As the Democrats take the House, Trump fires Sessions

The 2018 midterms didn’t quite have the blue wave that the Democrats hoped for, but they were able to secure The House of Representatives for themselves, which brings an assurance of some level of checks and balances back to our governing system. Notably, Beto O’Rourke fought a very close battle against his incumbent in Texas, Ted Cruz. Although he lost to Cruz eventually by about 1,000 votes, he’s certainly garnered himself a lot of attention. We’ll be watching Beto’s career with great interest.

Following the elections, Trump turned up his rhetoric against someone he used to talk very fondly about, Jeff Sessions.

For those that don’t know, Jeff Sessions was one of Trump’s earliest supporters in the White House during his campaign, and because of this, Mr. Sessions recused himself from the investigation, instead putting forward Rosenstein. Although originally this was done to ensure a fair and impartial investigation, as the investigation has gone forward, Trump has become increasingly and public ally critical of Mr. Sessions.

Now Mr. Trump has gone so far as to request Mr. Sessions’ resignation, putting forth an acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who has shown himself to be publically opposed to the investigation. It’s feared that Whitaker will shut down or seriously hinder the investigation now that he is essentially in control of its fate.

Many in opposition are planning protests of this action in larger cities across the nation. These protests are scheduled to take place, especially near Capitols across the nation, on November 8th. People hope a swift show of strong opposition from the public to Trump asking for Session’s resignation will protect the integrity of the investigation.

It remains to be seen what the investigation will bring forth next.

Federal Appeals Court upholds SB54

Last Tuesday a Federal Appeals Court, specifically the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, upheld the controversial election law, which allows candidates to circumvent the party’s caucuses, gathering signatures from local citizens to have their name placed on the primary ballot.

The Utah GOP was staunchly opposed to SB54, surely seeing it as a loss of power and control in their own elections. They went so far as suing the state over the law, causing a deep divide within the party between candidates that see it as a threat and candidates that might use it to ensure their own spot on the ballot.

The legal proceedings have accrued immense legal fees, but that doesn’t seem to be a stumbling block for the opposition to the bill. Entrata CEO Dave Bateman stated that he was willing to pay for the legal costs going forward stating “If it has to go to the Supreme Court, I will pay every penny of that, if I have to.”

This seems to bode well for the Utah Democratic party, as the opposition to SB54 indicates dissent within the Republican party, and may split the vote amongst Republican candidates when elections come.

Net Neutrality Repealed

The FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality rules last Thursday. As discussed in the previous article here on OurWrites.org, this opens the door for internet providers to charge for access or full-speed access to sites of their choosing. It also allows them to shape the internet consumers see in other ways, such as limiting access to competitor’s websites, and it isn’t out of their purview to block access to sites entirely.

It’s unlikely that consumers will see the full ramifications of these changes in rules for some time. The telecom companies are surely smart enough to realize that the backlash from enacting rules that are harmful to consumers right away would lead to an even larger backlash and could see the Net Neutrality rules coming back. So it is likely nothing will change for now.

Some Democrats have hinted at bringing back some of the Net Neutrality rules through some kind of congressional rule, but it is yet to be seen what this would entail.

Some public interest groups have vowed to file lawsuits once the rules become official in January, basing their arguments around some public comments in support of the repeal clearly being fraudulent. There is an entire site devoted to this phenomenon, www.comcastroturf.com, which lets you search for your name to see if a fraudulent comment in support of the repeal was submitted in your name. There are tens of thousands of cases of this happening, with most of the comments using the exact same wording.