Read the rest
After Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rammed through an order killing Net Neutrality -- citing easily disproved lies, ignoring millions of public comments -- activists started pinning their hopes on something called the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress and the Senate the power to overrule the decisions of regulators from the administrative agencies like the FCC. Read the rest
Senator Rand Paul, architect of some of the most extreme policies of the Republican Party, had five of his ribs fractured (three were "displacement fractures") and suffered lung bruising after being beaten at his Kentucky home; his next-door neighbor, Rene Boucher (59), an anesthesiologist/inventor who is thought to have worked at a nearby hospital with Rand Paul, was arrested and bailed for fourth-degree assault. Read the rest
Consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen's Amanda Werner, dressed as Rich Uncle Pennybags from the Monopoly game, sat behind former Equifax CEO Richard Smith this morning during his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee about the company's breach of 45,500,000 Americans' private data . From Public Citizen's statement:
Make no mistake: Arbitration is a rigged game, one that the bank nearly always wins. Shockingly, the average consumer forced to arbitrate with Wells Fargo was ordered to pay the bank nearly $11,000. Bank lobbyists and their allies in Congress are trying to overturn the CFPB’s rule so they can continue to rip off consumers with impunity.
Atul Gawande (previously) is a highly respected expert on systems thinking, preventative medicine and dying with dignity has published an excellent editorial about the medical shortcomings of the Senate GOP's tax-break/health cut bill. Read the rest
His "prepared remarks" are already out, and tomorrow's the big show. Read the rest
Speculative redivisions of the USA into equal-population states tend to discard the existing ones entirely in favor of the average. I thought it would be interesting to instead keep the most populous state, California, then combine other states to meet it in size. Since they're always complaining. Read the rest
After a wrangle on tactics that pitted the party establishment -- who feared that filibusters would provoke procedural reforms that allowed for a 51-Senator vote to overrule a filibuster, making future Trump appointments easier -- against party activists who want Senate and Congressional Democrats to stall, refuse and resist trumpism by every means necessary (perhaps banking on early impeachment, before a rule-change could do much damage), the Senate Democratic caucus has announced that it will boycott the confirmation hearings for Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary. Read the rest
US Senate candidate Jason Kander was consistently trailing incumbent Roy Blunt in the Missouri race until this month. Many attribute the shift to a simple and memorable ad in response to criticism of Kander's position on gun background checks. Read the rest
Rand Paul, who sued the NSA two years ago, just announced that he plans to "force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program" tomorrow in order to protect Americans' privacy rights. Here is his exclusive with Politico. Read the rest
