U.S. Representative Mike McIntyre recently welcomed representatives from Star Telephone and Atlantic Telephone to discuss issues affecting communications service for consumers in Southeastern North Carolina. McIntyre and the telecommunication representatives explored the challenges small communications providers face in bringing affordable communications technologies to the rural communities in the 7th Congressional district.

USA Today

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has condemned the influence of "special interest lobbyists," yet dozens of lobbyists have political and financial ties to his presidential campaign — particularly from telecommunications companies, an industry he helps oversee in the Senate.

Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade, Senate lobbying disclosures show.

McCain has netted about $765,000 in political donations from those telecom lobbyists, their spouses, colleagues at their firms and their telecom clients during the past decade, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign-finance records shows.

Bush Republicans have engaged in unprecedented obstruction. They have used every delaying tactic available to them, including filibusters and secret holds. But Bush Republican efforts to block floor consideration of even bipartisan and non-controversial bills clearly reveals their strategy: block everything.

Below is a list of the non-controversial, bipartisan bills blocked by Bush Republicans this morning.

ALS Registry Act. S. 1382, which would authorize $75 million for fiscal 2008 to create a registry with the Centers for Disease Control to collect and analyze data on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The bill was passed out of committee and has 67 bipartisan co-sponsors.

U.S. Representative Mike McIntyre and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives backed legislation that will crack down on online predators, stop the spread of child pornography, and help make the Internet safer for children.

"The Internet is a tremendous resource, but we must be careful to protect our children from those who would do them harm,” said McIntyre. “I was pleased to support legislation that will protect our kids from online predators and help make the information superhighway a safer place for our children."

The bills increase resources to fight Internet crimes against children, authorize a new public awareness campaign to promote Internet safety and provide tough new penalties against those people and companies who produce, view and allow others to purchase child pornography. The legislation also cracks down on sex offenders by allowing judges to require convicted sex offenders to use internet tracking and filtering software that limits offenders’ access to certain material online.

You may be used to political partisanship from the John W. Pope Civitas Institute, but you would be surprised to go to their website and find a mutilated photo of a baby, right?

Yesterday, visitors to Civitas's newly designed website were treated to an image of a newborn infant making an obscene and sexually suggestive gesture. Civitas has not yet attempted to explain their motives for promoting this disturbing image.

If BlueNC has the story correct, the image is in response to journalists calling in to question the professionalism of Civitas's newest employee, Max Borders. Regardless of the intent of the offensive image, we can hope that both Civitas and their affiliate, the John Locke Foundation, will apologize.

Congressman David Price (D-NC) today announced a federal grant of $408,300 for NC State University to continue participating in the University Transportation Center (UTC) program through the U.S. Department of Transportation. NCSU was selected as one of seven universities across the country working to solve national and regional transportation challenges through research, education and technology transfer. The university’s Center for Transportation and the Environment will receive the funding.

Last year, Price led an effort among the state’s congressional delegation to pen a letter to the Department in support of NCSU’s bid for inclusion in the UTC program (See attached document). The university had participated in the program in the past, but last year the Department of Transportation required all universities to re-apply for the special designation.

Other universities receiving funding following today’s announcement include the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the University of Denver, Mississippi State University, Cleveland State University, the University of Detroit-Mercy, Michigan Technological University, and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.