Whereas the First Amendment guarantees the right to freedom of speech.

Whereas the Internet has taken over from print and other traditional media in the distribution of speech, both on an individual, one-to-one basis and on a one-to-many basis.

Whereas Internet distribution encompasses what was traditionally considered "printed words", live and recorded speech, along with live and recorded video, and likely will encompass further means of communication not yet envisioned.

Whereas the First Amendment's guarantees, unless extended and secured by the dominant media distribution methods of the day is rendered meaningless, an outrage that neither the Founders or contemporary Americans should tolerate.

Therefore it is enacted:

Definitions

• Utility Internet Services (UIS) are those which are now and become in the future essential to participation in and publication of material on the Internet.  Said services include but are not limited to Domain Name Registration, Domain Name Resolution, Packet-Switched Routing, Dedicated Fixed Wired and Wireless Packet Service (irrespective of whether the wires involved are copper, glass, or other materials not yet invented), and CPU, Disk or Network Resource that are attached to or reachable by the Internet, whether provisioned with an operating system and application software or "bare" and whether provided on a dedicated, leased or "cloud" and shared basis.
  
  
• Application Internet Services (AIS) are those services built upon or run within UIS that are (1) branded, (2) present a consistent presence to a consumer that are distinct from other AIS and do not provide the services of a UIS.  Examples of an AIS include but are not limited to Facebook, Snap, Twitter, The NY Post's online web presence and others.
  
  
• Financial Internet Services (FIS) are those services that are built upon or run with UIS that are (1) branded and (2) primarily provide the functionality of transferring funds to or from one party to another, whether as part of an AIS or separately.  Examples of a FIS include PayPal, Square and Venmo.
  
  
• Viewpoint means any and all political, personal or commercial perspectives, expressed beliefs or statements, whether factual or opinion and irrespective of the means of expression whether verbal, via imagery or otherwise, that is lawful to express under the laws of The United States.  A viewpoint does not encompass depictions or acts that constitute per-se violations of United States law, including but not limited to child pornography or exploitation and the transmission of "spam" in violation of applicable law (e.g. the CAN-SPAM act.)

Prohibited Acts; Penalties and Exceptions

• Neither a UIS or FIS may enjoin, refuse to provide services to or refuse to transact, interoperate with or otherwise discriminate for or against any person or entity who desires to or does transact with same on the basis of Viewpoint.
  
  
• A UIS shall not tamper with, inspect, modify or filter any lawful transmission of content through, by or to a customer, nor shall any such entity intercept, monitor or sell data pertaining to same to third parties for any purpose whatsoever except as specifically directed by a court of competent jurisdiction and subject to a warrant requiring same.  By way of example filtering, diverting, sorting or otherwise tampering with domain name lookup results is a violation of this section as is the examination of stored or in-transit data for any commercial purpose including targeted advertising.
  
  
• An AIS may enjoin, refuse to provide services or refuse to transact on a Viewpoint basis, provided that said refusal does not violate any other federal non-discrimination statute in the United States, including but not limited to discrimination on the basis of race, color or creed and the rules upon which said conduct will be judged are both published and consistently applied.
  
  
• A FIS that violates this section shall have any linked federal money transmitting or banking charter suspended for six months upon the first violation, and permanently upon a second or subsequent violation.  Any aggrieved party may bring private civil suit for enforcement of this section and, upon prevailing, is entitled the the greater of $50,000 or treble the actual damages incurred and shall also recover all reasonable attorneys fees and costs.
  
  
• A UIS that violations this section shall be fined not less than $100,000 or more than $1 million for each person so injured or impacted for the first violation with the penalties doubling for each subsequent violation without limit.  Any aggrieved party may bring private civil suit for enforcement under this section and, upon prevailing is entitled to the greater of $50,000 or treble the actual damages incurred and shall also recover all reasonable attorneys fees and costs.
  
  
• Nothing in this section shall prohibit content and viewpoint neutral constraints on customers, such as billing for the data, CPU or space consumed, limiting the rate of transactions (e.g. posting) or imposing, on a non-discriminatory basis, fees for service.
  
