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Can Democrats In Congress Restore America's Net Neutrality Rules? (nbcnews.com)

"Democrats are expected to use their upcoming control of the House to push for strong net neutrality rules," reports NBC News: "The FCC's repeal sparked an unprecedented political backlash, and we've channeled that internet outrage into real political power," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights-focused non-profit organization. "As we head into 2019, net neutrality supporters in the House of Representatives will be in a much stronger position to engage in FCC oversight...." Gigi Sohn, a former lawyer at the FCC who is now a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology, Law and Policy, said she expects Democrats to use their new power to push for the restoration of strong net neutrality rules -- and for the topic to be on the lips of presidential hopefuls. "I have no doubt that bills to restore the 2015 rules will be introduced in both the Senate and the House relatively early on," Sohn said....

Jessica Rosenworcel, an FCC commissioner who has been a vocal supporter of net neutrality, noted that it has become a national issue -- and one that has broad approval from Americans. She pointed to a University of Maryland study that found 83 percent of people surveyed were against the FCC's move to undo the rules around net neutrality... Ernesto Falcon, legislative counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation...said he is "extraordinarily confident" that proponents of net neutrality will win. "It really just boils down to how one side of the polling is in this space," Falcon said.

256 comments

  1. They could, but they won't by raymorris · · Score: 1, Troll

    The incoming Democrats COULD do a lot of things. They won't. They'll spend 90% of their time, energy, and press on a futile, symbolic push to impeach Trump for paying off a woman he had an affair with. A perfectly legal action (though distasteful) that he did before he was President. Symbolic because there is 0% chance the Senate will convict. They may well not even manage to keep their own party in line to get an impeachment - impeachment of the President has only happened twice in US history, most recently Clinton was impeached.

    They'll get nothing useful done because all of their focus will be on hating Trump.

    1. Re: They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They'll get nothing useful done because all of their focus will be on hating Trump.

      You're just upset that Trump will literally impeach himself due to his own incompetence, meanwhile Nancy Pelosi actually has a history of political competence while the GOP managed seven dozen Obamacare repeals and still couldn't do it despite supposedly running on that platform.

      But raymorris forgets that he personally can't even read your average daily paper without being more confused than a 90 year old grandmother trying to work a VCR.

    2. Re:They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll get nothing useful done because all of their focus will be on hating Trump.

      And in the meantime Trump will continue on with his pick of judicial and cabinet nominees and a larger Republican majority in the Senate than he had in his first two years.

      Way to go Dems!

    3. Re:They could, but they won't by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      The incoming Democrats COULD do a lot of things. They won't. They'll spend 90% of their time, energy, and press on a futile, symbolic push to impeach Trump for paying off a woman he had an affair with. A perfectly legal action (though distasteful) that he did before he was President.

      Clearly you're behind on current events. The payments to a porn star and a Playboy model, arranged by Mike Cohen under the direction of the POTUS, were made in the context of an election. As such, they were a violation of campaign finance laws, something Cohen pleaded guilty to.

      So the POTUS is implicated in a felony. And this may just be the beginning. 'Scuse me, I'm going to make some popcorn.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    4. Re: They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Nancy Pelosi actually has a history of political competence...

      Yup, she's 100% slimy, and you idiots think she represents anything other than the highest bidder. I'll give you a hint, the bankers are the high bidders, and they're selling you.

    5. Re: They could, but they won't by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Nancy Pelosi actually has a history of political competence

      Whoops there goes all your credibility. Nancy Pelosi is only vaguely aware of who the current president is.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    6. Re: They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      political competence

      We just call that incompetence.

    7. Re:They could, but they won't by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      They'll spend 90% of their time, energy, and press on a futile, symbolic push to impeach Trump for paying off a woman he had an affair with

      That is unlikely. When Pelosi was in charge before, she rose above that kind of petty vindictiveness ("Impeach Bush" sort of thing) and ended up working with Bush to get a LOT of what she wanted. She says she wants to do the same thing now, and Trump is kind of a liberal anyway, so he might be willing to go along with it. (This is all my opinion, of course).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    8. Re: They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nancy Pelosi is a prime example of why we need term limits in all branches of govt. How long has this old dirt bag been there? About time she step aside and let some fresh meat be the speaker.

    9. Re:They could, but they won't by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Possibly true. History seems to show that whichever party in power is always its own worst enemy.

    10. Re:They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, we've already been through this very example with Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards. He used campaign funds to pay off his mistress, not his personal funds. He was charged, and then let go - because it was determined that it wasn't a campaign finance violation to pay off mistresses.

    11. Re: They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If all you've got is some random name mix up, you might as well go back to the era where Reagan forgot he was president on a daily basis.

    12. Re:They could, but they won't by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Sorry, we've already been through this very example with Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards. He used campaign funds to pay off his mistress, not his personal funds. He was charged, and then let go - because it was determined that it wasn't a campaign finance violation to pay off mistresses.

      That's a pretty generous mischaracterization. John Edwards was indicted on six counts. He was found not guilty on one of them (pertaining to a transaction that occurred after he had dropped out of the race). The other five counts ended in a mistrial. Prosecutors elected not to re-try the case. So nothing was "determined" regarding payments to a mistress.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    13. Re:They could, but they won't by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      There is a concept of "Regulatory Capture". It means the industry takes control of the branch of government that regulates them. The Republican Supporters have discovered this also works with the political opposition in America. They have taken control of the Democrat party and use it as a sponge to soak up and quaranteen all ideas and ideologies they dislike, to prevent anything but the Republican Agenda from seeing the light of day. One example: Obama passed Romneycare to prevent Medicare for All.

    14. Re: They could, but they won't by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      I'd accept that if it was Pelosi's only mix up, but she does it regularly. I leave looking it up as an exercise for the reader.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    15. Re:They could, but they won't by mea2214 · · Score: 1

      symbolic push to impeach Trump for paying off a woman he had an affair with.

      Trump fanboys wish this minor campaign finance violation was his only crime which is why they constantly bring it up. Money laundering and treason are the 800 lb gorillas that will bring Trump down. A Mueller indictment bombing run may occur before the Democrat House even begins. Can't pardon state crimes either and SDNY is in the loop. Will be fun watching Trump tears next year.

    16. Re: They could, but they won't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A history of political competence in making sure democratic representatives serve big pharma, insurance companies, big banks and other similar corporate interests. And in fundraising from these kinds of donors to ensure continued smooth corrupt conduct of Washington politics.

      Having said that - Trump could have attacked on the emolument clause charges very long ago, based on publicly-available evidence. Unfortunately, that would go against US imperial interests - the alliance with Saudi Arabia - so that's never going to happen. Instead we have Russia-gate, which will: 1. Not result in impeachment of trump, since there's nothing in there and 2. works great as an excuse for warmongering and restricting online speech.

  2. The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But people that go actually outside vote republican, it made the last presidential election funny and the aftermath is even funnier.

    1. Re:The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet you lost 40 seats in the House, so them's the rules, you lost control of an entire 1/2 branch of Congress, and Trump and Pence are headed for prison, and Kavanaugh's 'boofing' will be revisited.

      Sure you won for these few months though, kid. Savor the flavor, because behind bars, you will miss it. You'll be eating ramen out of a dude's ass, if they don't just rape you to pieces day 1. Enjoy, traitors.

      You reap what sows you, greedy assholes.

    2. Re:The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two words for you: Brenda Snipes.

      The dems can't win elections through legit votes, so rather than handle a loss maturely and learn from it, the dems cheat and rig it. Nothing but a pathetic pile of worm shit, they are. All the childish behavior you used to see kids committing in grade 3? The dems still act that way. Lie, cheat, steal, accuse others of acts they themselves are engaging in, it's all there. Sad, really.

    3. Re: The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obama lost the Democrats 67 house seats and 22 senate seats in his first midterm election.

      Trump is more popular, and more effective, than Obama ever was.

    4. Re:The internet loves Democrats by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 3

      A list of losses in the midterms shows that the 40 lost in 2018 would be in 7th place, with Presidents Obama, Truman, and Clinton leading the list at 63, 55, and 54 respectively.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    5. Re:The internet loves Democrats by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2

      Pence and Trump are going nowhere, the losses are among the lower for first midterms, and Kavanaugh will be hearing whatever asinine challenges your side comes up with.

              You are beyond delusional - get out of the echo chamber, you are not getting good information.

    6. Re:The internet loves Democrats by pslytely+psycho · · Score: 1

      No shit, check out North Carolina, where ballots were illegally collected and......oh, wait, that was a Republican scam....never mind.

      --
      Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
    7. Re:The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pence and Trump are going nowhere, the losses are among the lower for first midterms, and Kavanaugh will be hearing whatever asinine challenges your side comes up with.

      You are beyond delusional - get out of the echo chamber, you are not getting good information.

      And here we have a live demonstration of somebody engaging in self delusion ...

    8. Re:The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What?! That can't be true!

      Slashdot has told me, along with such experts as the entire Democrat party and MSNBC, that there is no election fraud. How can this possibly be true?

    9. Re:The internet loves Democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should we pay any attention whatsoever to a known sockpuppet, Brett?

  3. Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a moron, of course they will. Too many people want it. Price control and censorship, lol. Lying moron.

    1. Re:Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      7 digit id calling a 6 digit id a russian troll.

      Not buying it......

    2. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Price control? Net neutrality doesn't prevent ISPs from charging whatever they want for the bandwidth. It just means they CANT DISCRIMINATE against specific websites or content. They can still treat video different than email for QOS but they have to treat all video the same... No fast lane for their preferred content while slowing down or charging extra for other content of the same type. They can even charge customers extra for faster speeds but again that faster speed is for whatever the customer wants - they don't get to charge extra for specific destinations. Whatever net neutrality was, and whoever first instated it doesn't matter because it's gone. What we need to do now is make a law about what net neutrality WILL BE.

      The troll thing is getting old.

    3. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember early in TV and other media that didnt want to be censored. Now its all in for censorship. My how times have changed. The Puritans are glad Dems are shutting down porn on social media. Hope more continues to be censored.

    4. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually net neutrality would say video and everything else is the same. Otherwise you are enforcing a content based speech restriction which is unconstitutional.

      To help explain the point, in Reed v. Gilbert the Suprme Court established that a speeb restriction is content-based if it... refers to the content of speech. Easy enough. However, this standard replaced the old which allowed "subject manner" restrictions to be under the "intermediate scrutiny" category. Under the new rules per Reed v. Gilbert, subject-matter restrictions fall under the "content-based" "scrict scrutiny" category.

      Problem is that video and documents are conveys via "TCP/UDP packets", the "manner" of communication, whereas "video" v.s. "document" is a "subject-matter" restriction subject to strict scrutiny.

      It would be unconstitutional for the government to implement Net Neutrality that allows QoS controls. This flows from our conclusion that regulating the "subject matter" of the packets is a strict scrutiny category. And before anyone opines the expected "but government is only allowing them to implement QoS not forcing them to restrict speech" let me shoot that flawed argument down. For legal analysis, we will employ a perspective shift. Instead of 'allowing QoS' under certain circumstances, instead we view it integrated "as a whole" to which we say Net Neutrality is required except for QoS. This means that net neurality is triggered to apply or not apply based on a subject matter distinction, which is exactly what SCOTUS said in Reed v. Gilbert was a big no-no.

      In conclusion the government can't require Net Neutrality and allow QoS controls at the same time. It's one or the other.

    5. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it's quite a bit deeper than that because the devil is in the details. At first glance, it is that simple, but then there is the logistics of how this is enforced and under what set of laws and regulations an ISP is to be held. The fundamental debate is whether an ISP is deemed a common carrier or not (IMHO they should be), which provides for a whole host of other regulations many ISP's don't want to be roped into, similar to the telephone system supporting last mile, etc etc. There are also limits as to what they can own. With Comcast owning NBC and a bunch of other content generators and broadcasters, they may be forced to divest certain assets that they would rather not. It is going to be a messy, heavily litigated battle to make net neutrality a law, which is why it went to regulations the first go-round. I believe an ISP is a common carrier and that traffic should not be tampered with, but this needs to be made into a formal law that can stand judicial scrutiny rather than a haphazard regulation that can be unmade as will.

    6. Re:Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Yep, undoubtedly a Russian troll. We traced his IP address directly to Stalingrad.

      Since the city only gets the name Stalingrad for six specific days a year in reference to its WW II heroism, this will help nail down the time of trolling, right?

    7. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the law isn't perfect so lets throw the whole thing out. We can start fresh later and we certainly wont raise similar complaints then!"

      More right wing anti-government nut job thinking. It never stops.

