Category: just politics

I have no amazing analysis as to why Bush won, or why the Republicans managed to firm up their domination in both houses of Congress. It sucks, but we’ll live. We may even be able to galvanize more opposition. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that four years of the corrupt Bush administration has…

I’m not making this up. When I first saw it I thought it was some kind of strange joke, but several viewings leads only to the conclusion that it’s a real ad, taking down a political opponent for having been previously a Weird Al Yankovic impersonator. The ad features the subject, Scot England, with Weird…

Republican Rep. Bill Tauzin of Louisiana is set to step down from his chairship of the House Engergy and Commerce Committee, which oversees telecommunications issues and the FCC, on Feb. 16, and leave the House altogether at the end of his term. Tauzin was a tireless friend to the corporate media and the entertainment cartel,…

Sheldon Wolin writes convincingly in the Nation that the Republican Bushist regime is effecting an “Inverted Totalitarianism”: “By inverted I mean that while the current system and its operatives share with Nazism the aspiration toward unlimited power and aggressive expansionism, their methods and actions seem upside down. For example, in Weimar Germany, before the Nazis…

The full slate of FCC Commissioners will be making another rare appearance at the House, this time at Billy Tauzin’s Energy and Commerce Committee. Tauzin and many other Reps are pissed that the FCC went the compromise route on deregulating the mandatory sharing of local telephone networks by the regional Bell operators. And they’re especially…

The Economist conducts a brief, but fawning profile of FCC Chair Michael Powell. Their loves stems from the estimation that “Unusually for a regulator, Mr Powell seems to want, gradually, to write the FCC out of the game. For that, he deserves more respect than Americans usually shower on their benighted government officials.” All I…

The LA Times reports on “Citizens Knocking on FCC’s Door” and actually getting face time with FCC Commissioners “to discuss the arcane rules of national telecommunications policy.” Just seeing the headline made me think, “Yes, this is the way it oughtta be.” But then reading it raised some suspicions. The only real citizen the article…

CNet’s Declan McCullagh gives a rundown of what the election results might mean for Tech in the US. Obviously, the biggest difference will be Republican leadership of all committees, which is a mixed bag, since some tech issues don’t break cleanly along party lines. For instance, Democratic Sen. Fritz Hollings of S.C. has been a…

Nationwide, the Democrats blew it in yesterday’s election. That’s clear to anyone who gives a shit, and is quickly being parroted across the mainstream press this morning. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence to challenge it. Only here in Illinois, after one of the most corrupt state governments in recent memory, were Democrats able to take a…