  
• Nothing in this section shall prohibit the employees of a UIS, FIS or AIS from performing legitimate troubleshooting or investigation for the purpose of correcting "bugs" or other operational problems, or in the furtherance of investigating suspected fraudulent or illegal activity while using or facilitated through their services, provided that the interception and monitoring undertaken is performed only for that purpose and all copies of stored and intercepted data used therein are destroyed when the incident to which same pertains has been resolved.

That should pretty-much do it....

No, PayPal cannot refuse to allow people to send money to someone it considers a purveyor of "hate speech", as such is not illegal under the laws of the United States.

No, GoDaddy cannot refuse a domain registration provided the operator is not violating an actual law of the United States, nor can they terminate an existing registration except for non-payment of their fees or a proved violation of law.

No, the cable company cannot refuse you an Internet connection if you happen to have a picture of yourself in a white hood in your High School or College yearbook.

No, a hosting company cannot refuse to sell service to Glenn Beck on the same terms as it sells service to a LGBT organization.  It can, however, prohibit both from spamming people -- but cannot prohibit Glenn from spamming while allowing the LGBT people to do so.

If you get "deplatformed" or harmed by such a firm you can sue, and if you win not only will they get fined on an escalating basis if a financially-linked firm their federal banking connections will be severed on any second or repeated offense and the amount due to you is large enough to obtain both diversity jurisdiction in Federal Court and to make it hurt the entity who tries to do it.

Facebook or Youtube (for example) can ban people for whatever reason it wants. So can Twitter or, for that matter, The Market Ticker.  However, neither those firms nor any other collection of firms can get together to stop Gab, as a potential competitor, from establishing and maintaining service including taking money through and by it, and if they do all who are so-involved are exposed to ruinous fines and, in the case of a financially-related firm, the extinction of their business.

This does not address the monopolist concentration of power by, for example, Google and Youtube, nor Facebook and Google in the digital advertising realm.  It does, however, address firms and other parties attempting to destroy competing services such as Gab by targeting their ability to transact financially and connect physically to the Internet along with provisioning the services they need to operate on a non-discriminatory basis.  This act will instantly neuter the grievance industry attacks on those who might otherwise provide a legitimate competitive threat to those firms that are "AIS" types of providers yet go far down the road of censorship, and by doing so re-open the marketplace of ideas that so many are trying their damndest to slam shut.

Time to introduce and pass this folks...... right now.

There have been recent measles outbreaks in the United States -- which have led many to claim that this is likely related to "anti-vax" sentiment and "personal exception" laws for vaccination.

(CNN)So far this year, Washington state is averaging more than one new measles case a day as officials try to help stop the disease's spread.

Since January 1, Clark County Public Health has confirmed 47 cases of measles. In King County, home of Seattle, at least one confirmed case was reported.

A vast majority of those who came down with measles -- 41 -- were not vaccinated against the disease, Clark County officials said. One patient did receive a vaccination against MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), but the health agency declined to provide more details on that case "to protect the patient's privacy."

Measles is a nasty disease.  It is not simply "a rash, a fever, and then it's over" sort of thing.  In a small but significant percentage of the people who get it the infection spreads to the brain or causes a secondary pneumonia condition to arise; both can permanently injure or kill.

The MMR vaccine is allegedly about 97% effective in providing immunity if you get both doses (one at about 12 months, and the second between 4 and 6 years of age.)  The problem is that we admit into this country a huge number of individuals who have no vaccinations in this series and sometimes none at all, nor do we track them.  They're illegal invaders.

"Herd immunity" is often claimed as the reason to require everyone be vaccinated.  But that claim is bullshit; herd immunity is the phenomena that drops the transmission efficiency of a given disease below 1.0.  Measles is extraordinarily contagious, however -- a single person who has it and is contagious that comes in contact with 1,000 non-antibody carriers (either through previous exposure or vaccine) will likely infect an utterly enormous percentage of those exposed.  While it is true that in vaccinated populations transmission will eventually die out due to herd immunity those who have vaccine failure -- and a single-digit percentage of those vaccinated are not protected -- are still nearly-certain to contract the disease if they are exposed.

