The FCC is set to vote today on a net neutrality plan.

The new regulations would prohibit telecommunications companies that provide high-speed internet service from blocking access by customers to any legal content, applications or service.

But, for the first time, there will be a policy that will allow for what has been termed "paid-prioritisation", where companies will be able to pay for a faster service.

There will be greater restrictions on cable/wired providers than wireless:

The rules would allow mobile firms to block access to sites or applications that specifically compete with a carrier's voice or video services.

Al Franken is very opposed. [More..]

The Death Penalty Information Center has released its 2010 report on capital punishment in America. Executions are down by 12% and according to a poll conducted by , a majority of Americans now favor alternative punishment.

Executions dropped by 12% compared with 2009, and by more than 50% since 1999. The number of new death sentences was about the same as in 2009, the lowest number in 34 years.

In a recent national poll conducted by Lake
Research Partners, 61% of U.S. voters chose various alternative sentences over the death penalty as the proper punishment for murder. Only 33% chose the death penalty.

The poll results are here. The cost-saving argument is making headway. "A strong majority of respondents (65%) would favor replacing the death penalty with life with no possibility of parole if the money saved were used to fund crime prevention programs."

The death penalty will take a holiday for the remainder of 2010. No more executions are scheduled this year.

College football bowl season has started and I have some selections. I'll be doing New Years Day bowl selections on, um, New Years Day. Here are this week's (through Sunday) pre-New Years Day Bowl picks:

Ezra Klein, a supporter of The Deal, now frets about Part 2:

[There will be] a new fight in February over the spending bill that will take the government through to 2012. House Republicans are already talking about cutting back to 2008 levels -- which would require about $90 billion in cuts, and wipe out much of the stimulus in the recent tax deal. [. . .] Republicans will have both a government shutdown and a fiscal crisis to tie to the proverbial train tracks. Will Obama and the Democrat be willing to risk it? Some say they will. [. . .] More pessimistic voices, however, wonder whether a president who wouldn't permit a a modest tax hike will be any more daring when hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the credit of the United States of America are on the line. I'm closer to the pessimists, myself.[. . .]

(Emphasis supplied.) The Deal was a terrible mistake.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum:

Jonathan Bernstein has a question for us left-leaning types:

Think back to what you were thinking in November 2008, and in January 2009. As the 111th Congress winds down, what's your biggest disappointment of the things you expected to happen? Not your wish list, but the things you really expected to happen. What's your biggest happy surprise?

Drum mentions health care reform, withdrawal from Iraq and carbon pricing as his 3 big issues. He thinks Obama got 2 out of 3 plus some other good stuff. Yet again, I find myself in disagreement with Establishment bloggers and remain dumbfounded by their disregard for the importance of tax policy. My biggest disappointments were the inadequate stimulus and especially, the Bush/Obama tax cuts. If he had performed well on those 2 fronts, I would be the biggest Obama Bot there is. He didn't and I'm not. (I also don't think much of the "reform" in the health bill so that makes a difference for me too.)

Speaking for me only

Paul Krugman:

How, after the experiences of the Clinton and Bush administrations — the first raised taxes and presided over spectacular job growth; the second cut taxes and presided over anemic growth even before the crisis — did we end up with bipartisan agreement on even more tax cuts?

[. . . T]he Obama stimulus — which itself was almost 40 percent tax cuts — was far too cautious to turn the economy around. [. . .] A policy under which government employment actually fell, under which government spending on goods and services grew more slowly than during the Bush years, hardly constitutes a test of Keynesian economics.

We're all supply siders now. Yesterday, the NYTimes editorialized:

Is anyone watching the season finale of Survivor? Or staying up late tomorrow night to catch a glimpse of the total lunar eclipse?

Or following the news of the treaty with Russia, events in N. or S. Korea, the violence on the Ivory Coast, the war in Afghanistan, the terror war in Yemen, the war on drugs, the war on the Constitution or the war on immigrants? There seems to be a war for everything these days. Except Christmas shopping.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The Guatemalan military has seized the Alta Verapaz province claiming it is dominated by the Los Zetas drug cartel.

A state of siege allows the army to detain suspects without warrants, conduct warrantless searches, prohibit gun possession and public gatherings, and control the local news media. Guatemalan law allows the measure amid acts of terrorism, sedition or "rebellion," or when events "put the constitutional order or security of the state in danger."

The siege will last 30 days but can be extended. The Patriotic Party opposes the plan:

The state of siege...is meaningless "if we continue to have police corruption, a weak justice system and weak jails," added David Martinez Amador, an analyst and expert on criminal behavior.

[More...]

Fox News Latino could not have made a more misinformed choice to make a point about "anchor babies." Penelope Cruz is not an undocumented resident. Her presence in this country is entirely lawful. She moved to California at the age of 25. She also lived in New York for a number of years. She owns real estate in the U.S.

Penelope Cruz owns a number of homes including a Balinese residence in the Hollywood Hills, a home in Madrid, Spain, and a newer property Cruz and new husband Javier Bardem enhabit in Coldwater Canyon, Los Angeles.

Among her American made films are “Blow,” “Vanilla Sky” and “Nine.” "Blow" grossed $53 million in the U.S. Its production budget was $53 million. Not only did it generate income and jobs, it also generated U.S. tax revenue. She was also in Sex and the City II. The lifetime gross of all the films she's been is exceeds $500 million. One can only imagine how much money the upcoming Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides will generate in the U.S.

Even Republican Latinos are outraged: [More...]

An appeals court in Italy has ruled independent experts will review the DNA evidence presented to the jury in the murder case against Amanda Knox.

The key to the prosecution had been a 12-inch kitchen knife. Genetic material - but not blood - on the handle was linked to Knox, and similar material on thhttp://www.talkleft.com/admin/storye blade to Miss Kercher. Defence lawyers argued that the DNA traces were too slight to be reliable.

Meanwhile the bra clasp, on which Sollecito's DNA was found, had been "lost" for six weeks after it was taken as evidence and could have been contaminated, his lawyers said.

The court will also allow new evidence that impeaches one of the prosecution's witnesses. [More...]

This week, the New York Times reported the Justice Department was considering conspiracy charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, rather than espionage charges.

On Meet the Press this morning, Biden said he can't talk about the grand jury investigation. In the next sentence, he said:

If he conspired to get these classified documents with a member of the U.S. Military, that’s fundamentally different than if somebody drops on your lap here.. "Here is-- classified material."

Could he have said any more clearly the grand jury is focused on a charge Assange conspired with Manning?

Vice President Joe Biden was on Meet the Press this morning. Among his comments:‘We don’t believe they have the capacity to pull off a 9/11 type operation." His exact words:

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, you never say never. Okay? But we are-- our intelligence community is united in the view that the ability of Central Al Qaeda, that is Osama bin Laden and company, in the Af-Pak area, in those mountains, has been significantly degraded. And we don’t believe they have the capacity from there to pull off a -- a 9/11-type-- operation.

You can watch his interview here.