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Senate Will Force Vote On Overturning Net Neutrality Repeal (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) has mustered the 30 votes necessary to force a vote on the FCC's decision to repeal net neutrality. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) announced that she's signed onto Markey's request to overturn the new rules, under the Congressional Review Act -- which lets Congress nullify recently passed regulations with a simple majority. Markey announced his intention to file a resolution of disapproval in December, just after the FCC voted on new rules that killed net neutrality protections from 2015. These new rules were officially published last week, and with 30 sponsors, Markey can make the Senate vote on whether to consider overturning them. If this happens, it would lead to a debate and final vote. That's not remotely the end of the process: if it's approved, the resolution will go to the House, and if it passes there, the desk of Donald Trump, who seems unlikely to approve it.
What I have a hard time seeing is that noone wants to make Net Neutrality a law. Which is all it would take.
No, telling the Pres he can't make an Executive Order isn't the answer, nor is a non-binding vote (which is what they'd get with this - no law, no power)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The intent isn't to repeal it of course. It's too embarrass the republicans.
It's also to expose all the republicans who oppose it, so when the abuses start, and they will, the dems can target them with ads come election time.
The original rules were entered into the federal register back in 2015, so yes, they were submitted.
go on record opposing Net Neutrality. So far when the issue's come up they've mostly said they support it while putting 3 folks in charge of the FCC who are against it at all costs. The Republicans have been able to kill NN without much political fallout. This aims to end all that. If it doesn't pass it means the Republican lead Congress opposes NN, despite what they've said. If it _does_ pass it means their party head, Donald Trump, personally killed NN.
Right now everybody's blaming Ajit Pai for the loss of NN. This aims to ship the blame where, I would argue, it rightfully belongs.
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This is dead folks.... Until the number of supporters allows a cloture vote to pass, this is dead. The Republicans, who currently control the Senate majority, cannot make things happen there, how would a democrat make it happen along partisan lines? This is dead, no way it manages cloture.
So getting it to the floor isn't going to make anything happen here. Why bother with this? Why to map out a campaign issue of course... Nothing more... It's like the House passing an Obamacare repeal 20+ times, full knowing the Senate wouldn't take it up and Obama wouldn't sign it, then when it actually would be passed and signed they wiffed it. It was for show, not for substance, just like this NN thing.
It's 2018.... Get ready for silliness in politics where weird things are done in an effort to get donations and get elected..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
And piss off your biggest donors? No, You want your constituents to believe you are working in their best interest without having to actually commit. Rattling a sabre at the FCC's new rules accomplishes this without getting any blood on their hands because they know the actual vote will fail. Then when the voters complain they just point out there just weren't enough votes.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Democrats are with Democrats, even when they take huge sums of money from rapists.
Glass houses.... Sadly, that's both sides in this political environment. It no longer matters who you keep company with politically, just as long as they are on your side and supporting your agenda.
What I have a hard time seeing is that noone wants to make Net Neutrality a law. Which is all it would take.
What are you talking about? Proposals for that have been malingering as long as the immigration reform laws. Even state legislators have tried.
No traction. The Majority of the Majority rule means the proposals don't even get debated. But we can have six dozen ACA repeals.
Yay?
For those of us, like me, who were confused how Democrats could force a vote when bills could only be brought to the floor for a vote by the House Majority Leader. It turns out that the congressional review act specifically allows a vote to be schedule by 30 senators sponsoring a bill, bypassing the House Majority Leader.
I stole this Sig
How about, instead of passing a bill telling the FCC to keep pretending the internet is a phone service and regulate it as such, pass a bill allowing the FCC to regulate the internet as a data service, ONLY for the purposes of equal access. The reason this is all happening in a round-about fashion is the FCC was never directly given the authority to regulate the internet directly. I'm for them keeping out of it as much as possible, but if you want net neutrality, pass a law saying the FCC can enforce net neutrality.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
But really will it change anything in terms of votes?
It will make every politician take a stand one way or the other then answer for it down the road when they come up for reelection. I'm just hoping it's harder to buy off hundreds of senators and congresspeople than it was to buy off Mr. Pai.
...and republicans are with republicans, even when they're pedophiles. http://goodizen.com/list-of-co...
