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White House Responds To Net Neutrality Petition
bostonidealist writes "The White House has officially responded to a We The People petition created on January 15, 2014, which urged the President to 'direct the FCC to classify ISPs as "common carriers"' after the D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals 'struck down the Federal Communications Commission's open internet rules.' The White House statement says, 'absent net neutrality, the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road that would be inaccessible to the next generation of visionaries,' but notes, 'The FCC is an independent agency. Chairman Wheeler has publicly pledged to use the full authority granted by Congress to maintain a robust, free and open Internet — a principle that this White House vigorously supports.'"
-nch? Now there are indeed laws by which the FCC must operate. There is for example a law or are laws that define what a common carrier is. So how about hurling metric boatloads of attorneys, engineers, sociologists or what have you, at the FCC, to convince them that ISPs are really common carriers? At one time an ISP was arguably an information provider, say when they all provided Usenet feeds. But it has been more than ten years since I've been able to get a feed from any ISP. I don't even get my email from my ISP anymore. I get connectivity, that's it. I don't even use their DNS. So from my point of view at least, as well as those of many common types of Internet users, the ISPs are common carriers now, even if they weren't before.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
The best thing about 2008 is that hopefully it permanently disillusioned hundreds of thousands of young people in federal government.
>I love how Obama signs 100 executive orders a day
Your post was satire, right? In reality, Obama has issued less executive orders per year than every other modern President.
>he can't be bothered to ask the Cable and Telecom Monopolist he appointed to chair the FCC to do anything.
It's like you didn't even read what he said, or just assume he *means* the opposite of what he says...but given your past history of inaccuracy....
The FCC is no more "independent" than the IRS.
Note the recent scheme the FCC was going to try, putting bureaucrats in the newsrooms of broadcasters to "study" the reporting of news. Which got quickly withdrawn soon as word got out.
That would have been putting a Regime "political officer" into newsrooms to threaten the LICENSES of broadcasters who don't "praise and worship" Pharaoh.
Corporatism != Free Market
I call BS. On average Obama signs only 38 executive orders per YEAR. On average only one more than Bush, and 10 less than Reagan https://www.politicususa.com/2014/02/16/myth-busted-analysis-reveals-president-obama-behaving-dictator.html
when something sound ludicrous, you should look it up instead of blindly repeating it like some half-wit parrot.
http://www.snopes.com/politics...
The quote ois accurate, so I"m not sure why you are porting it. Oh Right, you are a half-wit parrot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Please don't let facts get in the way of a perfectly good teabagger diatribe.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Comcast sent us more campaign donations than you did.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Correct. It is an independent regulatory agency.
"So how about hurling metric boatloads of attorneys, engineers, sociologists or what have you, at the FCC, to convince them that ISPs are really common carriers?"
How about that? have you sent them a letter? have you contact local experts to get them to send a letter? organize anything?
Or do you just complain until someone else does all the work?
And yes, logically they are common carriers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The White House response to this really just uses a lot of words to say "No comment".
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This is fucking insipid. But as long as it adds to the mirage that Your Government Cares, then let the show go on right?
I think any communication between the public and our government that is open and transparent has value. Even if it does not get the desired result immediately, it influences public opinion in our government as the people observe the ebb and flow of government in action. Government officials are almost always influenced to at least some degree by their public perception.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
He has authority over federal agencies, federal commissions are setup to be independent for a reason, mainly to prevent the stupidity that you want.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
No, it's referred to as a non-answer
I am disappointed to say the least!
Except that tax dollars aren't being spent on petitions.
"uh, how much money do you have to contribute for us to listen to you?"
That is ALL they care about. ( well, that and destroying the country as fast as possible before time runs out )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've lost count the number of times this administration has promised that the "intent" of what they want is vastly different than the law they just passed. I have double plus confidence in the future admins carrying the torch of the spirit of these laws.
We don't really know that petitions don't get attention from the WH, but it is an interesting question. I suggest we start a petition for the WH tell us whether they take petitions under serious consideration or not.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
*sigh* 2 minutes of Googling demonstrates that average hasn't actually changed much: https://www.federalregister.go... 2013 - 21 2012 - 38 2011 - 33 2010 - 35 2009 - 39 Super majority or not, he signed more in the first two years than he did in the second two.
The truth that Chairman Wheeler was a cable industry lobbyist is here wrapped in just enough rabid partisan garbage to leave everybody unsatisfied.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
that super majority lasted a matter of days. 24 days.
http://www.usmessageboard.com/...
It really isn't that difficult to google for the facts you know. Really, seriously.
The website isn't part of the white house site? Is the white house website being paid for by something other then tax dollars?
True, and well-worded, but I think it's a bunch of handwaving. If he truly believed in an open internet, he'd do something about this more than just saying: "I'm gonna let them handle it"
You must be new to this whole "government" thing.
In general they do nothing. And in general that is actually the best response.
Usually when they do take fast action it is the wrong action. The kneejerk reaction laws are written by organizations that have their own aggressive agendas, they provide them to the legislators during an emergency under the promise that the bad provisions can be corrected later... but they seldom are.
The correct course, even though it is slow and tedious and painful, is for Congress to act deliberately.
Even in the best of times trying to force Congress to pass a law that benefits the people is nearly impossible. Often it requires a massive upswelling, grand marches and presentations and events that are daily on the news until the congress-critters realize they must take action or lose their jobs. In the worst of times, like today, even that wouldn't work since they cn trivially deflect the most severe upheavals with "We worked on a bill but the other party shut it down".
Examples of that were the civil rights movement, the Vietnam and Korean war protests, more recently we have the occupy movement and the tea party movement. It takes considerable force to make congress move, and even these multi-million member groups tend to produce only slight changes in government.
Sadly, the correct action is also the action we are least likely to see. It may not be the one the nation wants, but given the national attitudes and apathy, it is probably the one we deserve.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
What do you expect, he is from Illinois the state and city known for corruption in all their politicians. What kills me is people still think he is doing a good job, if he would have KEPT his promises and was a leader like he acted he was, this would be different. But honestly he acts more like Dick Cheney than Dick Cheney did. I'm waiting for the man to shoot someone in the face.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...saying something they had already put on the record. He has a great issue that the public is passionate about but Obama folds every hand he is dealt.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
I don't think there has ever been a drastic and/or immediate shift in policy based on a "We the People" petition ... no (I could be wrong, so fee free to correct me here if needed)
However by simply answering the petition, the White House has helped to illuminate the problem for the less tech savvy folks who still follow politics. You'd be astonished (or maybe you wouldn't) to realize how many people have absolutely zero idea what "Net Neutrality" actually means. This response, no matter how neutered, will cause at least a small percentage of people to say "Hold on a second. What's this 'free and open Internet' concept?"
Couple that with the real or perceived repercussions and non-techs may actually start putting the pieces together "Why is my netflix so slow today? And what is the white house babbling about now? hey!" light bulb
This signature is false.
How is the that "best thing?" That is the worst outcome. It is better for people to want to change their government, than for them to just not care at all. If it disillusioned them about political parties, then I'd support your statement, but outright not wanting a voting populace goes against the very fabric of this structure we call a nation.
It's like you didn't even read what he said, or just assume he *means* the opposite of what he says..
Its like YOU didn't read what he said.
He said nothing, he promised nothing.
Instead he delivered PURE 100% Obama speak for "Yeah I hear you, now STFU and stop raining on my parade."
The FCC is an independent agency. Chairman Wheeler has publicly pledged to use the full authority granted by Congress to maintain a robust, free and open Internet — a principle that this White House vigorously supports.'
He sort of fails to notice the Courts just took away all of that Congressionally Granted Power.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Communication with no action is worthless.
It's the fucking government. They're supposed to act and respond to the needs of their constituents by doing what they were hired to do, set policies and pass laws. Saying "Sorry, can't do nothing about that, move along" doesn't do anything.
So, no one elected has any authority over this powerful agency? Is that what is being claimed? Then we have a problem, no?
I think any communication between the public and our government that is open and transparent has value.
But they're doing precisely the opposite of what they're saying, how is that transparent?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
... that is, should he have chosen to sign the laws, the laws passed without his signature while Congress was in recess, or the congress overrode his veto.
Strictly speaking, President Obama cannot just declare that ISPs are Common Carriers. I expect the law says that the FCC determines that, and FDR or some such signed the law that established the FCC, at the time the Common Carrier status was to regulate the phone companies.
However the president does have a lot of power, as I said, to present evidence to the FCC during hearings, to write friend of the court briefs, to petition the courts and so on.
But I'm pretty sure he could not just sign an executive order.
Were that the case, that an executive order could just overturn a law, we'd see a lot more executive orders than we presently do.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
Check your facts - while he's spent more than any other president, the spending is only 11.2% more than Bush. His new spending, removing existing spending he inherited from Bush in 2009, is $203 billion (2005 adjusted $) and the total since that high point has reduced 5%. By comparison Bush increased spending (again, adjusted) by 33% in his first term and 34% in his second. Regan increased spending 41.2% during his presidency.
Adjusted for inflation, Obama has increased the budget by a lower % than any president since Herbert Hoover.
Anyone who signed this petition knew we'd get the typical PR response that's devoid of any content--that's not what we were seeking in the first place. The benefit from these petitions is that (1) it may draw public attention to this issue and get a mention in the mainstream media and (2) they cost each individual about 5 seconds of time and a mouse click. And that's what we may get, so there may be at least some measure of victory in this.
If the vast majority of Americans knew how badly they were getting fleeced by the telecoms compared to other first world countries, they would be more concerned. Unfortunately the media has no incentive to cover such issues because (1) real journalism isn't as profitable as entertainment and news outlets are no longer required to cover issues of public importance (see e.g. the Fairness Doctrine) or (2) it conflicts with the propaganda.
We could always defund the FCC, I guess. ;)
Congress doesn't need to act. All they need to do is use some of the consumer protection laws and actually protect the consumer. These internet service providers actually sell access to the internet and they make claims to the speed and reliability in the process of selling it. If comcast or Time Warner or ATT or anyone wants to limit the internet on purpose, they are falsely advertising and committing fraud on their customers. IF they want to limit the speeds to below the advertised speeds based on a third party payment, they are falsely advertising and committing fraud on their customers.
Existing consumer protection laws should apply very nicely. When Comcast advertises an 8 meg unlimited internet connect for $50 a month and delivers a purposely limited version of the internet, they aren't delivering as advertised. It is a purposeful fraud.
I call BS too. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
Bush: 290 orders signed
Obama: 169 orders signed
... on North Vietnam, it was always willing to pass the funding bills for it.
To defund the FCC would require that Congress leave it out of the budget resolution, or reduce the funding provided by the resolution.
That's not something a White House petition would affect.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
The only problem with your argument is the fine print. All of the ISPs offer the caveat of "up to" in their stated rates. Comcast will give you "up to" 8 meg.
Read the column headers, 4th column over.
http://www.comcast.com/interne...
Do we have an issue with the Supreme Court? The agency has limited terms, and have to be appointed, other than that they are supposed to be free of the authority to prevent people from swaying their job, so they can remain impartial...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I think I just found the guy who creates those insanely wrong political forwards that my darling grandmother likes to send out to the family..
Anyone whose opinion matters knows exactly what net neutrality means.
The doublespeak and equivocation from the Obama administration on these issues is pretty appalling. I'm sure he's carefully balancing saying that he wants to keep the campaign contributions rolling in but in a way that doesn't immediately alienate half the Democratic base.
I kind of hope that he realizes sooner rather than later that this is his last term and that he doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected in 2016 so he can finally quit trying to simultaneously take three sides of an issue that has two constituencies.
Hillary has been out of the administration long enough and has her own checkbook so taking a stand on something shouldn't burn the Democrats' best hope for 2016.
The irony of Obama is that the shafting he's done to progressive Democrats exceeds the worst nightmares right wingers had about him.
You can't hold a gun to heads of the American People like that. Defunding anything that was passed into law and found constitutional is extreme, regardless of the quality or effects of the law. Congress isn't actually allowed to do anything.
He sure copied Dick Cheney on same sex marriage.
What now? Is there going to be any change?
I love how Obama signs 100 executive orders a day ordering various federal agencies to implement his radical agenda
Obama has only signed 170 executive orders since 2009.
That's less than Bush and Clinton btw.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Except Obama didn't spend the money. Congress did. Obama signs laws. The laws the gave the budget crunch were on the books before he got to office. There would be less debt if there were a grand bargain in 2011.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
To bad your insults don't help either. Obama could meet with his appointed head of the FCC and strongly encourage him to make the internet common carrier.
Fuck, Obama can call him on his phone and have the FCC do it with their pen.
Its one thing he CAN actually in this case do all by himself.
But it would be for the good of the citizens, and not the cable and telecom industries, so it isn't going to happen.
I am so fucking fed up with the citizens getting screwed no matter what.
I do love how, to prove Obama is bad (and he IS bad, just for REAL reasons... ), people trot out the debt. Yes. It's high. Yes, Obama spent a lot of money. But lets face it, the deficit is going DOWN, not up. He inherited a mess, he's cleaning it up, and if we want to blame anyone, we should blame the folks that repealed the Glass-Steagal act (which includes Clinton) for creating our gigantic mess.
If you want to hate on Obama, stick to real facts. There are plenty of reasons to hate on Obama. But he's not responsible for the accumulation of all the debt that came before him, nor is he responsible for the economic situation that we find ourselves in. Go blame the assholes that deregulated an industry that almost immediately started creating a gigantic economic bubble and then begged for help when it popped.
Sorry, Obama has signed a total of 167 orders to date for his entire presidency. Not 100's of orders per day. See http://www.archives.gov/federa... for a comparison of orders.
Browsing without an adblocker is like fucking without a condom - Mal-2
I'm quite aware of the difference between legislative and executive.
I suspect Obama is too. I further suspect he, unlike you, has heard of the judiciary.
He has no business saying the executive branch will continue to exercise the full authority granted by Congress, when the Judicial Branch just stripped the executive of that very authority.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It's seems like a majority of the users on this site either slept through 9th grade Social Studies, or haven't gotten to 9th grade yet.
This thread is going to be full of whining. Lots of blame. Lots of arguing. Lots of links to sources.... but no action.
Wolf-PAC.com. Go. sign up. DO SOMETHING. I drove an hour today to get to my state capitol, visited my state rep, and asked him to sponsor legislation to call for an article V convention to FIX the problem. The problem isn't and R or a D next to someone's name. It's that money buys influence. It's that our reps are elected almost completely based on who raises the most money. And that isn't their fault. It's YOURS.
You vote based on partisan hackery and don't bother to educate yourselves. You're all fired up to argue on the internet, but can't be bother to call your damn rep and tell them what's on your mind. And to boot, you vote based on made up knee jerk reactions. They're playing you like a fiddle. Ok, mostly the Right here, I really do have to show my bias. :D Really, a Muslim? A secret Muslim? F'ing stupid... but the laziness crosses party lines.
Fix your brain, get off your ass, and go FIX IT. Stop whining on the internet. Stop arguing uselessly with random strangers on the internet. It wasn't even that hard to call my rep, get a meeting, and start working on a solution.
Sorry, I'm a little frustrated by all the stupid arguing. Also, the stupidity. Go. wolf-pac.com. Sign up. Work with the people in your state (many of whom are in the OTHER party, and you'll hang out with them and discover they're actually quite intelligent and put a lot of thought into their beliefs).
^^ That dude is dead on.
People that argue against different presidents based on spending should be shunned.
First, the conversation devolves into uber-lameness where different jackasses start trotting out more shitty numbers out their ass.
Conversations with things like "But as a percent of GDP divided by the number of years, adjusted for inflation." are fucking lame. Use real reasons to make an argument --- even if the argument is wrong, anything is better than a nerd numbers fight.
For fucks sake!
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Bush is neither the worst nor Obama the best. Debt is 17.3 trillion - adjusted for inflation 5.47 trillion of that can be attributed to the years Obama was president.3.87 trillion of it can be attributed to Bush.
The funny thing is -- considering how we just print more money --- is that the Arabs and Chinese are eager too take our funny money as payment for oil or electronics.
250 million Chinese toil away in factoriies for some greenbacks hastily printed in the USA with numbers like "$100" or "$1000" on them.
Quite a racket we are running --- let us hope it lasts!
American: "Can I buy a tanker of your oil for this suitcase of paper --- I mean dollars?"
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Well, the FCC is independent dontchaknow. Its apparently no longer in the executive branch, so its none of Obama's concern what it does.
At least thats what the response seems to say. Meanwhile, on other fronts hes busy creating powers which the president never was supposed to have, like the ability to override already passed legislation by simply ignoring it.
But let's better wait 'til their masters have spoken before we assume that this statement stands.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's amazing what happened when the wars were added to the budget. You know, those totally unnecessary wars that just destabilized the Mideast that need to be paid for?
tl;dr - you're both fucking retards
What some people on the right wing mean by "small government" is - small enough to drown in a bathtub. They believe government is "in the way" and the less there is of it the better. These people are so naïve about human nature that they actually believe social harmony can be obtained via absolute freedom, oddly that is the same problem the extreme left wing "flower power" people had when I was a kid. They expect that people will be fair minded with each other when government gets "out of the way". They think people will respect property rights, etc, without any enforcement. They think a gun rack over the mantelpiece will be a deterrent to an aspiring warlord. Basically they live in a thought bubble blown by people who want to control them, but to do that they must first tear down the protections afforded by the existing social structure.
Now here's the funny/ironic part, these people think a center-right president is the one with the radical agenda!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You'll get farther writing your congressmen.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I love how all the Slashdot Libertarians who are all about Internet Corporate Freedom (that is, against any laws the actually protect consumers from selective throttling and other anti-neutrality bullshit) are suddenly in favor of net neutrality now that the Obama administration has said that they're not going to do anything about it.
Up to infers best effot though. Otherwise the language would need to be excep when. So i guess the question is "does "up to" encompass when they are purposely and specifically intentful in limiting to less". I say no because there is no chance of up to if they refuse to allow the speed wich is completely different than something outside their control causing the limitations.
Look at it this way. If i made and sold a car, and in the process i said it would do 70mph am i being fraudulent when i install a mechanical governer to limit it to 60mph and the only way you can see 70 is by coasting in neutral down a steep hill? How about if i say it seats 4 but only install 3 seats as appised to the riders being too fat to fit 4 people inside it? In both cases, theee us a clear attempt to be deceptive and mislead the consumer. Its fraud and why the laws are there in the first place.
Well, not all of you, but definitely those of you who are simple minded enough to become caught up in party politics as though it makes a difference in the outcome of anything decided in Washington.
And you poor sad bastards who actually believe that the whitehouse petitions are anything more than pacifiers to quiet your whining, did you actually believe that any substantive changes would come about as a result of you signing a petition? Seriously? Change doesn't happen in Washington unless someone in the government personally wants it, is bribed to change it, or is forced to as part of an attempt to cover up some other malfeasance.
The petitions are a way for the American government to stuff a cock-shaped pacifier in your mouths while the government goes ahead and does what it wants irregardless of your wishes.
Bread and circuses, people. Bread and circuses.
It gets better when you realize that the rest of the right wing mean by smaller government is one run exclusively by them.
Look at it this way the republican who wrote the patriot act is pissed that a democrat is abusing his law in such a way. his answer. it isn't smaller government but to pay a dedicated top secret clearance law firm tens of millions of dollars annually to justify the poorly written law.
If republicans really wanted smaller government then they should be trying to get things like the patriot act NSA spying programs not only under control but shut down to save on government spending. but not one republican will actually push for that.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
He sort of fails to notice the Courts just took away all of that Congressionally Granted Power.
The courts took away nothing. Anyone who was following the story knew that it was almost certain to go that way - the FCC didn't have the authority to create a "third option" the way that it did. The FCC can either classify ISPs as telecommunications providers or not, that's pretty much it.
Obama has weighed in to the extent that he's able. It would be nice if people would some day figure out that the independent agencies that comprise the federal government are independent for a reason. Every time you push for Obama to just roll in and take over the FCC or the justice department, etc., and make them do what you want them to do, and every time you blame Obama for failing to take these drastic steps, what you're really pushing for is a greater degree of authoritarianism. When you say that you hold the president accountable for everything that the federal government does, what you're really saying is that you want the president to directly control all of the federal government.
Very impressive. It's not often you get modded +5 insightful for setting up a series of strawmen and knocking them down.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
His point is that it's not 100s of executive orders every day, which is what the OP was saying. It's funny how Republicans and Tea Baggers claim Obama is a dictator but when their guy was in office, they were strangely quiet.
The government is in the way when it does not work for them. Republicans will have state government take over cities and schools. They will pass laws to control women's bodies but then complain about obamacare. They will pass laws banning gay marriage but then complain about freedom of religion when they don't get their way. Gay marriage is a religious issue to them.
Small government should be about getting out of the way of people living their lives and saving money. It should not be a way to circumvent the will of at least half the people.
It's not often you get modded +5 insightful for setting up a series of strawmen and knocking them down.
No, it's very often. Both sides do it all the time. Talking points, mantras, allusions to Smith and Marx like they're biblical figures, allusions to Founding Fathers like they're gods.
It's a very typical day on the Internet.
Yep, it's going down. This year's deficit should be the sixth largest in history, behind the last five years, which cover 1-5.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This only works if you statistically cast Bush in the worst light possible, and Obama in the best. The fact remains that the national debt is now 17.3 trillion. Obama has spent far, far, more money that we don't have than any previous president.
Yeah, but it's all money we don't have. Once you learn how the American dollar works, and where it comes from, you will see that the debt can only increase. It can fluctuate, but the way our monetary system is structured can only lead to ever increasing debt, either by the government or the citizenry. Every dollar in existence is a dollar borrowed. All the talk about the deficit and the debt and paying it down and whatever, is only a side show. The debt only goes up; it's built into the system.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Well if we're going by what congress spends, then we need to start counting at 2007 when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over. They are responsible for the spending handed to Obama. The last Republican budget signed into law had a deficit of 161 billion.
If you want to start counting the debt, you need to go back to 1913.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Except for congress has passed 1 budget in the past 5 years.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
just the other day he said no plain english "if congress doesnt act, I will do everything I can to go around it"
YET when it comes to doing things we actually want him to do he gives us BS speak
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Your post is full of learned helplessness. It shouldn't require a huge wasteful social movement to maintain the public interest in telecommunications or other things. Neutralizing Glass-Steagal didn't require any such thing.
You need to read his post more carefully. He said, "Even in the best of times trying to force Congress to pass a law that benefits the people is nearly impossible." Passing laws that benefit wealthy individuals or corporations is decidedly easier. To get movement out of Congress requires large numbers of people or dollars. People are hard to organize and keep engaged, never mind agreeing on an agenda. Money, on the other hand, is easy to organize and direct for the people who have plenty of it.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Actually the "teabaggers" as you put it were not happy with bush either. You need to remember that the tea party happened not as a an anti obama group but as an anti establishment group. They were just a smuch again the mccains and romneys and bushes as they are the democrats. So as the democrats like to remind me when I mention they were the ones who were pro slavery and pro jim crow, things change. The current republicans (IE anyone elected since 2006 or so) are NOT the same people that supported bush
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The FCC is an independent agency.
He should have been stopped right there. How is an agency which reports directly to the President in any way independent? The President hires the heads of the FCC (so long as they can get through the Senate pissing match).
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Are you suggesting that thousands of young people weren't disillusioned about the federal government in 2012? They traded in their hope for fear at the ballot box.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
rand paul would be a better president than hillary any day of the week so no, its not better than anything the republicans have
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
These sentences are logically incompatible. Obama is the head of the executive branch; he therefore has absolute authority over the FCC. If the FCC is authorized by Congress to classify ISPs as telecommunication providers, then Obama can dictate that it does so.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You're the retard. Are you saying the defense budget didn't contain funds for the wars? Did they spend money out of some black slush fund that was never really appropriated? Have you really been sitting here all these years, thinking that the reason deficits under Obama went well past the trillion dollar mark, is because he added the "wars to the budget"? What budget?
Very good point, and I'm in total agreement. 1913 was a disastrous year for the country. The 16th and 17th amendments were ratified, and the federal reserve was created. That was the year that the people gave the government the ability to destroy the country.
It's actually more severe than that - the legislative brach passes BINDING LAWS that appropriate money, and the executive branch merely complies with the laws passed.
Everyone likes to blame the President for budget deficits, but outside of asking nicely for stuff at the beginning of the process, and putting his signature on whatever comes back from Congress in the end, he / she has fuck-all to do with how it's divided up. That's how the Founders wanted it, and that's how it still is.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I like how you completely ignored my asking what you would have Obama do. Really proves my point that you aren't looking to fix the problem, you just want to blame Obama for anything and everything.
Honestly, the deficit was almost entirely a creation of the recession. There is no evidence that anything the federal government has done actually improved or worsened the overall economic situation. Whatever models they might use, the comparison of actual unemployment rates to their projections with and without the stimulus proves that their models are wrong. I suspect the stimulus and TARP actually slowed the rate of recovery, but it's not actually provable without an alternate reality to check it against.
It's almost always wrong to responsibility for the state of the economy to the president. Party in control of congress is generally a better target, with caveats.
I would take issue with your description of deregulation as the cause, but it's a long discussion. It's not worth the effort at this point in time, so I'll just note that what you said is a vast simplification. Trying to determine the causes seems to be a bit of a rorshach test.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
i call bs
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
He didn't do shit, other than sign his name to CONGRESSIONAL appropriation bills.
CONGRESS controls spending, CONGRESS controls debt. The Executive only enacts the laws that CONGRESS passes saying what money should go where; if tax receipts don't match up with the spending that is authorized by CONGRESS, then the Executive comes up with the money the only way they can - with the debt that CONGRESS already authorized, or will authorize by raising the statutory debt ceiling, created by CONGRESS.
See who's really responsible yet?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Hyperbole would be more accurate than Satire.
The point was the fact that we have a telecom monopolist running a major executive branch agency when we were promised it would not happen, but the liberal elitists on Slashdot predictably latched on to the obvious hyperbole and decided to attack that, lacking anything substantive with which to argue against the facts.
Obama's approval rating is 40% while his disapproval rating is 53%. His approval with 18-29 year olds is 42% with 50% disapproval. So most people don't think he is doing a doing a good job.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
You're aware of the fact that they are hypocrits now from this communication. Aren't you?
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
Even congress, up until very recently they had no idea either, and they started making up all crazy ideas of what it meant and confused it with other issues.
Net Neutrality, is the concept that all intermediate networks exist just to relay data, and don't discriminate based on content, and they simply move data, and don't set policy.
On a technical level, it prohibits all routing beyond layer 3 of the OSI model, as well as priorititizing one destination or another.
The concept is the network is entirely seperate, and merely a platform, for the content. Its also the network should not interfere with the content. It was an unwritten rule of the internet, almost since day one. In its early years, it also shielded ISPs from liability?
Someone accessed kiddie porn, made terrorist threats, or did some other illegal stuff, that passed through ISP XYZ's router, no one ever did as much as accuse them of hosting the content.(now I guess comcast is to big to jail so they don't care)
This has sometimes confused with other issues such as the cost of broadband, its availability among demographic groups(the digital divide).