    8. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lots of typos. E.g. it's "subject-matter" not "subject manner". But I think it's a good point.

    9. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "we". nice try. just you, and you didn't. every time you presume to speak for anyone but yourself, you'll be called on it. have a GREAT weekend!

    10. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There has never been any law... which is what the GP was saying. But you are a troll so meh

    11. Re: Lying moron = lying moron, news at 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is not a moron and what he says is true.

      'Net Neutrality' treats the internet as a common carrier utility.

      At first glance this sounds great, what it does is put a number of regulations in place, and that drives up cost of delivery. Regulations also make the cost of entry into the marketplace higher, reducing competition.

  4. What America wants overwhelmingly has been shown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course they WILL restore what the people overwhelmingly (not including Russian bots or Republican children who lie daily) want, and said so on the FCC website, which Pai covered up and is now exposed.

    OVERWHELMINGLY REAL AMERICANS WANT NET NEUTRALITY RULES IN PLACE. There is no debate. It will happen, or it will be obstructed and eventually happen. These are the options, deplorable liars.

    Elections have consequences and you will never win this, not with all the bots in Russia, Manafarts.

  5. Not going to happen this Congress. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Republicans have majority in Senate and the Presidency. Fat chance in Hades that this will ever get past the Senate and even if it does will get vetoed. There is 1 democrat that sits on the FCC board and the Democrats will not have any influential power whatsoever. I hardly think the Democrats will even make this a priority considered they are so concentrated on global warming and defeating Trump. There might be some symbolic votes yada yada yada. Sorta like the Republicans past repeal legislation for Obamacare over 99 times.

  6. Re:the trumpette puppets are out.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mueller brand rope. Strong, dependable, uncracking. It can handle even the most obese republican INCEL traitor. One by one, next?

  7. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength

  8. The Toads of Trump love the warm water now. Later? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you think they won't make it a law now, after taking back the House and with the Senate realizing that NN has like 90%+ approval from the AMERICAN PUBLIC? You fucking traitors push a lot of things, this won't work.

    Find out if you need to. We're finding out about Trump a little bit each hour now. It won't be long. You'll be wishing you went with Jeb for decades. I curse you to that life. Hahaha! Toads!

  9. Legislation by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What they should pass:

    "If you are an ISP, you cannot charge for preferential treatment of packets based on their destination"

    What they will pass:

    "If you are an ISP, you can't touch packets for any reason unless they are illegal or if the MPAA or RIAA wants them throttled or if they are in relation to a hate site or related to foreign involvement in government.." and two hundred more pages of nonsense that have nothing to do with net neutrality.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Legislation by Can'tNot · · Score: 1

      Everyone always wants simple laws, but simple laws have no teeth. What you are suggesting would allow for an ISP to charge for preferential treatment of packets based on their origin. It would allow for preferential treatment of packets based on their protocol, or on their contents, or any other reason that ISPs could concoct to get around this. But they wouldn't need to get around it because your proposal has no means of enforcement.

    2. Re:Legislation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm afraid you are correct.

    3. Re:Legislation by Kohath · · Score: 1

      They won't pass anything. There's no chance for any bill to pass unless Democrats and Republicans and Trump all work together.

      Do you want them all working together? Do you think 50% of voters want their legislators to work with the other side?

      They won't even try to pass it.

    4. Re:Legislation by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      The Republicans need the Democrats to pass their federal budget. Telling Trump no budget till we get network neutrality and healthcare for all should suffice. Sequestration means no money for the wall, budget cuts for the (republican) military industrial complex.

    5. Re:Legislation by Kohath · · Score: 1

      The Republicans need the Democrats to pass their federal budget. Telling Trump no budget till we get network neutrality...

      I hope they try that. Keep it shut down for 2 years for some issue 95% of people don't care about.

      ...and healthcare for all

      I really hope they try that. They won't though. They would have to appropriate funds to pay for it. There's nowhere near enough money anywhere for that. And actually trying to go ahead with it would mean ignorant people like you would find out they've been telling you fantasy stories the last 20 years.

  10. Re:The Toads of Trump love the warm water now. Lat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Public approval? More like manufactured consent. When they have the lying media in their hands, propagandizing the public with an inaccurate picture of with net neutrality is, of course you can get the people's buy in.

    You know nothing of what's going on, or who the real traitors are. You're the perfect useful idiot.

  11. Sorry, you don't matter in this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ray's a nazi propagandist moron, you're a nazi apologist moron. Trump is facing impeachment for felonies intended to get him elected. Your opine doesn't matter. Sorry bitches! Watch and learn.

  12. They really haven't by SuperKendall · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The FCC's repeal sparked an unprecedented political backlash, and we've channeled that internet outrage into real political power

    Come on, the House win was because of something the FCC did over a year ago?

    Sounds like an awesome way to squander what political power they did gain on a fruitless fight for something almost no voters understand or care about.

    By the way, if it was such a clear-cut political victory how did the GOP gain two senate seats over what they had before?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:They really haven't by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 5, Informative

      By the way, if it was such a clear-cut political victory how did the GOP gain two senate seats over what they had before?

      Well let's see. There were 26 blue seats up for grabs and 9 red seats.
      So I guess the answer would be... math?

    2. Re:They really haven't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, that must be it. After all this talk about the "blue wave" what we got was a blue trickle and then a whole lot of accusations of voter fraud to even get that far.

      I suppose when the Republicans gain even more seats in 2020 you'll still blame that on "math."

    3. Re:They really haven't by meglon · · Score: 1

      You've already been told about the election math for the senate. I know, because i did a week ago. Are you seriously so fucking stupid you're incapable of learning a damn thing? You really area worthless STUPID cunt.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    4. Re:They really haven't by Freischutz · · Score: 1

      Sure, that must be it. After all this talk about the "blue wave" what we got was a blue trickle and then a whole lot of accusations of voter fraud to even get that far.

      I suppose when the Republicans gain even more seats in 2020 you'll still blame that on "math."

      So if gaining two seats in the senate is such a stunning 'landslide', 'red wave' victory, how come the GOP lost 40 seats in the house despite all their gerrymandering, voter suppression and intimidation?

    5. Re:They really haven't by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

      If we assume a neutral model where each senate seat is decided by a coin flip, GOP shouldget +8.5 seats.
      So a red wave might be GOP getting+13 seats, and a blue wave might be GOP getting +4 seats.
      We saw a very blue wave.
      That's likely more math than the MAGA hats can handle tho.

    6. Re:They really haven't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What?!
      What kind of fucked up idiot uses an equal probability model for something that is known to not have one?

      Your "blue wave" performed exactly on average for the past century. It was not remarkably large, nor small. This is easy to see by looking at past election results.

      Of course, that's way more math then you pussy hats can handle, though.

    7. Re:They really haven't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this a neutral model? 2 parties so 50%-50% chance? So if I add the Green party and the Libertarian one you'd say 25% each? Bah.

    8. Re:They really haven't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, if math decided it, why did you have to vote? Next time just stay home and let the people who understand how the world works decide

  13. 1% have heard of it, 0% can define it. 40% hate Tr by raymorris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of the roughly 1% of American voters who have ever said the words "net neutrality", most want it. Most Americans have never uttered the phrase. As far as politics, most Americans have one focus. They either like Trump or dislike him - and they don't really know why. Network neutrality is hyped on Slashdot, not on CNN and Comedy Central, where most Americans get their "news".

    Of those 1% who have even thought about net neutrality, so far none can define it in any meaningful, actionable way. It's a set of general, foggy concepts. Unfortunately the technical details of how carrier networks are configured is very, very complex, so it would take 500 pages (probably more) to write net neutrality rules that a) aren't full of loopholes and b) don't effectively shut down the internet if they are actually followed.

    The most basic premise of NN, according to most advocates, is "carriers can't require payment before carrying a site's traffic".

    One specific problem - just like you are a customer of an ISP, just as you get your internet connection from someone, so do web sites. Web sites pay carriers to take their traffic. That's often called "hosting". Down time kills their business, so sites pay multiple carriers, in order to have multiple redundant connections to the internet.

    Remember the basic premise of NN, according to most advocates, is "carriers can't require payment before carrying a site's traffic". But if the site isn't paying at least one carrier, they aren't online at all. So while their heart is in the right place, actually implementing the simple rule most NN advocates ask for would simply take down every web site. It's way more complicated than that to actually implement.

    On the other hand, 40% or so of Americans dislike Trump. The Democrat politicians hate him. Compared to 1% who care about net neutrality. The Democrats will focus on pretending to impeach Trump. 40% of Americans will love watching that show.

    Another 40% of Americans like Trump and will be angry about the impeachment show. Another 6% will see that snce there is 0% chance that the Senate will convict Trump for paying off a lady had an affair with, before he was President, the whole impeachment show is a waste of time. They'll wish the politicians we're doing something useful instead.

    So the Democrats will spend all their time putting on this circus that 40% of Americans like and 46% of Americans don't like.

  14. REPUBLICAN LIAR BEING DEBUNKED BELOW: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I guess it's a world-wide conspiracyto build a lie that South Africa will expropriate land without compensation" Actually Ray backed the claim that the government was "cleansing" the farmers by killing them for their land.

    You back a nazi propagandist, dishonestly at that, it makes you a nazi propagandist Lynnwood faggot. Think harder next time, maybe you have other things you wanted to be hung from your faggot neck for than nazism?

    Too bad.

    1. Re: REPUBLICAN LIAR BEING DEBUNKED BELOW: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They literally are taking white farms without compensation. It started today with the final legal hurdle failing to protect them.

      It isn't a conspiracy or lie. Read about it on your favorite left-wing rag, like CNN or the BBC.

    2. Re:REPUBLICAN LIAR BEING DEBUNKED BELOW: by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1
      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    3. Re: REPUBLICAN LIAR BEING DEBUNKED BELOW: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The claim, again by known nazi faggots, was made and pushed by Trump and others that they WERE KILLING ALL WHITE FARMERS AND TAKING THEIR LAND.

      Ray backed that, even after corrected. You are backing it, even after corrected. They are taking land from colonial holders, that is true. The US calls it Eminent Domain.

      The conspiracy is to propagate the lie that the government was slaughtering them for their land and just annexing it, when in fact it's a legal process. You may not agree with the law, that's absolutely fine.

      But when you lie about the particulars, you become a nazi propagandist. When you're corrected and lie about them anyway, you become a target for consequences.

  15. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Freischutz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    NN has a cool name, but it's price control and censorship. Net neutrality wasn't passed by law. It was decreed by Obama.

    Net neutrality is actually a basic manifestation of something you right wing-nuts like to harp on about: a free market

  16. THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL FOR YOUR ENTIRE INBRED FAMILY

    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

  17. The same people that want to enforce pronouns? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "No"

  18. No by zamboni1138 · · Score: 0, Troll

    No. We're fucked. Next question.

    I mean, come on. We have an alleged criminal in charge of the Executive Branch of the US Government.

    One of his most successful job functions has been to get former Verizon executives into high level government positions.

    And no one (past/present/future) at the big three telcos (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast) gives one goddamned fuck about you, your neighbor, or any other human being on this little dust ball we call home.

    1. Re: No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hillary didn't get elected.

    2. Re:No by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Hey, it's better than a rapist (Bill Clinton), a war crminial (Bush), or another war criminal (Obama). Remember when Obama bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital, and then sent gunners in to gun down the fleeing doctors and patients? He needs to stand trial at The Hague. How many wars has Trump started? Zero so far. In fact, he tried to get us out of Afghanistan and Syria, only to be overruled by the unelected government.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:No by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

      How many wars has Trump started? Zero so far.

      Best thing about Trump's presidency hands down.
      Still, he once bombed a country over cake, and later couldn't remember which country it was
      He described the cake in detail.

    4. Re:No by meglon · · Score: 2

      He ain't done shit. And speaking of Trump's shit, you have some on your nose.....lots of it.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    5. Re:No by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Dude you just cheered ADOLF HITLER. What the fuck? Can we have your employer so we can report this to your HR department?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:No by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      How tolerant! How understanding of others! You disagree with what others say but will defend to the death their right to say it? No? WTF. That's straight up fascism.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    7. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How far up-y0-azzwhole can that Trotsky-slut crap get shoved ? See ya in the street SJW gaffot bitchboi.

  19. Nazi homosexual recruiter RAY MORRIS CAUGHT DEAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nazi homosexual recruiter RAY MORRIS pushing debunked Nazi propaganda even after corrected, #ROPE

    Do you really think, being a nazi faggot propagandist as you've been caught at, anyone should listen to you blather about what you think that American people want, you dishonest nazi faggot of no value or consequence?

    We're going to find you and hang you for your crimes. You are traitors to the American people, and to the Constitution. You will face consequences nazi trash faggots.

