Judicial activism in Tennessee

~ susie

Broadband Policy Discussion

Oh my goodness, some Republicans don’t want free market competition! I am so shocked!

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s attorney general wants a federal appeals court to set aside a recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission to allow cities like Chattanooga to offer municipal broadband beyond their normal service area.
State Attorney General Herbert Slatery said in the filing with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the FCC had “unlawfully inserted itself between the state of Tennessee and the state’s own subdivisions.”

Slatery had been among several prominent Tennessee Republicans who had urged the FCC not to override a state law that blocks Chattanooga’s electric utility from expanding its super-fast Internet network to surrounding areas. Other letter writers included Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and the state House and Senate speakers.

The FCC nevertheless voted 3-2 last month in favor of the utilities in Chattanooga and Wilson, North Carolina. President Barack Obama had pushed for the FCC’s decision, saying the state laws stifled competition and economic development.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who voted with the majority, said at the time that some states have created “thickets of red tape designed to limit competition.” The ruling was opposed by the commission’s two Republican members, who argued it was outside the panel’s authority, violated states’ rights and undermined private enterprise.

The new JFK?

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Martin O'Malley, Governor of Maryland

I’m not adverse to the idea of O’Malley as a candidate, but he just doesn’t have the kind of charisma you need for a national campaign. Maybe he’ll get better:

Martin O’Malley can work a room, they say: Whether it’s an expansive hotel ballroom with several hundred in attendance or a dimly lit restaurant and bar over pizza.

He’s careful and precise in his articulation of speech and “someone you can believe in.”

He packs the executive leadership often craved by presidential voters: eight years at the helm of Maryland government and before that as mayor of Baltimore, where, supporters say, he reversed the Eastern industrial city’s decline.

Then there’s his dashing smile, an appetite for tech (he’s an avid user of Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter), and youthful age.

Oh, and he’s made trips to Iowa a top priority, something that presumed Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t.

O’Malley has the ability to captivate the nation and rise from a relatively unknown to a political juggernaut as John F. Kennedy did in the 1960s, more than 50 interviews with The Daily Iowan show.

“He’s a new breed of Democrats,” Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba, an Obama supporter, said following a private lunch with O’Malley on March 21.

O’Malley has slowly but surely chipped away at Rodham Clinton’s political gravitational pull, climbing from a inadequate public speaker to prime presidential product, should he announce a Democratic run.

Responsible gun owners unsure how toddler was shot

~ susie

boy with gun

Another “tragic accident” that “no one could have foreseen”:

A 2-year-old girl was in critical condition after an apparent accidental shooting in northern Kentucky Monday afternoon.

Police say the shooting occurred around 2 p.m. inside a home along Bon Jan Lane in Highland Heights. Officers say the girl’s 5-year-old brother was also involved in the incident, and their mother was home at the time, but it remains unclear how the toddler was shot, or where the gun came from.

EMS rushed the victim to Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center where she underwent surgery. Officials say the child was responsive at the scene.

Scientists tell natural history museums to cut ties with Kochs

~ susie

David and Charles Koch - Caricatures
I doubt this will do anything, but it would be nice if it did. Really bad people should be shunned:

Dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups are calling for museums of science and natural history to “cut all ties” with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers.

A letter released on Tuesday asserts that such money is tainted by these donors’ efforts to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.

“When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge,” the letter states. “This corporate philanthropy comes at too high a cost.”

The letter does not mention specific companies, but it does name David H. Koch, who sits on the boards of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and has given tens of millions of dollars to those institutions.

Koch Industries is a privately held corporation with subsidiaries in energy and other industries. Mr. Koch and his family have funded conservative causes, including scientists and organizations that contest the role of humans in climate change.