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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Worst Persons of the Day for February 25, 2011



Our first Silver winner: U.S. Representative Paul Broun, continuing to set the high standard for Congressional inhumanity at which the Michele Bachmanns and the Steve Kings can only grasp in vain. Dr. Broun’s office now confirms that at a town hall in Athens, Ga. the Congressman was asked “who is going to shoot Obama?”
The crowd in the Oglethorpe County Commission chamber roared with laughter. But fortunately Broun was enough of an American to say something like John McCain did when that bag lady tried to claim the then-Senator was a ‘terrist.’
Oh, no, sorry, he didn’t. Broun didn’t say ‘don’t even joke about such things.’ He simply pivoted into “The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year… (blah, blah blah, blah blah).”
This, per his press secretary Jessica Morris, was the Congressman recognizing that “obviously, the question was inappropriate. So Congressman Broun moved on.”
Would he moved on if the question had been “so who, Congressman, is going to shoot you?”
Here’s the deal: we need to stop accepting violent language in our political discourse. Period. I’m still waiting for anybody like Broun to forswear this kind of deadly, poisonous, talk. But he won’t, because he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to the sub-humans who elected him.
Did Gabby Giffords get a bullet through her brain last month, or a hundred years ago? Sometimes it feels like the latter.
The bronze: It wouldn’t be Worst Persons if we didn’t hear from Billo’s guilty conscience. Nearly two years after his incessant references to “Tiller The Killer” contributed to the frenzy that led to the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas, The Frank Burns of News is still trying to smear the man, and figuratively use his dead body as part of the Right’s new attack on Planned Parenthood:
“We’ve reported this story fairly here, ‘kay?” Bill O’Reilly lied as his Stepford-wife news actress Megyn Kelly played the role of the yes-woman. “The assassination of Tiller – disgraceful, never should happen in America But there are media organizations that are glorifying George Tiller. Making him to be a martyr. It is disgusting, disgusting.”
What do you want to inspire now, Billy? You want somebody to dig up Tiller’s body and kill him again?
But our winner: Mike Hogan, the would-be Republican nominee for mayor of Jacksonville, Florida. Sure, he admits he told a candidates’ forum that he was so opposed to abortion that the only thing he wouldn’t do was bomb a clinic and then added, laughing, “but it may cross my mind” – but it was only a joke!
“If I’ve got to measure everything I say,” he told the Jacksonville Times-Union, “I mean, I’m not going to be politically correct. That was a joke. This was an audience for this. This is a Catholic Church. I guarantee you they are 110 percent pro-life.”
So, Mike, you’re saying it’s ok to joke about blowing up buildings and killing people, so long as you’re inside a Catholic Church? How exactly would you feel about a Muslim joking about blowing up buildings and killing people – so long as he did so inside a Mosque? Would that be fine with you, or are you a complete and utter hypocrite?
The would-be Mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, Mike Hogan, the Worst Person of the Day.

Walker shows no sign of conceding in Wisconsin battle


Warns of layoffs of government workers if accord isn't reached to curb collective bargaining