  20. LEGISLATION by kenwd0elq · · Score: 1

    Obama's royal decree concerning "network neutrality" was badly flawed, but I think the CONCEPT is worthwhile.Let's see how Congress does in working out viable law, which would actually be enforceable, where the FCC was making it up as they went along. And now, since any law would need to be passed by both the Democrat House and the Republican Senate, AND signed by President Trump, we're likely to get a much better law.

  21. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Regulation of pricing, enforced contracts, and government enforced censorship is "free market". Right.

    The original rules they tried to use were so bad, the EFF came out against them - they were neither "free" nor "market". The later revision was slightly better, but still allowed several types of priority content (while banning some of the worst), and ALSO allowed censorship of content - along with all the other shitty things that companies can do under the Title II provisions.

    If you want Net Neutrality, you need to get Congress to actually pass a Net Neutrality law. Trying to force pre-internet laws written for phone and cable networks onto the internet is a bad idea. Do it right.

  22. No, Trump's fucked. NN will get there eventually. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/feds-probe-fake-messages-to-fcc-supporting-ending-net-neutrality_us_5c0c4ae1e4b0ab8cf693ec5c

    Let the investigations come to their final conclusions and we'll see what Itchy Pai has to say about it. Through the bars of course. The frauds are going.

  23. Why return to monopoly networks? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Federal NN rules protected a few near monopoly networks.
    Remove the federal NN rules and let more competition and communities broadband grow.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:Why return to monopoly networks? by meglon · · Score: 2

      Apparently you don't understand what NN is.It has nothing to do with the different states trying to limit municipal broadband development. And as for competition in general, that what NN does... it makes it impossible for corporations to stifle their competition by limiting access or increasing the costs of bandwidth.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    2. Re:Why return to monopoly networks? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "it makes it impossible for corporations to stifle their competition"

      Near monopoly networks liked their federal NN rules and did not face much new "competition".
      Time to remove the NN rules and see what communities can do with their own broadband.

      What innovative new ISP can do for a community when finally free of federal NN rules.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:Why return to monopoly networks? by meglon · · Score: 1

      Are you naturally a fucking idiot, or did you have to work hard to be that fucking stupid? Again,and i'll try using small words: NN has nothing to do with cities forming their own isp's. Were those too big? I can't really dumb it down much more, so if you still didn't get it, you probably should just log off till your mommy gets home.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    4. Re:Why return to monopoly networks? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Protecting the same near monopoly brands with years of federal NN rules did not result in the needed new ISP work.
      Freeing up the federal NN rules will allow more new networks to get approved and allow people online with new ISP networks.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    5. Re:Why return to monopoly networks? by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      Protecting the same near monopoly brands with years of federal NN rules did not result in the needed new ISP work.

      Freeing up the federal NN rules will allow more new networks to get approved and allow people online with new ISP networks.

      And unicorns will swoop down and carry Donald Trump off in a flaming chariot.

      Seriously, that's about as likely as ISPs suddenly coming into existence because of reduced regulation. ISPs are monopolies or near-monopolies for one reason, and one reason only: The expected payoff for bringing a new ISP into an area is a very large percentage of the total life expectancy of the required infrastructure.

      I'll give you a moment to let that sink in. When your infrastructure (cables, amplifiers, etc.) lasts on average only about thirty years and it takes fifteen years to pay it down, there can realistically be at most two ISPs in a given area. And when you start out with one, it is suicidal to add a second one, because the first one, who has already paid off much of its infrastructure costs, can trivially undercut you for a long period of time until you go bankrupt, then buy your infrastructure for pennies on the dollar as a nearly free upgrade. This is almost always what happens when a new competitor enters pretty much any market.

      The only markets where multiple ISPs exist in the United States are either markets in which more than one ISP existed in competition from the very beginning (e.g. where the phone company deployed fiber quickly enough to keep the cable company from eating its lunch) or markets in which the community itself built out the infrastructure and leased access to multiple ISPs.

      No amount of deregulation can ever change that reality. Starting a new ISP in an area that already has an ISP is a great way to book a giant loss for tax purposes, but otherwise, it isn't a very useful practical to do.

      There are only two ways to usefully get broadband competition: build out publicly owned (or non-profit-owned) infrastructure and lease it to ISPs, or pass laws that require all infrastructure companies to lease their lines to other companies, similar to the way DSL is regulated. Other than those two approaches, government cannot feasibly create competition in broadband. The tendency towards monopoly or, at best, duopoly is simply too strong, and this has been proven time and time again in city after city.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  24. FECKLESS NAZI FAGGOT HAS PROBLEMS WITH OBAMA.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NEWS AT 11? No, sorry, America doesn't listen to nazi faggot liars like you, never did, never will. YOU WILL HANG FROM YOUR FAGGOT NECK INSTEAD.

    Congress meanwhile, (Democrat/adult controlled now) will shame the Senate into doing what the American people have shown many times they want, Net Neutrality, and Trump gets no say as a Federal prisoner.

    Next nazi faggot? We're schooling them all today I guess, one at a time.

  25. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

    More regulation is a freer market??

    Obviously that depends on the regulation. Anti-trust laws protect a free market. NN regulations protect a free internet. Other examples are left as an exercise.

    Remember the story is about restoring the FCC rules they lost. Liberals crave power, just as the original social democrat Hitler did. More brownshirts, more power, more violence!

    Wow, that's one hell of a false equivalence. I'll just let it stand.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  26. NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL FOR YOUR WHOLE INBRED FAMILY AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

  27. The only way out, is up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... how one side of the polling is in this space ...

    US consumers have much experience of shitty broadband service, so they're not supporting the usual corporate propaganda that legislation will make broadband worse.

    The problem with shooting (gouging) fish (consumers) in a barrel (monopoly) is the fish know the only way out, is towards the gun (legislation).

  28. You're a lying faggot. Not a businessman. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a lying faggot. Not a businessman.

    Nobody would ever buy anything you were selling.

    Your reputation is lying faggot. Your commentary is lying faggot.

    Not a businessman.
       

  29. no. by bmo · · Score: 1

    no.

    longer answer: the dnc is tied to incrementalism, which means giving lip service to the rabble at the EFF and then doing nothing. because they are just as bought as the republicans, except they are paid to lose.

    --
    bmo

    1. Re:no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't think they'd see it as a viable political football and run with it, seeing as NN has overwhelming (even if you don't believe the 99%) support? I do. It's an obvious thing to ram the GOP with. Pro-monopoly crap = death.

      I don't even see why Ajit Pai does anything about it himself, they had BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS BEFORE and they didn't preclude it really. Republicans blew it there on their monopoly building faggot shit, for sure.

      They will pay for their inaction.

    2. Re:no. by bmo · · Score: 1

      I do see it as a viable political football, like schools, health-care and other civilization building issues.

      BUT...

      The dems have failed at every turn over the past 50 years, running away from McGovern.

      Even the ACA is a failure and capitulation to "republican values"

      I am almost all out of fucks to give.

      I had high idealistic hopes for the Internet last century.

      And I look at a president that uses the most important vehicle for the spread of knowledge for his own personal alt.flame.

      Burn. It. All. Down.
      --
      BMO

    3. Re:no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The dems have failed at every turn over the past 50 years"

      See, now you're in an emotional raw state and talking silly talk. I understand the emotion but get a grip.

      This is changing now. There is momentum now that was not there before, and when Trump's crimes and friends and their lies are exposed it continues stronger. Eventually shit will get done, or we'll all be dead.

      The choices do not include whining and introspective butthurt, that's strictly GOP traitor shit AFAIC.

    4. Re:no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a lying n i g g e r, just like your god obama, you traitorous faggot bitch.

    5. Re:no. by bmo · · Score: 1

      >silly talk

      Actually, no. The Democratic Party has been running away from the failed campaign of McGovern learning all the wrong lessons and tying themselves to concepts like "electablity" and doing everything they can to not appear "too leftist" whatever that is at the time. They abandoned the unions, losing all those votes and set the stage or the deundustrialisation of America through lopsided trade agreements. Shit like this has let the Republicans drive every argument all the way down to the vocabulary used. So as the Republicans have drifted into insanity, Dems have become "Republican Lite"

      Trump didn't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus.

      They have been pulling this shit for 50 years. Why stop now?

      >trump's crimes

      The American public doesn't give a shit. The American public, by and large, assumes all politicians are on the take..

      The American public wants someone to at least pretend to care about their bread and butter issues. As stated above, the par\\Democratic Party has been running away from that sort of stuff since McGovern. Trump won the clown car because out of all the other candidates on the R side he at least mouthed the concepts even though he was lying.and when the DNC riggged it so that someone who had awful negatives, it was only inevitable that trump won the presidency.

      Now w are stuck with him and fucking morons like you think that impeachment is going to fix things. It will ifx nothing and if successful, we will wind up with pence.While Trump is a little kid pretending to be dictator, pence will be the real deal and will use things embedded in the ndaa and such, that Obama and his predecessors signed off on, to silence critics.

      We are so fucked.

  30. THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES NAZI FAGGOT KEN DOLL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIFETIME OF LIES NAZI FAGGOT PROPAGANDIST KEN DOLL WE ARE COMING FOR YOU KNOWN TO US NOW

    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

  31. Re: The Toads of Trump love the warm water now. La by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Red herring and strawman combined. Don't bite. That 90% figure doesn't exist. Hyperbole troll is'a trollin'.

  32. Trump would Veto it by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    They already forced a vote to show who was and wasn't in favor of it. We learned two things from that

    a. it's an almost completely partisan issue

    b. There's not enough votes to overcome a veto.

    so I don't think it's a good way to spend political capital.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Trump would Veto it by meglon · · Score: 1

      a. it's an almost completely partisan issue

      Like a number of things that the PUBLIC overwhelmingly want, votes in congress end up split by party. That's why people say people voting republican are often voting against their own interests.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    2. Re:Trump would Veto it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Put those together and you get the reality: the Dems don't actually give a damn about NN, it's just become a partisan us-vs-them thing. They'l holler for it as long as the Reps resist it, but neither of them really care about it, so it could flip-flop to the other way around without warning at any moment. Either way, nothing will change.

    3. Re:Trump would Veto it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      repo public can

      demo mocra cretin

      yep, 'muricooh is F'd either way.

      captcha : righting

  33. Oh, and before I forget by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    if you care about NN vote Democrat in 2020. Same goes for healthcare, especially pre-existing conditions protections. Trump's admin is pushing through a challenge to the ACA that, if Trump gets another term, will likely strike the law down. That means no more protection for pre-existing coverage. If anyone reading this has one now's the time to vote and get your family to vote.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Oh, and before I forget by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      Trump's admin is pushing through a challenge to the ACA that, if Trump gets another term, will likely strike the law down.

      And that would be one of the few reasons I would be happy for Trump to have another term. Once the Public Option was thrown out, the entire ACA should have been thrown out with it. It was bad law to begin with, but then it became absolutely useless. The best thing the Republicans did with their power was to mercifully gut the Individual Mandate (the single worst part of what remained of the ACA). Of course, they were responsible for making it absolutely useless to begin with, but at least they carried through.

    2. Re:Oh, and before I forget by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      If you want NN, then join the Democrat party and primary the Republicans in sheeps clothing that are undermining the party. Once you HAVE a political opposition you'll start making progress.

  34. Re: depends how fast this Congress hangs the trait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would pay really good money to see your stupid, fat downturned faggy face one November evening in 2020.

  35. I agree except with the conclusion, of course YES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They were always intending to pass a law for it, the obstructionist GOP Congress blocked it, now that's over, they'll shame a few Senators into it, Trump is hanging from a noose, the system works?

  36. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by arbiter1 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    NN regulations protect a free internet..

    Yet we didn't see so much censorship on the internet til AFTER NN was pushed though by the left. Notice how sites like youtube started doing most their censoring of people's views while NN has been in place?

  37. Re: The Toads of Trump love the warm water now. La by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And yet there is no credible opposition. Only Russian bots.

  38. Re: The Toads of Trump love the warm water now. La by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course, when you call all the credible opposition Russian bots, then all you will see are Russian bots.

  39. Re:NAZI PROPAGANDIST RAY MORRIS CAUGHT DEAD-HANDED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It will be a waste of effort (there is nothing illegal or a "high crime" or even misdemeanor suggested - it's just "Orange Man Bad"), and if they can get enough together to pass articles of impeachment - it will go NO WHERE in the Senate.

    BUH OL LIAR COHEN SAID DRUMPF TOLD HIM TO DO A FELONIES!!!!!!!!!1111111111

    The wonderful thing about the blue sprinkle is that we'll be able to finally verify whether Madame Speaker Pelosi is completely off her rocker or not. If impeachment is back on the table, the hilarity will never stop.

