March, 05 2019, 11:00pm EDT

The Save The Internet Act Offers Real Net Neutrality Protections
On Wednesday, lawmakers from both chambers of Congress announced plans to introduce companion bills to repeal the Trump FCC's disastrous 2017 decision to gut Net Neutrality protections.
WASHINGTON
On Wednesday, lawmakers from both chambers of Congress announced plans to introduce companion bills to repeal the Trump FCC's disastrous 2017 decision to gut Net Neutrality protections.
The Save The Internet Act would restore the entire 2015 Open Internet Order, including the rules it adopted, the protections and precedents set forth in the text of the FCC's 2015 decision, and the Title II framework under which broadband-internet access is classified as a telecommunications service. The 2015 FCC order offered a solid legal basis, upheld in federal courts, for rules preventing companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from blocking, throttling or otherwise interfering with lawful internet traffic.
Speaking at a press conference to announce the legislation were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. They were joined by Chairman of House Energy and Commerce Committee Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, and Ranking Member of Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Maria Cantwell of Washington, along with Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania and Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York.
With the FCC's 2017 repeal, the agency abdicated its congressionally mandated responsibility to protect internet users. In forcing that decision through, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai ignored the law governing the agency. He also concocted false allegations of harms to broadband investment from the Net Neutrality rules, and dismissed overwhelming public support for the Title II protections that were in place. Pai did all of this while refusing to investigate fraudulent efforts to influence the FCC's comment process.
The chairman's decision to repeal the Net Neutrality protections is unpopular across the political spectrum. Recent polls show that 82 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats and 85 percent of independents oppose the decision.
Free Press Action Vice President of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood made the following statement:
"Free Press Action thanks these congressional leaders for this bold and vital step, returning to the best framework for restoring Net Neutrality and a whole host of fundamental rights that internet users need.
"The Save The Internet Act follows the facts, recognizing that the 2015 Open Internet Order and the laws on which it stood were exactly right for the job. The bill draws on the overwhelming bipartisan support for this approach, including support among vast majorities of Republican, Democratic and independent voters. The bill's authors reject lobbyists' empty rhetoric and evidence-free claims, understanding that broadband investment continued and deployment increased with the 2015 Open Internet Order in place.
"Restoring the entire 2015 order and the legal framework it followed is important for lots of other reasons too. Title II is essential for the broad and timeless nondiscrimination mandate that Congress wrote into this part of the Communications Act. That law empowers the FCC to prevent unlawful discrimination by ISPs, even when these companies' tactics and tricks might not run afoul of the bright-line Net Neutrality rules in the 2015 order.
"Title II is also crucial for upholding other broadband rights and the FCC authority to protect them. That law was updated for the internet era on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis in 1996, and it gives the FCC the power to promote broadband deployment, affordability, competition, privacy, public safety, and disabilities access, all to ensure that ISPs offer service on a just and reasonable basis. These are protections that internet users still need, and in fact demand. The Save The Internet Act would put a stop to the FCC's half-hearted attempts to fulfill those mandates while it runs away from the agency's best source of legal authority to accomplish them.
"None of the three bills House Republicans introduced in February would safeguard Net Neutrality or other online rights. They instead would undermine the FCC's ability to protect people online by removing broadband companies from nearly all effective oversight. Those bad bills' real purpose is to permanently declaw the FCC -- the one agency responsible for protecting the public interest in communications -- while handing control of the internet to a small number of extremely powerful phone and cable companies.
"The Save The Internet Act is the only choice for any member of Congress wishing to protect the open internet and do right by their constituents."
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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Americans Take to the Streets for 1,000+ 'Workers Over Billionaires' Labor Day Rallies
"Workers are fighting for a society where public schools take precedence over private profits, healthcare is prioritized over hedge funds, and affordable housing is valued more than homelessness," said May Day Strong.
Sep 01, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates.
Americans turned out across the United States on Monday for more than 1,000 demonstrations against President Donald Trump and other oligarchs "to reclaim worker power against billionaires who hoard unprecedented wealth and power."
