Democrats Are Just One Vote Shy of Restoring Net Neutrality (engadget.com) 331
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer now says Democrats in the Senate are a single vote away from restoring net neutrality. According to the senator from New York, they now have a total of 50 votes for a Senate resolution of disapproval that would restore the Open Internet Order of 2015 and deliver a stiff rebuke to Ajit Pai and other Republican members of the FCC. It would also prevent the agency from passing a similar measure in the future, all but guaranteeing Net Neutrality is permanently preserved. Right now the resolution has the support of all 49 Democrats in the Senate and one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine. But Schumer and the rest of the caucus will have to win over one more Republican vote to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from breaking tie and allowing the repeal to stand. Under the Congressional Review Act, the Senate has 60 days to challenge a decision by an independent agency like the FCC. Democrats have less than 30 days to convince a "moderate" like John McCain or Lindsey Graham to buck their party. Further reading: The Washington Post (paywalled)
What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't need a moderate Republican. Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump... OK, and who is also somewhat moderate by the standards of Trumpism.
There are a couple of those, if I've been following things as well as I think I have.
Re:What they really need (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't need a moderate Republican. Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump
This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.
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>This is the stupidest thing I've ever read.
No, just a stupid interpretation of what I posted. That's on you.
>You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite.
See, that's where you let your stupidity get the better of you, and you inferred what was never implied.
No 'ought' at all. That's the way it works right now in the GOP; vote Trump, unless you have nothing to lose and are pissed that he's destroying the party.
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No I got the vindictive vibe from your comment too.
There is an old phrase, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." So while a lot of Trump presidency is broken, every once in a while something right gets out. So voting just because you don't like the guy and what he is doing, just because he is mostly wrong, will prevent taking advantage of good when it comes out.
That said, from my experience with jerks like Trump, they are actually easily manipulated. You just stroke their Ego, and protect them, and th
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If that was your intent, you sure did not express it very well.
Really, it's easier to understand if you quote the whole sentence:
Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump.
That's a statement of the politics, not an endorsement or suggestion, but a reflection on said conditions in politics.
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Re: What they really need (Score:2)
They have 30 days to override the FCC's action, any delay past that date would require either the drafting of a bill that not only passes the House and Senate, but is also signed into law by President Trump OR they have to wait to win back the whitehouse and then seat a different Chairman and start the process all over again.
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You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite.
Spite is maybe the wrong word, but I'll take it. Voting against things because you don't like the leadership is an effective strategy for change. Leadership only works if people follow. Not blindly following your party and voting against something you might not even care about, or possibly even agree (in this instance) can work to break up a direction you don't like. There's m
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.
...only surpassed by the naiveté of acting like the entire Republican caucus hasn't been doing exactly this already since 2008. If they're gonna be like this, perhaps they can use it for GOOD for once.
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This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.
Isn't that exactly what McCain did in the Obamacare "repeal" vote? He dramatically flew back in to Washington and cast a no vote to kill the measure, after saying that he would support it. Allegedly after that, he told Chuck Schumer "Let's see Donald Trump make America great again now." [twitter.com]
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You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite.
Is that better or worst than voting on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but based on what colour appears under their name on their wikipedia page?
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how Trump ended up president.
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That's not true (Score:3)
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Here is the full text of Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
He did not run as a left-wing populist. He ran on an agenda of racism, jingoism and owning the libs.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics... [go.com]
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.
Trump's election to POTUS was vindictive spite from the right in this country. I am perfectly ok with the left hitting back. Trump's entire presidency has been one spite after another, reversing everything his predecessor did that he can, not because he believes in those positions, but because Barack Obama did.
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
Barack Obama is an enemy of the United States, as evidenced by his support of Islam.
Sure I'm bored, I'll bite. You're a racist idiot. Support of some religion has absolutely nothing to do with someone's status as a 'enemy' or 'friend' of our country. Are you really this stupid? Ever heard of separation of church and state?
If anyone is an enemy of the USA, you are. You're an idiot with a broken world view. A waste of the O2 you breath. Good day.
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Sometimes people need a little push to make them wake up and start thinking for themselves. Trump has a certain charisma that makes people blindly follow him like sheep. (And then they accuse the Democrats of being sheep, oh the irony!)
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Sometimes vindictive spite is the only way a lawmaker can get the courage to vote for what they believe, instead of for what the party whip tells them they have to vote for if they want their next campaign financed. It's like when you're in a toxic office environment but you wear a smile and toe the company line until your last day when you spill the harsh truth in your exit interview.
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Actually what put them there is the system that they exploit.
Only two candidates typically have a shot, so a vote for the best candidate is wasted and we vote against the worst candidate. On which we fervently disagree, giving credibility to the idea that the candidates who rise up are the worst ones.
A better voting system (such as range voting) would help reverse this mentality. Then you could vote based on your individual conscience without sacrificing your political will against the most terrible candi
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Informative)
Parties have enormous power under the First Amendment (right to free assembly) to determine how their party works. The DNC and RNC have vastly different primary rules and are allowed to as current interpretations of the First Amendment do not allow the government to interfere much with them.
These rules are also not used that often so even ideas meant to improve things don't get much testing. Public selection of candidates for major parties has only been around since the early 1970s, first getting some use in the 1972 election, so they've only been used about a dozen times. That's including incumbent primaries, though, so it's even fewer for each party.
In the case of Democrats, Sanders had a huge hurdle to get past with the superdelegates backing Clinton from the start, putting him at a distinct disadvantage before the first vote was cast. The DNC assigns delegates based on election results, so a candidate getting 60% of the vote in a two-person race will get 60% of the delegates.