The bottom line issue here is that illegal immigration is a monstrous vector problem and one we can put a near-100% stop to by stopping all invasion of this nation by those who are not vaccinated.

Again, while a wall or other hard border barrier will not stop all persons from coming into the country illegally it will stop more than 90% of them immediately.  That's the record other nations with border walls have -- including Israel.

If you decide for whatever reason not to vaccinate your kid(s) then your kids are the ones primarily at risk.  But those who did take the vaccine and have it fail for reasons entirely beyond their control, simply because it doesn't always work, should not be exposed to the risk of serious disease and even death simply because some jackwad politicians and businesspeople want political favors and cheap under-the-table illegal labor.

Those who advocate for illegal immigration and protection of any who cross illegally and are already here ought to be charged as accessories before the fact with manslaughter should any US Citizen die as a result of such an infection and be hung at the national mall in fulfillment of their sentence.

As usual the lie factory continues here -- and this is from someone who knows better.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefit millions of Americans, but are major drivers of our national debt, which has skyrocketed to more than $21 trillion. If every U.S. taxpayer was billed for an equal share of that debt, we would each be charged about $400,000.

The cause of our out-of-control national debt is rooted in current and long-term obligations of these three big entitlement programs, due in large part to rapidly rising costs and an aging population.

Again, let me reference this Ticker, just one of dozens I've written over the years, that points out the truth: There is no crisis in Social Security.  There is a problem which can be addressed, but the problem was caused directly by tampering with interest rates within The Fed and Congress along with allowing millions of able-bodied people to claim "disability" -- and some of them have been documented to have run marathons while allegedly "disabled."

Nonetheless Social Security is fixable without a large amount of pain.  Why?  Because it is a progressive tax-based system (you get more back in benefit for the first dollar you pay in via taxes than later ones), it holds a relatively large body of bonds which by design were constructed to allow "pig-in-python" style bursts of baby creation (ala The Boomers) as the designers anticipated that happening (along with "busts" at other times) and the tax rate is, in relative terms, high.  (12.4% of all wages earned up to the cap -- you only  "see" half of it as a payroll deduction -- unless you're self-employed!)  Further the boomer pig in the python will start to recede in ten years -- 2028 -- as boomers start dying and so will their outsized proportion of the "draw" on said system.

In other words the conflation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is an intentional lie that is repeated for political purposes and any politician or other policy "wonk" who does so deserves to be destroyed as his or her intent is to wreck this nation on a permanent fiscal basis by generating enough screaming among seniors to guarantee the actual problem is not addressed.

The entire problem with our budget lies in Medicare and Medicaid.  The reason is multi-fold but is focused in the following places:

• The Medicare tax rate is 2.9%, (1.45% each for employer and employee), or less than one quarter of that for Social Security.  Yet last fiscal year Social Security spent $1.03 trillion while Medicare and Medicaid spent $1.46 trillion with approximately $1.15 trillion being Medicare.  In other words Medicare assesses taxes at less than 1/4 the rate of Social Security yet pays out more money.
  
  
• Medical spending as a percentage of the national economy has increased by a factor of five since Medicare was put into place. Medical spending was approximately 4% of GDP in the 1960s; at 4% of GDP Medicare was sustainable indefinitely as its tax receipt projections were approximately correct in covering expected expenditures.  Medical spending is almost 20% of GDP today, or five times as high in percentage terms.  Yet the Medicare tax rate has not advanced at all.  It would have to be five times what it is today, and advance at the rate of medical spending generally indefinitely into the future, to be solvent.
  