He's actually not the retard, he's informed. Money need not come from a fiscal year budget act. A great example is the $1.4T deficit of FY2008. The budget as passed had a $400B deficit between outlays and projected receipts. TARP and the ARRA were both passed after the FY2008 budget was passed, making them "off-budget", giving us a total deficit of 800B. Then, outlays came up $800B short of the amount projected on the budget. This was actually a systemic issue during Bush. Many budgets were passed with vastly optimistic receipt projections, making their budgeted deficits artificially low. It seems common for people to use absolute dollars when trying to hammer on Obama for the deficit, and then reducing it to mere percentages when talking about the reduction in the deficit that has occurred since FY2008. To put it in absolute dollars, the deficit today is $700B less than it was the year he took office, or said another way- Obama has presided over the largest spending reduction in US history. That's of course a slanted viewpoint, but so is the one being peddled trying to make him appear to be a spend-monger.
While I do agree with what you are saying, I was mainly just pointing out the fact that he is once again full of shit
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
wow, how well thought out and reasoned. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter with such insightful comments like that!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You gave no reasons or evidence for your side of stating "X is Y", so why should I?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Someone accessed kiddie porn, made terrorist threats, or did some other illegal stuff, that passed through ISP XYZ's router, no one ever did as much as accuse them of hosting the content.(now I guess comcast is to big to jail so they don't care)
I'd never thought about this angle, but you have a good point. If net neutrality doesn't survive, I wouldn't be surprised to see ISPs charged with monitoring data, or being held accountable for illegal material passed through the pipes that they would be monitoring.
This signature is false.
Anyone whose opinion matters knows exactly what net neutrality means.
Voters.
Yeah yeah, I know "If voting actually changed anything, they'd make it illegal," but until they do, a well informed voter can help push for the government we need. A lot of fairly intelligent people haven't heard of Net Neutrality, but as soon as you tell them "if it goes away, Comcast is allowed to kneecap NetFlix or any other streaming service, to make their own service look better," they've got a strong opinion on the matter.
This signature is false.
Anyone whose opinion matters...
Voters?
This is a democracy, right? Right?
And yes, logically they are common carriers.
Logically, they're anything they want to be as long as it maximizes profitability.
Oh, right, you're thinking of ISPs as service providers. That's a common misconception.
They're for-profit businesses. Given a choice between common-carrier (utility) status and information-provider status, which one makes more money? Because that's what they have always lobbied for, and will continue to do so.
Your first mistake is thinking that the 'net exists for the good of the individual or the community. It exists for the primary and overarching good of the providing corporations. Never forget that, because tactics and decisions based on any assumption than absolute reality are doomed... because they're fighting on a battlefield which doesn't exist.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Because the President threatens to veto it.
Yes, Congress passes the laws and the budget, but the President has veto power, which gives him a lot of leverage.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
He didn't do shit, other than sign his name to CONGRESSIONAL appropriation bills.
He has veto power.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
As much as I hate Time Warner, I have to admit that they are delivering their "promised" speeds on a regular basis. Packet loss and latency sucks, but I do get the speeds they are promising. I am paying for 15mb and it goes up to there, but rarely exceeds it. Whenever it does exceed it, it gets throttled down immediately and holds steady there.
Rand Paul lacks the intellectual capacity to tie his own shoes, let alone be the most powerful elected leader of the free world.
And let's not even get started on his racism, fundamental dishonesty ("hey, the professional association won't accept me, so I'll start my own!"), and near-complete lack of empathy.
No way would I EVER vote for him.
He can still apply the "full authority" given to him, it's just a meaningless, toothless amount of regulative power now.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
He didn't do shit, other than SIGN HIS NAME to congressional appropriation bills.
FTFY, and thus he takes ownership.
Just another day in Paradise
so does that mean we shouldnt vote on it? the only reason to say yes to that question is to protect the president from saying he actually did something
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Every first-past-the-post voting system eventually turns into votes out of fear of the other guy. It's a mathematical certainty.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Well there was Dennis Kucinich. But he seems to have been run out of the Democratic party.
Go blame the assholes that deregulated an industry that almost immediately started creating a gigantic economic bubble and then begged for help when it popped.
Yes, but what have Obama or the Democrats in Congress done about that problem? The Dems were in control of Congress in 2006-8 as I recall, and they didn't do squat about that problem, and instead gave a giant no-strings bailout to the banksters. Did they try to reinstitute the Glass-Steagal Act which Clinton helped overturn? Not at all. No, this isn't Obama's fault alone, obviously, but it's not like the Dems have done anything helpful. (And of course, it's not like the Republicans have done anything helpful either, but on the internet usually the Dems are somehow portrayed as wonderful legislators whose only fault is not being able to handle Republican "obstructionism", when the reality is that the Dems are no better.)
What I'd have Obama do is be completely fucking honest with us instead of bullshitting us about it.
But I'm an idealist, what do I know?
Aside from the bit about Obama being head of the executive branch, this is completely wrong. The president has the power to nominate commissioners to the FCC, which are subject to the approval of congress. That's it - the full extent of his influence. Federal agencies are designed to be independent in this way to help combat corruption.
