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Republicans Create Rider To Stop Net Neutrality
99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes
"Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) submitted a rider yesterday to a bill on military and veterans' construction projects. The rider would, 'prohibit the FCC from using any appropriated funds to adopt, implement or otherwise litigate any network neutrality based rules, protocols or standards.' It is co-signed by six other Republican senators. We all knew this was coming after the last election removed most of the vocal supporters of net neutrality and supplanted them with pro-corporate Republicans."
To call those against Net Neutrality as "pro-corperate" is a terrible mistake, because a lot of large companies back net neutrality - including Google and Amazon.
The reality is that companies want regulation passed that benefits that company - that is the point of lobbying after all. So that is why the only position you can possibly support if you are "anti-corperate" is no regulation at all.
Seeing as that is the position the Republicans are taking, those who claim Republicans are acting on behalf of corporations need to think about who THEY are actually supporting through these accusations, and what we lose when the truly open internet becomes beholden to the whims of the FCC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is Kay Bailey Hutchinson proving her conservative bona fides after the shellacking she got from the 2010 Texas Republican Gubernatorial primary. Too bad she's decided to take sides against consumers to prove that she's a good party member.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Who on earth thought GOP/TP represented regular people?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The Republicans want absolutely no regulation of anything. Net neutrality is regulation. Without net neutrality regulations, the 'truly open Internet' becomes beholden to certain corporate interests. I would rather the Internet be beholden to the FCC, which is at theoretically accountable to US citizens, than to a few large media companies.
Regulations are like guns. They are tools. They can be used to protect or to harm. They are neither evil nor good, in and of themselves. We should never seek to get rid of all regulations, only the bad ones. Without 'regulations' the little guy is at the mercy of the rich and powerful. I support the right of the little guys of the world to band together and enact laws to protect themselves from exploitation.
You basically bring up the FCC as a sort of scary specter, "Ooga booga booga! FCC gonna getcha!" without saying what, exactly, you fear the FCC might do.
Net neutrality regulations are necessary to keep the Internet open. It will either be regulated by the FCC, or it will be controlled by a handful of huge media conglomerates. It will not stay the unregulated, anything goes wild west it is today. Either the landlords will move in and Enclose the open Internet, or we, the citizens, decide that we do not want to let them wall off the Internet, and we pass laws to stop them.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Nonsense. With Democrats you're just screwed. With Republicans, you're super-deluxe holy fuck screwed.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
KENT BROCKMAN: With our utter annihilation imminent, our federal government has snapped into action. We go live now via satellite to the floor of the United States congress.
SPEAKER: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of--
CONGRESSMAN: Wait a second, I want to tack on a rider to that bill - $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
SPEAKER: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill?
FLOOR: Boo!
SPEAKER: Bill defeated.
Can't believe you guys haven't fixed this yet. How can a completely unrelated thing be tacked on like that? is it really just a congressmans whim? Everytime i hear the word "rider" in american politics, i think of that simpsons skit.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Aye. Jeez, they openly joked and boasted about the wealthy being "their base".
One guy a few days ago on a conservative talk show host said he was about to lose his unemployment benefits and with that, his house, car, probably family. Conversion story, right?
Nope-- he felt he did the right thing on principle to slit his own throat, even tho the wealthy will be walking away with $100,000 in tax savings alone.
It is going to take hard poverty to break these folks from the fox news and radio talk show host brainwashing. They literally identify with billionaires while they are losing everything and being tossed out to starve. When do they wake up and start voting in their own self interest?
Or will they just bypass that step entirely and go straight to violence in a couple years.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
On what planet do Democrats like to spend "far far more"?
You realize over 80% of the National Debt was run up by Republicans, right? That the Bush Tax Cuts combined with massive military spending (two wars) and massive unpaid-for entitlement expansion (Medicare Part D) are the reason we've got such a huge deficit, and national debt, right? Reagan TRIPLED the debt. Bush I doubled it. Bush II doubled it again. After Clinton, we were looking at surplusses as far as the eye could see, allowing us headroom to pay down the debt, and to prepare for rainy days. Bush utterly squandered it all, and now it's mountains of debt as far as the eye can see. And that often-cited meme that Obama "trippled the deficit"? Bullshit. That was Bushes. The first 1.x Trillion dollar annual deficit would have been identical regardless of who was in power (it consisted of both TARP -- passed by Republicans -- and the huge revenue drop caused by the finacial crisis -- another Republican failure).
The biggest lie ever told (and bought by too many people) is that Republicans are in any way financially conservative or fiscally responsible. Republicans spend FAR more, and far more IRRESPONSIBILY. And their latest robin-hood crap, asking those with the least to sacrifice so that those with the most can have more, is just downright immoral and disgusting.
At least when Democrats spend money, Americans benefit (through social safety nets, cleaner air and water, forward thinking investment, necessary regulation to protect consumers with safer food, and safer finances, etc). When Republicans spend money, they throw it down the huge gaping maw of tax cuts for the already super-wealthy, and the military industrial complex to kill foreigners half a world away.
And as for "At least that's what I've heard"... if you heard it from the Tea Party, from Rush Limbaugh, or from Glenn Beck, you can rest assured you heard wrong. Because they're pretty much wrong about everything. And paid to be so, by those that wish to distract, distort, divide, and inflame... in order to either protect their status quo, or to usurp power for themselves.
Don't Americans notice the Republicans keep throwing wrenches into all the worthwhile legislation and promoting issues that are not in the interests of the majority of Americans? It goes beyond pulling the wool over peoples eyes, you have to be out right stupid not to see that they are not acting in the interests of the vast majority of the American people.
On planet Republican: Tax cuts for the rich and military spending don't count towards the deficit/debt; The military never wastes money and definitely does not count as part of the "big government".
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Historically, they have.
Look at the post-war period. The period of greatest economic growth at all levels of society occurred during a time when the Democrats controlled the Presidency and at least one house of congress. And the successful Republican presidents were ones that today would be thrown out of the party for being too liberal.
And you can point to the presidency of Ronald Reagan as the point where the "American Dream" for middle and working class Americans was blown the fuck up in favor of a "supply-side" economy where each generation could expect a little less than the previous, unless you were a member of the lucky 2% who did fantastically well.
And now we expect your mom and dad to work until they're 70 just so that top 2% won't have to pay the same amount of taxes that they did during the 90's (which was a great decade for the rich.
Ronald Reagan declared class warfare against every member of the middle and working class, and now the right wing cries "class warfare" because that middle and working class is starting to figure it out. Recent polls that showed some 67% of Americans believe that the top 2% should pay at least the same taxes that they did in the 90's also show that nearly 70% do not want cuts in government spending just to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and an even higher percentage do not want to see a rise in the retirement age or cuts in Social Security or Medicare. And a growing number, well more than 50% now say they want a public option for health care, such as a buy-in option for Medicare for everyone.
People are so angry that they want to vote everyone out of office. Don't make the mistake of thinking that Americans are suddenly turning conservative. If anything, long-term trends would seem to indicate the opposite. They'd gladly take a little "European-style Socialism" as long as you don't call it that.
The 0.3% of Americans who watch Fox News are in no way indicative of the American mood.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Rebublicans are the kind of guys that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around.
Republicans are the kind of guys that would fuck a guy in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to admit to being gay.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
No, it's an almost completely different pack, because the pack that thinks the Democrats represent regular people simply won't listen to anything the Republicans say as a matter of principle, and the reverse is also true.
> Look at the post-war period. The period of greatest economic growth at all levels of society occurred during a time when the Democrats controlled the Presidency and at least one house of congress.
Look at the rest of history. The period of greatest economic growth at all levels of society occurred during a time when we were on a real hard currency, and neither republican nor democrat congresscritters could give away money that wasn't theirs by asking the Fed to print it. During those times, prices went down while wages went up.