The "Workers Over Billionaires" protests are being led by the May Day Strong Coalition, which is made up of dozens of organizations including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, National Union of Healthcare Workers, and advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Fairness, Indivisible, Our Revolution, and Public Citizen.
Demonstrations took place or are set to happen in big cities, small towns, and communities in between all across the nation. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) spoke at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, where Sanders—whose "Fight Oligarchy Tour" has been drawing huge crowds across the country—vowed that "together, we will create an economy and government that work for all, not just the 1%."
Khanna said that "today on Labor Day, we must recognize the workers across the country who build our economy and strengthen our nation. We need to fight for a living wage and stronger unions as we work to reindustrialize America."
Sanders took his Fighting Oligarchy Tour to Portland, Maine on Monday, where he was joined by guests including Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who is running to unseat five-term Republican US Sen. Susan Collins.
In a video posted on the social media site Bluesky before the rally, Platner said he "could not think of a better day to be a pro-labor candidate."
"Organized labor is the basis of the movement that we are going to have to build to retake this country for working people," Platner added.
May Day Strong said Monday's mobilizations aim "to build collective action against billionaires taking over the US government."
"Building upon momentum from May Day, Good Trouble Lives On, No Kings, and key impromptu actions in the streets and the workplace, Workers Over Billionaires will reach communities nationwide, tapping rural and city workers to stop the billionaire agenda that continues to burden everyone," the coalition said. "As the federal government continues to enable the ultrarich, working people are stepping onto pavement to stop their greed and protect their families."
"Working families want to live in a country that puts workers over billionaires," the coalition added. "Workers are fighting for a society where public schools take precedence over private profits, healthcare is prioritized over hedge funds, and affordable housing is valued more than homelessness."
In New York, actions included a rally outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, where demonstrators demanded a $30 an hour minimum wage. Members of groups including One Fair Wage (OFW) staged a "Restaurant in the Street" demonstration "designed to highlight the struggle of working people and launch the New York Living Wage for All campaign."
"The action coincides with the release of a new OFW report, Making America Affordable Now: The Case for a Living Wage for All, which finds that nearly half of US workers—67 million people—earn less than $25 an hour," One Fair Wage said. "In New York, 41% of workers fall below that threshold.
OFW said that the demand for a living wage is the "next generation of the Fight for $15," warning that "past wage gains have been erased by historic inflation, skyrocketing rents, and cuts to Medicaid and SNAP," the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
"It also highlights how gimmicks like Trump's 'No Tax on Tips' proposal do little to address workers' needs, since two-thirds of tipped workers earn too little to benefit," OFW added.
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said ahead of the protests: "Every single thing working people have won for ourselves in this country's history—it's not because we asked those in power. It's not because they were handed to us. It's because we fought for them relentlessly."
Saqib Bhatti, executive director of Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), told USA Today that "it's important to show that there is opposition to the Trump-billionaire agenda in every community, big and small; it's not just cities that are united against what's happening... it's all towns, it's small towns that voted overwhelmingly for Trump."
Monday also saw the launch of the Department of Class Solidarity (DOCS), "a permanent national war room tracking nearly 1,000 US billionaires, their wealth, corporate holdings, and political contributions."
"This Labor Day weekend, we are not resting," DOCS said on social media. "The oligarchs are snatching away our healthcare, our livelihoods, and our rights. Now is the time to act."
DOCS and allied groups rallied for a "Hamptons Billionaire Shutdown" on Long Island.
🔥 March on Billionaires Lane in the Hamptons — one of the densest concentrations of billionaires in the world.Oligarchs are hiding in their mansions as they bankroll attacks on us with fortunes they plundered from us.The working class is rising. ✊ #PeopleOverBillionaires #FightOligarchy
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— Our Revolution (@our-revolution.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 1:33 PM
"The Hamptons is where right-wing billionaires like Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb plot and plan in their hundred-million-dollar mansions, ensconced from the workers they exploit," DOCS said. "Time to give them a taste of their own medicine."