By Tom CurryNational affairs writer
msnbc.com
updated 2/27/2011 10:48:59 AM ET

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that government workers’ collective bargaining rights have caused unsustainable costs and stuck to his demand that bargaining rights be curtailed for most public workers.
“If we do not get these changes, and the Senate Democrats don’t come back, we’re going to be forced to make up the savings in layoffs and that to me is just unacceptable,” he said.
Walker has been locked in a battle with his state’s public sector unions for the past four weeks over his proposal to strip the unions of most of their collective bargaining rights. His measure would apply not only to state employees but to those of local governments and school boards around the state.
Walker won last November with 52 percent of the vote, while Republicans won control of both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, both of which had Democratic majorities before the election.
Knowing they lacked the votes to defeat Walker's proposal, Democratic state senators fled to Illinois two weeks ago to deprive the Senate of the quorum needed in order to have a vote on the measure.
 Video: Walker, Wis. 14 continue standoff
Despite promises from union leaders that they'd accept his proposal that government workers pay higher pension and health insurance contributions, Walker said, “over the past two weeks, even after they’ve made those promises, we’ve seen local union after local union rush to their school boards, their city councils... and rush through contracts that had no contribution to the pensions and no contribution to health care. In one case, in Janesville, they were actually pushing through a pay increase.”
Cost effects of collective bargaining He also contended that the collective bargaining process allows unions to extract sweetheart deals such as a requirement in some contracts that teachers get their health insurance from a teachers union-owned company, which Walker said costs $68 million more than the state-run employee health plan.
“As a former local government official, I know that collective bargaining has a cost,” he said.
“Collective bargaining is a fiscal matter,” Walker said in a press conference last Thursday. He said even if collective bargaining were sharply curtailed government workers will still be protected from arbitrary firing or discipline by what he called “the strongest civil service system in the country.”
He said he’d learned as a county executive that every time he tried to balance his budget by changing work rules to increase productivity, union leaders who he said were “emboldened” by collective bargaining rules, would rebuff his proposals.

Thousands of union members and their allies held a rally at the state Capitol Saturday to denounce Walker’s proposal. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Saturday, “Not since the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era has Madison been the scene of such sustained and large demonstrations.”
Walker said on Meet the Press that he’d rejected the idea of infiltrating troublemakers into the demonstrations — a suggestion made during a prank call he received from a liberal blogger who was impersonating Republican donor David Koch. It was not clear from his answer if any of Walker’s advisors suggested such an idea to him, or how seriously Walker considered the idea.
Union president says workers underpaid In a the Meet the Press roundtable discussion following Walker’s interview with NBC’s David Gregory, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said government workers in Wisconsin “are not overpaid, they’re underpaid.”
He also said the Wisconsin public pension plan, unlike those in several other states, is almost fully funded, implying that Walker has exaggerated the need to push for the bigger pension contributions that he's seeking from government workers.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican from a state that doesn’t have collective bargaining rights for state workers, noted that the federal government does not provide collective bargaining for its workers. “There’s no right to this under the Constitution,” Barbour said.
Meet the Press host David Gregory played a video clip of President Obama as a candidate in 2007 promising an audience that “If American workers are being denied their rights to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America.”
Obama also said 10 days ago that Walker’s proposal seemed to him to be “an assault” on unions, but since then hasn’t commented on the controversy.
Trumka sidestepped Gregory’s question about whether Obama was doing enough to support the unions in their struggle with Walker.
“It’s important for middle class voters to know that the president is on their side, but this isn’t about President Obama” Trumka said.
But Barbour said, "The president is one of the greatest politicians in the history of the United States and he's quiet (on the Wisconsin controversy) because he understands that most Americans know that this (cutting government employee costs) has to be done."

If its Sunday, Its Meet the Press Sunday Feb 27, 2011


Franken, Kerry lead charge to defend FCC's net neutrality rules in the Senate


By Sara Jerome 02/23/11 02:16 PM ET
Four Senate Democrats wrote to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday to oppose GOP efforts to defund net neutrality rules through spending legislation.
The letter included Senate Commerce Communications subcommittee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
"Telephone and cable companies do not own the Internet. But if [the anti-neutrality effort] is successful, they will," the letter said.
The spending bill that passed the House on Saturday included language to prevent the FCC from using funds to implement its controversial net neutrality rules, which it passed in December over strong objections from Republicans.
"We ask you to object to any similar efforts here in the Senate. Such action aims to strip the FCC of its legal authority over modern communications and hand control of the Internet over to the owners of the wires that deliver information and services over them," the letter says.
The four Democrats also oppose use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to repeal the regulations, which is another House proposal.
They point to support for the FCC rules from "the original investors in Google and Netflix, the father of the Internet Tim Berners-Lee, a host of companies, venture capitalists, and hundreds of thousands of users of the Internet."
The signatories include the Senate's most ardent net neutrality advocates. Franken and Cantwell have written legislation to make the rules stronger. The aggressive language in the letter reflects that.
"Unfortunately, the House has decided that it knows better what is good for the Internet than the people who use, fund, and work on it," it says. "They claim to stand for freedom.  But the only freedom they are providing for is the freedom of telephone and cable companies to determine the future of the Internet, where you can go on it, what you can attach to it, and which services will win or lose on it."
Analysts say defunding net neutrality through the continuing resolution may be difficult because Senate Democrats and President Obama support the rules.