  
• If is not possible to "catch up" now even if you immediately made the Medicare tax 15%, which would be higher than Social Security, because those who are retired now didn't pay the higher rate and the bonds were not bought with their funds.  As such it is flatly impossible to fix this on a prospective basis through higher taxes.  IT CANNOT BE DONE BECAUSE TOO MUCH TIME HAS PASSED WITHOUT DOING IT OVER THE LAST 30 YEARS.
  
  
• Medicaid is even worse because there no tax assessed to cover it.  That is, Medicaid is a "pure" entitlement and last year spent approximately $400 billion.  You get it because you're low-income, not because you paid into it while working and now need it.  For this reason you cannot fix Medicaid with any sort of targeted, employment-based tax because there isn't one and the regressive nature of such taxes means people will leave the workforce to avoid paying same and then collect it.  In fact that has happened now and continues to this day.

By 2040, Medicare, which funds health care for people 65 and older, will cover 88 million enrollees and the cost per enrollee by then is estimated to more than triple. Medicare’s hospital insurance program, known as Part A, can only pay full benefits through 2024, according to the program’s trustees.

Why will it triple on a per-person basis?

Simple -- we have an out-of-control medical racketeering set of enterprises in the United States, all of which are illegal under more than 100 year old law.  Years ago I wrote an article on Lilies explaining how exponents invariably screw anyone who relies on them for a long-term "growth" plan.  It's mathematics, not politics and mathematics cannot be evaded.  But far worse when you only think you see the tiniest bit of the problem coming you're nearly dead -- every time -- because of how exponential math works.  As such the la-la-la-la-la nonsense out of politicians on this and all related subjects has only one rational, society-preserving response: REVOLT.

Let's make this clear right up front: Neither the left's "Medicare for all" or the right's "Repeal and replace" mantras will do a damn thing about this, and 2024 is not far away.  I will also remind you that markets never let you actually hit the wall just as they did not in 2000 and 2007.

Once they suss out that the politicians will not fix it because the people are sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting for people like Trump and Occasional Cortex the market will dive.  Not a little, a lot.  This will force the naked swimmers in the pool above water level for their ugliness to be seen by all.

Again -- there is no tax change that can fix this.  The only means to fix it is to dramatically cut medical spending in the economy as a whole -- not cost-shift it, not make someone else pay, stop paying entirely right now, not in the future, not via some claimed "cost curve" bend in the future that never comes.

Medical spending as a percentage of the economy must collapse back to about 4% of the economy, or approximately one fifth of what it is now, and it must do so today.

This is not impossible, contrary to those who say it is.  As just one example we can take as much as $400 billion out of federal health spending per year right now, today, forevermore by simply addressing one self-inflicted, very damaging and expensive set of disease treatments: Diabetes.  

To those who claim that sort of action would be "cruel" I reply that it is the very opposite of cruel because not only does it take a huge whack out of the federal budget (and state pension expenses) it also will dramatically improve the life of those who suffer from this condition, including in many cases reversing it entirely!

Please explain how that is "cruel".  I'm waiting......

When it comes to surgeries (Hospital Part "A" stuff) may I point to The Surgery Center of Oklahoma which routinely, even when it has to buy supplies and drugs at monopolist prices which are 100-500% or more of a market price, manages to undercut the local hospital in your town by that very same 80% I cited as necessary?  Were they able to buy supplies and drugs at market prices it would likely be 90%.  Oh, and you're one twentieth as likely to acquire an infection in said surgery center as your local hospital because they can't bill you for the cost of fixing their own mistakes and as a result they're far more-careful than your local hospital is.

Incidentally those "mistakes" (negligence, mostly) kill 200,000 Americans a year and maim millions which does even more economic damage since a dead (or maimed) person either produces nothing or far less than they otherwise could.

In 2011, in my book Leverage, I laid out a means to fix this.  Through the years since I've fleshed it out a bit more, but the basic premise remains: 

• Enforce the damned law against all the medical providers, require them to post prices and charge everyone the same price for the same thing, thereby allowing competition into the game.
  