I had no point other than to correct the facts. Bush signed 36.25/year during his two terms (averaged out), Obama 33.8 or 41.5 depending on whether you include 2014s orders since the year isn't over. I should have included Regan's data as well:
Regan: 380 or 47.5 per year.
see my post below about correcting facts.
Very good point, and I'm in total agreement. 1913 was a disastrous year for the country. The 16th and 17th amendments were ratified, and the federal reserve was created. That was the year that the people gave the government the ability to destroy the country.
This is why I don't get wrapped up in who is adding how much debt. The debt only goes up; it's built into the system. If it's not the government doing it, it's the citizenry. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing, it's a money power thing. I think we can all agree that neither party can be described as fiscally responsible. At this point the debt is so large, neither party can be responsible. It's only more debt from here on out, it's just a question of how quickly it grows. But that's just another way of saying it's going to blow up, it's just a matter of when.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Is this the same president who is permitting private corporations to negotiate international treaties? How's that TPP thing going these days?
The chief of mealy-mouthed politicians is promising again to defend net neutrality? Color me - unimpressed.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The quality of discourse in America has gotten so poor. All we get from people are memed arguments and broadsides. One way to look through the false dichotomy of government vs. business, one which suits the sham of political discourse wanted by the Duopoly, is to realize tow things. 1) The same group of very rich people support both political parties and have for a long time. The National Committees have published their biggest donations for each national election for many years now, and the donors are the same group of people. 2) Americans are mostly naive about politics and economics and the intimate connection of the two. In particular they are naive about the role of corruption in both politics and business. They are often victims of selective attention and public relations to conceal corruption in private business while disclosure force the same abuses of power into the open when they occur in government, so they get a biased view of the problem. One way to resolve this is to look at the backgrounds of the people who lead in the country. You find that they are pretty much the same sorts of people whit lots of amition and that through their careers they migrate from roles in business and government freely, and most of them are very wealthy. So, avuse of power is a universal human trait, every one of us if we are fortunate to get the power will tend to abuse it some way. The person who uses power morally is rare or is eliminated by those who don't. So I assume that people are seeing a biased sample of behavior and since those that aspire to wealth and business success are going to se it in even a more biased way. I think that the solution is more disclosure but there needs to be much more disclosure about internal business strategy than there is now, and I don't really care if business people claim that this hurts their competitive advantage when they abuse power even more than our elected officials.
If government and business bias the flow of Information on the Internet than they do already, a case can be made that net -neutrality is already a moot issue with the biasing of information flow in social media, which is not a government decision, then people who want more freedom of expresion will turn to alternative technology which is harder to control, mainly abandoning the Internet and looking for technology that allows for ephemeral networks that are hard to track and spy on. The spies are both government and business, and the same group of power mongers, interchangable thieves, from business or government. Take your standard politics and shove it; that does not address the problem.
Please use "Democratic" when you refer to that party and "democracy" when you refer to the type of government. Also note that that the U.S. is not a democracy, it is a republic which claims to be a representative democracy. Given that the megaphone has been given to the very wealthy by the current Supreme Court, it is much less of a democracy now than it has been in the past. It is in danger of destroying itself. I hope that you don't live in California because at some point in the next few years your status could be foreign.
There is an alternative to the Internet. The flaw on the Internet is its several choak points or control points, one of which passes through the NSA HQ in northern Virginia. If you are worried about their ability to spy be aware that it is made easy for them and Google and Facebook and others to spy and bias information flow by the Internet.
If you are willing the accept some changes, it might be possible to restore some freedom and privacy to your on-line access. You might have to trade some speed and access for privacy, but in doing so, it would be harder for spies and spammers to get to you, and for businesses to filter what you get to see and send to others. The difference is that there are other approaches to networking that may already exist or be brought back to life than the Internet. You may have to tolerate delays to get far distant connections, but be able to transmit to local or trusted nodes much quicker than the Internet. You might be able to use line of sight transmission and store and forward technology to go off the wired network and away from the wireless carriers. The FCC has always allowed for low power use of the airways for public use, depending on the legal distinctions it may even be posible to use owned bandwidth for private networking. I am not even suggesting that foreign protocols can be put inside IP packets and transmitted, but you would still be paying some carrier for that.
Some mesh networking scheme could use public bandwidth to operate outside the Internet and carriers, or I suppose that in a revolutionary situation bandwidth could be stolen, but just thinking about ways of encrypting data that isn't noticed because its volume is low, seems attractive, so does a dynamic network topology that become much harder to keep track of.
According to that, the president requested 101 billion for war funding. Where did the other 1.4 trillion in deficits come from?
Ironicly, I think Comcast is at the point, when they think they are too big to jail, so they don't care.
small and medium ISPs are likely the ones to be hit.