However, they also say it may have slightly better odds than repeal through the Congressional Review Act (CRA), because net neutrality is a lesser priority compared to top Democratic items such as healthcare. Advocates fear their priority could get lost in the mix.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), ranking member on the Commerce Committee, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), ranking member of the Communications subcommittee, and McConnell introduced a resolution of disapproval last week to repeal the rules through the CRA.
Reid on Tuesday said that Senate Democrats would not accept any of a number of riders attached to the CR by the House.
"We're not going to resolve the issues of abortion, or net neutrality, or clean air on this CR," Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters.
The House bill cuts $61 billion from 2010 levels, while Reid and Senate Democrats have said they will only accept much smaller cuts from current spending. If differences cannot be resolved, the government could shut down.
- Erik Wasson contributed to this report.


Alas, the Democrats who signed this letter appear to have been listening to inside-the-Beltway lobbyists rather than hearing from the real world outside the Beltway. Hopefully they will reconsider if they understand the actual effects of the FCC's regulations. For an account of what things are really like in America outside the Beltway, see my testimony, delivered before the House Judiciary Committee last week, at http://www.brettglass.com/testimony.pdf seen belowBY BRETT GLASS on 02/23/2011 at 14:42





PREPARED TESTIMONY OF LAURENCE BRETT (“BRETT”) GLASS
OWNER AND FOUNDER, LARIAT
A WIRELESS INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER SERVING
ALBANY COUNTY, WYOMING
HEARING ON:
“ENSURING COMPETITION ON THE INTERNET;
NET NEUTRALITY AND ANTITRUST”
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY,
COMPETITION, AND THE INTERNET
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Watt, and Members of the Committee:


Thank you very much for inviting me to testify. It is a great honor for me to be the first
of my relatively young industry to testify before Congress. I hope that there will be
many more opportunities for myself and my colleagues to communicate with our
nation’s decision makers regarding Internet policy.
First, some background. I am an Electrical Engineer. I received my Bachelor of Science
from the Case Institute of Technology in 1981 and my Master’s from Stanford in 1985.
While at Stanford, I worked on fixing bugs in the brand new network called the
Internet, and also on digital radio technology which laid the groundwork for Wi-Fi. I
have designed computer chips, written popular computer software, and penned more
than 2,500 published articles for technology-oriented magazines such as BYTE,
InfoWorld and PC World.
In the early 1990s, I moved from Palo Alto, California to the beautiful, small college
town of Laramie, Wyoming. Laramie is roughly the same size as Staunton, Virginia,
though it is more isolated. When I arrived, I discovered that there was no ready access
to the Internet outside of the University campus. Working with others who also wanted
access, I founded LARIAT, the world’s first fixed wireless Internet service provider, or
WISP. LARIAT began as a nonprofit cooperative whose purpose was to teach,
promote, and facilitate the use of the Internet.
Fast forward 11 years, to 2003. The Internet was well established, and the membership
decided that they no longer wanted to be members of a co-op. They simply wanted to
buy good Internet service from a responsible local provider. So, the Board prevailed
upon me and my wife – who had served as caretakers of the network and had built
most of the equipment with our own hands – to take it private. We did, and we’ve been
running LARIAT as a small, independent ISP ever since. After all these years, our
passion for bringing people fast, affordable Internet service hasn't changed. Nothing can
beat the sense of achievement we feel when we hook up a rural customer who couldn't
get broadband before – or when we connect a customer who has decided to "cut the
cord" to the telephone company or cable company. We have very slim margins; our net
profit is less than $5 per customer per month. But we're not doing this to get rich. We're
doing this because we love to do it and want to help our community. We at LARIAT
have always been the strongest possible advocates of consumer choice, of free speech,
and of inexpensive, high quality access to the Internet. It’s our mission and it’s our
passion. And while I now have more help, I still climb rooftops and towers to install
Internet with my own hands, to train employees, and and to check the quality of every job.
Now, since LARIAT started, the incumbent telephone and cable companies have also
gotten into the broadband business. We compete gamely with them within the city
limits, but our services, unlike theirs, extend far into the countryside. As we grew,
others saw what we’d done or independently came up with the same idea. Some even
set up shop in our town, forcing us to compete harder and innovate more. We estimate
that there are now between 4,000 and 5,000 independent wireless ISPs like ours, as
shown on this map:


WISP NationaL Map




The map, compiled by wireless consultant Brian Webster, understates WISPs’
coverage. It shows the service areas of only about 40% of all WISPs, and it’s about a
year old; our industry has expanded dramatically since that time. WISPs now serve
more than 2 million people and reach approximately 70% of all US homes and
businesses, including many with no access to DSL or cable. We create local high tech
jobs, and we stimulate the development of other businesses in our communities.
Because WISPs don’t use fiber or wires for the “last mile,” we can cost-effectively
serve areas where there is no business case for any other form of terrestrial broadband.

We also provide vigorous competition in areas where other kinds of broadband do
exist. For example, a WISP called DC Access serves many homes and businesses here
on Capitol Hill and provides the free Wi-Fi on the Supreme Court steps, a few blocks
from this chamber. If you stop for refreshment at Ebenezer’s coffeehouse, near Union
Station, you can open your laptop and browse the Web thanks to this same provider.
Unfortunately, I am here to tell you today that the “network neutrality” rules enacted by
the FCC will put WISPs’ efforts to provide competitive broadband, and to deploy it to
rural and urban areas that do not have access or competition, at risk. Firstly, the rules
address prospective harms rather than any actual problem. Contrary to what some
advocates of regulation say, ISPs have never censored legal third party Internet content.
Customers would quickly move to competitors if they dared to try. Secondly, even
before the rules were issued, the Commission’s NPRM created uncertainty, which, in
turn, drove away investors. The final rules are vague, permitting “reasonable network
management” but not fully defining what the word “reasonable” means. As FCC
Commissioner Robert McDowell pointed out in his well written dissent, this lays the
groundwork for protracted, expensive legal wrangling that no small business can afford.
And such factors as the political agendas of the Commissioners who happen to be
sitting at that moment may determine the outcome.

The rules also allow anyone – whether or not he or she has service from the provider in
question – to file a formal complaint alleging violations. Even now – before the rules
have taken effect! – groups here in Washington, DC have filed complaints against
MetroPCS for offering an affordable smartphone service plan which prohibits a few
bandwidth-hogging activities. There are other plans available for those who do not like
those terms, and the minor restrictions are more than worth the fantastic deal users get.
But MetroPCS, one of the shrinking number of competitive mobile wireless providers,
must answer the complaint and may be forced to stop offering service plans that
customers willingly choose and enjoy.
My own company, which is much smaller than Metro PCS, could suffer a similar fate.
Our most popular residential service plan comes with a minor restriction: it does not
allow the operation of servers. Mr. Chairman, most Internet users would not know what
a server was if it bit them, and have no problem uploading content to a Web site such
as YouTube for distribution. Business customers that do need to operate servers can
obtain that capability by paying a bit more to cover the additional cost of expensive
rural bandwidth. But if the rules take effect and the FCC decides against Metro PCS,