  
• Make illegal any sort of cost-hiding (such as the current practice of not being quoted a charge and then having your insurance company play the "explanation of benefits" game.)  This is illegal everywhere else in the economy with damn good reason -- it is, in every case, a criminal conspiracy as it intentionally screws some people who have no opportunity to shop or say no.  In other words you must get a bill and submit it to the insurance company yourself so you see the entire bill, and you must agree in advance to the charges.  When that's physically impossible (e.g. you're on your back having a heart attack) you cannot be charged more than someone who is conscious and able to give consent for the same procedure.
  
  
• Medicaid can be rendered unnecessary in its entirety by these changes (no, this doesn't mean poor people get no medical care -- see the text of the bill.  They in fact get superior care to what they get now.)
  
  
• Forbid drug companies from differentially-pricing across national boundaries -- either directly by law or by dropping the law that currently forbids me from getting on a plane, filling my suitcase with drug "X" in said nation and flying back to resell it in the United States.
  
  
• Forbid government (or care invoiced to the government on behalf of a citizen) from paying anything for medical care where a lifestyle change will provide substantially equivalent or superior outcomes.
  
  
• Force alleged "insurance" to actually be insurance.  What we now call "health insurance" is not insurance; it is a scam, a fraud under the law and a felony criminal offense in every single instance.  Actual insurance by the definition of the word is a group of people who pay a small amount of money into a pool in anticipation of a possible but not certain loss, and from which losses are then paid to those who suffer them.  By definition with insurance once you have a loss you no longer pay anything; the company pays you, and it is criminal fraud to buy an alleged "insurance" policy against either a certain or already existing loss.

Congress would have to act to put into place much of this.  But not all.  The President is the head of the Executive, which is in charge of law enforcement.  Myriad existing parts of the health system are breaking existing, in many cases 100+ year old, laws -- specifically related to anti-trust.  In the specific case of anti-trust these violations are not civil offenses they are criminal felonies.  As a result right here and now, today, the President could direct the US Attorney General to bring said charges tomorrow as could any State Attorney General, since every state legal code I'm examined has similar statutes to 15 USC Chapter 1.

The people of this nation have the ability to put a stop to what is otherwise going to be a certain collapse -- not just in asset markets but of the government itself.  This is not going to happen in 2024 when Medicare cannot pay it will happen before that date because in the history of the world markets have never allowed an actual end date to be reached before they throw up all over the impending disaster.  To expect otherwise is to claim that literally everyone in the world is stupid beyond words.

May I point out that when Medicare's funds are exhausted that $1.1 trillion dollar expenditure (and rising) from last year will be immediately reduced by 75%?  That's right -- they took in just $260 billion last fiscal year in Medicare taxes but spent four times that amount.  If you think the government can immediately add $800 billion to the deficit without interest rates spiking to 10% or more overnight -- which instantly crashes the markets and government both -- you have rocks in your head.

Exactly when the markets will blow up is not determinable in advance but that it will happen is an absolute certainty.  Once it happens there will be no orderly path available to the government or anyone else to stop or mitigate the damage since the entire problem with the market throwing up on such an event is that confidence in the ability and desire of government to address the issue will have been irretrievably lost.

I will remind you that in 2008 the housing sector and frauds in a small part of it, centered in a few "hot" markets such as Florida and California, caused the Stock Market to lose well over half of its value.  This was due to scams in perhaps 3% of the US Economy.

This blowup will be not in 3% of the economy but rather nearly 20% of it and thus will be six times as bad.

The market will not lose 50% of its value, it will lose 90% or more of its value.

GDP will not decline a few percent, it will decline 20% or more.

We will not lose a few million jobs, we will lose 20% or more of the jobs in our economy.

There will not be a couple of investment banks that fail; all of the money-center banks will fail as will all businesses that have any sort of material debt exposure.  That's every large bank, the majority of regional banks and more than half of the publicly traded firms in the United States.

There will not be a few people who lose everything -- homes, jobs, savings and retirement -- up to a third of Americans, or perhaps as much as 100 million people, will lose everything.

