Category: Politics As Usual

Comcast hearings in Philadelphia

~ susie

Kabletown - 30 Rock

Via the Media Mobilizing Project:

Have something to say to Comcast? From concerns about your cable prices to demands that they pay their fair share, now’s our chance to be heard.

Every fifteen years, the City of Philadelphia and Comcast negotiate special contracts called “franchise agreements” in order to provide cable services in Philadelphia, America’s fourth biggest cable market (1). In exchange for their right to provide cable access and earn massive profits from our communities, the franchise agreement requires Comcast to “give back” a portion of their profits to support the public.

Comcast’s previous franchise agreement expires in 2015. The City has begun to collect public input on what Philadelphians want from Comcast in order to inform their negotiations and craft a new franchise agreement.  If we want a deal that truly benefits the people of Philadelphia, we need to tell the City what our communities need to thrive.MMP has created a guide to help you understand this process – so we can provide the City with input that will make an impact.

Click here to read the guide, and tell Philadelphia what our communities demand from Comcast.

Comcast has outsized power in a Philadelphia still suffering under economic crisis. The company earned over $64 billion in revenues in 2013 (2), while they lobbied to stop hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians from getting access to paid sick days (3).  Comcast joined Governor Corbett and the Chamber of Commerce on a push to shutter and privatize Philly’s public schools (4).  The ratio for CEO pay to average employee pay at Comcast is 370:1 (5). And they pay little in a city and state that needs much – a nationwide corporate-income tax rate of only 3.4% in a state where our average rate is 9.99% (6).  
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Mitch is going down

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

US Senator Mitch McConnell

And it makes me very happy:

(Politicus USA) Mitch McConnell is in serious danger of losing his Senate seat. The Republican leaning Rasmussen poll became the tenth poll to show Mitch McConnell either tied with, or trailing Democrat Alison Grimes.

A Rasmussen poll released today found that Grimes and McConnell are tied at 42%-42%. A PPP poll a few days earlier revealed a statistical tie, with Mitch McConnell holding a one point 43%-42% lead that was within the poll’s margin of error. The Rasmussen poll is the tenth poll that shows McConnell either trailing or tied with Democrat Alison Grimes.

The Grimes campaign released a statement which stressed that even though Sen. McConnell spent $300,000 on advertising in the state last week, the race is still tied, “The poll was conducted a full week after McConnell spent nearly $300,000 on air in that week alone; Alison For Kentucky has yet to spend a single dollar on air. This marks the tenth recent poll showing Alison tied or ahead of McConnell – another clear sign that his millions in wasteful spending are not moving his abysmal approval rating with Kentucky voters. It also comes on the heels of news that the Tea Party is starting a new Super PAC to attack Mitch McConnell’s failed record.”

The fact that the most powerful Republican in the United States Senate is spending a lot of money months before the campaign really kicks into gear is a sign that the McConnell camp knows that they are in trouble. However, Mitch McConnell has yet to propose anything that resembles a jobs plan, and his first ad was recycled and repackaged from his 2008 campaign.

Ten polls aren’t all wrong. Mitch McConnell is in deep deep trouble. McConnell needs to forget about his dream of Republicans retaking the Senate, and making him Majority Leader again. He will be lucky to hold on to his seat. 2014 may boil down to the Kentucky Senate race. If Alison Grimes defeats Mitch McConnell, Democrats will probably keep the Senate. The stakes couldn’t be higher, and it looks like Kentucky voters are pushing Mitch McConnell closer to a forced retirement.

H/t Karin Riley Porter.

A new mayor in town

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Bill de Blasio

I’m sure Bill DeBlasio will disappoint us at some point, but damn, I’m pretty happy about this:

The image is surreal. Newly elected New York mayor Bill de Blasio, wearing a broad and slightly goofy smile, dwarfs the infinitely vilified outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg, who seems somewhat bemused himself.

For 12 years it was Mayor Bloomberg, standing at the forefront of a national education reform movement, who overshadowed Bill de Blasio and his progressive ilk. Bloomberg considered New York the “ poster child” of free-market education reform as he seized mayoral control of the district, closed nearly 200 “failing schools” and opened about that many charters.

But as de Blasio settles into office, his administration has already dealt major blows to one of Bloomberg’s sacred cows. Late last week, newly appointed schools chancellor Carmen Fariña announced that the Department of Education would redirect $210 million from charter schools and independent nonprofits to fund de Blasio’s pre-kindergarten initiative.

The surprise announcement reflects educational priorities in upheaval. The millions in question had been earmarked by the former administration to help clear space for new and expanding charter schools in the coming five years. Instead, Fariña plans to divert the funds to priorities like de Blasio’s flagship initiative, the pre-kindergarten programs sold largely as a remedy for inequality.

Mutiny on the Bounty

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

mutiny

There’s no doubt that Brent Bozell is the craziest of the right-wing crazies. But the key phrase is “digital ads.” What this means is, Brent Bozell will spend a relatively modest amount on internet ads, and it will be returned ten-fold in contributions from the rabid right, perpetuating his own financial comfort. He will never, ever, ever mount a serious challenge to any of those people. I’ll believe it when I see it:

There’s no shortage of conservative groups that take aim at Republicans, be it to drag incumbents further to the right or out of office entirely. But now one group is targeting the biggest fish they can fry.