we’ll almost certainly be forced to shift everyone to the more expensive plan. We will
therefore be less competitive and offer less value to consumers.
We will also hesitate to roll out innovative network management practices and services,
for fear that the Commission would find fault with some aspect of them. For example,
selling priority delivery of data – even for a new high tech service, such as telepresence
– is strongly disfavored by the rules. This is the equivalent of telling UPS or FedEx that
they cannot offer shippers overnight delivery, because it is somehow unfair to those
who use less expensive ground service.
Such undue micromanagement is not necessary in a competitive market. Even in our
small, remote community, there are 10 facilities-based broadband providers, and many
more non-facilities-based providers who deliver service via DSL lines. The resulting
market discipline is far more effective than static rules could ever be.
There are other problems in the rules, but due to limited time I can only mention one
more. That is that the rules are not evenhanded. There are carve-outs for mobile
carriers, who are claimed to be part of a nascent industry that faces significant
challenges. But ironically, these exemptions were not extended to fixed wireless
providers such as WISPs. Mobile phones’ market penetration is far higher than that of
WISPs, who are still working diligently to achieve similar market share and
recognition. And WISPs’ customers expect higher performance than mobile customers,
even though our service is delivered over noisy, shared unlicensed spectrum. If mobile
wireless providers deserve special consideration, then WISPs certainly do as well.
In any event, in my FCC filings, I urged the Commission to take measures to promote
competition rather than imposing onerous regulations which would require us to ask
permission to innovate. But the majority rejected this approach in favor of onerous
regulations which address a “problem” that does not exist.
I therefore urge Congress – which is the ultimate source of the FCC’s authority – to set
things right. Rather than excessive regulation, which would extinguish small
competitors like WISPs and create a duopoly requiring constant oversight, we should
facilitate competition, crack down on anticompetitive tactics, and then allow markets to
do the rest. Only by adopting this approach can we allow American small businesses to
create jobs, innovate, and prosper while solving a very real problem: providing
ubiquitous broadband access to our nation.

Newsweek's Evan Thomas: Public Employee Unions Are a Problem for Democrats



Something has definitely gotten into Evan Thomas's water, as for the third time this month, he advanced a viewpoint on PBS's "Inside Washington" quite contrary to the other liberal panelists.
On Friday's installment, with lone conservative regular Charles Krauthammer taking the day off, the Newsweek columnist practically assumed his position as the voice of reason taking on the other guests regarding the budget situation in Wisconsin (video follows with transcript and commentary):





