Republicans Create Rider To Stop Net Neutrality 528
99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes
"Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) submitted a rider yesterday to a bill on military and veterans' construction projects. The rider would, 'prohibit the FCC from using any appropriated funds to adopt, implement or otherwise litigate any network neutrality based rules, protocols or standards.' It is co-signed by six other Republican senators. We all knew this was coming after the last election removed most of the vocal supporters of net neutrality and supplanted them with pro-corporate Republicans."
Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Score:5, Informative)
This is Kay Bailey Hutchinson proving her conservative bona fides after the shellacking she got from the 2010 Texas Republican Gubernatorial primary. Too bad she's decided to take sides against consumers to prove that she's a good party member.
Re:Not pro-corporate (Score:5, Informative)
Net neutrality gives more freedom to the few (the connectivity companies) and takes away from the rest (content providers, consumers).
It's pretty much the exact opposite of that. Net Neutrality gives power to the people who create and consume content, and prevents the people who provide the connections from tampering with it.
Re:You thought the GOP/TP represented regular peop (Score:5, Informative)
On what planet do Democrats like to spend "far far more"?
You realize over 80% of the National Debt was run up by Republicans, right? That the Bush Tax Cuts combined with massive military spending (two wars) and massive unpaid-for entitlement expansion (Medicare Part D) are the reason we've got such a huge deficit, and national debt, right? Reagan TRIPLED the debt. Bush I doubled it. Bush II doubled it again. After Clinton, we were looking at surplusses as far as the eye could see, allowing us headroom to pay down the debt, and to prepare for rainy days. Bush utterly squandered it all, and now it's mountains of debt as far as the eye can see. And that often-cited meme that Obama "trippled the deficit"? Bullshit. That was Bushes. The first 1.x Trillion dollar annual deficit would have been identical regardless of who was in power (it consisted of both TARP -- passed by Republicans -- and the huge revenue drop caused by the finacial crisis -- another Republican failure).
The biggest lie ever told (and bought by too many people) is that Republicans are in any way financially conservative or fiscally responsible. Republicans spend FAR more, and far more IRRESPONSIBILY. And their latest robin-hood crap, asking those with the least to sacrifice so that those with the most can have more, is just downright immoral and disgusting.
At least when Democrats spend money, Americans benefit (through social safety nets, cleaner air and water, forward thinking investment, necessary regulation to protect consumers with safer food, and safer finances, etc). When Republicans spend money, they throw it down the huge gaping maw of tax cuts for the already super-wealthy, and the military industrial complex to kill foreigners half a world away.
And as for "At least that's what I've heard"... if you heard it from the Tea Party, from Rush Limbaugh, or from Glenn Beck, you can rest assured you heard wrong. Because they're pretty much wrong about everything. And paid to be so, by those that wish to distract, distort, divide, and inflame... in order to either protect their status quo, or to usurp power for themselves.
Re:You thought the GOP/TP represented regular peop (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You thought the GOP/TP represented regular peop (Score:5, Informative)
Historically, they have.
Look at the post-war period. The period of greatest economic growth at all levels of society occurred during a time when the Democrats controlled the Presidency and at least one house of congress. And the successful Republican presidents were ones that today would be thrown out of the party for being too liberal.
And you can point to the presidency of Ronald Reagan as the point where the "American Dream" for middle and working class Americans was blown the fuck up in favor of a "supply-side" economy where each generation could expect a little less than the previous, unless you were a member of the lucky 2% who did fantastically well.
And now we expect your mom and dad to work until they're 70 just so that top 2% won't have to pay the same amount of taxes that they did during the 90's (which was a great decade for the rich.
Ronald Reagan declared class warfare against every member of the middle and working class, and now the right wing cries "class warfare" because that middle and working class is starting to figure it out. Recent polls that showed some 67% of Americans believe that the top 2% should pay at least the same taxes that they did in the 90's also show that nearly 70% do not want cuts in government spending just to pay for tax cuts for the rich, and an even higher percentage do not want to see a rise in the retirement age or cuts in Social Security or Medicare. And a growing number, well more than 50% now say they want a public option for health care, such as a buy-in option for Medicare for everyone.
People are so angry that they want to vote everyone out of office. Don't make the mistake of thinking that Americans are suddenly turning conservative. If anything, long-term trends would seem to indicate the opposite. They'd gladly take a little "European-style Socialism" as long as you don't call it that.
The 0.3% of Americans who watch Fox News are in no way indicative of the American mood.
Re:Nope. (Score:3, Informative)
Companies have already tried screwing with net neutrality though.
Most recent example I can think of is Phorm, which replaced adverts on webpages on the fly with ones that paid the service provider.
Other examples would be Fox blocking viewers on Cablevision (yeah, weird reverse example), Comcast throttling video from outside its own network (they got a C&D over it from the FCC), and several examples from Canada (including one where the ISP - a phone company - was deliberately degrading VOIP traffic from competing services unless the user paid them an additional monthly tariff).
Companies like Netflix, using your example, can already get faster service through co-locating and using CDNs (essentially, data centres connected directly to the ISPs own infastructure). Net Neutrality doesn't prevent that - it doesn't stop someone taking steps to make their service faster, but stops people degrading base level service. It's an important distinction.