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 »

• Obama is demanding that the companies that received the most bailout money pay their highest-earning employees 10% of what they normally do. [New York Times]
• Oh here’s something new: everyone is worried about getting sick but is too lazy and/or too terrified to actually get a flu shot. [Washington Post]
• The weird Jett Travolta/Bahamas were not really so fun that one time/extortion case has been declared a mistrial. [CNN]
• Terrorists fired mortars at an airport in Somalia in hopes of killing the country’s president as he boarded a plane. They killed 20 people, but none of them were the president. [AP]
• Larry Summers has a good feeling about the the strength of the economy in general and the value of the dollar specifically. [Reuters]
• AT&T is really pulling out all the stops trying to keep this net neutrality thing from happening. [The Hill]

• Obama’s interference in governors’ races is upsetting to those who think that Obama’s desire to keep Democrats in power is soo partisan. [New York Times]
• Internet service providers are terribly angry with the FCC, which wants “net neutrality,” a concept of unimaginable injustice that would prohibit these Internet service companies from purposely slowing down connections and blocking access to their competitors’ content. [WSJ]
• Fewer troops in Afghanistan will be fighting in deserted actual desert areas and will concern themselves more with defending cities and humans. Except N.B. to the Taliban: this is not because America is weak! [Washington Post]
• Here are your MacArthur Genius Grant winners!  [Los Angeles Times]
• Bank of America just cold refuses to tell Congress all about its consensual hook-up with Merrill Lynch. The SEC is THISCLOSE to just subpoenaing the bank, the judicial equivalent of correctly guessing its Gmail password. [Reuters]
• Nancy Pelosi is going to send a health care bill to the floor by the end of the week. She’s like, “Fucking bet me.” [The Hill]

Every week, our Anonymous Lobbyist answers your questions about how laws get made and why they probably shouldn’t. If you have a question about the dirty business of doing business in Washington, ask her.

This week: Who are these people and what do they want from us?

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* President’s Day trip to Mount Vernon inspires George W. Bush to say of George Washington, “He is I, and I am him.” [NYT]
* Hillary Clinton swallows the “you go, girl” sloganeering, impresses black voters in South Carolina. [WP, NYT]
* John McCain was also in South Carolina yesterday, flip-flopping and cracking Rumsfeld jokes to the delight of morons everywhere. [AP]
* The rise and fall of Richard B. Cheney, “confrontationalist, warmonger, and happy talker.” [WP, NYT]
* The knee-slapping hilarity of “series of tubes” has subsided, leaving “series of pipes” to fill the vacuum. [WP]
* Freshman Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand works hard to prove she’s not just another MoCILF. [NYT]
* Forrest Gump, Rachel Green, James “Thunder” Early, and Malcom X write fat checks for Barack Obama. [NYT ]
* The ascendant Justice Scalia: tolerating pussy judges no more. [LAT]

• Help support the GWOT by wearing a “Terrorists should die, ask me why” button. [IMAO]

• Bush’s approval rating: really, really, positively not related to congressional campaigns. Also, Gallup just makes that shit up. [Wizbang Politics]
• It’s official, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. [Think Progress]
• Peacekeeping forces in Lebanon to have guns that shoot out little flags with “Bang!” on them, so as not to upset any terrorist militias. [The QandO Blog]
• Spanish and British mobs people are more racist than Americans. [La Shawn Barber's Corner]
• Study finds that newspapers are more trusted than blogs. Trusted, but not actually read. [ E&P]
• Don’t worry, even if the “Stevens ‘tube’ bill” kills the internet, a new way to distribute porn will take it’s place. [The Left Coaster]

Oh! How we all laughed when we read earlier this week about Senator Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) dizzying cluelessness about the internet. But what if Stevens, I wondered, woke up one day and found himself, Kafka-like, to be a salesman for Best Buy?

• 9:00 AM: Ted finally gives up after searching half-an-hour for the 8-track tape department.
• 11:30 AM:Stevens is asked to show how an iPod works but defers after he is unable to locate the crank.
• 2:00 PM:Ted watches some pre-teen customers trying out the video games and is impressed by how perfectly they sync their hand movements to the movie playing on the screen.
• 3:30 PM: Stevens’ coworkers fail to see the need for a “wireless demonstration hoop” to convince the public of their “miraculous claims”.
• 4:30 PM: Ted is called into his supervisor’s office where he is promoted to assistant manager.

You ever have one of those days where you just want to quote the Mencken line about Democracy being the theory that the people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard over and over and over again? Today is one of those days. Good people of Washington and points beyond, we give you Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), explaining why he voted against “net neutrality”: MORE »

• To prevent suicides and bad PR, with high schoolers and detainees alike, just be honest. [Eric Umansky]

• John Murtha and Frank Rich get dressed down, respectively: “both of whom argue that Iraq is a disaster, Somalia is either a brilliant tactical decision or a stunning loss for America — and this within hours of each other.” [Captain's Quarters]
• The Senate Commerce Committee will vote on Net Neutrality Thursday. FireDogLake lists the phone and fax numbers of the Senate Commerce Committee members. Commenter says: “Without net neutrality the telecom industry can control political speech on the internet every bit as much as they already control political speech on TV.” [FireDogLake]
• Married women are (not) de facto bitches. Concept “generating a lot of buzz in the blogosphere.” In other news, “generating a lot of buzz in the blogosphere” is the new “pale smattering of freckles.” [Dean's World]
• Glenn Greenwald loves “Federalist 69,” plugs own book. [Unclaimed Territory]