I just saw an anti net neutrality ad on TV, while I was drinking my morning coffee. The ad presented several snippets from newspaper editorials. One, from the Portland Oregonian said this:
Congress could unwittingly interfere with the development of a more robust Internet…
I don’t know about that; I do know, however, that any assertion that starts with “Congress could unwittingly interfere” is more likely to be right than wrong.
-k-
Technorati Tags: netneutrality, USCongress
I don’t know why this is news, but members of Congress have voted themselves another pay raise. It’s actually an automatic cost-of-living raise, which Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, wanted the House to decline this year.
But no, the House held its head up high, and voted down Matheson’s amendment. Let’s hope that the voters will return a bunch of them back home come November, so they won’t see this raise in their checks.
-k-
Technorati Tags: houseofrepresentatives
I came across GovTrack.us today. I haven’t explored it a lot yet, but on the surface, you can track your legislator’s speeches, votes, etc, via syndication (probably RSS, but we can hope for Atom).
Anyhow, with Congress being such a gaggle of the incredibly inane, we need a nice tool to track their progress, or more probably, lack thereof. It also may be of some help in marking the November scorecard.
-k-
Technorati Tags: houseofrepresentatives, GovTrack, ussenate
The US Senate, that exclusive club of 100, has passed, by 50-49, an amendment to their immigration bill which allows illegal immigrants to collect Social Security benefits on earnings they earned while they were illegal. From the article:
The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment — even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.
More precisely, Sen. John Ensign (R- Nevada) offered a motion to strike the language from the bill under consideration; the net effect is the same: The U.S. Senate is condoning illegal behavior, as well as fraudulent/stolen documents, and proposes to recognize them as valid. Can this be happening?
From Villians Vanquished:
They’ve decided to ignore one illegal act and offer these folks the equivalent of amnesty for sneaking into the country illegally. But now, they are basically granting amnesty again, this time for the real felonies of Identity Theft and Forgery.What’s more, they fail to bear in mind that multiple illegal aliens oftentimes appropriate the same stolen Social Security number. So now, my generation has absolutely no chance in hell of ever collecting a red cent from all of our legal contributions, because the system is going to be wide open to fraud and end up paying out to multiple parties for the same contributions. That “lockbox” is going to empty faster than a keg at a Packers’ tailgate party.
Well said, with a lot less cussin’ than I could have mustered at this point. Never mind current wisdom which says that a comprehensive immigration bill is unlikely to pass during this Congressional session; the brazen fact remains that 50 of 100 of those elected to the highest legislative office in the land are prepared to throw their constituents under the bus.
Remember this come November.
-k-
1 – And, to incorporate the post title, check the anagram for Senator.
Technorati Tags: immigration, ussenate
The House of Representatives have passed the so-called no “gas price gouging” act. It is actually called the Federal Energy Price Protection Act. The details:
The House on Wednesday approved criminal penalties and fines of up to $150 million for energy companies caught price gouging, yet lawmakers acknowledged there is no quick and easy fix to higher pump prices.
…..
With bipartisan support, the House approved on a 389-34 vote a measure that would create a price-gouging law and permit large fines and jail time for violators.
What exactly does price gouging mean? Well, Congress stepped up to the plate here, too.
From the bill:
(b) Price Gouging-
(1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Federal Trade Commission shall promulgate, in accordance with section 553 of title 5, United States Code, any rules necessary for the enforcement of this section.
(2) CONTENTS- Such rules–
(A) shall define `price gouging’, `retail sale’, and `wholesale sale’ for purposes of this Act; and
(B) shall be consistent with the requirements for declaring unfair acts or practices in section 5(n) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45(n)).
What this means is that Congress has no clue what price gouging means, and has turned over the interpretation of that to the Executive Branch. But they’ll be able to campaign in the Fall. Thank goodness.
-k-
Bill sponsor is Heather Wilson (NM)
Cosponsors here.
Technorati Tags: houseofrepresentatives
Way to go, Congress, on another lame proposal. Do you not realize that Big Oil taxes are a cost of doing business, and that these costs are rightly passed on to … err … mmm … their customers? I don’t think you do.
-k-
Technorati Tags: houseofrepresentatives, ussenate
Well, Congress is back from break, and there are plenty of things they think they need to do, what with gas prices, Iraq, immigration, etc., etc. Whatever the list of matters at hand, the scenario will play out as it always has: members of opposing parties will line up across the aisles and fling poo at each other, each side hoping more poo sticks to their opponent than to them. Then, equipped with sound bites, film and banners, they’ll all head home to Labor Day festivities, and demonstrate to their constituents all they’ve done for the country, and solicit votes in the November election. Then in the fall, the whole circus starts again.
There’s a better way, first mentioned here: the NI1 Party. A new broom sweeps clean; boot these bozos out come November.
-k-
1 – NI = Not Incumbent
Technorati Tags: houseofrepresentatives, ussenate
Roll Call is the first newspaper that I’m aware of to call for subjecting members of Congress to the same security procedures as the rest of us:
we have a simple solution to make sure we don’t see a repeat of the [McKinney]incident, and it doesn’t even require Members to keep track of those pesky lapel pins. With the full-throated support of the House and Senate leadership, the police board should immediately call an end to the practice of allowing Members and those accompanying them to bypass magnetometers and other security measures around the Capitol complex….A little inconvenience may cause Members to better remember why the Capitol Police are here
It’ll never happen. There should be a new party called NI in the next election. NI, of course, meaning Not Incumbent. Throw them your support, and let’s start to clean up this mess, one seat at a time.
-k-
Technorati Tags: cynthiamckinney, houseofrepresentatives, ussenate
Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), has apologized for her scuffling with a Capitol Police officer last week. It seems she wasn’t wearing her official Member of Congress pin, and failed to present proper identification when she attempted to enter a House office building. An officer of the Capitol Police challenged her; she allegedly became belligerent, and supposedly struck the officer, because he didn’t recognize her as being a congress member. Sheesh; what a crock. I’m just a simple guy, but isn’t it odd that in this day and age, horseshit such as this is even newsworthy?1 Some observations:
It’s been said the people deserve the government they get. If true, the people are really screwed up, and we’re in deeper trouble that I imagined.
-k-
1 – It’s blogworthy though, because us blodgers are really journalists; yes, we are.
Technorati Tags: houseofrepresentatives, cynthiamckinney
From CNN, 27 charged in child porn sting. I read the article, and of course the story was all over the evening TV news. I’ll spare everyone the totally disgusting details, which the press seems to delight in presenting in their faux-somber voices. Suffice it to say, if the charges are true, that the perpetrators deserve what’s coming to them. I’ve heard that even in the Pen1, there’s a certain code, and swift justice is often dispensed toward such sickos as these.
This isn’t the point of this post, however. In watching the TV coverage, and reading the article, I was amazed at how often the Justice Department mentioned the internet technologies, including peer-to-peer filesharing and streaming video, which were used in the perpetration of the crimes the government alleges.
So now the point: will it be the DOJ, or Congress, who will attempt to introduce some type of draconian, unworkable scheme to prevent or detect such uses of the internet? My money is on Congress, it’s an election year, and some type of knee-jerk-off response would sell well back home. If they want to go for the daily double, Congress will ask DOJ what DOJ needs to be effective in fighting this type of crime. The answer to this last part is clearly nothing; using the means and methods they currently possess, Justice was able to crack the case, and arrest 27 people. I doubt the powers that be will see that in such clear light. Be warned. You read it here first.
-k-
1 – Short for Penitentiary, the Big House, etc.
Technorati Tags: DOJ, houseofrepresentatives, ussenate