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from: Technology Daily

Senate Commerce Agenda Includes Telecom, Net Taxes

By David Hatch

(Tuesday, January 23) The Senate Commerce Committee, now headed by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has many familiar faces in the 110th Congress.

Most of the lawmakers were on onboard last year, but there are four newcomers: Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; and John Thune, R-S.D. Dakota. Klobuchar and McCaskill are newly arrived, having been sworn in this month after their election in November.

from: Black Agenda Report

Mass media are the circulatory systems of modern human societies. The second amendment guarantees freedom of the press so media can act as a check on abuses by government and the powerful, not a mouthpiece for the wealthy and powerful. More than 3,500 activists from around the country met in Memphis last weekend to teach, learn, discuss and discover how to bring about a more democratic media regime in this country. But what does the media reform movement mean for African Americans?

from: Forbes

TV: The Bells’ Next Battle

From Forbes, January 24, 2007

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin and his fellow commissioners will get their first taste of life under a Democratic majority on Feb. 1.

Martin and his cohorts are scheduled to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee, where they’ll have to address, among other issues, why they voted to override certain state and local laws that govern applications by AT&T and Verizon to sell TV service and to require local governments to act on those applications within three months. (Never mind that the FCC itself took nine months—months longer than it was supposed to—to act on AT&T’s recent application to take over BellSouth.)

from: Baltimore Sun

Lobbyists Turn Their Attention to States

From Baltimore Sun, January 24, 2007
By Joel Barkin

Have you heard the one about the lobbyists who got shut out of Washington, D.C.? They all decided to set up shop in the states instead. Not laughing? That’s because it’s not a joke. It’s how lobbyists are reacting to the Democratic takeover of Congress.

from: Technology Daily

Rep. Dingell Is Back In Charge,But With Some Changed Views

By David Hatch

(Monday, January 22) Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is a readily recognizable face in Washington and on the panel.

from: Ars Technica

Grassroots or astroturf? AT&T and the politics of influence

12/21/2006 12:36:41 PM, by Nate Anderson

In the course of our earlier reporting on AT&T's attempt to deploy IPTV to the Chicago suburbs, we discussed the Advanced Technology Alliance. It's an interest group that pushes the AT&T agenda hard through letters to the editor and a giant chicken, but local critics have charged it with being an "astroturf" (that is, a fake "grassroots" effort) group funded by AT&T. Ars has now learned more details about the relationship between the two companies.

from: Missourian News

City considers cable options

Amid complaints about providers, city looks into running its own system

By EMILY RISTOW

Promoting competition and providing the best cable service possible are among the reasons Mayor Darwin Hindman gave for exploring city-owned cable in Columbia.

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2006 is You. Time sees the tipping point of self-produced, online, “citizen” media as “a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before.” The magazine’s homage extols the “cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace.”

This is how members of the new 110th Congressional House Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee voted on COPE HR5252 last year. Nine of the current 18 Democrats voted for COPE, let’s hope they have become better informed on the issues of PEG TV, Red-lining and Net Neutrality since then.

See their ‘06 donations at: COPE Scorecard

Senate Republicans eliminate legislation intended to provide oversight of the increasing political manipulations of astroturf front organizations. It's telling that all Senate Republicans voted to maintain the status quo - conservative think tanks and pro-business lobbies have been the greatest offenders. Ironically, GrassrootsFreedom.com, mentioned in the CNET article below, actually is an astroturf organization – that worked to defeat the legislation. The domain for GrassrootsFreedom.com is registered to Richard Viguerie of American Target Advertising. According to SourceWatch, Richard A. Viguerie is often dubbed the direct mail titan of the right.