  40. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Censorship is when ISPs block traffic from specific sites because they don't approve of the content.

    Net Neutrality disallows ISPs from doing this.

    See how that works?

  41. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are confused. NN is not about what websites publish. It's about how service providers shape traffic.

    As for Youtube and other sites, it's entirely up to them what they allow. You have freedom of speech, but Youtube is under no obligation whatsoever to hand you a megaphone.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  42. Re: The Toads of Trump love the warm water now. La by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What credible opposition? You sure didn't sign the FCC page, only Russian bots were in opposition to NN when they asked for public input. Where were you, Moscow or St. Petersburg? Fuck off troll.

    It's well over 90% supporting NN rules, perhaps not "as written" but certainly in spirit. The new law will be new. You will see in time, fools. I told you all of this months ago, lol.

  43. Re:NAZI PROPAGANDIST RAY MORRIS CAUGHT DEAD-HANDED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The evidence discovery may never stop... Trump is stopped effectively right now lol. The first sitting POTUS spy, the first traitor-in-chief as proven by documents and testimony already in hand. Guilty as sin.

    Beyond impeachable, hang-able. The law for treason requires war declared by Congress against Russia. Well, shit. It's an act of war. Let's face that now.

    Your taxes don't matter, they have those. The American people will soon too. We know you're bullshit. We all know on some level.

    #Checkmate, comrade. Play again but pick more carefully. Putin, I expected better.

    #Plenty of time to learn chess in Federal Prison.

  44. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Freischutz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    NN has a cool name, but it's price control and censorship. Net neutrality wasn't passed by law. It was decreed by Obama.

    Regulation of pricing, enforced contracts, and government enforced censorship is "free market". Right.

    The original rules they tried to use were so bad, the EFF came out against them - they were neither "free" nor "market". The later revision was slightly better, but still allowed several types of priority content (while banning some of the worst), and ALSO allowed censorship of content - along with all the other shitty things that companies can do under the Title II provisions.

    If you want Net Neutrality, you need to get Congress to actually pass a Net Neutrality law. Trying to force pre-internet laws written for phone and cable networks onto the internet is a bad idea. Do it right.

    You can take your us-vs-them Obama is the anti-christ rhetoric and deposit it where the sun does not shine. Net neutrality, by definition provides a free market environment on the internet because big players, such as Amazon, would not be able to choke competitors at birth because they, unlike the competitor, get more and better bandwidth. Net neutrality is the natural consequence of an environment where there is true competition between all telecommunications providers. In such an environment of true competition there is always somebody who offers fairer treatment to undercut his rival who does not, so the end result is basically net neutrality. I know this because in my corner of the world we have several telecommunications companies who compete fiercely with eachother nation-wide and the result has been net neutrality by default. In the absence of true competition, and the US is after all patchwork of regional telecommunications monopolies, the only way to provide net neutrality is to impose it if you are not willing to break up the monopolies and create a free market. You can be against the imposition of net neutrality in a landscape of regional monopolies but all that will get you is being screwed over even more thoroughly by those monopolies than you are currently. Judging from your: 'net neutrality is government censorship' rhetoric you thoroughly enjoy being screwed over.

  45. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Freischutz · · Score: 0, Troll

    Net neutrality is actually a basic manifestation of ... a free market

    More regulation is a freer market??

    HAHAH AH HHA AHA AHA HAHH A HHA. AHHA A HA !

    Remember the story is about restoring the FCC rules they lost. Liberals crave power, just as the original social democrat Hitler did. More brownshirts, more power, more violence! It all goes to 11!!

    You do you. Or Hitler. Whatever you feel works best for you! Embrace your inner spirit Schutzstaffel and lock down all the internets!

    You are either drunk, an idiot or both. Either way you lost me at Reductio ad Hitlerum.

  46. Re: I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No it isn't. The only reason ISPs have any reason to worry about what their bandwidth is used for is because we have allowed telcoms to merge with content providers. The only thing your ISP should be worried about is providing you with the bandwidth you pay for. Right?

    If you remove the incentive for ISPs to choose which data is delivered faster, then you have net neutrality. It's that simple. If you don't feel that you're getting what you pay for in terms of speed and capacity, take it up with the ISP. I would absolutely be on board with suing an ISP that doesn't deliver what they advertise. What I can't get behind is the idea that we need to have the FTC or FCC start regulating things that they never had any oversight over for the first 50 years of the internet.

    The internet flourished without the level of oversight that NN proponents are pushing for. I just can't understand why they dont see that the problem lies with how we have allowed telcoms to gain an interest in what kind of data they are delivering. The whole reason we have antitrust laws is to deal with this precise issue. It's exactly like a very successful steel magnate buying up railroads to deliver their product and denying access to competitors who have no other means to ship their steel.

    This issue is so simple. Break up NBC Universal Comcast and ATT DirecTV HBO and whatever other mutant conglomerates we've allowed to exist.

  47. Re: Why do you think slavey to the state is freedo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More regulation is a freer market??

    Yes, laws give us all more freedom while your anarchy leads us to slavery.

  48. Democrats will be democrats by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Did they repeal the patriot act? Or DOMA? Or countless other things they could have done when they had the power? It's not a question of "can". It's a matter of "will". Quite simply, like always, follow the money.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Democrats will be democrats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Few, if any democrats have campaigned on repealing either of those. Net neutrality, on the other hand, has been a signature issue for dems for a while now. Pro tip: There's stages after the money following part.

    2. Re:Democrats will be democrats by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      There's stages after the money following part.

      Yeah, like voting them out. But if nobody can be bothered, there's not a hell of a lot that can be done.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  49. Good job provide my point by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My thesis was that Democrats will spend all their time on "we hate Trump", rather than doing anything useful for the country.

    Your rebuttal is:
    We hate Trump.

    I'm not 100% sure if you're an actual Democrat, or a parody of one.

    1. Re:Good job provide my point by meglon · · Score: 0, Troll

      Never ceases to amaze me how much of worthless cunts conservatives like you are. The only thing republicans do is try to get into,and then maintain, their grip on power. They gladly violate the very ideals that make up this country just for another year in office. And stupid cunts like you sit back and lie out of both sides of your mouth to help them, apparently because you don't give a fuck about this country.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    2. Re:Good job provide my point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like you are describing Democrats. And yourself, fuckface.

    3. Re: Good job provide my point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're just upset that Trump will literally impeach himself due to his own incompetence, meanwhile Nancy Pelosi actually has a history of political competence while the GOP managed seven dozen Obamacare repeals and still couldn't do it despite supposedly running on that platform.

      But raymorris forgets that he personally can't even read your average daily paper without being more confused than a 90 year old grandmother trying to work a VCR.

      Nope, the thesis was that Trump with his history of incompetence(personal, business and political) would be his own enemy while Pelosi with a history of effectiveness would be in great contrast to the 8 year long failure of the GOP to achieve anything except a long list of ACA repeal votes.

      Oh, and that you have documented problems with reading comprehension, but I repeat myself.

  50. Re: I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a net neutrality proponent. I agree with you that the cause of the problem has been mergers and acquisitions. But since the executive branch is in charge of approving those too... Net neutrality needs to be legislated NOW and we can then follow up with the appropriate breakups when the right people are appointed to those offices.

  51. Pipe dream! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For the series of tubes!

  52. Simplification by JBMcB · · Score: 2

    I am well aware that a typical law has two or three pages of terms, conditions and remediation.

    My point is that the legislation *should* be limited to restricting ISPs from stratifying access based on who you are connecting to, or what service you are using. I would still like a carveout for QoS, so on Christmas morning, when everyone's X-Box is downloading gigabytes of game patches I'd like for Netflix to still work.

    What will happen are requirements for special interests, and speech policing, and end-runs around encryption, and monitoring, etc...

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  53. Government to fix problems it created? hahahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The government(s) in the US fucked up the free market in the 1980s by handing out monopolies to cable companies and hindering competition. The sad reality is that the governments are doing exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. They need to be tearing down the barriers to entry in the market and ensuring equal access to the playing field. Without that there is little to no incentive to improve the shitty service situation. I'm in one of the few small towns in America that actually is getting somewhere with something that actually resembles competition. We have in some places options for fiber, cable internet, and ADSL. However the fiber was funded by government, poorly done (few people have access), and sold off. Then cable TV and telephone companies weren't competing back in the day which is the only reason we have these two competing with each other.

  54. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Censorship is when ISPs block traffic from specific sites because they don't approve of the content.

    Net Neutrality disallows ISPs from doing this.

    See how that works?

    The problem is that the NN the politicians want to enact is not written to do as you suggest, rather more the opposite. Because being lying, corrupt shits who pass laws they say do one thing but actually do another is what politicians do.

    See how *that* works?

  55. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In that case, it doesn't matter whether we get Net Neutrality or not.

    They will simply pass a bunch of laws under some other name, and those laws will be awful and represent a direct violation of the spirit of whatever they name them.

  56. The Big 3 have me rooting for the Cable COs by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

    The way Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been neutral and non evil has me routing for the ISP's to launch competing services and throttle the hell out of the big three, until you get seconds per frame out of youtube, and can't reach facebook or Twitter at all.

    So I am pretty glad the rules got repealed now, and seeing as both my senators are now Republicans I'll be writing them to ask them to keep it that way.

  57. Sure they can... by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    ...as long as they can convince the GOP majority in the Senate to pass it as well, and then Trump to sign it.

    Do people (Americans) not really understand how the US government works? Do Democrats think winning one house of congress is meaningful in any but a blocking way?

    --
    -Styopa
  58. Net Neutrality isn't censorship lying republican by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Net Neutrality isn't censorship lying republican *(faggots)

  59. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Indeed. Parent is confused.

    Many don't realize that 6 of the 7 years just before the regulation was passed in 2015 were under Net Neutrality rules.

    And those rules were so horrible... nobody even noticed they were there.

    People who think it's onerous regulation don't know its history.

  60. LYING TRUMP TRAITOR KENDALL EXPOSED (again) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/feds-probe-fake-messages-to-fcc-supporting-ending-net-neutrality_us_5c0c4ae1e4b0ab8cf693ec5c

  61. THAT'S WHY IT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION MORON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LIE NO MORE UNTIL YOU DIE https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/feds-probe-fake-messages-to-fcc-supporting-ending-net-neutrality_us_5c0c4ae1e4b0ab8cf693ec5c

  62. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are a fascist. We all know this. Don't you have a Klan meeting to attend?

  63. REPUBLICAN LIAR BEING RE-RE-REDEBUNKED BELOW: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually Ray backed the claim that the government was "cleansing" the farmers by killing them for their land.

  64. Trump isn't Bush. Not by a long shot by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Remember in all of American history, only two Presidents have been impeached. It's not something that normally happens. A president has to be a special kind of crooked to get impeached, or especially hated. "Impeach him" isn't the normal case.

    Pelosi wasn't all about impeaching Bush because that would be absolutely nuts. There wasn't ever even any claim that Bush had possibly done anything remotely resembling an impeachable offense. (Aside from, perhaps, fringe nutjobs who call anyone who isn't part of their kook a "traitor").

    The Democrats *hate* Trump in a way they didn't hate Bush 43, or Bush 41, or even Reagan. I get it, he's not a likeable guy. But if you're running Congress you have the power and responsiblity to do something more than "I hate that guy". A lot of Democrats are making a lot of noise about impeachment (though none can state any grounds, any "high crime" committed). This isn't 2009, or any other time. I don't think the Democrat leadership will treat Trump like they have any Republican because he's not any Republican, they f*cking hate him. (I'm talking about Democrat House reps here, not ACs who hated Bush while not even knowing the name of his VP).

    > She says she wants to do the same thing now

    Which may cost her the Speakership, either not getting it this time, or lose it a year in. Sleeping with the enemy won't play well with today's Democrats. Moderates would like a Speaker to get things done, but moderates don't elect the Speaker, Democrats do - including self-described socialists and those who wear the SJW label proudly.

    > Trump is kind of a liberal anyway, so he might be willing to go along with it.

    Right. He's certainly not a traditional conservative. Traditional Republican leadership dislikes him too, but mostly stayed quiet after the election as he rubber-stamped their bills without reading them. He's not a conservative or liberal, he's a pragmatist and egoist. He'd be glad to make deals with Pelosi - he LOVES making deals.

    > (This is all my opinion, of course).

    Same. It would be best for the country if you end up being right. I don't think the Democrats have the wisdom or self-control to make that happen.