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Trump Admin Circulating Plan to Transform Depopulated Gaza Into High-Tech Cash Cow
Under the proposal, the US would take control after "voluntary" relocation of Palestinians from the strip, where proposed projects include an Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone and Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands.
Sep 01, 2025
The White House is "circulating" a plan to transform a substantially depopulated Gaza into US President Donald Trump's vision of a high-tech "Riviera of the Middle East" brimming with private investment and replete with artificial intelligence-powered "smart cities."
That's according a 38-page prospectus for a proposed Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration, and Transformation (GREAT) Trust obtained by The Washington Post and published in a report on Sunday. Parts of the proposal were previously reported by the Financial Times.
"Gaza can transform into a Mediterranean hub for manufacturing, trade, data, and tourism, benefiting from its strategic location, access to markets... resources, and a young workforce all supported by Israeli tech and [Gulf Cooperation Council] investments," the prospectus states.
However, to journalist Hala Jaber, the plan amounts to "genocide packaged as real estate."
Here comes the Gaza Network State.A plan to turn Gaza into a privately-developed “gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub” with “AI-powered smart cities” and “Trump Riviera” resortgift link:wapo.st/4g2eATo
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— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) August 31, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The GREAT Trust was drafted by some of the same Israelis behind the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), whose aid distribution points in Gaza have been the sites of deliberate massacres and other incidents in which thousands of aid-seeking Palestinians have been killed or wounded.
According to the Post, financial modeling for the GREAT Trust proposal "was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group"—which played a key role in creating GHF. BCG told the Post that the firm did not approve work on the trust plan, and that two senior partners who led the financial modeling were subsequently terminated.
The GREAT Trust envisions "a US-led multirlateral custodianship" lasting a decade or longer and leading to "a reformed Palestinian self-governance after Gaza is "demilitarized and de-radicalized."
Josh Paul—a former US State Department official who resigned in October 2023 over the Biden administration's decision to sell more arms to Israel as it waged a war on Gaza increasingly viewed by experts as genocidal—told Democracy Now! last week that Trump's plan for Gaza is "essentially a new form of colonialism, a transition from Israeli colonialism to corporate" colonialism.
The GREAT Trust contains two proposals for Gaza's more than 2 million Palestinians. Under one plan, approximately 75% of Gaza's population would remain in the strip during its transformation. The second proposal involves up to 500,000 Gazans relocating to third countries, 75% of them permanently.
The prospectus does not say how many Palestinians would leave Gaza under the relocation option. Those who choose to permanently relocate to other unspecified countries would each receive $5,000 plus four years of subsidized rent and subsidized food for a year.
The GREAT Trust allocates $6 billion for temporary housing for Palestinians who remain in Gaza and $5 billion for those who relocate.
The proposal projects huge profits for investors—nearly four times the return on investment and annual revenue of $4.5 billion within a decade. The project would be a boon for companies ranging from builders including Saudi bin Laden Group, infrastructure specialists like IKEA, the mercenary firm Academi (formerly Blackwater), US military contractor CACI—which last year was found liable for torturing Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison—electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, tech firms such as Amazon, and hoteliers Mandarin Oriental and IHG Hotels and Resorts.
Central to the plan are 10 "megaprojects," including half a dozen "smart cities," a regional logistics hub to be build over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah, a central highway named after Saudi Crown Prime Mohammed bin Salman—Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf states feature prominently in the proposal as investors—large-scale solar and desalinization plants, a US data safe haven, an "Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone," and "Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands" similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai.
In addition to "massive" financial gains for private US investors, the GREAT Trust lists strategic benefits for the United States that would enable it to "strengthen" its "hold in the east Mediterranean and secure US industry access to $1.3 trillion of rare-earth minerals from the Gulf."
Earlier this year, Trump said the US would "take over" Gaza, American real estate developers would "level it out" and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" atop its ruins after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave Palestine's coastal exclave. The president called for the "voluntary" transfer of Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, both of whose leaders vehemently rejected the plan.