The odds that some sizable percentage of that 100 million people will turn to extreme and uncoordinated violence is very high.  A third of the nation may well end up hungry and homeless.  If you think the government will be able to control or put that down think again; the number of angry, willing-to-do-it individuals will be several times the size of the military and police forces combined while federal, state and local government ability to pay said forces will have collapsed.  How many cops will show up for work when their paychecks bounce and they know going to work means their family is defenseless?  How many members of the military will suddenly decide that the Constitution means something and orders be damned?  There's no way to know the answers to those questions in advance, but I assure you -- you're not going to like the answers.

You think this can't happen here?  Oh yes it can.  It has in many other nations, some with ridiculous amounts of very valuable natural resource -- such as oil.  Venezuela anyone?

If you think this is not serious enough to get off your ass now and demand resolving the problem with something as immediate and forceful as this law, backing up that demand with whatever is necessary to make it happen, and yes, I do mean whatever is necessary, then you are through your inaction giving consent to an all-on collapse of our society and government within the next six years.

The market's determination that you're un-serious and don't give a crap, at which point the option to address this problem peacefully and politically will expire, could come at any time including today -- and it is certain on the present path that the hard end-point will arrive before the end of Trump's second term when Medicare runs out of money.

This is no longer an abstract issue that is at some point "far off" in the future.

It must be addressed now.

There's been plenty of discussion over whether services such as Apple's iTunes, Google Play, Facebook, Twitter and similar can ban users on a purely-discretionary basis.

The common argument is that because they are private companies they can create whatever policies they'd like so long as they do not violate existing civil rights law (e.g. you can't ban someone because they're black.)

But this isn't merely about services such as Facebook, Twitter and similar -- now the ability of content creators to monetize their work is at stake. As of the 21st of September  Infowars has been notified that Paypal is refusing to process payments for subscriptions as well as merchandise.

If you remember in 2017 the notorious neo-Nazi web site Daily Stormer was basically run off the Internet -- first by GoDaddy and then in rapid sequence multiple other firms, including Google.  They were denied the ability to buy DNS and hosting service as they were effectively black-balled by dozens of providers of these basic utility-class services more or less "all at once."

More recently Microsoft threatened Gab.ai with loss of their cloud computing provider, Microsoft's Azure, unless they made changes to their operations.  Microsoft was and remains unwilling to provide a specific list of changes they required or specifics of any alleged violations of their terms of service.

The premise that a private company can refuse service (or sales) to anyone is a fundamental part of Capitalism; the theory is that if one retailer does not wish to do business with you then another will.  But these campaigns of harassment are far more sinister and troubling because they now encompass the utility services that underlie the Internet's infrastructure.

This must not be allowed to stand.

Here's an example.  A hypothetical neo-Nazi wishes to buy a domain and purchase web services to air his views.   However repugnant the right to hold those views and express them is protected by the First Amendment.

Do businesses involved in selling Internet utility services have the right to refuse to sell to him?

To put your views on the Internet you need several different services, not just one.

1. A circuit or means of delivery and interchange with other users on the Internet.  Your cellphone or cable modem is an example of the "end connection" in this regard; in the publisher category this is either an ISP or some sort of a cloud provider.  This circuit is not just a line; in some way you have to connect to an interchange point, much like a phone on a physical wire is useless unless it connects to a switch so you can call other people.

2. A DNS or "nameserver" service.  This is what turns "vile-nazi.com" into an IP address in the format "1.2.3.4" or, in the IPv6 vernacular, "2501:......".  This is an essential service for the modern web because it is not only commonplace it is virtually always true on shared hosting or services of any sort that multiple names are bound to one IP address.  For example "vile-nazi.com" and "sweet-kitty.com" may both point to the same numerical IP address; the server determines which request goes where by the presentation of the domain name.

3. A computer (server), either a physical device or a virtual piece of a larger physical computer.  These days most small and moderate sites are run on virtualizations, not physical machines -- it's much less expensive and most small and moderate-sized sites simply don't need the entire power of a modern computer, so spreading it among other clients makes it less expensive for everyone.

