Category: Uncategorized

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How Ending Net Neutrality Could Actually Affect You

With the rollback of “Net Neutrality” by the FCC yeaterday, a lot of folks are hearing a lot about how this will or won’t affect you, the consumer.

Basically, it means that internet providers can charge different fees for different services; and they can treat different websites or outlets differently.

For instance, Comcast, which owns both Xfinity and Hulu, could decide to provide faster service to Hulu and slower service to direct competitor Netflix. Or any competitor of Hulu’s.

Additionally, if Comcast had a particular political leaning, they could slow down or block consumer access to websites with opposing political views.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo explains better than I. Watch below.

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Video: Trump Nominee For Federal Judgeship Painfully Unprepared For Senate Testimony

Much has been made in the past few days about judicial nominations coming out of the Trump White House of candidates who are not qualified to become federal judges.

Take, for example, Jeff Mateer and Brett Talley.

From The Advocate:

Mateer, who was nominated to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, has called transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” supported so-called conversion therapy, and said marriage equality will lead to polygamy, bestiality, and people marrying inanimate objects. He made the comments in speeches in 2015, and they were uncovered by a CNN investigation this fall. He is currently Texas’s first assistant attorney general, and he previously worked for First Liberty Institute, a right-wing legal group. He had yet to be considered by the Judiciary Committee.

Talley was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. He is a Justice Department lawyer who has never tried a case — he is better known as a writer of horror novels and a ghost-hunter — and he was rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. Despite this, he was approved by the Judiciary Committee.

What has now killed his nomination, though, is the revelation that he once made an online comment defending the early Ku Klux Klan, founded shortly after the Civil War to carry out a violent campaign to keep newly freed African-Americans from exercising their rights. He has made other incendiary remarks as well, such as saying after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre that the U.S. needed “to stop being a nation of pansies and man up,” according to HuffPost.

And then, yesterday, Republican Sen. John Kennedy asked Matthew Spencer Petersen, who is nominated to be a US District Judge, basic questions of law. Questions he has no answer for.

To be absolutely honest, I don’t post this with any sense of glee or “gotcha.”

This is achingly painful to watch a man who obviously does not have the background or experience to be a judge at this time and his answers make that clear.

He should not have been nominated by Donald Trump. This is embarrassing for not only Trump but Mr. Petersen as well.

Why is the White House nominating people who have not ever argued a single motion in a courtroom for a lifetime appointment to the federal court bench?

Watch below.

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Rumors Flying That Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan Will Leave Congress In 2018

First, Politico reported this on Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s eventual departure from Congress:

Despite several landmark legislative wins this year, and a better-than-expected relationship with President Donald Trump, Ryan has made it known to some of his closest confidants that this will be his final term as speaker. He consults a small crew of family, friends and staff for career advice, and is always cautious not to telegraph his political maneuvers. But the expectation of his impending departure has escaped the hushed confines of Ryan’s inner circle and permeated the upper-most echelons of the GOP. In recent interviews with three dozen people who know the speaker—fellow lawmakers, congressional and administration aides, conservative intellectuals and Republican lobbyists—not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018.

Then came this denial, via The Hill:

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) says he’s not quitting Congress anytime soon. Asked at the end of his weekly press conference whether he was leaving Congress “soon,” Ryan chuckled and replied as he walked off the stage: “I’m not, no.”

Rumors have been swirling for weeks that Ryan — who this October marked his second year in the Speaker’s office — could resign from Congress shortly after passing his No. 1 legislative priority: tax reform.

The House and Senate are expected to pass a final version of their historic tax-cuts bill next week, with President Trump planning to sign it into law by Christmas Day.

Watch the reporting from CNN today below:

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News Round-Up: December 14, 2017

Ben Cohen

Some news items you might have missed:

• Some #ThrowBackThursday action as I’m reminded of my major man crush on rugby champ and anti-bullying advocate Ben Cohen (above). Check out his 2018 charity calendar here.

• Researchers say having older brothers could increase the likelihood of being gay.

•  Failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore threw more anti-LGBT shade even as he refuses to concede his race to Democrat Doug Jones. Moore says he lost due to “sodomy” sweeping the nation.

• Just six months after legalizing same-sex marriage, Bermuda’s lawmakers have reversed course and outlawed marriage equality.

• Gay porn star sentenced to life in prison for “brutal and vicious” murder of his millionaire boyfriend.

• Afterglow, the controversial off-Broadway hit one-act play, celebrates 200 performances tonight and has added a new block of tickets through March 2018.

Via press release: The play explores the emotional, intellectual, and physical connections between three men and the broader implications within their relationships.

 The Advocate called the play “compelling and raw” and “not to be missed.”

Huffington Post wrote, “It’s clear Afterglow will be a must-see among New York theatergoers.”

Afterglow (photo: Mati Gelman)
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FCC Votes To Repeal Net Neutrality Regulations

Further dismantling Obama-era regulations, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 today to undo rules that stop broadband companies from charging more for access to certain websites or services like Netflix.

From The New York Times:

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies the power to potentially reshape Americans’ online experiences.

The agency scrapped the so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone service.

The action reversed the agency’s 2015 decision, during the Obama administration, to better protect Americans as they have migrated to the internet for most communications. It will take a couple of weeks for the changes go into effect, but groups opposed to the action have already announced plans to sue the agency to restore the net neutrality regulations. Those suits could take many months to be resolved.