Morning Reads: FCC Set to Defy Army of Lobbyists, Push for an Open Internet

Good morning!

On this date in 1959, rockers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died when the small plane Holly had chartered crashed in bad weather shortly after takeoff from Clear Lake, Iowa.

And in 1971, NYPD officer Frank Serpico, who refused to take bribes and had testified against corrupt cops, was shot during a drug bust. Serpico was surprised to discover that his fellow officers weren’t backing him up — and later learned that they hadn’t even called for an ambulance. He recently wrote that, more than 40 years later, “I still get hate mail from active and retired police officers.”

Stat of the day: 99.7 percent — The rate of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination in Mississippi, which only allows medical exemptions to its vaccine requirements — and not those based on personal beliefs. To date, no measles cases have been reported in the Magnolia State.

Short memory — At TPM, Josh Marshall notes that millennials are the least likely to believe that vaccinations should be compulsory. The rate increases with each age cohort, suggesting that the closer one is to an era when diseases like polio wrought havoc, the more likely one supports combating them. AND: The NYT’s Clyde Haberman looks back at the discredited study that sparked the anti-vaxxer movement and continues to influence its adherents despite being retracted — and its author losing his medical license — several years ago. ALSO: NBC News reports that Rand Paul “is standing by his statement that most vaccinations should be ‘voluntary,’ telling CNBC that a parent’s choice not to vaccinate a child is ‘an issue of freedom.'” He added: “I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines” — because scattered anecdotes are, you know, as good as clinical studies.

“A cheese-steak-on-the-boardwalk Everyman” –> In 2012, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his family enjoyed traveling in a luxurious private jet furnished by Sheldon Adelson, who was opposing on-line gambling legislation that was before the governor at the time, and partied with Bono during a lavish, long weekend in Jordan. They stayed in hotel rooms that cost $30,000. Jordan’s King Abdullah picked up the tab. These are just a couple of examples from a NYT report by Kate Zernike and Michael Barbaro, who write that these weren’t “the first or last time that Mr. Christie’s desire for celebrity access and expensive trips has raised eyebrows.”

Free Internet –> The FCC is expected to announce a proposal later this week that would pre-empt state laws that limit municipalities’ ability to install public broadband networks. Jon Brodkin has that story for Ars Technica. AND: The agency also will circulate among its commissioners later this week the draft of a rule regulating the Internet as a utility, which would pave the way for new regulations to ensure Net neutrality. AT C|Net, Marguerite Reardon explains why FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who is often maligned for being a former industry lobbyist himself, appears to be “defying the greatest lobbyists in the world.”

Outrageous –> David Baker reports for SF Gate that “Oil companies in drought-ravaged California have, for years, pumped wastewater from their operations into aquifers that had been clean enough for people to drink. They did it with explicit permission from state regulators, who were supposed to protect the increasingly strained groundwater supplies from contamination.”

Be careful what you wish for –> Pema Levy writes for MoJo that Obamacare is so deeply enmeshed in our health care system that if Republicans were to repeal it outright, utter chaos would follow.

Influence –> Amanda Marcotte notes at Slate that there are far fewer women in leadership roles in the Republican-controlled Senate than when Dems were running the place. “Under Democrats,” she writes, “women held nine committee chairs and under Republicans, they will only have two.”

Absolved of genocide –> The International Court of Justice — the UN’s highest court — ruled today that while both Croats and Serbs committed serious crimes during the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, neither had engaged in a campaign of genocide. Thomas Escritt has the details for Reuters.

Crunching numbers –> Salon’s Elias Isquith talks to Nate Silver about political reporting, his take-aways from 2014 and what we should be aware of heading into the presidential cycle.

Sometimes the headline says it all –> Michael Bender at Bloomberg: “Tim Pawlenty: Scott Walker’s Not That Boring (And Neither Am I)”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.