We've been covering the intellectually dishonest extremist position of the US Chamber of Commerce (once again, a lobbying group, not to be confused with the federal US Department of Commerce) when it comes to the PROTECT IP Act. The US CoC has been creating a variety of astroturf groups, and putting out ridiculous statements and videos trying to shove through PROTECT IP before Congress realizes what a dreadful, job-destroying, innovation-hindering bill it is. There was the video that conflated counterfeit drugs with copyright. Then, my favorite, was the video of four content creators who were "hurt" by infringement -- but when we dug into the stories of all four, none of them checked out.

We honestly couldn't understand the US CoC's extremist position on this particular topic. Sure, the entertainment industry legacy players are members of the US CoC, but so are plenty of big tech companies that would be hurt by PROTECT IP. Of course, that may be changing. The news came out this morning that Yahoo has quietly left the US Chamber of Commerce over its extremist position on PROTECT IP, and it appears that others are thinking of following suit. At the same time, the US CoC's other major extremist position, concerning fighting against anything that results in reduced greenhouse emissions, has already made Apple leave the US CoC, along with a few other companies as well. At the same time, many various local Chambers of Commerce -- who often do help small businesses -- are disassociating themselves from the US Chamber of Commerce.

As this kind of thing continues, our elected officials are going to finally begin recognizing that the US CoC is an extremist organization that clearly does not represent the business interests of today's innovators and job creators -- but instead represents a few increasingly obsolete legacy organization whose unwillingness to adapt leads them to demand dangerous protectionist policies.