ForAmerica announced Tuesday that it’s pouring six-figures into its “Dump The Leadership” campaign.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that the man behind the group is none other than L. Brent Bozell III, the right-wing flamethrower who’s proven himself plenty willing to take on the GOP establishment.

After Paul Ryan hashed out a bipartisan budget deal late last year, Bozell predicted that the conservative base would “stampede away from a party that has lost its principles and bearings.”

“Time and again, year after year, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate has come to grassroots conservatives, and Tea Party supporters pleading for our money, our volunteers, our time, our energy and our votes,” Bozell told CNN in a statement.

Bozell said the group will use digital ads between now and November to target House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX).

H/t Nicole Naum.

O’Malley ready to run

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley

I like Martin O’Malley. He’s a progressive, he’s a leader and he’s generally on the side of the angels:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) told the Washington Post he is moving ahead with preparations for a possible presidential bid and can’t wait for Hillary Clinton to decide whether she is running.

Said O’Malley: “I have a great deal of respect for Hillary Clinton. But for my own part, I have a responsibility to prepare and to address the things that I feel a responsibility to address… To squander this important period of preparation because of horse-race concerns and handicapping concerns is just not a very productive use of energy… Right now, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing — the thought work and the preparation work.”

Via Kush Arora.

Taking the 5th

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

USA-NEWJERSEY/BRIDGE
Big surprise there. Sounds like someone else looking to make a deal:

Governor Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Kelly, will not turn over documents in response to a legislative subpoena, her lawyer said Monday, making her the second person to invoke constitutional protections against self-incrimination.

The information demanded by a legislative committee about the George Washington Bridge lane closures “directly overlaps with a parallel federal grand jury investigation,” a letter from attorney Michael Critchley, Sr. to the committee’s special counsel states. The letter, obtained by The Record, also cites her right to privacy.

“Moreover, providing the Committee with unfettered access to, among other things, Ms. Kelly’s personal diaries, calendars and all of her electronic devices amounts to an inappropriate and unlimited invasion of Ms. Kelly’s personal privacy and would also potentially reveal highly personal confidential communications completely unrelated to the reassignment of access lanes to the George Washignton Bridge,” Critchley wrote.

Already released records show that Kelly sent an e-mail to a Port Authority executive weeks before the lane closures: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” it said. Christie fired Kelly last month after the e-mail surfaced. He also cut ties with his former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, whose attorney last week also declined to produce the documents requested by a subpoena.

We’ll see

~ susie

Net Neutrality flyer

These guys will try, but I don’t know that it’ll be enough:

A group of Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to restore net neutrality rules at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

The two bills, introduced Monday, come about three weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit struck down rules, passed by the FCC in late 2010, prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic.

The new bill, called the Open Internet Preservation Act, would restore the FCC’s net neutrality, or open Internet, rules. The rules would remain in effect until the FCC takes new action on net neutrality, after the court left open the agency’s authority to pass new rules if it finds a new way to write them.

Among the nine Democratic cosponsors in the House are Representatives Henry Waxman, Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren and Doris Matsui of California. Among the six Senate cosponsors are Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Al Franken of Minnesota and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Another one bites the dust

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Funny that they released it on Super Bowl Sunday:

TRENTON, N.J. — A member of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration who has been subpoenaed in an alleged political payback investigation has resigned.

Christina Genovese Renna left the governor’s office Friday, the same day former Christie loyalist David Wildstein claimed to have evidence contradicting the governor’s account of a lane closing operation, apparently to create traffic chaos as a political vendetta.

Renna reported to Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Kelly, who apparently set the lane closings in motion with an email to Wildstein.

Renna confirmed her resignation to The Associated Press through a statement Sunday from her lawyer, Henry Klingeman.

In it, Renna says she has been considering leaving since after the November election, which Christie won decisively.

Critique

~ susie ~ 6 Comments

Political Finger-Pointing

Of what Obama said about education in his SOTU speech, and his comparing our results to South Korea’s:

No matter that according to OECD data, South Korean kids are the unhappiest in the world, and according to many studies, have high suicide rates.  US parents should be just as demanding more of their kids, even if their happiness and mental health be damned.

I’ve written before about Duncan’s misplaced envy of the South Korea, where 20% of the average family’s disposable income is spent on private tutoring, and even the Prime Minster has warned us against emulating their educational system. Many Korean families in fact move to the United States in order to  save their children from the horrible pressures of their system.  But now Duncan and the President appear to have taken this fixation even further.

Graciously, Obama started his State of the Union praising teachers: “today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest levels in more than three decades.”  But then he went on to say:

“Race to the Top, with the help of governors from both parties, has helped states raise expectations and performance. Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., are making big strides in preparing students with the skills for the new economy — problem solving, critical thinking, science, technology, engineering, math.  Now, some of this change is hard. It requires everything from more challenging curriculums and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think…”

Good he and Arne have changed their line – at least temporarily – by saying that teachers need more support.  But now they are accusing parents of not having high enough expectations.  Can’t we get over this blame game?  Or am I being too sensitive?