PUBLIC MARKS from jasontromm with tags stop & speech

On Tuesday, January 23, President Bush delivered his 2007 State of the Union Address. While there were some things in the speech that were, on the whole, good, on most matters the President continued to show no appreciation for the concept of limited (particularly federal) government, and he continues to conflate the ideas of national defense and security with his stubborn continuation of his Administration’s tragic war of choice in Iraq. On the positive side, the President's health care proposal to allow replace an unlimited employer health care expense deduction with standard deductions for individuals, while not perfect, is a large step in the badly needed direction of breaking the link between employment and health insurance in this nation. It would stop federal tax discrimination against people who are not covered by employer-provided insurance. It would, as the President said, make health care more affordable for more Americans.

File this under the old adage, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” The current net neutrality debate in the U.S. Congress has the Christian Coalition of America allied with rock stars Moby and R.E.M. The Christian Coalition, in a news release, said it is concerned that large broadband providers will block content that they don’t agree with. Some providers could block antiabortion Web sites, said Roberta Combs, the group’s president. Without a net neutrality provision, “there is nothing to stop the cable and phone companies from not allowing consumers to have access to speech that they don’t support,” she said in a statement.