4. The software that takes the message(s) you provide and formats and delivers them to others.  In the web world this is often Apache (a freely available piece of code) although not always by any means -- there are many other packages, some free and some commercial, that perform this function.  In addition there are services that perform this function in other ways (which are software packaged up with a "brand") such as Facebook and Twitter.

The question before us today is where is the line between a company able to refuse service to anyone and not?

I think we can agree that the neo-Nazi cannot be refused electrical service at his house.  Nor can he be refused water, sewer and trash pickup.  He also cannot be refused access to a toll road or bridge, even if privately run, so long as he pays the tolls like everyone else.

But he can be refused seating in a local restaurant.

What's the distinction?

Simple: The neo-Nazi's views are not implicitly endorsed by the establishment in the case of electrical, sewer and toll road service.

It is instantly obvious to an observer that the neo-Nazi's words on Facebook are in fact associated with the company Facebook.  Ditto for those on Twitter. But it isn't obvious to the public that the neo-Nazi bought his DNS or Web Service from GoDaddy or Amazon.  If one was curious you would have to dig for the information.  Even so these providers bear little risk of being co-branded with that neo-Nazi.

As such we should draw through regulation and law some simple bright-line tests.

Facebook can ban whoever it wants, for whatever reason.  So can Twitter.

GoDaddy, however, cannot ban a user from DNS registration no matter the purpose so long their site is legal.  Ditto for Amazon's AWS, Microsoft's Azure or any other cloud or hosting provider. Nor may providers refuse traffic interchange based on the viewpoints contained in their, or their customers, communications.

Twitter, in short, may ban anyone it wishes.  However, should they do so to any material degree there will be created an opportunity for a new Twitter, and anyone may start a competing service with essentially the same feature set.

What do we do with utility services that handle the flow of funds?

Traditional banks or fintech outfits such as PayPal  must not be allowed to discriminate against customers simply because they don't like their political views. Banking and monetary exchange is inherently a utility service and to deny same to any US Citizen as a consequence of their views is to attempt to "starve" a citizen for exercising their constitutionally-protected rights.

Thus the recent PayPal ban of Alex Jones must not stand, Master Card must not be able to ban Robert Spencer and neither can the decision of the bank that recently said "no" to a Florida candidate who supports the legalization of cannabis.  All of these are issue positions used to deny utility services.

We would not allow Florida Power and Light to cut off Nikki Fried's electricity because she supports the legalization of marijuana.  We must not also allow banks and modern utilities such as ISPs, domain providers and similar to effectively destroy people and political speech because they don't like the message, even though it's lawful.

Everyone is fawning over the deceased Senator from Arizona.

I will not be joining the party.

In fact, in my considered opinion he lived too long and the world is better for his passing.

Yeah, call me an asshole.  I don't care; I'm entitled to my opinion just as you are.

I don't base my view on his military service, nor on him being held in the Hanoi Hilton (or what he did while there.)  I've commented on that before during his Presidential run on these pages but it is neither the foundation of my extreme dislike of the man nor does it really modify anything, other than reinforce my basic opinion.

In my opinion John McCain was a self-serving bastard who didn't give a damn who got hurt or who he screwed as long as whatever he intended to do could advance what he wanted to obtain.

He ditched his first wife, who stayed faithfully married while he served and was imprisoned.  However, when she suffered a grievous accident through no fault of her own and was no longer pretty and thus not the sort of woman that a successful politician would want be seen with in public from a physical beauty perspective (as I judge to be his opinion, of course), and she never had been nor was at the time rich, he dumped her on his return to the United States for a women much younger, far prettier, uninjured, and a heiress who had a crap-ton of money to bankroll the start of his political aspirations.

If all that time apart had simply made for irreconcilable differences that might be able to be understood.  The raw power-seeking aspirational nature of who he hooked up with, however, never mind the timing and manner of his acts in that regard is quite another matter and belies both McCain's true intent and willingness to leave as much human wreckage behind as was necessary so long as he got what he wanted.

