The hottest topic among nerds in recent weeks/years has been that of Net Neutrality, the backers of which would like consumers to have free reign over the Internet as opposed to, say, telecom companies determining what shit you get to look at, for how much, and at which speeds, forever. The FCC is moving forward on preparing new rules preserving Net Neutrality, which has made the telecom lobbyists FURIOUS, meaning it’s probably a good thing that the FCC is making these news rules! The lobbyists have found as their spokesman on this issue a certain John “WALNUTS!” McCain, who knows most things about the Internet and insists that these new regulations will be bad for ‘Merka. He has introduced a bill called the “Internet Freedom Act,” which would keep the Internet free for poor corporations, as opposed to those well-moneyed “average consumer” special interests. MORE »

We all know that Barack Obama, who is actually Richard Nixon, likes to speak out against certain practices of the health insurance industry solely because Rahm Emanuel wrote “GRRR INSURANCE GRRR!”, in his self-loathing Jew blood, atop the official White House Enemies List, and Obama must obey this list. What “Chicago-style politicians” these guys are, speaking out against private capitalism business people, just trying to make a buck! MORE »

Sex-having Sen. John Ensign hauled in a whopping $33k for himself and his Republican Party last quarter, down approximately $300,000 from the previous quarter, when he was still a virgin. This is great news for the corporates! Ensign’s vote-selling fee is spiraling down down down to a farthing’s worth: “Most of Ensign’s contributions since news of the affair broke came from individual donors, although he did receive $1,000 from the BlueCross BlueShield Association in September, just as the Senate Finance Committee — on which he sits — was considering its health care bill.” In a few months, John Ensign will be living in an Anacostia dumpster soliciting Dixie cups of urine and cigarette butts from Goldman Sachs in exchange for a vote against financial regulation. [Politico]

Whether you like all of the compromises or not, the White House’s strategy throughout this health care reform effort has been to bring all well-funded players on board and try to work with them, to avoid any of them launching overt, “Harry & Louise”-esque public campaigns against any reform whatsoever. The head negotiator for the health insurance industry’s collective lobbying arm (AHIP) has been this sneaky lady named Karen Ignagni, who had mostly kept her word to avoid a full-scale attack on reform efforts — until this weekend, when her organization released a 26-page report saying current compromises would dramatically raise everyone’s premiums and be terrible. Maybe a public option would help that? WHATEVER, SOCIALIST. MORE »

Jesus christ, people are so terrible these days! You know how the corporate lobbyists usually just give lots of money to elected officials, to get them to do “lighten up” a bit? Well nowadays, what with the party of “ethnics” in power, they are FORGING WHOLE letters pretending to be from black and Hispanic interest groups and sending them to fence-sitting Democrats, urging them to vote against things that would supposedly be bad for poor minorities, when really they’re just bad for “Dow Chemical.” MORE »

You know what the many Honduran BUSINESS leaders in cahoots with the universally condemned and unrecognized Honduran power-grabbers and U.S. apparel corporations want? A simple return to Law and Order, in Honduras, under this new thug government! So they have hired one of earth’s worst specimens, Washington lawyer/lobbyist/commentator/liar Lanny Davis, to “convince Congress that it should support rather than oppose the military removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office.” MORE »

By the Comics Curmudgeon
Readers, your Comics Curmudgeon apologizes for missing last week’s column, but you were all probably using alcohol, smoked meat products, and dangerous explosives to mask your self-loathing and economic despair and weren’t watching the Interhoo anyway, were you? You probably didn’t even notice that I was gone, after all I do for you, week after week … [quiet sobbing] … where was I? Oh, right, last week. Anyway, Sarah Palin quit and Michael Jackson died or whatever, so obviously this week’s Cartoon Violence is all about sex perversions involving moose and little people. MORE »

America’s neo-con pamphlet the Washington Post can be found festering in certain driveways from Reston to Chevy Chase, but sometimes that’s not good enough for the powerful CEO or lobbyist who wants to, say, beat the shit out of Richard Cohen in person. This is why Post publisher Katharine Weymouth is now hosting intimate sexy gatherings at her home, where for a small admission price (between $25,000 and $250,000), the lonely business leader can dine with WaPo editors and journalists, get a loving hummer from Krauthammer or Kristol or (imagine!) both of them. MORE »

It’s just past four o’clock, so get in your comfy chair because it’s time for your Wonkette Tuesday New Health Care Reform Proposals Update! Today we discuss the Max Baucus-favored “TRIGGER COMPROMISE,” in which a public health care option would only come into play when private insurance companies fail to meet certain coverage requirements. Let’s take a look at Washington’s latest hell-spawned Respectable Centrist ploy to ruin legitimate long-term reform! MORE »

John McCain’s sexytime lobbyist friend, Vicki Iseman, has dropped her $27 million suit against the New York Times over a story last year which implied-but-not-really that she and WALNUTS! used to fuck all the time. Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet e-mailed the news to his staff in a rather pissy memo: “Vicki Iseman has dropped her lawsuit against The Times, just weeks after it was filed. We paid no money. We did not apologize. We did not retract one word of the story, which was a compelling chapter in the tale of Senator John McCain and his political rise.” If that clown lady has a problem, she can go suck an egg. [Michael Calderone]

Oh no Judd Gregg is also a laughable failure now, after deciding to become a communist for Obama the other day. What a French Gay! Let’s examine the evidence, HMM? MORE »