January, 02 2025, 02:19pm EDT
6th Circuit Wrongly Rejects Federal Jurisdiction Over Essential Broadband Internet Access Services
On Thursday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled against the Federal Communications Commission's 2024 Net Neutrality rulemaking, which empowered the agency to protect internet users against all manner of abuse by major broadband internet access providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
In April, the FCC reinstated its Title II authority over broadband-internet access. This authority empowers the agency to hold powerful telecommunications companies accountable for providing service on just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms to internet users throughout the United States. It also serves as the basis for the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules, which prohibit those companies from blocking, slowing down, or charging extra for the internet content and applications their broadband customers choose.
In September, Free Press filed a brief in the case supporting the FCC's April ruling. The brief — filed jointly with the Benton Institute, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge — focused on the legal precedent and economic analysis supporting the Commission’s decision, showing the wisdom of and the need for the FCC’s jurisdiction over the essential telecommunications platform of our time.
The 6th Circuit ruled nevertheless that broadband internet access service should be classified as a Title I “information service” under the Communications Act. The court rejected the Biden FCC’s argument that broadband should be classified as a “telecommunications service,” subject to the FCC’s mandates and authority in Title II of the Act to ensure service on an equitable and nondiscriminatory basis.
Free Press Vice President of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood said:
“Beyond being a disappointing outcome, today’s 6th Circuit opinion is just plainly wrong at every level of analysis. The decision missed the point on everything from its granular textual analysis and understanding of the broader statutory context, to the court’s view of the legislative and agency history, all the way to its conception of Congress’s overarching policy concerns.
“Unfortunately, this result also shows why the industry suing the FCC was so eager to engage in forum-shopping to get this case away from the federal court in Washington, D.C. — which had developed deep expertise on broadband issues during prior rounds of litigation.
“In April, the FCC issued an order that properly restored the agency’s congressionally granted oversight authority to protect people from any ISP discrimination and manipulation. That common-sense FCC order tried to ensure that the companies providing America with the essential communications service of this century don’t get to operate free from any real oversight.
“These companies baselessly claim that any regulation will hurt their bottom-line. As Free Press has shown repeatedly, treating broadband like a common-carrier service does nothing to dampen or dissuade private investment in this crucial infrastructure. And the question for any court interpreting the Communications Act must be what is in the public’s best interest, not just one industry sector’s financial interests.
“Today’s decision will let the incoming Trump FCC abdicate its responsibility to protect internet users against unscrupulous business practices. It’s rich to think of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s hand-picked FCC chairman characterizing light-touch broadband rules as heavy-handed regulation, while scheming to force carriage of viewpoints favorable to Trump on the nation’s broadcast airwaves and social media sites.
“With today’s ruling, the 6th Circuit has for now denied the public the internet access service that it deserves — one that is affordable, reliable, safe, accessible, and free from unlawful discrimination. Despite this setback, Free Press will continue to fight — in the courts, in Congress, and everywhere — for an open, fair, and free communications network for all.”
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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Renowned Washington Post Cartoonist Quits After Refusal to Publish Critique of Jeff Bezos
Jan 04, 2025
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from the Washington Post, where she has worked since 2008, due to what she claims was editorial interference.
Telnaes claimed an editor at the paper killed her draft cartoon depicting Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and other billionaire tech and media chief executives groveling on their knees at the feet of President-elect Donald Trump.
Along with Bezos, Telnaes depicted Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman bringing Trump sacks of cash. Los Angeles Times owner and billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong was shown with a tube of lipstick.
In a post to her Substack, Telnaes wrote:
“I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations – and some differences – about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time, I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.”
"As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning because, as they say, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
Over three hundred thousand people canceled their digital subscriptions after Jeff Bezos decided to squash a Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris in October.
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Biden Greenlights 'Racist' and 'Sociopathic' $8B Arms Sale to Israel
Multiple human rights organizations and international bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza
Jan 04, 2025
The administration of US President Joe Biden announced on Saturday an arms sale to Israel valued at $8 billion, just ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Biden has repeatedly rejected calls to suspend military backing for Israel because of the number of civilians killed during the war in Gaza. Israel has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, primarily women and children.
The sale includes medium-range air-to-air missiles, 155mm projectile artillery shells for long-range targeting, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 500-pound bombs, and more.
Human rights groups, former State Department officials, and Democratic lawmakers have urged the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, citing violations of US laws, including the Leahy Law, as well as international laws and human rights.
The Leahy Law, named after former Sen. Patrick Leahy, requires the US to withhold military assistance from foreign military or law enforcement units if there is credible evidence of human rights violations.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s most significant Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called Biden’s new $8 billion arms deal “racist” and “sociopathic.”
Multiple human rights organizations and international bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for committing war crimes.
The US is, by far, the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.
CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said on Saturday:
“We strongly condemn the Biden administration for its unbelievable and criminal decision to send another $8 billion worth of American weapons to the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu instead of using American leverage to force an end to the genocide in Gaza.
“Only racists who do not view people of color as equally human, and sociopaths who delight in funding mass slaughter, could send Netanyahu even more bombs while his government openly kidnaps doctors, destroys hospitals, and exterminates the last survivors in northern Gaza.
“If President Biden is actually the person who approved this new $8 billion arms sale, then he is a war criminal who belongs in a cell at The Hague alongside Netanyahu. But if Antony Blinken, Brett McGurk, Jake Sullivan, and other aides are making these unconscionable decisions as shadow presidents, then anyone with a conscience in the administration should speak up now about their abuses of power.”
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US accounted for 69% of Israel's imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023.
On the other hand, incoming President-elect Donald Trump has also pledged unwavering support for Israel and has never committed to supporting an independent Palestinian state.
