The Protect IP Act

If you like the already-over-the-top hysteria over trademark and copyright “infringement,” you’ll love the Protect IP Act. This abortional legislation was introduced by Patrick Leahy (D—Hollywood Puppet) and it’s currently on legislative hold. The hold was placed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D—OR).

We have enough of this shit already: Bloggers being sued because they linked to a news article but didn’t mention the author’s name or swoon all over the publisher; huge corporations suing small business owners and entrepreneurs over imaginary “trademark” violations.

If the Protect IP Act ever passes, Net Neutrality will be the least of our worries.

Entertainment industries are pushing this legislation. If it becomes law, all Internet Service Providers and search engines would be required to de-list entire domains any time there’s a CLAIM of copyright infringement. That word again is claim. Not proof. Not a hearing or a vote of any kind. Just a claim.

AND: Any site that even links to a domain that’s been accused of hosting “infringing” activities would also be de-listed and/or taken down. Servers outside of the U.S. would also be within reach of the long arm of the Protect IP Act.

Conservatives should be against this bill, since it’s being pushed by them Hollywood Elitists.

A group of law professors has written a letter to Congress urging the defeat of the Protect IP Act. The letter warns that the law’s sweeping language will “make it extraordinarily difficult for advertisers and credit card companies to do business on the Internet.”

The letter also says:

“At a time when many foreign governments have dramatically stepped up their efforts to censor Internet communications, the Protect IP Act would incorporate into U.S. law — for the first time — a principle more closely associated with those repressive regimes: a right to insist on the removal of content from the global Internet, regardless of where it may have originated or be located, in service of the exigencies of domestic law.”

The complete text of the letter is available here.

Senate Republicans: “Please Hold Until 2012”

Also known as “one man, no vote” as this article puts it.

The Senate has had this sleazy process for a long time, where one senator can place an indefinite hold on a bill or a nominee. They can even do it anonymously. But this tactic is now completely out of control.

As of today, Obama has ninety-one nominees who are still pending. Almost all of them are “pending” because they’ve been put on a hold by a cowardly Republican hiding under a rock.

Any conservatives reading this are thinking at this moment: “Democrats did it too!”

And this is where Reality comes barging in. At this same point in George W. Bush’s presidency, Democrats had placed a hold on 8 — eight! — of Bush’s nominees. Ninety-one to eight.

91 to 8. Sounds like the most lopsided basketball score ever.

And some of the “reasons” behind these holds are more funny than anything else. Jim Bunning is already famous for a previous hold, where he basically told unemployed workers to fuck off and die. In another hold, Bunning tied up the nomination of a U.S. Trade representative. Bunning was sulking because the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn’t go after Canada for banning flavored cigarettes.

As contemptible as Bunning is, at least he has the stones to do these holds out in the open — unlike some of his more slippery cowardly colleagues, who do their holds from underneath a rock and don’t even have the balls to slither out and show the public who they are.

The Senate has no specific rules regarding holds. Charles Grassley (R—Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D—Oregon) are trying to eliminate the anonymous “under a rock” syndrome. Grassley said: “If any of my colleagues have holds on either side of the aisle, they ought to have the guts to go public.”

Wyden said: “If you can't make a good public case for why you are doing something, you shouldn't be doing it.”

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Did you know Republicans are now in favor of consumer protection? For themselves, anyway. “Let the buyer beware!” only applies when someone else is the buyer.

Twenty Republican donors are demanding that Charlie Crist give back the money they donated to him. Crist pulled a fast one on them when he switched from Republican to Independent, and now “weee waaant our money baaack!”

And speaking of Republican flipflops — well, actually this last item isn’t a flipflop. It, it’s more of a, uh, a mass hallucination suffered by 300 million Americans. Including You, the reader. Come on, you remember, don’t you? For almost two years, Republican politicians and demagogues have been endlessly relentlessly shouting “Drill Baby Drill.”

Haven’t they???

Nope. Sorry — It’s all in your head.