My ideal scenario would be for the bill to never get to a floor vote and for the Dems to win both houses in November (I did say ideal, not expected).  

Then we could start all over again in the next session, using COPE and the Stevens bill as references (but not as starting points), along with other proposed bills and amendments.

The goal would be to craft legislation that would facilitate a healthy migration from the world of concentrated media and telecom gatekeepers to a world of distributed intelligence (and power and abundance) and open IP networks.  

The one time I was involved in drafting telecom legislation (in MI, years ago), it was useful to have lots of alternative language and drafts to play around with. Creating effective legislation in a complex, fast-changing industry isn't easy, even without a lot of ugly backroom politics.  

But my sense is that, as time goes by, we keep developing a clearer sense of where we want to go and, the more we debate the issue, the better we understand how to get there with the least amount of undesirable and unintended consequences.  

So, if telecom legislation dies this session, let's think of it as a call to arms to win control of Congress in November and to turbocharge the transition to IP-powered democracy by passing truly progressive legislation in the next session of Congress.

I have a feeling we're on the cusp....or, to paraphrase Dick Cheney, the overwhelming market and political power of legacy telecom and media industries is in its "last throes."  (Of course, as Cheney found, last throes can last for a good long time, so we still have lots of work to do on many fronts.)

llm1 llm2 llm3 llm4 llm5 llm6 llm7 llm8 llm9 llm10 llm11 llm12 llm13 llm14 llm15 llm16 llm17 llm18 llm19 llm20 llm21 llm22 llm23 llm24 llm25 llm26 llm27 llm28 llm29 llm30 llm31 llm32 llm33 llm34 llm35 llm36 llm37 llm38 llm39 llm40 llm41 llm42 llm43 llm44 llm45 llm46 llm47 llm48 llm49 llm50 llm51 llm52 llm53 llm54 llm55 llm56 llm57 llm58 llm59 llm60 llm61 llm62 llm63 llm64 llm65 llm66 llm67 llm68 llm69 llm70 llm71 llm72 llm73 llm74 llm75 llm76 llm77 llm78 llm79 llm80 llm81 llm82 llm83 llm84 llm85 llm86 llm87 llm88 llm89 llm90 llm91 llm92 llm93 llm94 llm95 llm96 llm97 llm98 llm99 llm100 llm101 llm102 llm103 llm104 llm105 llm106 llm107 llm108 llm109 llm110 llm111 llm112 llm113 llm114 llm115 llm116 llm117 llm118 llm119 llm120 llm121 llm122 llm123 llm124 llm125 llm126 llm127 llm128 llm129 llm130 llm131 llm132 llm133 llm134 llm135 llm136 llm137 llm138 llm139 llm140 llm141 llm142 llm143 llm144 llm145 llm146 llm147 llm148 llm149 llm150 llm151 llm152 llm153 llm154 llm155 llm156 llm157 llm158 llm159 llm160 llm161 llm162 llm163 llm164