December, 07 2017, 08:45am EDT

Verizon Protests Today at 700 Locations Nationwide as People Rise Up Against Ajit Pai's Plan to Undo Net Neutrality
On Thursday, thousands of Net Neutrality supporters will protest outside more than 700 Verizon stores in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Other Dec. 7 protests will occur at nearly 20 congressional in-district offices, and outside the Washington Hilton Hotel during tonight's "FCC Chairman's Dinner."
WASHINGTON
On Thursday, thousands of Net Neutrality supporters will protest outside more than 700 Verizon stores in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Other Dec. 7 protests will occur at nearly 20 congressional in-district offices, and outside the Washington Hilton Hotel during tonight's "FCC Chairman's Dinner."
Protesters will highlight FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's plan to repeal the Net Neutrality 2015 rules that prevent broadband companies from blocking access to websites, purposefully slowing down internet speeds or otherwise interfering with online traffic.
BattlefortheNet.com partners Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and Free Press Action Fund launched www.verizonprotests.com to help activists organize the protests. In the two weeks since Pai released his proposal, more than 750,000 people have used the www.battleforthenet.com call tool to urge lawmakers in Washington to condemn the FCC plan to destroy Net Neutrality.
Pai, who has scheduled a Dec. 14 vote to gut the Net Neutrality protections, has close ties to Verizon, where he once worked as a lawyer. The telecommunications giant has spent millions of dollars on lobbyists, campaign contributions and think tanks to spread misinformation about Net Neutrality. The Washington dinner, attended by phone and cable industry executives, lobbyists, lawyers and the press, is a "roast" honoring Chairman Pai.
"The outcry from beyond the Beltway is beginning to change many minds in Washington," said Free Press Action Fund Field Director Mary Alice Crim. "Phones are ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill as people take to the streets to put the public need for an open internet before the demands of Verizon lobbyists. Despite the outpouring of support for Net Neutrality, the three men who make up the FCC's majority remain determined to ignore the democratic process and take away the rights of internet users. One thing is certain: Chairman Pai won't have the last word on Net Neutrality."
Dozens of lawmakers have spoken out against Pai's plan since the drumbeat of phone calls to Capitol Hill began in late November. A handful of Republicans, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington, have joined scores of Democratic and independent leaders to express concerns about Pai's unpopular proposal.
"This is the kind of corruption that turns your stomach," said Fight for the Future Campaign Director Evan Greer. "This is why people are protesting at hundreds of Verizon stores and Congressional offices across the country on Thursday, and why close to a million people have called Congress. Under Pai's leadership the FCC has made a mockery of our democratic process. With a rogue FCC commissioner blatantly captured by the industry he is supposed to provide oversight for, Congress must do their job and take action to stop the FCC vote on Dec. 14."
The passion for Net Neutrality protections crosses party lines. A Civis Analytics poll from July found that 77 percent of Americans support the current protections, including 73 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of Democrats.
"As the past two weeks have shown, people reject the ongoing love affair between hated internet service providers and D.C. policymakers," said Demand Progress Director of Communications Mark Stanley. "Democrats and Republicans alike are willing to take action against any threat to Net Neutrality rules that protect our online rights. People across the country are refusing to give up without a fight ahead of the FCC vote on Dec. 14, and they will continue to mobilize as long as it takes until the open-internet rules are protected."
BattlefortheNet.com is a collaborative effort of Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and Free Press Action Fund. These organizations also run a massive grassroots organizing initiative called Team Internet, which involves nearly half a million people who are willing to take their Net Neutrality activism from the internet to the streets. The coalition was instrumental in organizing millions of people across the United States in support of the FCC's 2015 decision to ground Net Neutrality protections in Title II of the Communications Act.
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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At Least 95 Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks Including Massacres at Beach Café, Aid Points
"I saw body parts flying everywhere, and bodies cut and burned," said one eyewitness to a strike on the popular al-Baqa Café.
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Israeli forces ramped up their genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip Monday, killing at least 95 Palestinians in attacks including massacres at a seaside café and a humanitarian aid distribution center and bombings of five school shelters housing displaced families and a hospital where refugees were sheltering in tents.
An Israeli strike targeted the al-Baqa Café in western Gaza City, one of the few operating businesses remaining after 633 days of Israel's obliteration of the coastal strip and a popular gathering place for journalists, university students, artists, and others seeking reliable internet service and a respite from nearly 21 months of near-relentless attacks.
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Warning: Photos shows image of death
Survivor Ali Abu Ateila toldThe Associated Press that the café was crowded with women and children at the time of the attack.
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Another survivor of the massacre told Britain's Sky News: "All I see is blood... Unbelievable. People come here to take a break from what they see inside Gaza. They come westward to breathe."
Eyewitness Ahmed Al-Nayrab toldAgence France-Presse that a "huge explosion shook the area."
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"We were targeted by artillery," survivor Monzer Hisham Ismail told The Associated Press. Another survivor, Yousef Mahmoud Mokheimar, told the AP that Israeli troops "fired at us indiscriminately." Mokheimar was shot in the leg, another man who tried to rescue him was also shot.
IDF troops have killed nearly 600 Palestinian aid-seekers and wounded more than 4,000 others over the past month, with Israeli military officers and soldiers saying they were ordered to deliberately fire on civilians in search of food and other necessities amid Israel's weaponized starvation of Gaza.
Another 13 people were reportedly killed Monday when IDF warplanes bombed an aid warehouse in the Zeitoun quarter of southern Gaza City, according to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital officials cited by The Palestine Chronicle. IDF warplanes also reportedly bombed five schools housing displaced families, three of them in Zeitoun. Israeli forces also bombed the courtyard of al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinian families are sheltering in tents. It was reportedly the 12th time the hospital has been bombed since the start of the war.
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Some of the names on the list of people crafting the agenda—named Project 2029, an echo of the far-right Project 2025 blueprint Trump is currently enacting—left progressives with deepened concerns that party insiders have "learnt nothing" and "forgotten nothing" from the president's electoral victories against centrist Democratic candidates over the past decade, as one economist said.
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