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'The GOP Promised to Make Life Easier for Working Families,' But Here's the Real Agenda
"Mike Johnson is committing to slashing Social Security and Medicare to get the speaker's gavel," said one progressive group.
Jan 03, 2025
As Republicans took full control of Congress this week and U.S. President-elect prepared to take office later this month, Democratic lawmakers renewed warnings about how the GOP agenda will harm working people and pledged to fight against it.
"Today, the 119th Congress officially begins. Our top priority over the next two years must be fighting for working families and standing up to corporate power and greed," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on social media Friday.
"While Republicans focus their energy for the next two years on giving tax breaks to the rich and cutting vital public programs, Democrats will continue working to lower costs and raise wages for all," Jayapal promised. "We'll always be fighting for YOU."
In addition to members of Congress being sworn in on Friday, nearly all Republicans in the House of Representatives reelected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as speaker and the chamber debated a rules package that Democrats have criticized since it was released by GOP leadership earlier this week.
"Their governance will be marked by consolidated power, scapegoated communities, and campaigns of punishment."
The package fast-tracks a dozen bills on a range of issues; they include various immigration measures as well as legislation attacking transgender student athletes, sanctioning the International Criminal Court, requiring proof of United States citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and prohibiting a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for fossil fuels.
"Speaker Johnson has said that the 119th Congress will be consequential. Today, both in Speaker Johnson's address and in the rules package the Republicans have passed, Republicans have shown us what the consequences of their leadership will be," Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.) said in a statement. "In their first order of business, Republicans advanced a legislative package that abuses the power of Congress to persecute trans children athletes, take federal funding away from sanctuary cities like Chicago and Illinois, scapegoat immigrants, erode voting rights, and put new criminal penalties on reproductive care providers."
"For the first time in history, they seek to make the speakership less accountable to the full body of legislators and to limit our ability to consider emergency bills," Ramirez noted. "Overall, they are using the rules to make Congress less transparent, less accountable, and less responsive to the needs of the American people. Their governance will be marked by consolidated power, scapegoated communities, and campaigns of punishment."
Speaking out against the package on the House floor, Jayapal said it "makes very clear what the Republican majority will not do in the 119th Congress," stressing that the 12 bills "do nothing to lower costs or raise wages for the American people."
These bills also won't "take on the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals who profit from the high prices and junk fees and corporate concentration that's harming Americans across this country," she said. "Because guess what? These corporations and wealthy individuals are the ones that are controlling the Republican Party for their own benefit."
Jayapal highlighted the exorbitant wealth of Trump's Cabinet picks, just a day after the president-elect announced corporate lobbyist and GOP donor Ken Kies as his choice for assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department—which is set to be led by billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, as Republicans in Congress try to pass another round of tax cuts for the rich.
GOP lawmakers are also aiming "to make meaningful spending reforms to eliminate trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse, and end the weaponization of government," Johnson said in a lengthy social media on Friday. "Along with advancing President Trump's America First agenda, I will lead the House Republicans to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, hold the bureaucracy accountable, and move the United States to a more sustainable fiscal trajectory."
In other words, responded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), "Mike Johnson is committing to slashing Social Security and Medicare to get the speaker's gavel."
Republicans have a slim House majority and Trump-backed Johnson was initially set to fall short of the necessary support to remain speaker, due to opposition from not only Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) but also Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas). However, after a private conversation, Norman and Self switched their votes.
"Johnson cut a backroom deal with the members that voted against him so they'd flip their votes. So he will get gavel now. I'm sure in time we'll find out what he sold out just so he'd win," Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) said on social media.
"What did Johnson sell out to become speaker? Social Security or Medicare? Or perhaps veterans?" he asked.
Citing a document circulated ahead of the vote by Johnson's right-wing critics that lists "failures" of the 118th Congress, the PCCC said: "Looks like all of the above. But his holdouts put Social Security in their first bullet of grievances."
After the vote, Norman and 10 right-wing colleagues released a letter explaining that, despite sincere reservations, they elected Johnson because of their "steadfast support of President Trump and to ensure the timely certification of his electors."
"To deliver on the historic mandate earned by President Trump for the Republican Party, we must be organized to use reconciliation—and all legislative tools—to deliver on critical border security, spending cuts, pro-growth tax policy, regulatory reform, and the reversal of the damage done by the Biden-Harris administration," they added.
Politicoreported that "House Republicans are hoping to start work on the budget targets for critical committees on Saturday—the first step in kicking off their ambitious legislative agenda involving energy, border, and tax policy."
According to the outlet:
"The Ways and Means Committee is just going to be able to draft tax legislation according to what the budget reconciliation instructions are," said House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who will be leading the charge on extensions of... Trump's tax cuts.
"And so when the conference figures out what they want in those instructions, we'll be able to deliver according to those parameters," said Smith, when asked about the primary goal of a GOP conference meeting tentatively scheduled for Saturday at Fort McNair, an Army post in southwest Washington.
That followed Thursday reporting by The Washington Post that Trump advisers and congressional Republicans "have begun floating proposals to boost federal revenue and slash spending so their plans for major tax cuts and new security spending won't further explode the $36.2 trillion national debt."
As the newspaper detailed, 10 policies that Republicans have considered are tariffs, repealing clean energy programs, unauthorized spending, repealing the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness, shuttering the Education Department, cutting federal food assistance, imposing Medicaid work requirements, blocking Medicare obesity treatment, ending the child tax credit for noncitizen parents, and cutting Internal Revenue Service funding.
"The GOP promised to make life easier for working families," Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the Democratic whip, said on social media in response to the Post's article. "Now, they want to slash your school budget, raise your grocery costs, and hike your energy bills—all to pay for billionaire tax cuts."
"We will not allow Republicans to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food assistance to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy," she added Friday. "No way."
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