    1. Re:Trump isn't Bush. Not by a long shot by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      Which may cost her the Speakership, either not getting it this time, or lose it a year in. Sleeping with the enemy won't play well with today's Democrats.

      They'll get along with it. She knows what she's doing. She just doesn't make a big deal of it, and lets the normal fighting go on while she's getting things done in the background.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Trump isn't Bush. Not by a long shot by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Remember in all of American history, only two Presidents have been impeached. It's not something that normally happens. A president has to be a special kind of crooked to get impeached, or especially hated. "Impeach him" isn't the normal case.

      Ironically, Bill Clinton was neither, but got impeached, yet Nixon was both, and resigned before it could happen.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  65. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    You are confused. NN is not about what websites publish. It's about how service providers shape traffic.

    As for Youtube and other sites, it's entirely up to them what they allow. You have freedom of speech, but Youtube is under no obligation whatsoever to hand you a megaphone.

    Arguably, service providers should be content-neutral regardless of if they're an ISP or a server.

    However, the method of how you get NN regulations seriously matters. You want something which is on a practical level enforceable and which will stand up in court if challenged--and that means at the very least that there needs to be actual enabling legislation, even if it's done by passing a literal post-it note with a simple statement empowering the FCC to make regulations requiring net neutrality & enforce them.

    I would, however, prefer actual robust privacy regulations instead. It's going to be easier to enforce those than direct net neutrality regulations.

  66. NAZI PROPAGANDIST RAY MORRIS CAUGHT DEAD! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NAZI FAGGOT RAY MORRIS CAUGHT DEAD PUSHING DEBUNKED WHITE SUPREMACIST PROPAGANDA AFTER CORRECTED - https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12520486&cid=57184660

    the fuck out of here with your nazi propaganda RAY MORRIS

  67. I thought. the internet was no more. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hold it. I was told that we no longer had an internet after the two years of net neutrality. And that 100s of 1000s of people died.

    1. Re:I thought. the internet was no more. by guruevi · · Score: 1

      I thought the Internet was going to die at the hands of Trump. It seems with Obama's "Net Neutrality" gone, the FCC and various states are finally going after TWC/Comcast.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  68. Shame on you Slashdot, yet again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The parent post is yet another in a long history harassing raymorris for posting his political views. As with SuperKendall, a troll has repeatedly been posting harassing and threatening replies to their comments.

    This particular comment I'm replying to contains a very specific violent threat of murder. This is NOT protected free speech. Violent threats are not protected speech and are, in fact, highly illegal. This type of comment has been posted numerous times on Slashdot in reply to the two aforementioned users. It is not in jest and there is no reasonable way to interpret it other than a very specific threat of violence. I don't necessarily support the views and opinions of SuperKendall and raymorris, but they don't deserve to be on the receiving end of harassment and violent threats.

    These comments are spam. They add nothing to the discussiom, but intimidate and drive away users who would otherwise make meaningful contributions. Slashdot is well aware of these threats. I can say I've personally reported many of them, just as I am reporting the parent post.

    These comments need to be stopped. I recognize that whoever is posting these comments is probably difficult to track down, based on that they've clearly taken efforts to evade Slashdot's limits on posting comments anonymously. Whoever is posting these comments belongs in prison, but it's probably difficult for law enforcement to track them down. However, Slashdot is well aware of these comments being posted, and the administration of this site has no excuse. Slashdot probably has some legal culpability for continuing to allow harassment of its users and continuing to host violent threats such as the parent.

    It is completely shameful and utterly embarrassing that the administration of Slashdot allows this to continue.

    Shame on you, Slashdot administrators. You have an obligation to put an end to the harassment and violent threats. Get off your asses and do your damn jobs.

    1. Re:Shame on you Slashdot, yet again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody cares about the two trolls Kendall and Ray, both useless cunts.

  69. oh please. Dems need to focus on balanced budget by WindBourne · · Score: 0

    along with dealing with illegal aliens, poor taxation , lunar exploration, CO2, etc.

    Fucking around with NN is a waste of time and money. Just like we have states, i.e. local gov, bypassing the pot drug laws, it is time for local gov to move towards their own fiber as a utility, while getting ready for spacelink and 1-web.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  70. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    More regulation is a freer market??

    Well, ideally not, but it is more free than a market dominated by few players.

    If you want a free market you have two choices:
    1) The government steps in, takes over and breaks up AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and Charter.
    2) Net neutrality.

    The alternative is a non-free market controlled by a few companies with the same problems you get with a government controlled internet together with the demand for ever increasing profits.

    The free market model only works if you can keep taking your business elsewhere.
    If you run out of alternatives and have to go back to someone you were unhappy with then the free marked doesn't work and the vendors can just collude and offer equally bad and overpriced services.

    So yes. We all love a free market and would like to see it, but the market isn't infinite so if left unregulated all markets end up as monopolies with less demand for efficiency than a government controlled alternative and no incentive to keep the prices low for the consumer.

  71. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by mermeid007 · · Score: 1

    It isn't. If you are talking about someone who pays for a specific service getting access at speed to the content they already paid to access, then yes it is a good thing. If you are saying that content providers have some special right to ISP servers and all should get special access beyond having their content routed to specific customer requests then I would not agree that NN is a good thing.

  72. That's kinda how it's supposed to work by Solandri · · Score: 1

    Dunno if the Democrats will succeed at it, but that's the way it's supposed to work. The legislature passes potential changes in the law for the President to approve. This whole mess began when the Democrat-appointed Chair of the FCC tried to short-circuit the legislative process and unilaterally implemented a new policy. When a new President got elected, his appointed Chair of the FCC unilaterally changed the policy. It's hypocritical to support the former but be upset about the latter. In terms of process, they're the same thing. Either both are wrong, or both are OK.

    The legislature crafts and votes on potential new policies. If both branches pass it, it goes to the President, who can sign it or veto it. Only if a bill passes this convoluted process does it become law and a new policy. The whole point of having to go through that lengthy and difficult process to implement a new policy is that it then requires we have to go through that lengthy and difficult process again to change that policy. You don't get this idiotic flip-flopping where one appointed individual single-handedly implements a new policy, the next appointed individual reverses that policy, the next individual re-implements it again, repeat. It needs to be hard to change policy. If it's too easy, nothing will get done because we'll be wasting our time changing it back and forth all the time.

  73. Re:FECKLESS NAZI FAGGOT HAS PROBLEMS WITH OBAMA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a lying n i g g e r, just like your god hussein obama, you traitorous faggot bitch.

  74. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by rtb61 · · Score: 2

    Simple example for the perennially stupid. Unregulated free market, easiest way to deal with competitors, SHOOT THEM, a regulated market bans this. In more business like terms, say one health insurance company wants to out compete another. It simple offers cheap policies, that it never intends to pay. Basically chew up all premiums in wildly inflated executive salaries and let the company go inevitably bankrupt. In the meantime they have bankrupted honest health insurance companies because they are not selling insurance because they can not compete. So every one dies because no one has health insurance that will pay anything because the corrupt companies can start, again and again and again, bankruptcy after bankruptcy, zero regulation, voilÃ.

    Yes, you have to regulate the fuck out of the free market because psychopathic capitalists do no give one fuck about how many people they kill as long as infinite profits are generated. Capitalism is a business practice designed around failure and not success, no matter how successful, the system is designed so that a new competitor will destroy the existing company, no matter how much worse it is or that it has been designed to extract maximum profits and then fail and push those losses on the rest of the public, whilst the psychopath capitalists run off with the profits (this is not the isolated event but has become the psychopathic insane fucking norm of American capitalism ha ha ha ha ha ha ha).

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  75. Re: Why do you think slavey to the state is freedo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You cant control website content. That lies well outside the authority of the U.S. Congress. NN for ISPs is quite different, but I don't expect a technophobe to grasp the differencd.

  76. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by meglon · · Score: 1, Insightful
    Hitler was a right wing fascist. Stupid fucks like you keep being told that by pretty much everyone in the world other than your worthless right wing partisans. This is why people point at you and say you're a worthless cunt... you're either too stupid to learn, or just a pathological liar.

    They didn't lose the rules... some power hungry cuck that was paid off by corporations abdicated his responsibility to maintain a level playing field so that the citizens of this country don't get fucked by fascist shit stains like you. I am really sorry you're so fucking stupid. It's really a pity you're nothing more than a partisan waste of flesh.

    https://www.snopes.com/news/20...

    Given that Nazism is traditionally held to be an extreme right-wing ideology, the party’s conspicuous use of the term “socialist” — which refers to a political system normally plotted on the far-left end of the ideological spectrum — has long been a source of confusion, not to mention heated debate among partisans seeking to distance themselves from the genocidal taint of Nazi Germany.

    That epitomizes stupid cunts like you: distancing yourself from your ideology in the eyes of others, all the while being worthless shit stains. No honor, no integrity,party before country.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  77. Re: 1% have heard of it, 0% can define it. 40% hat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Simple. My website pays for 300TB/mo.
    Consumer pays for 50 Mbps internet. ISP should service this at 50Mbps as long as my website is paying for that bandwidth.

    As a technical dude with some legal experience, I could easily write up a document on how to implement the technical details here. I doubt it'd be hard to find someone to handle this minor detail.

  78. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, the major push for censorship happened when the notion of "safe harbor if compliant" was brought forward with DMCA.

    Rather than giving blanket immunity for what subscribers did with a service, and holding the individual subscribers directly accountable, and not the service provider, which was the prior legal practice.

    But that was "too hard!!", and service providers had more money, and more direct control that could be enforced, and here we are.

    Terms of service documents changed all over as the threat of legal responsibility for the vitriol produced by subscribers became a real and present danger for service providers.

    But by all means, continue with this nonsense about NN being responsible. All NN really did was say "No, you cannot suddenly abandon the open-ended agreements the internet started with just because now you can get much more profit by double dipping with charges, and with offering graded or exclusive service levels." That was all.

  79. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "More regulation is a freer market??" = True, in the age of increasing corporate power. Any idiot can see that except Kendall apparently, king of idiots.

  80. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by xlsior · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Net neutrality is actually a basic manifestation of ... a free market

    More regulation is a freer market??

    You can almost count the companies for who it is 'more regulation' on one hand: Charter, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

    But it ensures a free market and level playing field for the hundreds of thousands of companies that are actually providing services on the internet. Without net neutrality, you only reward the current big dogs, while the next Netflix, Youtube, Facebook or Amazon may never stand a chance to even be visible to the public at large.

  81. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    Regulation is a necessary part of a free market. Without it then you have thugs, whoever is the biggest pushes everyone else around, which is not freedom.

  82. Re: Why do you think slavey to the state is freedo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dmca and NN have nothing to do with each other.

    Please explain, because it sounds like you're conflating the to just because they were enacted roughly the same time

  83. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by BlueStrat · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hitler was a right wing fascist.

    Sorry, no. Fascism is on the Left along with Socialism and Communism. Hitler used National Socialism as a means to power and then went relatively straight into a military dictatorship

    When Mussolini turned Italy Fascist, Lenin congratulated him as a fellow leader of a Marxism-based nation. Communism, Fascism, and Socialism are all Collectivist-based, central-command-and-control societies where the desires and agendas of "The State"/"The People" (as defined by a few powerful people or person in charge) are paramount over the needs, wants, dreams, and desires of the individual. Everything and everyone exists within the State, nothing exists outside the State.

    The only difference between Socialism and Fascism is that where Socialist governments directly control the means of production, Fascists leave figureheads ostensibly "running" things like factories and rail companies so they have scapegoats to throw to the wolves when their central-command-and-control agendas for the economy and society causes collapses, increasing tyranny, and violence as they always do and always have done.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  84. Do Democrats In Congress WANT TO? by sproketboy · · Score: 1

    NO.

  85. Re: Why do you think slavey to the state is freedo by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Informative

    NN has nothing to do with censorship in the manner that Parent states. That was the point.

    NN is about not prioritizing content, and or, not making content exclusive access.

    The DMCA on the other hand, introduced the concept of "Site operator is responsible for content, even when they did not create it."

    That did not exist prior to the DMCA. It was this introduction that started the chilling effect, not NN.

  86. Easily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They just have to use, or authorize-the-use-of, force.
    Criminal enterprises don't stop themselves. They don't stop committing abuses of the law themselves, they don't stop going after the innocent themselves, and they sure as fuck don't put themselves in jail for everything they do. There's money to be made after all.

    But dead lobbyists are ineffective lobbyists.

  87. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    Yet we didn't see so much censorship on the internet til AFTER NN was pushed though by the left.

    How do you call it when a facepalm punches right through your head?

    Notice how sites like youtube started doing most their censoring of people's views while NN has been in place?

