It is is a pretty large cap, but it’s clearly designed to profit from high-bandwidth users. There’s nothing inherently wrong with charging bandwidth hogs for their capacity; plenty of businesses charge on such a consumption model. The issue comes when this directly affects the ability of video-streaming sites like Netflix to carry out their business model, because of the cost-prohibitive nature of the service for individual users. Just three hours of HD video on Netflix would wipe out the entire 150GB monthly limit, for example.

Going back 100 years, not once in the last 50 elections has control of the House switched to one party while control of the Senate switched the other way. For the most part, partisan movement in each chamber is highly correlated with the other. There just hasn’t been a modern example of a national party making large gains in one chamber while suffering big loses in the other.

Why does the Obama administration take the side of the banks against the middle class? Look at the officials he hires and listens to: they sold out long ago, and now are nothing but jello when they face their potential employers.

With 10 votes for and five abstentions – China and Russia, India, Brazil and Germany abstained. Operations could begin immediately and there are already unconfirmed reports like the following: AWACS E-3A tail nr LX-N90451 airborne out of Trapani Italy heading Malta #TakeControl #NFZ #Libya With US naval resources close to the Libyan coast already including [...]

An interesting exchange happened when Hank Johnson had his turn. He set up his question by talking about a recent trip to Gitmo. He described the good treatment he saw the detainees being subject to. Jeh Johnson said that we’re following the Geneva Conventions.

Then he said (working from memory), so why is Bradley Manning being subject to worse treatment?

A couple updates on various legislation in Congress. The House of Representatives passed their bill defunding NPR today by a 228-192 vote. One Republican, Justin Amash (R-MI), voted present, and seven Republicans voted no (Duffy, Gibson, Hanna, LaTourette, Reichert, Tiberi, Woodall). Not one Democrat voted for the bill. The full roll call is here. The White House statement of Administration policy strongly opposed passage, but did not mention a veto. I can’t see the Senate taking this up, however.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is pushing the state attorneys general to quickly as possible “bring to bed” their investigations of the wide-scale systematic violations of law by the nation’s largest financial institutions–it is a great reminder that, in America, there is a very important theft-to-punishment inflection point for the super rich and powerful.

With Gadhafi’s forces poised to overrun the eastern stronghold of Benghazi, such intervention to save Libyan lives from the murderous ambitions of its ruler perhaps makes sense. But nobody has adequately explained where this ends. Will the no-fly zone, which doesn’t seem to be a solution to the actual problem in Libya, lead to airstrikes against Gadhafi’s military forces? A ground intervention? And who will lead that effort? The Arab League seems to be doing a lot of cheerleading from the sidelines. Will they commit troops?

As one of the organizers of the non-violent event this Sunday at Quantico in support of Bradley Manning I have been negotiating in good faith with the Marines at Quantico to allow a veteran led flower laying ceremony at the Iwo Jima Monument at the edge of the Marine Base. The monument is open every day of the year except for this Sunday. The Marines are closing it to prevent a veteran led flower laying ceremony.

Obama spoke for less than five minutes; took no questions.