RedState has the goods on one of the key proponents of so-called “net neutrality” in the “nutroots” movement that supports the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org. As we’ve been reporting, individuals — from corporate officials from companies like Google, Amazon.com and eBay to paid consultants and lobbyists for the companies and their trade organizations — have committed millions of dollars to hit consumers with higher cable TV and Internet access charges so that the companies don’t have to pay their fair share.

For some consumers, the cost of “net neutrality” could mean as much as $40 to $100 more a month in charges for broadband Internet access.

It appears that Jerome Armstrong has been actively pushing issues and political candidates — and before that bad stocks — as a gun for hire. That’s not to say that the opponents of “net neutrality” don’t have their own hired guns. It just appears that they have been more honest and forthright about it.

Why does all of this matter? Because folks like Sens. Olympia Snowe and George Allen have been conned into supporting a policy position that is so anti-consumer and anti-free market that only the likes of Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi could love it.

This issue is again coming to a head, this time in the Senate, where the Commerce Committee will markup a bill on Thursday that if passed would ensure not only competition to cable, but billions more in funds to deploy broadband lines to rural communities, libraries and schools without hitting the taxpayer up for additional tax dollars. By most accounts, the legislation, if passed, would save consumers as much as $200 a year in savings on their cable bill. So why is someone like Senator Allen backsliding? That’s a question he got a lot in Iowa over the weekend, and this answers weren’t very good. Not a good sign for a guy running as a Reaganite on economic issues.