    Youtube is not a censor, it's a private organization.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  88. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    More regulation is a freer market??

    Yep, that's how it works for natural monopolies.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  89. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sorry, no. Fascism is on the Left along with Socialism and Communism.

    First paragraph, bitch.

  90. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    From Merriam-Webster

    "Definition of fascism
    1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition"

    Sound like anybody we know?

  91. We are smarter than this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why, just why would you put any control of the internet in the hands of government. They will fuck it up as always. You will give away your choice via the free market to a bunch of lying morons. Do you want do destroy the internet, because this is how you destroy the internet.

  92. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NN has a cool name, but it's price control and censorship. Net neutrality wasn't passed by law. It was decreed by Obama.

    Net neutrality is actually a basic manifestation of something you right wing-nuts like to harp on about: a free market

    And "war is peace" and "freedom is slavery"?

    Jesus H. Mother Fucking Christ, what color is the sky on a planet where thousands and thousands of pages of government regulations are "free market"?

  93. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Oh, you poor idiot. The post didn't mention Obama, didn't blame any party, but just laid out the facts.

    What idiots voted up your incoherent rant? You aren't familiar with the US or US laws, and even when I linked to detailed arguments by a pro-Net Neutrality you couldn't be bothered to read them or address their points.

    Try learning a little something about US laws, and what the FCC tried to do. Try the EFF - it's a great source. Of course, it requires reading, learning, and understanding, which you may be short on in your corner of the world. But good luck! Maybe next time you won't embarrass yourself with an ignorant rant about something you don't understand.

  94. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nazis are considered "right-wing" because Europe (with the help of the Soviets) declared nationalism in any variety to be the ultimate definer of "right-wing".
    It's because of this that you get the absurdities of Le Pen in France being a straight up communist, and yet being labels "far right" because she opposes the internationalists. It doesn't matter that all of her economic and social policies were far to the left of Macron; all that mattered what that she didn't like the EU.

    The Nazis were socialists. They implemented socialist economic polices - strict capital control, high minimum wage, hiring and firing controls, strong (government approved) unions, government control of banks, government controls of business. This makes them socialists, no matter what you don't like about them.

  95. Democrats alone? by bobbied · · Score: 1

    No.

    They could possibly introduce a bill that has this in it, but unless they throw in enough Republican sweeteners to get it though the senate and past the Whtehouse, the Democrats cannot DO anything.

    In reality the past election didn't change much at all. It moved the power of the Democrats to say "NO" a bit towards the House and allowed them to actually get bills onto the Senate, but they cannot force the Senate to debate them or the president to sign them any more than before.

    So the balance of power may have moved ever so slightly in that Republicans now cannot get legislation though the house by themselves anymore, but the reality of the situation doesn't change either party's current position beyond a slight shift in news coverage and in the fact the the Democrats can send all the bills they like to the Senate and watch them die.

    So no, the Democrats cannot do this on their own come January. All they can possibly do is make a bit of a larger stink about it, pass a House bill to "fix" it, and watch it die waiting to come up for debate in the Senate.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Democrats alone? by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      They now have the power to prevent Trump from permanently ruining America before he leaves office in 2020. Anything he does by decree can be undone by decree by president Bernie Sanders in 2021.

    2. Re:Democrats alone? by bobbied · · Score: 1

      They now have the power to prevent Trump from permanently ruining America before he leaves office in 2020. Anything he does by decree can be undone by decree by president Bernie Sanders in 2021.

      LOL.. You DO realize that Democrats had the ability to say "NO" to just about anything short of a budget right? Anything that required cloture in the Senate they could simply stop any time they wanted. Having the house doesn't give them any more say about what bills pass in the Senate and the Republicans didn't win enough Senate seats to make a difference either. ALMOST nothing changed in the balance of power...

      About the only real thing that changed is Democrats can now impeach if they want and put all sorts of bills into the Senate's inbox for the Republican leadership to ignore (Just like the democrats did for the last term of Obama.) Impeachment would be a huge political mistake (see the historical records of the Clinton impeachment for why), so enjoy stuffing the Senate's inbox with SPAM and getting blamed for nothing happening by your voters. "Do Nothing Congress" strikes again and "throw the bums out" will ensue, only Republicans will continue to pack the courts and Trump will likely get another Supreme pick or two out of the deal... Plus, 2020 will be a presidential election year and we've seen Trump has coattails... Congress may shift right again, especially if somebody tries the impeachment gambit and fails..

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  96. Takes 3 to tango? by stevew · · Score: 1

    Seems to me this whole stream is academic.

    In the US system of government - the House, Senate, and President need to agree on a Bill to make it law (Me thinks someone needs to watch School House Rock again..).

    With that being said - only the House is in the hands of the Democrat party - the Senate and Presidency are in the hands of the Republican party. Can you say grid-lock boys and girls?

    QED - Can't/Ain't gonna happen.

    --
    Have you compiled your kernel today??
  97. Answer is No by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Public agenda is set by the president, and democrats are a minority in this administration.

    Sure, they can try and advance something in the House, but it goes nowhere without the President and the Senate onboard.

  98. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Freischutz · · Score: 1

    Oh, you poor idiot. The post didn't mention Obama, didn't blame any party, but just laid out the facts.

    What idiots voted up your incoherent rant? You aren't familiar with the US or US laws, and even when I linked to detailed arguments by a pro-Net Neutrality you couldn't be bothered to read them or address their points.

    Try learning a little something about US laws, and what the FCC tried to do. Try the EFF - it's a great source. Of course, it requires reading, learning, and understanding, which you may be short on in your corner of the world. But good luck! Maybe next time you won't embarrass yourself with an ignorant rant about something you don't understand.

    Oh, you poor idiot, the OP (which I quoted and you did not read) mentioned Obama, Also, NN has shit-all to do with censorship, it is all about ensuring an euqal playing field when it comes to bandwidth access. And I know all about the US telco marker and what a corrupt and screwed up unholy mess of monopolies it is. None of that changes NN into some kind of censorship mechanism that is ‘Bwaaaaah!!! UNFAIR!!’ to right-wing blow hards.

  99. Outstanding and MOD PARENT UP! by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

    This is excellent, and it's just a shame no one bothers to teach Civics in any sensible way any more. And very sad and very necessary for our little echo chamber to hear and understand. Much of what has been said here about NN is the product of the bizarro world.

          Everyone should *want* rules/regulation/laws *voted on by elected officials* who can subsequently be made *accountable* for the results. Not by fiat of a President, appointed functionaries, etc. It is *supposed to be* very hard to pass laws and *supposed to ensure* that only laws with widespread general agreement get passed and that *individual elected officials* have to go on record with their votes.

    The intention of the constitutional arrangement was to preclude the development of a semi-permanent unelected "civil servant" class as in European countries who become the true power in the system, with the representatives acting as temporary figureheads, and no one is accountable for their actions. When Trump, for all his faults, talks about "The Swamp", that's what he means.

          The system operated at least somewhat according to the design until 1933, when a radical exploited a panic to implement the concepts of the Three Letter Agency, created ostensibly to develop regulations that are "too complex" for the Congress to work out themselves. The far more relevant side effect is that it also isolated elected officials from accountability for their actions. They voted to create the various agencies and gave them the power to make "regulations", which are de facto law. Of course you have to man these agencies somehow, and Congress couldn't possibly vet every employee, so once they start, they are both essentially immune to politics or the will of the voters, and no one can ever really pin down which elected official to tag for something they don't like. Of course, the same employees work there for years, they write the job requirements in such a way that only career bureaucrats can ever qualify for the leadership positions, so it becomes a self-sustaining "civil service" class. Of course, no one can ever *get rid* of one of these agencies, if you do, then Congress would be held responsible, which is very dangerous for the elected officials. So it only gets larger and larger and more and more dominant and monolithic.

        Most slashdotters were perfectly happy when unelected officials instituted net neutrality in a unilateral manner with no popular support or any accountability, because you got what you wanted and didn't care about the fact that it was done by decree. Now many of the same people are upset that it was also undone by decree, and suddenly you want to follow the constitutional process - which is very likely never going to happen because *no one cares about it but you*, and therefore *should not be done under any circumstances* because it has *no popular support* on either side of the fence.

        You want net neutrality - convince a lot of people that its important, and that your solution is best. If enough people care, then you will get your law - otherwise, if you haven't defined the problem in a way that people care about or if you haven't convinced anyone that Net Neutrality is a good solution, then *there should certainly not be a law about it*.

  100. Does it even matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The tech companies themselves are the most totalitarian and corrupt of all the corporations at this point. Wall Street looks like a play-date (and an aside: that millennials think they are 'fighting' Wall Street but have their toungues stuck up Silicon Valley's ***hole - wow, you guys are idiots) by comparison. I'd rather see them regulate - the genie is out if the bottle, and it's actually the Valley's greed and arrogance that are to blame. I will vote for anyone that supports regulation, regardless of their political affiliation (another lesson for snowflake babies: life is not politics and vice versa).

  101. No. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    Yes, the Dems have the House, but they lost seats in the Senate, and a bunch of moderate Republicans dropped out of the Senate as well. Any attempt to reimpose net neutrality by legislation will never make it through the Senate.

  102. Simple Answer by techdolphin · · Score: 1

    No, not while Republicans control either the House, Senate, or White House. If Democrats controlled the House and Senate, they might be able to pass a bill--if they got 60 votes in the Senate to override a filibuster--but it would still be hard to override a presidential veto by a Republican president.

  103. Do they have the balls to... by hwstar · · Score: 1

    Consider no other legislation until a Net Neutrality bill is signed into law.

    Now, this may cause other problems because the legislature will be shirking their constitutional duties, and the other side will do the same with some other piece of legislation, like that "Border Wall", But "putting your foot down" to advance critical issues is something the corrupt US congress needs to start doing.

    1. Re:Do they have the balls to... by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      The Democrats are controlled by corrupt right wing politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. There is zero chance the Democrats will stand for anything before 2020, and given their inaction when Obama had control we can assume they will do nothing after.

    2. Re:Do they have the balls to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      do you, by any chance, believe the earth to be flat?

      just asking for a friend.

      caption 'corkers'

  104. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by SensitiveMale · · Score: 1

    Hitler was a right wing fascist. Stupid fucks like you keep being told that by pretty much everyone in the world other than your worthless right wing partisans.

    Hitler was a leftie. He was a socialist.

  105. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by SensitiveMale · · Score: 1

    Free market was the DECADES of explosive growth the Internet had. All of a sudden, Obama DECREES changes.

    Now, if you ask me if I was the explosive growth of the Internet or I want the censorship & price control of Obama's policies that NO ONE voted on, I'll choose the former.

  106. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by SensitiveMale · · Score: 1

    You are confused. NN is not about what websites publish. It's about how service providers shape traffic.

    That's what they want you to think. That's what it sounds like. Do some more research.

  107. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You think thought-crime-pimping Trotsky-slut warmist progs will protect net neutrality ? For which protected group? Only for other gaffot, nibberizing SJW antifa blo-jobbing hoes.

  108. You know you could just vote for people by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    who won't do that. There's plenty of honest, left wing candidates that ran in the primary and lost to bought and paid Clinton Democrats. Then show up in the general and vote them in and problem solved.

    It isn't even hard to know who's bought off. There's a website called Open Secrets that tracks it. It doesn't list all the dark money shenanigans, but it's not like these folks are trying to hide.

    Nancy Pelosi had a left wing primary challenger that didn't take a dime from corporate PACs. For all everybody's bitching she's still speaker of the house. Show up at your primary and vote, dammit.

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  109. What censorship? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    Gab is back up. Alex Jones has a website still. Secular Talk is still on Youtube even after the adpocalypse.

    I think by "censorship" you mean, "Companies excising their freedom of association". That's part of it too, you know. If you don't like it, you can exercise freedom of association too. Stop doing business with the companies that deplatform folks you like. Directly support them.

    And that said, NN has _nothing_ to do with the last round of deplatforming and you know it. Even ignoring the fact that NN wasn't "pushed" by the left but was in fact a reaction to the ISPs abusing their power as carriers you've just said that NN equals censorship. I don't. I can't even. I mean. Wow, talk about missing the point. NN is the polar opposite of censorship.

    What you're really doing is a dishonest debate tactic where you take something unpopular with your audience (deplatforming) and conflate it with something popular with said audience (NN) to score points against the latter. It's a nasty trick, and you should be ashamed of yourself for using it.

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  110. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    That's what it IS. Quit spreading disinformation. Net neutrality rules covered ISPs, period. Websites were completely and totally out of scope for those laws. Do at least a tiny bit of research.

