SOPA shelved

[battletoad]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_on_a_shelf034765.php

...
Until now, the Obama administration had not taken a position on the issue. The response was published yesterday as part of the online “We The People” petition initiative launched by the White House last year.

Though the administration did issue a formal veto threat, the White House’s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form.

A few hours later, Congress shelved SOPA, putting off action on the bill indefinitely.

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said early Saturday morning that Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised him the House will not vote on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) unless there is consensus on the bill.

“While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House,” Issa said in a statement. “Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote.”

It’s possible that a related version of SOPA could come back at some point down the road — though probably not this year — but for now, the push against the bill has succeeded beautifully.

 

[kat06sa]

Election year.

 

[VioAdmin]

Election year.

Exactly.

 

[Fazda]

Whilst we are talking about election year, I might as well add this...

The Party of Big Government
I’ve often wondered why nobody calls out the Republican party for claiming to be the party of small government. It isn’t like there isn’t plenty of data to refute this claim. We have long known that the federal deficit has increased dramatically more under Republican presidents than Democratic ones, but Republicans could just claim that they increased the deficit through tax cuts, not by spending.

But that would be a lie. A more interesting measure of the size of government would be the size of the federal workforce (not including military personnel) — data that is easily available online.

So the next time a Republican candidate claims to be a Reagan conservative, just remember that not only did Reagan increase the deficit by more than 200 billion dollars and raise taxes multiple times, he also increased the federal workforce by 238,000 employees (8.3%).

The latest data we have is for the end of 2010, but the total number of federal employees is still smaller than it was when Reagan took office 30 years ago, even though the US population has grown more than 45% during that time.

Bottom line — under the last three Democratic presidents (Carter, Clinton, Obama), the federal workforce was reduced by 304,000 employees; while under the last three Republican presidents (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II) the federal workforce was increased by 261,000 employees.

Which one is the party of small government?

http://politicalirony.com/2012/01/1...mpaign=Feed:+politicalirony+(Political+Irony)