Montana Congressional candidate Grant Kier denounces FCC decision to eviscerate net neutrality

Commenting on today's decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under the leadership of former Verizon lawyer and radical free-market libertarian Chairman Ajit Pai, to eliminate the rules keeping the big corporations that own the Internet infrastructure, or "pipes," from turning this essential service and tool for global progress and empowerment into a cable-company-like morass of bad customer service, constantly escalating prices, and limited choices, Montana Congressional candidate in 2018 and former executive director of the Five Valleys Land Trust Grant Kier told Etopia News:

"The FCC’s decision to repeal the Net Neutrality regulations is a loss for Montana consumers and small businesses. These rules ensured that big corporations couldn’t choose winners and losers in the online world, but the FCC has picked big corporations over the millions of Americans who oppose this rule.  Montanans need a Congress that will push back against these disastrous roll backs, and instead, look at how we can improve access to the internet in rural Montana."

Montana Congressional Candidate Grant Kier opposes the House-Senate consensus tax bill

Etopia News contacted the communications directors of incumbent Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte and challenger Grant Kier, formerly executive director of the Five Valleys Land Trust, asking for comments from them about the tax bill now pending in Congress.  No word back from Congressman Gianforte's office yet, but Jake Brown in Kier's office provided the following statement from Kier regarding this legislation:

"Montanans were promised a bill that would simplify the tax code and provide relief to middle-class families, instead they've been given a bill that cuts taxes for wealthy people like Congressman Gianforte, adds trillions to the deficit, and does nothing for working Montanans. I was raised by a hard-working single mom. No one wants to see tax relief for working Montanans more than me, but this plan does nothing for the average taxpayer. We can’t raise taxes on those who can least afford it and make cuts to Medicare just so we can give huge tax breaks to Congressman Gianforte and his campaign donors."

  

State and County Dems won’t be able to call for Dababneh resignation for a while

According to spokespeople for the California Democratic Party and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, there are certain procedures that must be followed before these groups can go on record, if they choose to, calling for the resignation of incumbent California State Assemblymember Matt Dababneh (D-45^th Assembly District), who has recently been accused of sexual misconduct by Sacramento-based lobbyist Pamela Lopez and former district staffer of Congressmember Brad Sherman (D-30^th Congressional District) Jessica Yas Barker, who says that when she and Dababneh were both working in Congressmember Sherman’s office, Dababneh acted “outside the ‘rules of common decency or professionalism’,” according to the Washington Post.

According to John Vigna, Communications Director of the California Democratic Party, “those kinds of formal positions (e.g. candidate endorsements or officially calling for a resignation) have to be vetted through the appropriate committees, which won’t meet again until our convention.” According to the state party’s website, that convention will take place February 23-25, 2018, in San Diego, California.

A similar, if shorter, delay, will also be inevitable at the county level.  Danny Leserman, Director of Communications for the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, told Etopia News today that the call for Dababneh’s resignation adopted by the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley will be considered by the party at the county level as a resolution at their next meeting, on January 9, 2018, at the UTLA (United Teachers of Los Angeles) building in Koreatown.

Meanwhile, Assemblymember Dababneh says he won’t resign.

Added Vigna, “I’m certain there will be a lot of discussion, but [I] obviously can’t forecast what positions the delegates or party officers might take one way or the other.”