    --

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  111. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    UTUBE is a Trotsky-slut sponsored thought-crime censoring hoe of the last degree. Want to know how Semites with power act? Watch GOOGLE! Traitorous Quisling gestapo. Too bad how the brake lines on their buses fail so often ...

  112. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    Hitler was a nationalist populist. Some Nazi positions were left, some were right. But attempting to describe it fully in terms of modern parties is impossible, because no modern party would ever declare that immigrants and members of a particular religion are the cause of all of our country's problems, and that we have to cage them and deport them at all costs, and wall ourselves off from... no, wait....

    --

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  113. Re: I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    I would absolutely be on board with suing an ISP that doesn't deliver what they advertise.

    I would be absolutely on board with overturning the Federal Arbitration Act so that customers can do so.

    The internet flourished without the level of oversight that NN proponents are pushing for.

    I wouldn't say that it flourished. The United States has consistently been behind the rest of the world, speed-wise, for nearly the entire history of the Internet, largely because unlike the rest of the world, we used government funds to put our network in the hands of private corporations instead of letting the government continue to build out and manage the physical infrastructure. The only thing that brought us even slightly closer to catching up with the rest of the world was when the FCC mandated that incumbent phone companies allow other companies to lease their lines to provide Internet service.

    This issue is so simple. Break up NBC Universal Comcast and ATT DirecTV HBO and whatever other mutant conglomerates we've allowed to exist.

    That's a good start, but as long as ISPs exist as a natural monopoly, consumers will still need protection from ISPs that decide to make deals that aren't in consumers' best interests. Even if we broke up those conglomerates, short of it becoming legal to sue your ISP, we would still need some form of net neutrality laws, IMO.

    --

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  114. Barbie says NO #metoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Barbie: No means NO. #metoo

  115. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    More regulation is a freer market??

    Yes, because you people don't understand the term free market, so we've just stopped differentiating. You see every time you use the word "Free Market" what you actually mean is a "Perfect Market". A Perfect Market is a free market in it's most unstable form with ideal competition to solve problems.

    The reality for a free market is there is only one stable condition: Pure monopoly, and the consumers and workers getting fucked over.

    So since al'ya'all've been using the term wrong all these years why can't we too?

  116. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    You've got a causality problem. And your timeline is off since you happily seem to be ignoring "censorship" prior to the NN discussions. Mind you since you're talking about "censorship" I honestly wonder if you have any idea what net neutrality is or why it is being discussed at all.

  117. Well by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

    Some rule of headlines says no anyway. But the reason is that the Dems and Reps will want to nurture it as a wedge issue rather than fix it.

    --
    Nullius in verba
  118. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by currently_awake · · Score: 2

    Ford attempted to prevent anyone but a Ford dealership from repairing the cars they sell. This was blocked by laws (actually the courts making rules...). The railroads blocked their competition, fixed by laws. It is impossible to have a free marketplace without rules.

  119. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by currently_awake · · Score: 1

    The ideal method of enforcing NN in America is for the government to own the network, and to have laws passed by Congress to define how they must run it. If a private company owns the network then the police/NSA/FBI/CIA will pay them to spy on you, just like they do now.

  120. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by currently_awake · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are 2 axis on the graph of political systems: left to right is Collective ownership / private ownership, the up/down direction is how much control the government has over people (Totalitarianism). Fascism is the merger of corporations with government (top right on graph), essentially the Republicans in a world where nobody tells Trump NO. As for economic ruin, are you suggesting Trump is a Socialist? He's certainly destroying the economy (think Argentina).

  121. Not Democrats, _Clinton_ Democrats. by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    E.g. the kind of economically right wing Dems that road Bill Clinton's coattails into office in the 90s.

    Meanwhile Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren, Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the actual left are busy pushing legislation like Medicare for All, tuition free college, ending wars and yes, restoring net Neutrality.

    Register Democrat, show up at your primary in 2020, and vote the Clinton Dems out and you can have the government you deserve. Stay home or worse, vote in more of the Clinton Dems or the GOP (same difference really) and, well, you'll get exactly what we've always had.

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    1. Re:Not Democrats, _Clinton_ Democrats. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Warren? She hasn't changed a bit since she was a staunch Republican all the way through the Reagan/Bush years. She's not left - she only looks left because Democrats have moved so far to the right, which has forced the GOP to move into the insane asylum.

  122. Dems have more important things first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    What happens to the Internet can wait for now. They have more important things to deal with, like stopping the damage being done to just about everything in our government, and to start reversing/repairing the damage already done. Things got horribly out-of-balance and restoring that balance, so that all voices are heard, not just so-called 'conservative' voices, is much more important right now than anything about the Internet.

  123. Considering NN is a 2015 thing by zkiwi34 · · Score: 1

    Why is it such a big deal? The apocalypse didn't happen prior to then. I'm also pretty sure that the major tech players ignored it whenever they want to.

    So, what does it promise to do, and will any of the major tech players care?

  124. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you were replying to a different post, why did you quote (and refer to) that one? Are you too stupid to click on the correct "reply" button?

    And, no, Net Neutrality has nothing to do with censorship. However, FCC Title II classification DOES have to do with censorship. If you had a fucking clue of how the FCC works - or had even bothered to read the EFF analyses - you would understand all the problems that came with trying to shoehorn an internet Net Neutrality law into a phone and cable regulation scheme! The information is all there, right in front of you.

    But you, armchair ignorant fuckup that you are, think you know "all about the US telco marker (sic). Yes. Right. You can't even be bothered to read some of the most basic rules about how systems are classified, and you think you know better than an organization of expert lawyers? Take you head out of your ass, read the EFF reports, and then try again, you shitbrained ignorant Russian troll.

  125. Re:oh please. Dems need to focus on balanced budge by currently_awake · · Score: 1

    Historically, the only action (most) States have managed is to ban community broadband. If you think weaker government means more power to the people history disagrees with you.

  126. Re:oh please. Dems need to focus on balanced budge by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Cities are putting up fiber-as-utility all over right now. Just here in Colorado, we have some 6+ cities running their own fiber, they have 1+G connections to the homes (and more to businesses) for less than $100 (several are around $50 for that 1G up/down).
    Centennial CO Fiber
    Longmont CO fiber Ft. Collins, CO Fiber Oops. Turns out that we have over 100 towns/cities adding/already added GB fiber-as-utility on their own.

    How is all this disagreeing with me?

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  127. Re: Why do you think slavey to the state is freedo by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    All of the telcos need broken up in any case. They are arms of a fascist order, evidenced by thier willingness to partner with government to curtail basic human rights.

    Consolidated power seeks the power of government to preserve thier advantage while politicians seek the approval of the consolidated power to further themselves.

    Every president does the same things to curry favor with the consolidated powers. That is why nothing changes. No one is enforcing anti merger laws nevermind antitrust.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  128. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    The ideal method of enforcing NN in America is for the government to own the network, and to have laws passed by Congress to define how they must run it. If a private company owns the network then the police/NSA/FBI/CIA will pay them to spy on you, just like they do now.

    No, that won't actually work. Either you can trust the government or you cannot. If we could trust the government to own the network, then that bowl of tinfoil hat alphabet soup would not be paying private companies to spy on you. If they are/would be doing that? Then all the government owning the network can do is make it cheaper for the police/NSA/FBI/CIA to spy on you, because they'll own the network...and they can probably make it vastly easier for them to do so and harder to catch them at it because they own the network.

    Personally, I think it's more likely that private companies do not care in the least who they sell the data to as long as they make a profit as, it should be noted, the courts have required they do--ban packet sniffers, even by simply having them a huge gaping liability for the ISP, and a lot of the problem should go away and the enforcement issue is made vastly easier because it's easier to show they have awareness of what's going through their tubes than that they know & are knowingly and deliberately manipulating it in illegal manners. (I favor the 'make huge liability' option mostly because it means that we might never need to spend a single taxpayer cent on enforcement that way. We can just kick back, munch popcorn, and watch the MAFIAA to do it for us...which might even keep down on the harm they do, too. If you really want, set it up so ISPs can get hit coming and going with liability, by having their customers also able to sue them with the invasion of privacy being treated as in and of itself harmful.)

  129. Re: Why do you think slavey to the state is freedo by datavirtue · · Score: 2

    Fascism doesn't give two shits what you call the political spectrum it controls.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  130. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You'd almost a good argument, except that you are doing the usual shithead liar's technique of combining legal immigrants with illegal immigrants.

    No one except the stupid and the dishonest do that. Which are you?

  131. See how hard it is for you guys? by raymorris · · Score: 1

    I stated that while Democrats *could* do some useful and good things, they won't because they are too consumed with hating Trump. That's all they can talk about or focus on. They can't focus on anything positive because they can't get their minds on anything but hating Trump.

    Your response was a bunch of "I hate Trump". Even when the criticism is "y'all can't say anything other than hating Trump", STILL the only thing that can come out of your mouth is "I hate Trump". Even when that's obviously the absolute worst possible thing to say, because it would prove the point that it's all you can talk about, STILL you can't keep yourself from doing it.

    1. Re:See how hard it is for you guys? by mea2214 · · Score: 1

      You sound like a parrot. This corruption scandal is far bigger than Trump and will ensnare many Senate Republicans who allowed this wound to fester. I implied whatever the House does won't matter. They can't get anything by a Republican Senate anyway so why not give us some bread and circuses? Federal and State court proceedings are so boring.

  132. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by meglon · · Score: 0

    Sorry, no. Fascism is on the Left along with Socialism and Communism.

    Sorry, no. You're an uneducated idiot. The only people who think fascism is on the left and the same as socialism, are the worthless fucking neo-nazi fascists in the US who have been brainwashed their entire lives.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  133. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by meglon · · Score: 0

    You too are a fucking idiot. Again, only stupid fucking neo-nazi's in the US suggest Hitler was a socialist. Actually, neo-nazi groups in the US know he was a fascist.... what i'd love to see is you go tell some of those guys they're actually leftwing socialists and lets see how well the trauma team can put your skull back together afterwards.

    https://www.indy100.com/articl...

    So to sum it up... you're uneducated, and a fucking idiot.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  134. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by meglon · · Score: 1

    dgatwood was spot on. You on the other hand are a fucking idiot.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  135. No, the billionaires did not pay enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Democrats only captured the House. The rich Democrats who run Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Netflix will not get their government-guaranteed low-cost data transport because they did not spend enough on the elections. For example, Ted Cruz survived even though Beat O outspent him 3-to-1 (I thought Democrats hated money in politics....hmmm)

    Obama did "Net Neutrality" as an executive branch thing, not as an actual law, which made it easy to kill. If you want an actual law, it mus pass in the exact same form through both the House and Senate and the President must then sign it. Trump's a rather non-ideological guy who might well have signed such a thing as part of some deal, but Democrats have spent the past 2 years shooting themselves in the foot in this regard (they not only have done everything possible to make the relationship with Trump toxic, but they have also convinced their base voters that Trump is Hitler and so they'd be in a position of dealing with Hitler). Senate Republicans are more aligned with the telcos, the opponents of the Democrat-aligned AmazonAppleFacebookGoogleNetflix complex.

    The Republicans are certainly never going to help Google and Facebook get cheap data transport under the pretense of an uncensored internet at the same time that these companies are gagging Republicans on the internet. These companies will be lucky if the GOP idiots in DC continue to be so feckless that they still do not launch any serious investigations of their own - if rich Democrats got the same political rectal exam that has been running against Trump and anybody associated with him for 2+ years there'd be screaming so loud it could be heard on Mars.

  136. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Free market was the DECADES of explosive growth the Internet had.

    Under common carrier rules that made NN unnecessary. Rules put in place by the same agency that put forth NN.

    or I want the censorship & price control of Obama's policies

    Achievement Unlocked: Maximum Derp

  137. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Kalecomm · · Score: 1

    Exactly! Net Neutrality is nonsense! If those rules are again re-imposed, than certain bundles like your cell phone provider giving you free Hulu or free Netflix disappears overnight.

    The fear here is that the small blog will get speed throttled and won't be able to compete with larger entities like the N.Y. Times. That, again, is bunk! The Free Market (i.e. all "netizens") would revolt if that happened! The same with your ISP throttling your speed. The outcry would be so great that the ISP would have to un-throttle their service. Again, this is why we don't need Net Neutrality: The Free Market is *MUCH* better at policing ISPs, and the 'net in general than the Federal Government could ever be!

    I look at Net Neutrality as I do with most regulations: Control! And the Democrats (read: Commucrats!) LOVE to control everything!

  138. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    You'd almost a good argument, except that you are doing the usual shithead liar's technique of combining legal immigrants with illegal immigrants.

    The original proposal for Trump's Muslim travel ban was largely about legal immigration (refugee status in particular).

