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The story of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the Internet has been a key Republican talking point for months, a talking point which has been refuted by internal FCC documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request. These findings were made by the independent, nonpartisan FCC Office of Inspector General an Inspector General. However, the findings were not made public prior to Thursday’s vote.
[...] First, some background: The FCC is an independent regulatory agency that is supposed to remain “free from undue influence” by the executive branch—it is not beholden to the White House, only the laws that Congress makes and tells it to regulate. This means the president cannot direct it to implement policies. In November 2014, President Obama released a statement saying that he believed the FCC should create rules protecting net neutrality, but noted that “ultimately this decision is theirs alone.”
[...] Since 2014, Republicans have pointed to net neutrality as an idea primarily promoted by President Obama, and have made it another in a long line of regulations and laws that they have sought to repeal now that Donald Trump is president. Prior to this false narrative, though, net neutrality was a bipartisan issue; the first net neutrality rules were put in place under President George W. Bush, and many Republicans worked on the 2015 rules that were just dismantled.
What happened, then, is that Republicans sold the public a narrative that wasn’t true, then used that narrative to repeal the regulations that protect the internet.
Internal FCC Report Shows Republican Anti-Net Neutrality Narrative Is False
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 19 2017, @10:06PM (9 children)
It's *been* terminally ill since Ford pardoned Nixon. That was the watershed moment, the one that proved "when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal" is truer than true; it proved that there are no lasting consequences for the President, and inevitably, any other powerful government figure. Accountability was stabbed in the heart and Ford was holding the knife, and the stupid bastard didn't even know what it is he'd actually done.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday December 19 2017, @11:09PM (3 children)
One can see the reasoning behind it, though. It's the same reason Hillary conceded before all the results were in; not doing so leads to a messy, controversial situation that is likely to accomplish little more than widening the partisan divide.
But it's ultimately the same argument as what was behind bailing out the banks that caused the 2008 recession. "Too big to fail" means that their failure causes bigger problems than we care to deal with. And there's the problem: anybody so embedded into our well-being is not just unaccountable on a case-by-case basis. They are fundamentally unaccountable to anything.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:11AM (2 children)
That was Gore. (Dumb bastard deserved to lose.)
Hillary actually won the popular vote.
...and there were some votes in the Electoral College in 2016 that challenged the winner-take-all thing.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:39PM (1 child)
My point was not about who would win. My point was that there was controversy that threatened to destabilize the country. But yeah, SCOTUS picking a 2000 presidential victor out of their ass was done for the same reason.
And now to take the bait.
Not sure why Gore deserved to lose. He would have been a more competent president than Bush, and a competent president could have:
And I'll be the first to admit that Obama did nothing to fix half of those problems, even making some of them worse. But Gore, having had more experience and not being from notoriously corrupt Chicago, would have been better than Obama, I think. Not to mention that certain something about Obama that emboldened the other side to refuse to cooperate.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:26PM
Gore (a senator's son) volunteered for military service during the USAian assault on/occupation of Vietnam.
(He was in the propaganda corps.)
I don't think he would have been better WRT military aggression in the Mideast.
USA hasn't elected a non-Neocon (non-warmonger) since 1960[1] nor a non-Neoliberal (not worker-hostile) since the Donkeys got creamed in 1972.
Even if elected, Gore would have abandoned any Progressive tendencies.
...and BTW, by 2000, Glass-Steagall was already dead. Thanks, Slick Willie.
...and Killery would have been another data point along that pattern's quasi-straight line.
[1] Carter's actions weren't overt, but he was also into covert pro-Oligarchy regime change, supporting coups in Latin America.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Troll) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @04:20AM (4 children)
I don't see Ford pardoning Nixon as the watershed moment. By then, Nixon was already history, powerless and completely disgraced, and had no further role of any significance to play in politics. The pardon wasn't for Nixon's sake, no. Nor was there anything left to cover up. In the 4 decades since, nothing new about that has come to light, most of the principles are dead now, and I think it safe to say there aren't any further revelations to come.
The watershed was the Southern Strategy in the 1960s. When the Democrats under Kennedy and Johnson dared to flip and confront racism and end Jim Crow, albeit with lots of prodding from MLK and friends, and alienated their racist voters, the Republicans in one of the most shameful "Realpolitik" decisions ever swooped in to court those voters by appealing to their racism, however veiled. Should have left those attitudes to rot. Ever since the Civil War, the Democrats had been the party favored by racists and Confederate sympathizers. It was the Republicans under Lincoln who ended slavery and won the Civil War. And then 100 years after the war, they traded places. The fool Republicans embraced the rot and now are badly infected. I mean, wow, the party of hard nosed realism and practicality, the more scientific and learned party, has really gone astray in throwing science, learning, and fact under the bus.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 20 2017, @04:42AM (3 children)
J-Mo posted a long diatribe somewhere in this thread, IIRC, where he gets this shit *completely* ass-backwards, and at considerable length as well. He also admits to being on Gab and reading the Daily Stormer in it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:08AM (2 children)
That was the other political story, but yes it was nice to see him finally out himself. Can't believe it took a whole year of Trump for him to get comfortable enough to stick his head out.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:18AM (1 child)
It's not like we needed him to explicitly say it though, is it? I could tell from almost the first time he posted here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:20PM
Oh for sure, but some of the moderate conservatives may not have seen it. At least now there is no wondering. Please bookmark his comment, it will be required for future references ;)