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I know the amazing llama chase was huge news today, but this might be even more important: F.C.C. Approves Net Neutrality Rules, Classifying Broadband Internet Service as a Utility.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes.

Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core of free expression and democratic principles.”

The new rules, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, are intended to ensure that no content is blocked and that the Internet is not divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for Internet and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Those prohibitions are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.

This ruling opens the way for communities to build their own Internet access services and frees them from the tyranny of the huge corporations who have no incentive to make things better. It’s a huge win for the citizens of the US, who have lived too long with substandard Internet connection speeds compared to the rest of the world — which means the Republican Party is going to freak out about it.

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The Ron Paul libertarian crowd is applauding pro-marijuana Gary Johnson, while the REAL CONSERVATIVES are cheering for the woman who wants to lock up all the pot smokers and thinks marijuana is just like LSD.

Yes, folks, climate change deniers really are this dense.

#facepalm RT @frankthorpNBC Sen Inhofe brought a snowball on the Senate floor during his climate change speech: pic.twitter.com/4anbbo9aHz

— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 26, 2015

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This year, once again, CPAC has banned gay conservative group GOProud from attending, while accepting the sponsorship of a white nationalist hate group, so nothing has changed. But then, that’s the whole point of being a conservative, isn’t it?

I went to their website to check the schedule, but here’s what appears when you click the “Agenda” tab:

Ace web programmers!

But here’s the lineup for today (some of these loons have already ranted as I write this):

Thursday (ET)

8:40a - Dr. Ben Carson
9:00a - Sen. Mike Lee (Utah)
1:00p - Gov. Chris Christie (NJ)
1:20p - Carly Fiorina
1:40p - Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas)
5:00p - Gov. Scott Walker (Wisconsin)
5:20p - Gov. Bobby Jindal (Louisiana)
5:40p - Gov. Sarah Palin (Alaska)

Some photos:

Photos from inside #CPAC2015: Stars, stripes & selfies http://t.co/ZlQTYnjZ5R pic.twitter.com/oHGBwvB8ik

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) February 26, 2015

Subtlety is the name of the game here at #CPAC2015 pic.twitter.com/uL88kcA5yZ

— Chris Moody (@moody) February 26, 2015

Tomorrow is the opening day of CPAC, the yearly gathering of right wing nutjobs, once again featuring white nationalist sponsors: Civil Rights Groups to GOP Presidential Candidates: Distance Yourself From CPAC’s White Nationalist Ties.

Today, People For the American Way, America’s Voice, and colorofchange.org released an open letter to Republican presidential candidates urging them to make clear that they don’t support CPAC’s ongoing relationship with ProEnglish, a group led by white nationalist Bob Vandervoot. Despite CPAC’s troubling history of welcoming white nationalists as participants and sponsors, Republican leaders continue to headline the conference. CPAC has included ProEnglish as a sponsor in the past, and in 2012, CPAC hosted a panel on race featuring Vandervoot and infamous racist writer Peter Brimelow. This year, ProEnglish is again participating as a sponsor of the conference.

[…]

ProEnglish has sponsored CPAC for the past several years, despite Vandervoort’s well documented ties to the white nationalist movement. As the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights has reported, Vandervoort is the former leader of Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance, a group dedicated to supporting the ideals of the infamous white nationalist publication American Renaissance. One member of the group described its mission as encouraging “white survival and maintaining white majorities.”

Vandervoort’s own writings reflect these views. He has expressed concern about the need to “halt the cultural and racial dispossession of the West’s historic people” and expounded on “racial differences” in “intelligence and temperament.” He has wondered how “race realists and pro-Western Civ nationalists” like himself can counter historical comparisons to the Holocaust and slavery.

Whoops… Looks like the CPAC mobile app has confused @SenatorTimScott for @RealBenCarson pic.twitter.com/bevHJRzx0g

— Ben Terris (@bterris) February 25, 2015

Ben Terris, a reporter for the Washington Post noticed this morning that CPAC’s webpage for Dr. Ben Carson in fact featured a photo of Senator Tim Scott. On cue, the giggles of CPAC’s inability to recognize two different African American men began in earnest.:

CPAC Website Apparently Mixed Up Two Black Republicans

The website for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) appeared to have mistakenly posted a photo of Sen. Tim Scott (R-NC) in a biography for conservative activist Dr. Ben Carson, both of whom are scheduled to be speakers at the event this week.

It seems, this was not the first time CPAC’s mobile site had made a photo-related error…

Continue reading…

Since Rudy Giuliani’s ugly comments about President Obama not loving America, I’ve been making the point that Scott Walker is deliberately dodging the question because he simply can’t afford to alienate the deeply deranged base of Republican voters if he plans to run for president. Today at the Washington Post, Assistant Professor of Political Science Alex Theodoridis has released the results of a poll he took in the fall of 2014 that shows exactly how bad the craziness is: Scott Walker’s View of Obama’s Religion Makes Him a Moderate.

A staggering 54 percent of Republicans said that “Muslim” best described what Obama “believes deep down.” Thirty percent of Republicans answered the way Walker did, by selecting “I don’t know.” Relatively few Republican respondents “take [Obama] at his word,” as Mitch McConnell put it: only 9 percent selected “Christian” to describe what Obama likely believes.

Even many Democrats weren’t taking Obama at his word. Only 45 percent chose “Christian,” while 17 percent said “spiritual,” 10 percent said “Muslim,” and 26 percent said they didn’t know.

Overall, 60 percent of respondents chose either Walker’s answer or “Muslim.”

This didn’t just start yesterday; the process of “othering” Obama by the right wing and the Republican Party has been an ongoing effort ever since he announced his first candidacy.

Nevada Republican assemblywoman Michelle Fiore, last seen at LGF when she said “hot little girls” on campus need guns to protect themselves against rapists, is telling her constituents tonight that cancer is a fungus that can be flushed out with salt water and baking soda.

Yes, she really said that. This is your Republican Party in 2015.

Here we see Bobby Jindal going all out to pander to the Fox News audience.

Tonight, @SeanHannity and I talk about how Pres. Obama’s failure to respond to Radical Islam has disqualified him to be President. Tune in.

— Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) February 25, 2015

Maybe Sean Hannity should also interview Osama Bin Laden about Obama’s “failure to respond to radical Islam.”

Oh wait.