Vox Sentences: Obamacare for the internet

1. "Obamacare for the internet"

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler, being adamant about something. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

• President Obama came out in favor of reclassifying broadband service as a "telecommunications service" rather than an "information service" for the purposes of federal regulation.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• That sounds ridiculously dull, but it's essential for achieving net neutrality and ensuring that companies can't pay broadband providers to serve their sites faster.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• The FCC can reclassify without any Congressional action, but it's also a fully independent agency that Obama can't boss around.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• Confused by what net neutrality is? Here's a great primer on the concept and the debate around it.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• Ted Cruz denounced the plan as "Obamacare for the internet," which I believe qualifies as one of those statements that's "not even wrong."

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• On the other hand, a "public option" for the internet is totally possible and could be our best bet for fighting cable monopolies.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein]

• Historian Yoni Appelbaum on the Obamacare analogy: "The common thread here is a policy framework giving individuals the same access to essential resources as enormous institutions."

  [Yoni Appelbaum via Jason Kottke]

• Tim Wu, who coined the term "net neutrality" and is perhaps its most influential advocate, praised Obama's move.

  [New Yorker / Tim Wu]

• In general, Republicans in Congress have been critical of net neutrality.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• It doesn't look like Obama's plan will involve regulation of broadband prices.

  [Motherboard / Jason Koebler]

2. Ebola-free America

Registered nurse, Peter Sidhu, demonstrates how to put on and take off personal protective equipment, or PPE, as Dr. Arjun Srinivasan watches during an Ebola safety presentation by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on November 7, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (David McNew/Getty Images)

• The doctor in treatment for Ebola in New York City is being released.

  [NYT / Anemona Hartocollis]

• That suggests that the US is Ebola-free now.

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• Mali also appears to be Ebola-free, which is probably bigger news given its much-weaker public health system.

  [NYT / Donald McNeil and Katarina Höije]

• Because of Ebola, we've been avoiding the raging Chikungunya epidemic, among other public health problems.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz and Steven Hoffman]

3. Free Catalonia

Volunteers count ballots after closing a polling station on November 9, 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. (David Ramos/Getty Images)

• More than 80 percent of Catalonians who turned out for a non-binding referendum voted for independence from Spain.

  [FT / Tobias Buck]

• But opponents of independence boycotted the referendum, and polls show a more divided region.

  [The Guardian / Alberto Nardelli]

• In case you haven't heard of it, Catalonia is the northeastern-most part of Spain and contains Barcelona, the country's second largest city after Madrid.

  [BBC]

• The Catalan language, suppressed during Francisco Franco's dictatorship, has been making a comeback since the restoration of Spanish democracy in the 1970s.

  [The Guardian / Quim Monzó]

• Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has expressed interest in talks with Catalan leaders following the referendum, though it's unlikely the Spanish government will go along with a binding referendum any time soon.

  [Reuters / Sarah White and Carlos Ruano]

• For example, Rajoy's own justice minister called the referendum "an act of pure propaganda that only served to exacerbate divisions among Catalans."

  [Bloomberg View / Leonid Bershidsky]

• "Falling prices in the bond market suggest investors are increasingly convinced that Catalan President Artur Mas stands a good chance of winning his campaign for autonomy."

  [Bloomberg View / Mark Gilbert]

4. Misc.

• A major Egyptian militant group has pledged allegiance to ISIS.

  [NYT / David Kirkpatrick]

• President Obama urged Chinese leaders to exercise restraint in their response to Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

  [NYT / Mark Landler]

• The Holocaust Museum is building a model to predict genocide and other forms of mass killing.

  [Slate / Joshua Keating]

• The Fed could have done more to fight the recession in from 2009 to 2011.

  [Vox EU / Eric Swanson]

• Bank of America and Citigroup's profit statements were off by hundreds of millions of dollars.

  [Bloomberg View / Matt Levine]

• Coal can't explain why the Industrial Revolution happened.

  [Anton Howes]

• Medical marijuana can be very helpful for kids with epilepsy — but, at least in New Jersey, getting a prescription is ridiculously difficult.

  [New Jersey Monthly / Joanna Buffum]

• A deep look into the choices trans teens and their parents face.

  [Houstonian Magazine / Mina Keleman]

• Reddit isn't a democracy.

  [Washington Post / Caitlin Dewey]

5. Verbatim

• "Class matters far less than it used to in the 19th century. Citizenship matters far more."

  [FT / Tim Harford]

• "The fact that repealing Obamacare will kill some people does not settle the question of whether Obamacare is better than some imaginary alternative Republican health-care plan, or even whether it is better than the pre-reform status quo."

  [NY Mag / Jonathan Chait]

• "On an unseasonably warm day in April 1954, hundreds of women in cowboy hats gathered outside Tupperware’s Florida headquarters to dig for buried treasure."

  [Mental Floss / Jen Doll]

• "It was a cartoon he had drawn of a bear wearing zebra-print pants and a shirt covered in ones and zeros."

  [New Yorker / Andrew Marantz]

• "'I changed my title to 'mystifier,' he told me. 'And I love it — because it means nothing.'"

  [NYT Mag / Adam Higginbotham]

• "He wants to build a call center without cubicles--replacing them with mobile tablets and wireless headsets and comfy chairs."

  [Inc. / Burt Helm]

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