Warren Bell, a nominee to serve on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: 

• thinks sports talk radio is more interesting than NPR.
• wants PBS to spend more time on "scripted programming" and move away from unscripted broadcasts - like news and documentaries.
• has zero professional experience in public broadcasting, education or public service.

The producer of According to Jim, Bell says that "creating pop culture has been the focus of my adult life." That's not quite the sensibility needed at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the agency in charge of "facilitating the development of ...non-commercial high-quality programming."

The Senate Commerce Committee will vote on whether or not to recommend Bell's nomination to the full Senate. If you think that our PBS and NPR stations deserve better than Warren Bell, go here to contact your Senator.

We want to hear from you about this issue. What are your views? And, is "net neutrality" the best term to use? Please leave us your comments and feedback, your ideas are important to us.

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Telecom companies are up to more tricks: telling the Senate Congress Committee that they would never, ever interfere with your right to use the Internet without restrictions or limitations -- but then also advocating for the ability to create "tiers" on the Internet where their own content would be in the fast lane of the information superhighway, and the rest of us would be left behind in the slow lane.

They're also spending millions on campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, television ads and fake grassroots groups (we call them "astroturf").

Common Cause is planning to produce a series of investigative reports that go behind the scenes to see what telecom companies are doing to persuade Congress to let them undermine the freewheeling nature of the Internet.

We have a goal to meet before we can do these reports. Please click here to help.

Verizon is once again calling for an end to net neutrality (the principle that you should be able to access any content or services you want on the web, without your Internet service provider getting in the way). I could tell you again why I think that's a bad idea. But instead, I'll let Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron and Senator Byron Dorgan do the talking. Both spoke at yesterday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on net neutrality:

Citron: "As a businessman, I don't get - nor do I expect - a "free ride" on anyone's network. But the truth is these network operators are already getting paid twice. Vonage pays network operators millions of dollars a year for Internet access to deliver our service to subscribers. On top of that, consumers pay billions of dollars every year to these companies for high-speed Internet access. No one gets a free ride."

Sen. Dorgan: "I was eating some Cheerios this morning when I read business section of The Washington Post. It says: Verizon executive calls for end to Google's `free lunch.' ...You know, the fact is, I've had both DSL and broadband cable. Consumers pay for both of those. I paid for the opportunity to have DSL and cable broadband and this is not a free lunch. The reason why I would have paid that is I want access to the content that exists. ...It is not a free lunch for these content providers to come into the Chairman's home or to my home or the home of anybody in this country over the lines of cable companies or telephone companies. Those lines and that access is being paid for by the consumer. And I worry very much if we start moving down the road of deciding that the Internet shall not be free. I think the refrain of this Committee ought to be: keep the Internet free, provide for net neutrality."

Go here to read more about the hearing.