Media

This morning, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced he will propose new rules during a speech at the Brookings Institution, to preserve an open internet and ensure net neutrality. Blogging on WhiteHouse.gov, Chairman Genachowski explains:

The rise of serious challenges to the traditional operation of the Internet puts us at a crossroads. We could see technology used to shut doors to entrepreneurs instead of opening them. The spirit of innovation stifled. A full and free flow of information compromised.

Or we could take steps to preserve a free and open Internet, helping to ensure a future of opportunity, prosperity, and the vibrant flow of information and ideas.

Rosh Hashanah is a time of reflection and celebration, and renewal and introspection for Jews around the world. It is a day of remembrance, prayer, and repentance. It is an opportunity to re-commit ourselves to Judaism's core values: perfecting the world and pursuing justice; striving for peace and performing acts of goodwill.

As the Jewish community celebrates the new year, let us all learn the lessons of the past and pledge to build a better future for men and women of all faiths and beliefs. Let us work to complete our collective efforts to end poverty, feed the hungry, shelter the needy, and serve the common good. Let us open our hands and our hearts to the less fortunate among us, and rededicate ourselves to the belief that diversity and pluralism are sources of strength, not symbols of division.

According to a Harvard study released yesterday, an estimated 45,000 people in the United States die every year -- one every 12 minutes -- because they lack health insurance coverage. The urgent need for health insurance reform has never been so clear. As Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a Harvard professor and one of the study's authors, told the New York Times, "if you extend coverage, you can save lives." Indeed, we lose more Americans every day due to lack of health insurance than drunken driving and homicide combined.

Selected findings:

"Canada and the United States, as you know, are the closest of friends and we value that friendship enormously in the Congress of the United States. We have worked together on issues that relate to our economies, and climate changes issues, and of course, our national security..."

“Education is the best investment individuals can make in themselves, it is the best investment parents can make in their children, and it is the best investment a nation can make in their citizens. With that in mind, today the House passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, the single largest investment in making college more affordable in the history of our nation..."