  EVAN THOMAS, NEWSWEEK: Well, yeah because I think it’s a problem for the Democratic Party. The Democrats really depend on these public employee unions in a lot of states for their support and for their political muscle, and public employee unions got a problem here. I want to distinguish between unions and public employee unions. Unions obviously are critical, but in the public sector, public employee unions have a pretty easy time getting a lot of benefits because nobody’s really pushing back all that hard.
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: Oh, excuse me.
THOMAS: That is a problem for the Democratic Party, because right now, the way it’s being framed is, “Whose side are you on: the public employees union or the taxpayers' side?”
GORDON PETERSON, HOST: Nina?
Now watch Totenberg's absurd response:
TOTENBERG: So, it’s the unions’ fault that the managers caved? In this case, I don't know what the details are in all the other states where this is happening, but in Wisconsin, this is by now a manufactured crisis because the governor can’t take yes for an answer. The unions have said, "We'll give you all the cuts in benefits and salaries you want, we just want to preserve our collective bargaining rights," and he says no.
You really have to wonder if NPR sets an upside limit to intellectual capacity for its on air employees, as Totenberg's reply to Thomas was staggeringly idiotic.
On the one hand, she blamed state managers for caving in to the union demands that have now put Wisconsin - like so many states - in a budget bind. Seconds later, she complained that Walker won't accede to an agreement with the unions that doesn't limit their collective bargaining rights.
That's akin to blaming food for making a child fat and then criticizing the parent for trying to restrict his or her child's diet!
For years nay decades, the public employee unions in Wisconsin - as in so many states - have basically put a gun to the heads of government to get the most generous benefits packages available. To solve the long-term budget crisis, collective bargaining for benefits must be limited or the solution that comes with the unions' current offer will be short-lived.
Not surprisingly, Totenberg's less than room temperature intelligence quotient and/or her dying love for unions prevented her from understanding such logic:
PETERSON: Colby?
COLBY KING, WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think Charles [Krauthammer] is right about this being an important moment. I won’t say a magnificent moment, at all, but it’s an important moment because what is at issue at the part of this in Wisconsin and probably elsewhere is collective bargaining on the part of employee unions, and the question is whether that’s going to be sustained or not. The governor of Wisconsin is clearly out to break the unions. That’s his objective, and everybody has got to watch this. All the states are watching this to see what’s going to happen here, because if happens there in Wisconsin, it could very well happen elsewhere, and I think it’s going to be, this is, this is a fundamental fight that we have on our hands now.
As has been typical in virtually all of these discussions since the Wisconsin battle started is the absence of disclosure concerning the 21 states that currently restrict or limit completely collective bargaining by public employee unions. That said, it was time for Mark Shields to sing the praises of unions:
PETERSON: Mark?
MARK SHIELDS, PBS: Let's be very blunt. The United States workers would never have had a five-day work week, an eight-hour workday, we would never have had minimum-wage laws, child labor laws, health and pension benefits without the skill, the passion, the commitment and the clout of organized labor. Owners and employers just didn’t voluntarily wake one morning and say, “Let's be nice today to workers.” So, have unions made a difference in America’s landscape? Do they make a difference every day? You better believe it. At the same time, the same people, my good friend Evan, whom I respect enormously, endorses and embraces private sector unions, which now have fallen in strength to a point where they represent one out of twelve workers. They are defanged. They are basically powerless. Okay. When they represented 35 percent of workers a generation ago, not Evan, but many on the right said they were a threat to American democracy. They were a threat to the American way of life. Now public employees have the same right to collective bargain that any employee does. I mean, it’s that simple. How does a school teacher, a lone school teacher negotiate with the city of New York or the city of Milwaukee? You have got to pull your resources to do that.
Shields, like so many union lovers in the media, also ignored the fact that 21 states currently limit in whole or in part collective bargaining by public employee unions. The constant omission of this fact is negligence bordering on total dishonesty:
PETERSON: “Democrats, “Charles Krauthammer says, “are desperately defending the status quo. Republicans are charging the barricades.” How about that?
KING: Well, that’s dramatic language, but let’s go back to what Mark was talking about. The governor wants to eliminate collective bargaining, but he said they can bargain over wages. But look at what he leaves out of the picture – conditions of employment, circumstances that only a union can come together and change in a public setting or in a private setting. You can, a teacher can’t, or a teacher or a firefighter or a police officer can’t renegotiate the conditions and the circumstances where he’s going to work or the benefits around him. He can’t negotiate that by himself.
Now watch Thomas, in Krauthammer's absence, act as the voice of reason:
EVAN THOMAS: Okay, okay, okay, this is all true, but, let's look at the situation around the states. Public employee unions have disproportionate power because in a private situation, the shop owner, the store owner will push back because if they give away the store, they lose the store. In a public setting, it’s state legislatures who just want to get more contributions from unions. They’re happy to say yes, especially for the unfunded stuff down the road. We've gotten ourselves into a tremendous jam here by states saying, “Sure, you can have great pensions down the road, later. Yeah, that’s all fine.” So there’s like $3 trillion of these unfunded pensions. It’s a serious situation.
TOTENBERG: That’s true, but that’s worth negotiating over, and figuring out a solution to. It is not worth stamping people on the head till they’re dead.
It is not worth stamping people on the head till they’re dead. That's how Totenberg sees it.
Despite the fact that 21 states already have the same or similar provisions to what Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is asking for, public employees in his state will be dead without the unfettered right to collectively bargain for their pension and healthcare benefits.
It boggles the mind that anyone so intellectually challenged and/or dishonest is paid with American tax dollars to advance such total nonsense.