Do you think GOP blogs have the guts to attack one of their own for this kind of crap? I have yet to see any strong condemnation on GOP corruption in the right wing blogs. I commend Stoller for going after one of the democratic party establishment in the name of integrity.

Not that I'm not relatively optimistic about stymieing the bill (for this Congress, at least - we know with the bankruptcy bill that these bastards come back like Sinatra!).

But that's because we've got the deep pockets of Microsoft and Google on our team.

The bloggers are great: for the K Street folks that MS/Google hire, the bloggers add that flavor of authenticity - the passion, the let's do the show right here feel.

And they're something of an echo-chamber. (Though I've no idea what effect that's had on the extent/bias/depth of the MSM's coverage of the issue.)

But also critical in the stymie is the antitrust school of thought (represented by Sensenbrenner in Judiciary) apparently willing to take on the corporate-welfare-ists. And the completely different approach the GOP are taking on telecoms legislation in the Senate.

And - well, Mike McCurry is just a mouthpiece. With no executive responsibility in the process at all, so far as I know.

Quite why so much time in pieces on this topic here is taken up with ranting at the guy, I can't figure out. Some history of which I'm not aware, I asssume.

The problem with the "centrist" business democrats is that they don't understand that business is itself political. Big companies like to reduce taxes on wealth, prevent competition, increase corporate influence on government, and reduce labor costs/power - in other words, big companies are inherently republican. Big companies that are enmeshed in a network of similar companies that have a socially limited management class  permitted to extract giant amounts of booty from the system are naturally right wing republicans looking for short term gain. To permit big companies to control the media is to give control to right wing republicans. The internet is the remaining media not content controlled by right wing republicans.

In his interview with MyDD Harris Miller endorsed the neutral net.

Once again, Net Neutrality is not a law.  It's a concept.  Cable companies and non-common-carrier ISP's such as AOL and Earthlink are not subject to them.  This legislation only affects DSL customers of common carriers - Qwest, AT&T, Verizon, etc.  There is nothing currently stopping non-common-carriers from blocking anything they like.

Net Neutrality is not a law, but the Telcos have already expressed their interest in charging for preferential delivery of content over their networks. If they do this, the other ISP's will follow in order to compete. That's why folks are working to have Net Neutrality defined in the current legislation called COPE.

And not to be overlooked! COPE also will devastate the thousands of Public, Educational, and Governmental access channels and facilities around the country. The 'National Franchise' will remove local municipal oversight and administation of local video franchises and place it in the hands of the FCC.

COPE is also written to ALLOW for Red-Lining. The provisions are weak at best - they give the Telcos 'build-out' requirements with no timetable specified.

This Bill is a disaster in so many ways. Yes, it's bi-partisan, but the Democratic co-sponsor, Bobby Rush of Illinois received a million dollar donation to his personal community center from AT&T /SBC. This seems to be the going rate for bi-partisan Bills that compromise democratic principles.

Go to: http://saveaccess.org to sign on to a letter to Congress that asks for stronger PEG provisions, net neutrality protections and the prevention of red-lining.

"Net neutrality has been a foundational principle of internet governance since it was founded."

What, specifically, are you referring to as this "internet governance"?  What statutes, what regulations, and what regulatory body provides this claimed "internet governance" you speak of?

The Dept. of Commerce has authority over ICANN, which hands out number assignments to the RIRs (ASNs and IP blocks), and is responsible for the DNS roots and TLDs.

The FCC has authority over wireline communications, but has been completely hands off with respect to enhanced/information services that run on regulated wires.  Net neutrality advocates want to change that, and make the FCC a rule-making body for Internet services.  Historically, they have not been.