    And arguably, the only reason we have illegal immigration from our southern border in the first place is that our government has this bizarre notion that if we pretend Mexico isn't a failed state, it somehow isn't one. If you use the word "economic refugees" instead of "illegal immigrants", you get something more closely resembling reality.

    Trump's wall is basically a repeat of post-WWII Germany, and just like then, the principal effect will be a bunch of desperate people getting shot in the demilitarized zone while trying to escape a failing state that deteriorates ever further. Sad.

    --

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  139. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by dgatwood · · Score: 2

    Under common carrier rules that made NN unnecessary. Rules put in place by the same agency that put forth NN.

    ISPs were never common carriers. That said, the GP was also wrong:

    Free market was the DECADES of explosive growth the Internet had.

    Explosive growth on the Internet was largely in spite of U.S. ISPs, not because of it. ISPs have never acted even slightly like a free market. They're a natural monopoly, because the high cost of infrastructure strongly favors any incumbent provider over any new provider so much that it is almost impossible for a second ISP to begin serving an area except in commercial centers of large cities.

    And because adding bandwidth costs money, U.S. ISPs have always done just about everything in their power to keep speeds low and prices high, while the rest of the world improved much faster. It was only the explosive popularity of services like YouTube, Netflix, etc. that forced the ISPs to improve, and they have only done so to the minimum extent necessary to keep customers from challenging their license to continue using public rights-of-way.

    The main reason net neutrality laws only started becoming necessary recently is that historically, most ISPs were telephone companies, whereas now, the overwhelming majority of broadband is provided by cable companies that also provide their own competing video-on-demand services and phone services. This gives those ISPs a strong incentive to shape bandwidth in ways that make their VoD services perform better than competing services. And some large ISPs began doing precisely that.

    That's the most important thing to understand: Net neutrality regulations were a response to actual bad behavior. Many of those same companies now claim that they support net neutrality. This seems unlikely. Rather, it is far more likely that they're just sorry they got caught, and they'll be more careful in the future.

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  140. Re:1% have heard of it, 0% can define it. 40% hate by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    Remember the basic premise of NN, according to most advocates, is "carriers can't require payment before carrying a site's traffic".

    Nice straw man. That's not a premise of NN at all. It's a natural side effect of NN, and only applies when that carrier is not that site's ISP.

    Net Neutrality can be stated very simply: "An ISP shall carry all traffic in a manner that does not discriminate based on its source or destination." An ideal Net Neutrality law would also add "and shall not throttle traffic below the advertised speed except to the minimum extent required for quality-of-service and other similar network management," but that is somewhat less critical.

    That's it. Everything else folks talk about as being part of Net Neutrality, is a natural side effect of that one simple rule. For example, Comcast would not be allowed to charge Netflix a fee in exchange for not throttling Netflix traffic to Comcast customers, because Comcast provides similar types of video-on-demand service, and if it throttled Netflix without throttling its own video-on-demand service, that would be discriminating against some video-on-demand traffic based on its source/destination. (It isn't that it would not be allowed to charge the fee so much as that even threatening to throttle the traffic in the first place would be per se illegal.)

    --

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  141. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The brainwashed and ignorant accusing others of being brainwashed and ignorant.

    Yup, I must be on Slashdot!

  142. Re:I certainly hope not. Net Neutrality isn't. by Uberbah · · Score: 0

    ISPs were never common carriers.

    Other than most of the history of the Internet, then sure. When ISP's ran over dialup, ISDN or DSL, they ran over telephone infrastructure that was already regulated under common carrier rules. It's only since 2011 that courts have (asininely) ruled that cable ISP's are an information service and thus not subject to common carrier rules. A concept that predates the internet and was even applied to shipping physical goods.

    That's the most important thing to understand: Net neutrality regulations were a response to actual bad behavior.

    Definitely true. Someone (Alternet?) put together a nice list of shenanigans that ISP's engaged in while common carrier policies or the FCC's network neutrality were in effect, like Comcast throttling bittorent, for those who thought this was a bunch of FUD and greedy corporations wouldn't interfere in the market for their own gain.

  143. Re:Why do you think slavey to the state is freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Here's one to really trigger you.

    The Democratic Party planks and the German National Socialist Party planks are, adjusting for language and historical context, nearly identical. Not only that, but the first laws enacted against the Jews in 1930s/40s Germany were copied from the Democrat "Jim Crow" laws with the ethnicities changed.

    BTW, OP is correct, fascism is simply a modified form of socialism that leaves some means of production technically in private hands but heavily monitored and controlled by the government as opposed to being owned outright by government like socialism, otherwise they are for all intents and purposes nearly identical.

  144. Hell No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hell no, but they sure as well will take our 2nd amendment rights away.

  145. It would be awesome if it were that simple by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it be cool if it were as simple as:

      "An ISP shall carry all traffic in a manner that does not discriminate based on its source or destination."

    There wasn't actually a network neutrality bill that said pretty much that. No blocking the world's biggest spammers, you have to accept their mail. It's illegal to do anything about a DOS attack against you, you have to accept all the traffi from the Russian botnet.

    Unfortunately it way, way more complicated than that.
    Whenever I point out the obvious consequences of the "simple NN laws" that people with no understanding of carrier networking propose, very often the reply is something like:
    "Well now you're just being silly - that's now what I meant. You know what I mean." Unfortunately "you know what I mean" doesn't quite work as a law. It DOES sound silly when I point out the effects of such simplistic rules, because the simplistic rules ARE silly.

    I'm totally with you on the *spirit* of what you want with NN. We're in agreement on that. Where we defer is I happen to have enough experience and knowledge regarding large networks to look at the text of a proposed law and have pretty good idea of how it would need to be implemented in router configuration, and what the effects would be.

    1. Re:It would be awesome if it were that simple by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      There wasn't actually a network neutrality bill that said pretty much that. No blocking the world's biggest spammers, you have to accept their mail. It's illegal to do anything about a DOS attack against you, you have to accept all the traffi from the Russian botnet.

      Nope. Denial-of-service traffic can be blocked. DOSes just can't be blocked from one source without at least making a best effort to block DOSes from all sources (which I would hope that any competent ISP would do).

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  146. Horrible typo: "wasn't" should be "was" by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Ugh, I typed "wasn't a bill" when I meant "was a bill".

    That draft died pretty quick when it was pointed out that, among other things, it would take down the Congressional email system. 90% of the email traffic is spam and if it were all allowed through, most email servers would crash under the load.

    1. Re:Horrible typo: "wasn't" should be "was" by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      An email system is not an ISP. Fail.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  147. Where do you think the mail server gets traffic? by raymorris · · Score: 1

    How exactly do you think traffic gets to the mail server?

    The reality is, if we didn't block traffic from bad guys, you wouldn't be able to use this site right now. That's because the bad guys try to send a LOT of traffic. In the case of email, the bad guys try to send roughly twenty times as much as all the good guys put together.

    So you have to have "it's okay to block traffic from bad guys".
    Which does lewve open the theoretical possibility that Comcast could definitely that Netflix is a bad guy.

  148. They might succeed if... by JonSchneider · · Score: 0

    ...they bury it in legislation that funds a border wall and puts stricter teeth for enforcing restrictions on welfare spending by states.

  149. Re:Where do you think the mail server gets traffic by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    How exactly do you think traffic gets to the mail server?

    How exactly do you think that anything other than the mail server can reasonably judge whether an email message is spam or not? Nobody, and I mean nobody filters spam at the network level, other than possibly DOS blocking, and DOS blocking, as I mentioned elsewhere, can be done in ways that do not discriminate based on source. Just treat all abusive behavior equally regardless of which source is doing the abuse.

    Which does lewve open the theoretical possibility that Comcast could definitely that Netflix is a bad guy.

    No, it doesn't. Netflix cannot realistically ever be considered a DOS attack, because all traffic from Netflix is in response to a request by someone on Comcast's network. It's a pull model, not a push model.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  150. Since when is fascism on the left?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or are you making it up as you go along, in order to maintain your status as a good finger-pointing conservative?

  151. Re:Where do you think the mail server gets traffic by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > Nobody, and I mean nobody filters spam at the network level

    ROTFL. In actual fact, any network that doesn't drop connections from certain types of spam outfits, instead transiting it to their peers, will find that their peers drop THEM.

    It's fine, not everybody *needs* to know the difference between a packet, a frame, and a flow. If it's not your job to know carrier networking, someone don't look silly for not knowing how this stuff works. One only looks silly when they *pretend* to know, while obviously not having a clue.

  152. Re:oh please. Dems need to focus on balanced budge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How is wasting taxpayer money in any way getting ready for spacelink? Are you retarded?

  153. um, since it was invented by Mussolini by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Benito Mussolini was a leader of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party, but then he went on to invent fascism which was a hybrid of socialism that exercised its control indirectly through corporations. Hitler copied the model after rising to power as leader of Germany's socialist workers party which everybody calls "NAZI" but whose actual name was "National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei" often seen as the acronym "NSDAP" (visible in tons of old films and photos).

    German-to-English translation:
    "National" = National (pronounced in German as "Nazionahl" and hence shortened to the slang "nazi")l
    "Sozialistische" = Socialist
    "Deutsche" = German (Germans call their country "Deutschland", english speakers called int "Germany")
    "Arbeiter" = Worker
    "Partei" = PArty

    It's been a decades-long effort by leftists to pretend that the problems with Germany and Italy in WWII were the national pride rather than the jack-booted fully-empowered Marxism... this served the doulbe-goal for leftists of cleansing the Marxism AND fooling the masses of Europe into rejecting pride in their nations and histories so they could more easily be gradually subsumed into a "United States of Europe" model which globalist billionaires so desperately desire.

    Please put down the video games and look away from Facebook and Netflix long enough to actually read some history (and try not to use self-identified Marxist professor Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" or similar Marxist propaganda).

  154. Net Neutrality = Socialism by Hillie · · Score: 1

    And just like with the socialism that Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders want to implement, they hide from you the reality that you will end up paying for it.

    The premise of Net Neutrality is that all traffic should be treated the same. No fast lanes or slow lanes.

    The problem with this is that when something comes out, I'm sure everyone whether it's the new content release for a major video game launch or anything else.. When everyone tries to access the content at once, there's a huge demand and it's a huge problem. ISPs have oversold their bandwidth, just like Internet hosts voersell their storage space. Because in that example, most customers might have 50gb space, or 10gb but they only maybe set up one landing page or something maybe 20mb in size.. etc.

    This is why when a new content release for a video game comes out, there are queues and people waiting hours to get in, because the network is flooded with traffic. And then people who have no clue complain about how the servers and all this and how they didn't anticipate this..

    The way the ISP's want to solve this is by expanding their infrastructure and they wanted companies like Netflix, Google, YouTube, etc. to pay for this. These companies, don't want to pay for it, in the form of paying to have access to a fast lane. So they want Net Neutrality because that means no fast/slow lanes, and they don't have to pay money. They put out this huge marketing campaigns that say how Net Neutrality provides the same Internet access for everyone and no one is privileged or slowed down. (sound familiar? SOCIALISM .. ding ding ding).. and then they fear monger saying companies will start making piecemeal services for social media, email, etc.

    Then smaller companies like Discord jump on the bandwagon believing the marketing and propaganda, thinking that NN repeal would hurt them when in reality Discord uses hardly any of the bandwidth compared to say Netflix.

    So what's the truth about this? Well it's not that Net Neutrality is absolutely the correct way to go or that not having Net Neutrality is the right way to go. It's completely opinion based. However here's the low down: If Net Neutrality is in place, ISPs will still want to expand their infrastructure... and they aren't going to pay for it. They will pass it on to consumers.

    So without Net Neutrality if Netflix and Google have to pay for fast lanes, then they will increase the price of their services. They are telling you that Net Neutrality protects against this, but in the end, just like with socialism.. You will end up having the tax burden, erm. I'm sorry. Higher Internet costs, as a result.

    Truth is both big wig ISPs and big tech companies have MORE THAN ENOUGH MONEY to pay for this on their own, they are just battling out over who is going to pay for it.

    However, the past has taught us this: Whenever you enact government to legislate an industry you effectively also implement corruption and government bribery in which lobbyists pretty much fund politicians' campaign funds to get the laws that they want passed, and then you have the corporations controlling the legislation.

      This has been seen for the past hundred years in telecom. Stefan Molyneux has an incredibly thorough and factual video on this which cites all of the corruption in the telecom industry going back the past hundred or so years.

    So the facts would lead to believe that not having Net Neutrality is a safer way to go, because any kind of government legislation is going to take power away from the consumer dollar, which is number one what should decide what happens.

    --
    - Alex