"Voluntary emigration" is widely considered a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' general unwillingness to leave their homeland.
According to a May survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, nearly half of Gazans expressed a willingness to apply for Israeli assistance to relocate to other countries. However, many Gazans say they would never leave the strip, where most inhabitants are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
"I'm staying in a partially destroyed house in Khan Younis now," one Gazan man told the Post. "But we could renovate. I refuse to be made to go to another country, Muslim or not. This is my homeland."
The Post report follows a meeting last Wednesday at the White House, where Trump, senior administration officials, and invited guests including former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, investor and real estate developer Jared Kushner—who is also the president's son-in-law—and Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer discussed Gaza's future.
While Dermer reportedly claimed that Israel does not seek to permanently occupy Gaza, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza—have said they will conquer the entire strip and keep at least large parts of it.
"We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently said. "On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
The Israel Knesset also recently hosted a conference called "The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality" where participants openly discussed the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the strip.
The publication of the GREAT Trust comes as Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City amid a growing engineered famine that has killed at least hundreds of Palestinians and is starving hundreds of thousands of more. Israel's 696-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 233,200 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose casualty figures are seen as a likely undercount by experts.
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'Endangering Every American's Health': 9 Former CDC Chiefs Sound Alarm on RFK Jr.
Their "astonishing, powerful op-ed," said one professor, "drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost."
Sep 01, 2025
Nearly every living former director or acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the past half-century took to the pages of The New York Times on Monday to jointly argue that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "is endangering every American's health."
"Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the CDC, the world's preeminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations," Drs. William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle Walensky, and Mandy Cohen highlighted.
What RFK Jr. "has done to the CDC and to our nation's public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago—is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced," the nine former agency leaders wrote.
Known for spreading misinformation about vaccines and a series of scandals, Kennedy was a controversial figure long before President Donald Trump chose him to lead HHS—a decision that Senate Republicans affirmed in February. However, in the wake of Monarez's ouster, fresh calls for him to resign or be fired have mounted.
This is powerful. Nine former CDC leaders just came together to defend SCIENCE.Maybe it’s time we LISTEN TO THEM—not the loud voices spreading MISINFORMATION.Science saves lives. Lies cost themwww.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
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— Krutika Kuppalli, MD FIDSA (@krutikakuppalli.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 10:35 AM
As the ex-directors detailed:
Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he's focused on unproven "treatments" while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of US support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez—which led to the resignations of top CDC officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.
Monarez was nominated by Trump, and was confirmed by Senate Republicans in late July. As the op-ed authors noted, she was forced out by RFK Jr. just weeks later, after she reportedly refused "to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior CDC staff members."
"These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a CDC director," they wrote. "Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary's demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities."
After Monarez's exit, Trump tapped Jim O'Neill, an RFK Jr. aide and biotech investor, as the CDC's interim director. Critics including Robert Steinbrook, director of Public Citizen's health research group, warn that "unlike Susan Monarez, O'Neill is likely to rubber-stamp dangerous vaccine recommendations from HHS Secretary Kennedy's handpicked appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and obey orders to fire CDC public health experts with scientific integrity."
The agency's former directors didn't address O'Neill, but they wrote: "To those on the CDC staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it's clear that the agency is hurting badly."
"We have a message for the rest of the nation as well: This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American," they continued. The experts called on Congress to "exercise its oversight authority over HHS," and state and local governments to "fill funding gaps where they can." They also urged philanthropy, the private sector, medical groups, and physicians to boost investments, "continue to stand up for science and truth," and support patients "with sound guidance and empathy."
Doctors, researchers, journalists, and others called their "must-read" piece "extraordinary" and "important."
"Just an astonishing, powerful op-ed that drives home what we are losing and what's already been lost," said University of Michigan Law School professor Leah Litman. "We are so incredibly fortunate to live with the advances [of] modern medicine and health science. Destroying and stymying it is just unforgivable."
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