For that alone, in my opinion, John McCain deserves to burn in Hell.

Through his time in the House and Senate and indeed during his run for President he may have been known as a "maverick" but I think the better phrase to describe him is corrupt bastard.  May I remind you of Lincoln Savings and Loan, and the "Keating Five"?

In 1987 these men, McCain among them, got involved in a regulatory action against said bank on behalf of the Chairman and improperly intervened.  Two years later the bank collapsed, costing the federal government over $3 billion.  But far worse was the impact on bondholders and investors, many of whom were completely wiped out and left destitute.  Keating had made massive political contributions to all five.  While McCain escaped formal sanction by the Senate this was largely because he had taken office in the Senate after the salient events regarding those financial matters and thus the ethics committee claimed to lack jurisdiction.  The House Ethics committee ducked it as well, since he was now a Senator (despite having been in the House when the financial events happened.)  Fortuitous?  I suppose, but evading sanction by a bunch of limp-wristed worthless, corrupt cucks is not the same thing as not having done anything wrong.

Oh, and in the aftermath there were of course leaks intended to harm..... other politicians involved who happened to be Democrats. The GAO investigated and concluded McCain was responsible.  Of course nobody thinks that's a problem -- right?  Yet another example of "I don't give a damn who I burn or what sort of underhanded, backstabbing horsecrap I pull as long as I get what I want."  That's McCain for 'ya.

This pattern of leaks was to continue up until very recently -- from McCain.  It's funny how when you look at the Press though, or through Google, all you find in the search is leaks about McCain -- specifically, the leaked comment from the West Wing a few months ago that someone was glad he was dying.  Gee, where are all the other leaks that McCain himself committed along with improper influence and abuse of his office?  Buried down the memory hole, I see..... but the Keating incident, being infamous enough, is still findable if you know where to look.

Indeed it appears the only thing that stopped this pattern of outrageous conduct was McCain being rendered physically incapable of doing it anymore.  You know, by being on your deathbed and then (of course) dying!

Then there's the underhanded and arguably felonious urging of the IRS to use audits to destroy political opponents that came out of his Senatorial office -- including, specifically, Tea Party groups during Obama's Presidency.  His staff was caught doing it and proof is now out in the open in Judicial Watch's hands.  For that crap, in my view, he should be indicted, tried and hanged.  Of course you can't hang a dead person, so I guess this one goes to the guy in the Red Suit to adjudicate.

Of course it would be ridiculous to omit McCain's apparent involvement in the Steele Dossier.  While the book has not been closed on that as of this point it appears that taken as a whole the entire charade was a series of outrageously illegal acts intended to first subvert a federal election for President and then overthrow it's results -- and McCain's motive for being involved certainly looks like nothing more than pure, unbridled hatred.  I'm not sure I can actually count the number of likely felonies that will get tallied up when all is said and done on this and in any event that's another one for the guy in the Red Suit since you can't indict a dead man.

I should also point out McCain's trademark and decades-long condescending manner of speech.  In 2008, during the middle of the financial meltdown and an election season, he excused the banksters who ripped off the country and then voted for TARP.  When called on this the condescension came thick and fast, burying any criticism (including mine) under the old I'm smart, you're dumb, now shut the fuck up and get out of here tone of voice.

We'll top this off with McCain's long and sordid history of war-mongering but for those who are dead, too numerous to count as a consequence, it's certainly not last.  His advocacy and acts in this regard during his time in government have been incessant, outrageous, in many case based on lies and have gotten a lot of people killed.  I'm the first one to defend America but advocacy for wars and military actions that have no defined goals, no stated point at which they can be called at an end and at best a compromised justification (e.g. the Second Iraq incursion) are another matter.  We'll let the red suit guy adjudicate that one as well.

Rest in pieces, jackass -- let's see how the Ethics Committee of One passes judgement and unlike House and Senate committees he doesn't seem very amenable to mealy-mouthed excuses: