People's mouse clicks decide what businesses, services, and content succeed. Users have equal access to tiny businesses with viral ideas and blue-chip companies, allowing these enterprises to compete on their own merits. It's how so many small start-ups have been able to become Internet success stories.

Chellie Pingree

Categorized in : Ideas People Success Internet

A good place to start a more civil dialog would be for my Republican colleagues in the House to change the name of the bill they have introduced to repeal health care reform. The bill, titled the "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law Act," was set to come up for a vote this week, but in the wake of Gabby's shooting, it has been postponed at least until next week. Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that the name of that one piece of legislation somehow led to the horror of this weekend - but is it really necessary to put the word "killing" in the title of a major piece of legislation?

Chellie Pingree

weekend stupid jobs

I am an excellent eviscerator of chickens… a helpful skill in Congress.

Chellie Pingree

helpful excellent skills

Vegetables are called 'specialty crops.' Don't ask me why.

Chellie Pingree

crops ask-me vegetables

There's great value to knitting or digging up your garden or chopping up vegetables for soup, because you're taking some time away from turning the pages, answering your emails, talking to people on the phone, and you're letting your brain process whatever is stuck up in there.

Chellie Pingree

knitting phones garden

Incredibly, oil and gas companies don't have to pay certain environmental costs that amount to small change to them, while an offshore wind project start-up is faced with fees that could mean the difference between building a wind farm and packing up and going home.

Chellie Pingree

environmental change home wind

A company's best advantage should be a quality product offered at the right price. That fair competition is what drives innovation.

Chellie Pingree

best innovation competition quality

Access to quality, affordable health care is particularly important here in Maine, where many of us own small businesses or are self-employed.

Chellie Pingree

quality care health important

Our businesses can't create jobs when they're losing revenue, and the unemployed can't apply for jobs when they can't pay their phone bill.

Chellie Pingree

phone create unemployed losing

The founding leaders of our country believed in a three-part sharing of governmental power, with each branch jealously watching the actions of the other two.

Chellie Pingree

sharing watching power country

I live on an island, and my community is served by a ferry that goes three times a day.

Chellie Pingree

live island day community

One of the first members of Congress I met when I was first elected in 2008 was Barney Frank.

Chellie Pingree

met first frank congress

It's crazy that the Constitution has to be amended to clarify what for the majority of Americans is a clear and true statement: corporations are not people.

Chellie Pingree

true constitution crazy people

In my home state of Maine, we've seen out-of-state groups with anonymous donors spend millions of dollars to campaign against issues that don't fit their agenda.

Chellie Pingree

campaign against seen home

In Maine, we are fortunate to have a Clean Elections system that allows legislators to turn down corporate special interest money. At the national level, Congress should follow Maine's example by empowering the voices of small donors.

Chellie Pingree

down small money special

Corporations serve an important purpose, but telling people how to vote isn't one of them.

Chellie Pingree

vote important purpose people

As more and more people reach the Internet by mobile phone, we should make sure users are getting the open access they believe they're paying for.

Chellie Pingree

phone internet believe people

The FCC can and indeed should do more to protect the Internet as the free and open environment people have come to expect and depend on - which is why we need to stand up to attacks on the FCC's authority.

Chellie Pingree

stand-up stand internet people

I work in a world of words - words that inspire, words that persuade and, increasingly, words that can send the message that it is acceptable to hate.

Chellie Pingree

words hate work world

During the summer of 2009, the debate on health care reform was emotional and intense. At its best, it represented the free exchange of ideas that makes this country great. At its worst, it generated death threats and acts of violence.

Chellie Pingree

best great health death

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been one of my good friends in the House of Representatives. When she was brutally shot, Gabby was out doing what she loved to do - meeting with her constituents in a local setting, allowing people to speak to her directly about the issues that concerned them.

Chellie Pingree

good friends speak people