The Flora Harvester: Apr 6, 2010

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

A list of a few of the President's violated campaign promises.

NRO's Jim Geraghty has recently compiled an impressive list of expired Obama statements. The list is essentially a set of campaign promises or pledges that Obama has violated, rather in the manner of a conventional American politician. They reveal Obama's campaign persona as something of a sham.

Keep in mind we still have just under three years to go.

Will we let the government have this too?

The Associated Press is reporting that the FCC has lost a key ruling on it's desire to begin regulating free speech on the internet. We can only hope that this is as big of a setback as the writer suggests. Youtube, Google, and any other major innovation might not be at our fingertips today were this type of regulation in place when they were dreamed up. Net Neutrality is government control. Period. The organization of the TEA Party's, the ability for small Mom and Pop Companies to make a name for themselves alongside the big players of Corporate America, the advent of the blogging writer digging for the truth and putting it out there for the world to see and debate, true and unregulated 21st century dialogue . . . with Net Neutrality it's all gone.

The ruling itself had little to do with content, and focused more on ISP companies participating in what's referred to as traffic shaping. Companies had been traffic shaping in order to penalize users who illegally download copyrighted material such as music and movies, through the use of torrent files.

However, the ruling clearly questions the FCC's authority to control ISP's "network management practices," a clear sign that the content related regulation of Net Neutrality proponents would be an uphill battle. The court’s decision states that while the FCC is permitted to make rules and issue orders to fulfill its own responsibilities, “for a variety of substantive and procedural reasons those provisions cannot support its exercise of ancillary authority over Comcast’s network management practices.”

FCC loses key ruling on Internet `neutrality'

By JOELLE TESSLER - AP Technology Writer

A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations and U.S. broadband expansion plans into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "network neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.

The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel marks a serious setback for the FCC, which is trying to adopt official net neutrality regulations. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, argues such rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over Internet access to favor some kinds of online content and services over others.

The case centers on Comcast's actions in 2007 when it interfered with an online file-sharing service called BitTorrent, which allows users to swap big files such as movies over the Internet. But public interest groups stressed that the ramifications of Tuesday's ruling are much broader. That's because it undercuts the FCC's ability to prevent broadband providers from becoming gatekeepers for many kinds of online services, potentially including Internet phone programs and software that runs in a Web browser.

"Today's appeals court decision means there are no protections in the law for consumers' broadband services," Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge, said in a statement. "Companies selling Internet access are free to play favorites with content on their networks, to throttle certain applications or simply to block others."

The decision also has serious implications for the massive national broadband plan released by the FCC last month. The FCC needs clear authority to regulate broadband in order to push ahead with some its key recommendations, including a proposal to expand broadband by tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities.

In a statement, the FCC said it remains "firmly committed to promoting an open Internet and to policies that will bring the enormous benefits of broadband to all Americans" and "will rest these policies ... on a solid legal foundation."

Comcast welcomed the decision, saying "our primary goal was always to clear our name and reputation."

At the heart of the court case is Comcast's challenge of a 2008 FCC order banning it from blocking subscribers from using BitTorrent. The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order on a set of net neutrality principles adopted in 2005.

Read more of the AP Report at the Sun Herald

Net Neutrality is government regulation. It is the FCC picking and choosing what it decides is and is not in the best interest of the public. One of the biggest proponents is Al Gore. Need I say more?

The Cato Institute probably put it best when it calls Net Neutrality "A Solution In Search of A Problem.'"

This is a very good video from Reason TV that answers the question, "What the hell is Net Neutrality?"

And below is a video of Candidate Barack Obama endorsing Net Neutrality in 2007 to, as he puts it, "ensure the free and full exchange of information." Remember, he's the one that just gave us a $940 trillion dollar bill that would ensure the free and full exchange of health care for all citizens.

I ain't buying any of it. Reagan reminded us . . .

Regulating the "Rocky Mountain High"

Wonder what John Denver would think about all this? And in a town named Fruita no less!

In Colorado town, vote on sales tax for marijuana

The Associated Press

FRUITA, Colo. -- Voters in the western Colorado town of Fruita are deciding whether to make their town the first in the state to tax medical marijuana.

The City Council decided to ask voters Tuesday whether to impose a 5 percent sales tax on medical marijuana to help the town of about 11,000 cover costs of regulating dispensaries.

City Manager Clint Kinney says the town estimates the most it could possibly generate from the tax is $100,000. Only one application to open a dispensary is pending.

A voter-approved amendment to the Colorado constitution allows limited marijuana use for certain medical conditions but doesn't regulate dispensaries.

Fruita's rules include background checks for dispensary owners.

Changes coming to health insurance plans

Consumers and employers who provide health insurance are scrambling to understand what will change in their premiums and benefits once the recently passed law goes into effect.

The new legislation applies broadly to nearly all private plans. That includes policies offered by large self-insured employers, through whom about half of the nation's covered workers get their insurance.

Some new rules — such as barring insurers from rejecting children with medical conditions or from canceling policies retroactively — are aimed at problems that mainly affect the 17 million people who buy their own insurance in the so-called non-group market.

But even the approximately 175 million Americans who get group coverage through their jobs will see changes.

Employers are flooding benefit firms with questions.

"We're getting a lot of calls (asking) ... to translate what this law means," says Kelly Traw, a principal with benefits consultancy Mercer. "That's a daunting task right now."

Some specific changes to policies and benefits aren't spelled out in the law. While some changes mandated by the new law appear fairly straightforward — no lifetime caps on coverage, for example — other provisions are missing crucial details, which must be clarified by the Department of Health and Human Services in regulations.

It will be up to the HHS secretary, for example:

To define the breadth of coverage in an "essential benefits package."

To determine how insurers will calculate how much they spend on direct medical care, a key point because insurers who don't meet specific spending benchmarks must issue rebates to consumers.

An HHS spokesman wouldn't provide details on when regulations will be issued. But, with some provisions set to go into effect by the end of September, pressure is on to move quickly.

Among the unknowns is the effect on premiums in the next couple of years. New taxes on drug companies, device makers and insurers don't begin until at least 2012. But when they do, economists expect that the increases will be passed along to employers and consumers. Barring insurers from setting lifetime coverage limits may also put upward pressure on premiums.

WLBT Report--Madison mayor questions county engineering fees (Video)

The verbal back and forth is ramping up between Mayor Mary and Rudy Warnock over the engineering fees. Around the one minute mark of the video is an interesting edit, as the Mayor asks why projects are engineered before construction funding is available. The video immediately cuts to Warnock saying, "it is a waste of time, and a waste of money." I'm pretty sure he wasn't commenting on the engineering fees he's been able to collect prior to funding of projects. Was the WLBT editor having a bit of fun?

Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler is demanding a forensic audit of engineering projects done in her city by Madison County Engineer Rudy Warnock.

This request comes after an independent audit done on Warnock that claimed to find discrepancies in how much he was charging for his work.

The audit was done by hired engineer Richard McAfee of Florida. In his report, he claimed to have found multiple instances of excessive charges to the city of Madison, and questionable payments to the Warnock and Associates Engineering Firm.