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
wanted him to be. Trump could have kept the FCC as is. The law only says 3 Republican _appointees_, it says nothing about the personal party affiliations of those appointees.
And as for Trump, he was in favor of single payer healthcare until the Republicans talked him out of it with what looks like one meeting. He's pretty obviously just doing what the party tells him.
Bottom line, this _is_ a partisan issue. The Dems favor NN and the Republicans oppose it. To suggest otherwise is to ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary; and this is a site for nerds. The one thing we should hold sacred is evidence.
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If internet is 'net neutral' and 'regulated like a utility' guess where that leads? It leads to getting billed for how much you use like any other utility.
Yes, because "bits" are a lot like "water" and "gas". right?
If internet actually is regulated/billed like a utility Grandma is soon getting a deal and Billy Hacker's sex life is going to get a lot worse.
Is your point that most "readers" here are going to identify with "Billy Hacker" therefore support Grandma getting "fleeced" on her internet "bill"?
regulated/billed like a utility = fair meter
That is why they don't want to do to full metering with an read out on the meter at your home.
Right now you get changed for network resend data due there poor lines
Get changed for data that trying to go to your address even when your modem is off / no power.
Get changed for docsis arp traffic
Maybe get changed for some overhead with things like the Comcast wifi hotpot
Forced to rent / use the ISP router that sends data back to network (likely changed for that data use)
you stupid fuckwit, use real adult words and pronouns instead of fake news bullshit like "snowflakes". oh you can't, you are ignorant, illiterate, and a fool
scaremongering doesn't require point or reasoning.
Yes, because "bits" are a lot like "water" and "gas". right?
Transmission and reception time slots on your ISP's upstream connection are scarce resources. So are DOCSIS transmission and reception time slots on your neighborhood's CMTS. Thus if Billy Hacker uses 90 percent of the bandwidth during congested time, he ought to be footing 90 percent of the bill for the bandwidth.
Otherwise, Trump would not be president...
And all it took was for Trump to sell out the country to Russia.
You mean like everyone has to pay per minute for local calls on their landline? That kind of regulated like a utility? Sounds better then being charged on which of your neighbors you phone or not being allowed to phone any of your neighbors who the phone company doesn't like the politics off.
The phone company does own the lines, so perhaps they should be able to control how you use them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Good luck getting the House to take up this issue.
Net Neutrality is a foundation stone for how the internet got here and became successful. It wasn't called that in the early years because the rich and powerful weren't attacking it every day and internet regulation was in the hands of good people. Who knew their responsibilities (unlike Johnny Lining His Pockets Every Day).
All your scary stories would already be true, if they were true. And you know what? Grandma does subsidize Billy Hacker, right now, today. Billy Hacker is living in her basement and is her Grandson. The subsidy is real and not worth talking about.
Your "Careful what you wish for" scenario has been time-tested and the internet works great. It's one of the most successful systems in the world. So bugger off and try to scare little kids by offering them candies from the back of a van. You'll be more successful at that.
Anything you'd do to the internet would make it worse.
I think you're right about Trump's attitude, but many of the cohort really believe that corporations should be allowed to do anything that will make them lots of money.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I am for rational NN. And i am 100% Republican.
If your party votes no on NN, will you change your vote?
I'm not the person you're baiting, but here's my answer: I will not. [Change my vote]
I'm also 100% a Republican, but there are issues on which the party and I disagree.
That being said, I try to sort the differences by importance to the country, and find other issues are of much greater significance. I believe that immigration is a road to disaster for our country, and needs to be reined in.
National security is also high on my list, although of lesser importance than immigration.
I'm a nerd who wants NN, but I also see the larger picture.
Ask me again if DACA amnesty ever happens.
immigration. Trump could have rescinded the Obama executive order allowing H1-B spouses to work in the country at any time with one stroke of a pen, and he did not. As soon as all eyes were off he let the guys at Carrier twist in the wind.
I've seen zero movement from Republicans to meaningfully restrict the flow of cheap labor from overseas. Just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I suppose you might be more worried about immigrants committing crimes (MS-13 and the like), but statistically you'd be better off having those resources spent policing local crimes. Immigrants don't do a lot of crime because they're mostly trying to keep their heads down and keep their jobs. Yes, there are outliers, but they're just that, outliers. The statistics back me up here.
