The Consumerist explains why that teabagger anti-net neutrality video from the other day is total bunkum. Remember how Ms. Somberg never explained how net neutrality (somehow) benefits big corporations? The Consumerist reminds us that "(i)f ISPs can...make deals for “paid prioritization” with edge providers, then deep-pocketed companies like Google and Netflix will almost certainly step up to pay for improved access to consumers. Meanwhile, all those startups and small companies trying to compete won’t be able to afford the toll put in place by the ISPs." I guess that's why she didn't explain it.
Sen. Franken tells us why Sen. Cruz is also full of bunkum about net neutrality. Mr. Franken (him, Al Franken!) reminds us that net neutrality has already been the standard all these years, and on that basis alone can't be compared to the Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010. He also calls arguments that net neutrality will kill innovation "baloney," which is as refreshing as it is accurate -- if net neutrality has been the standard all these years, then innovations like Google and Youtube and Facebook and Twitter owe their existence to it, however big they've become since then. And what big corporation would ever have innovated any of these things? If you remember how many years it took iTunes to offer downloadable music after Napster exploded on the scene, you know the answer.
Even Forbes magazine details the many ways Ted Cruz is wrong about net neutrality. Long story short: "it seems that Sen. Cruz has very little faith in America’s capitalist spirit, in which established companies improve for the sake of taking market-share from one another, and in which entrepreneurs try to create something that completely disrupts the status quo." Sometimes, when everyone tells you you're wrong, it's because you're wrong.
Time magazine moots including the word "feminist" on its annual list of words to ban for 2015. I was a bit surprised that anyone was still getting their shorts in a bunch over feminism, until I remembered that feminism is, generally, what stands between men and the sex they don't deserve. Really, if not for rejection, feminism would be mainstream thought in America. Hell, we might even have an Equal Rights Amendment.
Joan McCarter at Daily Kos explains how the Obama Administration could work around a possible Supreme Court ruling that the wording of the ACA prevents our government from providing subsidies to citizens in states using the federal exchange. Long story short: states could use the federal exchange but still call it their own exchange -- which two states that crafted very balky exchanges have already done. The states would have to agree to do that -- which they might, if they decide not to alienate those citizens who've already used subsidies to get health insurance. Still, the Obama Administration could have "worked around" all of this in the first place by fighting to extend Medicare to the entire citizenry.
Finally, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suggests that expanding Medicaid is a worse solution than "get(ting people) into the workforce," and that more folks can "live the American dream if they’re not dependent on the American government." Surely he must know (because it's his job to know these things) that most folks taking government cheese are already working. More to the point, why does he confuse "assistance" with "dependence"? Next: Scott Walker tells us people should build their own roads so they can "live the American dream."
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