“Free press” on The Daily Caller

In Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” (more)

Though last week’s Federal Communications Commission filing which placed net neutrality in the Federal Register may have seemed an apparent victory for open internet advocates, a prominent free speech group is challenging the ruling, calling it “arbitrary and capricious, [and] an abuse of discretion.” (more)

A letter from media reform group Free Press to supporters sets a new standard for irony: Not quite two months after Free Press helped pave the way for the U.S. government to regulate the Internet, it’s stoking fears about the U.S. government abusing that power. (more)

This would be sort of reassuring* if it had come out BEFORE the FCC’s vote on net neutrality: (more)

1.) Feds may have to bail out Detroit for a second time — If the federal government decides, in its finite wisdom, that poorly run states and municipalities do not deserve to sink or swim based on the electoral acumen of their residents (or lack thereof), and chooses instead to “bail out” bankrupt members of the American federation, there will be some irony in the decision. In Detroit, two of the city’s public pensions are under investigation for “risky investing” that cost the two funds $480 million in three years. According to the Detroit Free Press, “many of the investments involved secretive middlemen, who pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars, or were vetted by controversial investment adviser Adrian Anderson and his firm, North Point Advisors.” Anderson is currently under investigation by the SEC, but has not been charged. In the meantime, “the pensions are paying the legal bills of Anderson and a second adviser who scrutinized failed real estate deals.” Have you heard the one about the burglar who fell through the woman’s skylight and then demanded that she pay for his medical bills? This is sort of like that. (more)

1.) How the left astroturfed net neutrality into existence — Despite what you may have heard, yesterday’s net neutrality vote at the FCC wasn’t the result of millions of Americans or even tens of thousands of Americans waking up and saying, “I think I am going to suddenly care about this!” No, like most Washington success stories, yesterday’s enslavement of the Internet was made possible by a small group of people with a lot of money. “After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to “media reform”—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct “Fairness Doctrine” that used to regulate TV and radio companies,” writes the WSJ’s John Fund. Those outfits are Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers’s Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, all of which have given money to left-wing froth factory Free Press. As a result of Free Press’s close ties to staffers for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, net neutrality crusaders gamed the debate from the beginning: “Some of the same foundations that have spent years funding net neutrality advocacy research ended up funding the FCC-commissioned study that evaluated net neutrality research.” (more)

Free Press, the media reform and pro-net neutrality think tank, *seemingly* has mud on its face yet again: It appears that in their haste to besiege the Federal Communications Commission with petitions signed by “real Americans,” calling for the implementation of “net neutrality” rules, Free Press mixed up their documents.  (more)

1.) It’s official: Everybody hates Genachowski’s plan to regulate the Internet — And yes, we do mean everybody: The lefty nutters at Free Press, former comic Al Franken, Republican FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, and now, a group of Senate Republicans. The beef from the left–Franken, Free Press, and the supposed two million Americans who accidentally signed petitions thinking they were entering a contest for free Krispy Kreme–is that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed framework does not do enough to control the Internet. For instance, liberals are unhappy that cable companies would still have incentives under Genachowski’s policy to invest in creating faster, stronger, and better services, access to which could be priced at a higher rate than existing Internet services. Meanwhile, Republicans and McDowell are concerned about what the regulations would do–namely, establish “an unjustified and unnecessary expansion of government control over private enterprise.” In the middle of it all is Genachowski, a bureaucrat with the heart of a Marxist and the vertebral integrity of a plane-crash survivor. The FCC votes on Dec. 21. Don’t miss it. (more)

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission created a rule requiring broadcasters to cover issues that the government deemed important, and to do so in a way that the government found “honest, equitable and balanced.” If a broadcaster did not agree to abide by this rule, the FCC reserved the right to revoke the station’s broadcasting license. This rule was called the Fairness Doctrine. The FCC abandoned it in 1987. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a socially conservative Democrat appointed to the FCC in 2001, would like to bring it back. (more)

Just two months after Rep. Henry Waxman drafted, then abandoned, a hotly contested net neutrality bill, the FCC will present its own net neutrality policy in a December 21 meeting. (more)

After NPR fired Juan Williams in late October for comments he made about Muslims on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor,”  NPR saw supporters come out of the woodwork to decry right-leaning calls for the radio company to be stripped of government financial support. Interestingly, many of those who voiced their opinion that NPR should keep its government provided cash happen to receive funds from the same source: liberal financier George Soros and his Open Society Institute. (more)

The list hasn’t been finalized, but it’s almost as if Washington’s battles for the next two years have already been determined. From fetishistic scenarios in which California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa uses his new-found investigatory powers to topple the White House, to hemming and hawing about the fate of Obamacare, the drastic power shift in the House means Washington has a new, GOP-oriented agenda. (more)

The link that you can find here leads to a list of the 95 Democrats that were in support of net neutrality legislation.  If you were curious how many of them we in the free market still have to contend with, I went ahead and did the research for you so that you could save yourself the headache of counting to zero. (more)

For years, progressives have claimed that net neutrality Internet regulations have the support of “millions” of Americans. They push fear-mongering rhetoric, time after time falsely making doomsday “end of the Internet” predictions, unless government steps in to regulate. And, worse, they have led President Obama, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and some members of Congress to actually believe that net neutrality is not just good policy, but good politics. (more)

The European Union is well known for the overwhelming number of ridiculous regulations that it produces. The EU has banned horse drawn carts on rural roads; set standards on the shape and curvature of bananas; crushed productivity with minimum holidays and maximum work hours; pointlessly set three separate regulations on the loudness of lawn mowers; and subjected hot air balloon enthusiasts to the same regulations and paperwork as commercial airlines. The list goes on. (more)

For two days now, the cannons in the net neutrality debate have fired nary a shot. Rep. Henry Waxman has yet to introduce the net neutrality bill [PDF] that supposedly leaked from his office earlier this week, but congressional insiders say the finished version will look much the same. If nothing changes in the legislation, could the ceasefire be permanent? (more)

Despite enormous political pressure from congressional Democrats and the progressive netroots, the FCC isn’t making any moves to regulate the Internet. At least, not this month. (more)

The advocacy group Free Press is inviting Twin Cities residents to turn out on Thursday for what it calls a public hearing on the “future of the Internet.”  But Free Press won’t be talking about how to bring you a faster connection, or how to bring high-speed Internet to the rural and urban communities that it doesn’t reach today.  Instead, the event is going to be a pep rally for imposing new, and to say the least, peculiar, regulations on the broadband Internet, under the name “net neutrality.” (more)

Two days after The Daily Caller requested comment from Free Press for a story about the group’s violation of the Lobbying Disclosure Act, the pro-net neutrality nonprofit that has repeatedly criticized the FCC for its opaque dealings with the telecommunications industry finally decided to respond. (more)

Free Press, the public face of the net neutrality movement, is a moral see-saw when it comes to transparency. (more)