I'm not expecting the Dems to stop the H1-B program the way they are now. But get more of the Bernie style Dems in office and it'll happen. It just means showing up to your primary (and if you're not in a state with open primaries, registering as Dem). Meanwhile, the left wing Dems support things like ending the wars, single payer healthcare, college for all and minimum wage increases that would benefit me directly (I don't earn min-wage, but it's a great way to get money out mega-corps warchests and into the economy doing real work).
I guess my point is: I'm not sure what your goals are, but I'm going to assume the best. And if you're goals are the best, you're throwing in with the wrong crowd. Come on over the the Dems. We'll actually help you and your family. Just don't forget to vote in your primary.
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of taking over the Democratic party from the corporate Dems (Nansi Pelosi, Diane Fienstien, Chuck Schumer, etc) then getting a third party in place. Also, I think the too most viable third parties (Libertarian & Green) are hopelessly naive when it comes to policy. Libertarians would gut the gov't to let the free market take over, but there's a reason that 'Libertarian Paradise' meme exists. Sure it's a caricature, but in practice weak gov'ts don't work in complex societies. If all else fails someone comes along and makes a strong one on you lose out by not participating in it.
As for Green.... probably fine but they're a haven for a lot of the really radical feminists. I can sympathize with those people (we're allies with Saudi Arabia, who treat women awfully), but they're not helping. They tend to make men feel threatened, not by a strong women, but by a women who'll lock them up if they make a pass at them. I'd rather see them integrated into the Dems with their good parts (equal opportunity, wage parity, etc) intact and like any radical mellow out and focus on realistic policy.
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It is a law. ... Okay, so the short explanation is that congress has made a couple of laws which apply here, the most recent is the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In that law they set some standards how to classify different services and assigned the FCC to apply and enforce this law. Initially the FCC classified DSL as a telecommunications service and in 1999 applied the provision of the law which required line sharing of telecommunications services. But in 2002, with a new set of FCC commissioners, cable ISPs were classified as information services, which did not require line sharing (thus no competition). Then in 2005, DSL was reclassified as an information service. Then in 2015, both were reclassified as telecommunications services along with wireless providers. (fiber and other options fit in there somewhere, I'm not sure about classifications or dates) Now the new FCC is trying to reclassify all options as information services again.
Why doesn't congress enforce the law themselves? Because congress is not law enforcement.
Why doesn't congress determine for themselves the classification for each and every service? Because there are new services all the time, and also because congress lacks expertise on this, so they wrote the law in this manner to ensure that it would stay current.
Doesn't that give control of the internet to a bunch on unelected dweebs? No, congress is still in control and congress members are elected.
If congress is in control, then why isn't congress reversing this decision? Because this decision is exactly what congress wants. This is what Pai was put in place to do. Not every congress member wants this, which is why we have the vote mentioned in the story, but the vote will fail to change anything because this is what most of congress wants.
Republicans are big on profit, and corporate freedoms. If enough Republicans don't know enough about Net Neutrality, they would likely swallow any propaganda against it as harming capitalism. Republicans are big into the religion of capitalism, and usually back the "free market" solution. Even when we know that solution doesn't work. Capitalism is meant to be a tool, not a guiding philosophy. And Net Neutrality is about protecting and maintaining critical infrastructure. Roads, phones, internet, our nation depends on these things nowadays.
then answer for it
hahahahahahahaha
Whatever the outcome, this is wonderful news! Lawmakers are back into, you know, making laws — instead of delegating the responsibility to the unelected "commissions" and "agencies".
Though of questionable Constitutional standing, these issue "rules" and "regulations" that are no less binding than actual laws...
Well, I say, if the would-be ordinance is too complex for Congress to properly discuss and vote on, perhaps, it should not be considered at all! That government is best, that governs least — remember?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is politics. There is value in making each individual legislator commit one way or another, because some people care, and anything can be made into a campaign issue.
The FCC had the authority to enforce NN, and now has decided not to. This is a case where Congress should decide one way or another.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, this is just fine. The FCC was doing what it was authorized to do by Congress. Of course, to make this permanent, we do need Congressional action.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Someone could cop-out by arguing that they support neutrality, but they don't want to override the decision of a federal agency. It would be malarkey, but it would probably work.