The Barack Obama Administration’s Thursday Internet uber-power grab is awful for just about every American. It will lead to dramatically more expensive Web access – because of both raised service costs and huge new taxes.
The FCC’s Open Internet Order, which reclassified the commercial Internet as a Title II utility, is very likely (80%) in the end, to be overturned in court – for a third time.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
Thursday is for freedom a very bad day. That is the day the free speech-free market Xanadu that is the Internet will be unilaterally seized by the Barack Obama Administration.
Per the President’s demand, the allegedly independent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pretending to be Congress – and writing new Web-regulating law for themselves. And on Thursday they will vote on it – and thereby grab expansive, broad and deep overlording powers.
Budgets/Taxes · Featured · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
Last November, President Obama effectively abandoned America’s longstanding free trade Internet policy established by President Clinton, in favor of a protectionist Internet industrial policy to benefit America’s national champions, Silicon Valley, under the guise of “net neutrality” policy.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Education · Environment/Energy · Featured · Health Care · Internet/Telecom · Tobacco
If you don’t visit Somewhat Reasonable and the Heartlander digital magazine every day, you’re missing out on some of the best news and commentary on liberty and free markets you can find. But worry not, freedom lovers! The Heartland Weekly Email is here for you every Friday with a highlight show.
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Podcast
Titch says the FCC’s grab for regulatory power over such a large sector of the U.S. economy threatens the way the Internet has worked for years, as well as the stability of the rest of the economy.
Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
“Fixing” what’s not broken. Radically changing what everyone likes. Abandoning what works exceptionally well for what’s failed miserably in the past, and forcing outdated regulations on what is the most modern part of the economy.
Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
President Barack Obama has a repetitive tic when it comes to his myriad power grabs.
The President knows if he is straightforward about his plans to government-ize every sector of the economy – said plans will be even less popular than they already are. (Hello, November election.)
So he likes to cite successful private sector endeavors as alleged, though-actually-antithetical visual aides for his government takeover model. He heaps praise upon them – and then announces he is going to bury them with government.
To best delineate why Net Neutrality is so terribly bad, behold the following video. In which is laid out the worst portions of Net Neutrality – and the Marxist reasons why the Left wants it done.
Net neutrality is forward-looking, 21st century Internet freedom. Title II is backward-looking, 1934 government restrictions of a bygone telephone monopoly.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
A bird in the hand is still worth two in the bush.
This age old wisdom has survived to warn against human nature — to be overly confident of keeping what one has while risking everything when grasping for much more.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation · Taxes
Once again the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act has been introduced in the House of Representatives, this time because the last temporary extension, passed in December, will expire on October 1. The bipartisan legislation bans taxes on Internet access permanently and disallows multiple or discriminatory taxes on Internet activities. If allowed to expire, states would begin to collect taxes on Internet access, or apply other discriminatory taxes that may already be in place in the state but which have been held at bay during the moratorium.
Featured · Internet/Telecom · Podcast
Chris Casey, Managing Director at WindRock Wealth Management, sits down with the founder of Cryptohippie and author, Paul Rosenberg to talk about Bitcoin. Casey and Rosenberg answer all the most frequently asked question regarding the virtual currency.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom
The FCC imagines it doesn’t need Congress, but it does.
In just the second week of this new Congress, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune proposed draft legislation that would provide the FCC with the permanent net neutrality enforcement authority the FCC says it needs.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
In directing the Wireless bureau to make two substantial, Commission-level decisions today, without the full Commission vote that was requested by Commissioners Pai and O’Rielly, (concerning the release of the annual wireless competition report and regulating cellular data roaming rates), the FCC Chairman unnecessarily undermined the legitimacy of the FCC at a critical time the FCC needs all the actual and perceived legitimacy it can get.
In an observation that should surprise no one except a few cave-dwellers, a new study from NATPE/Content First and the Consumer Electronics Association has found that millennials find Netflix subscriptions more valuable than broadcast and cable subscriptions. There are, however, some useful insights to be gleaned if we look a little deeper.
Economics · Featured · Internet/Telecom · Legal Affairs · Regulation
The American people in November overwhelmingly, historically rebuked President Barack Obama, his policies and his unilateral practices.
The President his own self primed the pump for the election as a referendum – on him.
Budgets/Taxes · Education · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
Isn’t Congress due the same deference from the FCC that the FCC expects from the courts?
Will the FCC defer to the new Congress for a reasonable period of time so it can pass consensus on net neutrality legislation?
Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom
Recently Sony Pictures became the most recent victim of hackers. This hack captured American attention in ways that many previous hacks had not despite the seriousness of each of them largely because of the trove of private embarrassing emails, sensitive employee information such as salary negotiations and results, and intellectual property being made public. Attention was further driven by scandalous, sensationalist headlines…repeatedly. Tinsel Town lives in a bubble, disconnected from the rest of the country, much like Washington, DC, so when something goes awry in these places the national schadenfreude is wide spread. In this case, things went wrong in both places.
Well, to be frank, I had never considered my contention that the public interest standard is unconstitutional to mean that the FCC itself is unlawful. To my mind, I simply had suggested that the lawfulness of actions taken pursuant to the public interest standard should be questioned.
NEWS: The Heartlander
Readable Links