Republicans do things differently, leaving it up to states how to apportion delegates. Some go winner-takes-all, some do proportional, some do proportional with floors. On top of that, additional delegates are assigned to a state that voted for the last Republican presidential candidate or has elected positions held by Republicans or a majority of Republicans.
And those are heavily simplified versions, as there are a ton of other caveats. There are other important bits, but one factor that the parties seem to work together on is primary scheduling. This is why Iowa goes first and other states go in weird orders. A state that violates a party's earliest allowed date can be ignored by the party. It's perfectly legal to do so, as freedom of association means that the parties can exclude anyone they want.
It's an ugly mess, but fixing it might get uglier.
Re: What they really need (Score:3)
You seem to be ignoring that Democrat voters in the primaries, picked Clinton a hell of a lot of times when they could have picked Sanders instead. Blame the DNC if you must, but millions of people did fill in the circle next to Clinton. Were they just following DNC orders?
You seem to be ignoring that the DNC failedto treat Bernie Sanders fairly, denied him resources and support, and at one point he had to threaten to sue the DNC to get that which the party traditionally made available to previous candidates without issue.
Pretend the Democrat party was fair if you must, but Bernie got a raw deal.
Re:What they really need (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The problem is that there are no more Democrats left. They all turned into social democrats leaving those of us who aren't communists without a liberal party to vote for.
What an absurd statement. You're throwing the word "communist" around and expect to be taken seriously?
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Baron Yam observed:
They don't need a moderate Republican. Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump... OK, and who is also somewhat moderate by the standards of Trumpism.
There are a couple of those, if I've been following things as well as I think I have.
If only that were true. Unfortunately, it is not.
What they need - in addition to another Republican vote - is either a signature from the President, or a willingness on his part to allow their repeal bill to become law without his signature.
That might happen, especially if the Democrats cave on funding his ridiculous wall. However, given his record of doing whatever the couch creatures on Fox News tell him to do, that's probably not the way to bet ...
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The problem that I see is that loyalty has swapped.
Where Senators and Representatives should have their loyalty in the following order.
To their State, to their Country finally to their Party.
Their loyalty seems to show they are more loyal to their party, then to the country and finally to the State they represent.
The few considered moderate republicans, are not necessarily moderate, but comprehend how such laws will effect their state, and their country first, vs the party line.
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Where Senators and Representatives should have their loyalty in the following order. To their State, to their Country finally to their Party.
Shouldn't "their constituents" be somewhere on that list?
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I believe "State" is the constituency for a senator.
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The problem that I see is that loyalty has swapped.
Where Senators and Representatives should have their loyalty in the following order.
To their State, to their Country finally to their Party.
Their loyalty seems to show they are more loyal to their party, then to the country and finally to the State they represent.
I agree that loyalty isn't where it should be, but it seems to me that Senators and Representatives are often loyal in this order: Campaign donors, Noisy Extremists, Party, State, Country
Campaign donors should be nowhere on the list, especially because they can represent foreign interests or corporate interests that are in opposition to the interests of most of the population (state or country).
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Even if they sway the Senate and get their vote and then persuade the House to do the same, I give Trump 162.671% chance of vetoing it (using Trumpian math, anything else is fake news). After that they need 2/3 majority, and I'm sure Comcast and Verizon can provide enough bribes to keep that from happening.
scare quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling John McCain and Lindsey Graham "moderate" is the best use of scare quotes I've seen in a long time.
Unintentional?
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It's perspective. Some call them conservative, some call them moderate, some call them liberals (by American standards - please refrain from the "they are extreme right for Europe), and some call them sell outs who will go against what they say they believe for some positive press.
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It's perspective. Some call them conservative, some call them moderate, some call them liberals (by American standards - please refrain from the "they are extreme right for Europe), and some call them sell outs who will go against what they say they believe for some positive press.
They are not even vaguely liberal by any standard, including American standards.
Purity tests (Score:5, Insightful)
Those people named? They're not moderates or conservatives. They're RINO's,
Only if you have a ridiculously far right notion of what it means to be a republican (which you clearly do). RINO is a pathetic attempt to apply a purity test to a member of the party. By today's standards Reagan would be called a RINO. Heaven forbid someone attempt to have a fruitful negotiation with someone they don't agree with complete. Or *gasp* actually compromise about anything.
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By today's standards Reagan would be called a RINO.
This gets said allot but it's bullshit. He was pro-life, pro-military, as anti-communist as you could get. He did tax cuts for businesses. Heck, the term trickle down was made popular from his administration. He did agree to a one time amnesty but that was on the condition the wall get built - hopefully a trick that Trump doesn't also fall for.
If you want a party hero that would be opposite of what his party stands for today ... take no look further than JFK.
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He was pro-life, pro-military, as anti-communist as you could get. He did tax cuts for businesses.
He also raised taxes eleven times, compromised with the democrats on a variety of issues, and did a lot of other things that today would never fly with the far right and Tea Party types. If he was running for office today he would potentially have never made it out of the primaries for even suggesting the idea of raising taxes. I'm no fan of the man but I'd take Reagan in a heartbeat over Trump or W.
Reagan doesn't stand for the opposite of his party but neither do a lot of other republicans who get crucif
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For decades the Washington Post kept a database of votes by Congresscritters [washingtonpost.com]. If you go to the 113th Senate (the last one
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the last one before they shut the project down)
Do you know why they shut it down?
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Reagan raised taxes eleven times during his two terms. That alone would get him called a RINO by some members of the party.
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Yeah and the democrats also lied when they said that "if we allow amnesty just this one time, it'll never happen again. We swear!" Then again Reagan also presided over one of the greatest economic booms in US history, those tax raises didn't hurt anyone because people had plenty of money rolling in. Compare today to then, the average American is 1mo away from insolvency, has less then $1k in the bank and has no backup in-case of an emergency. That's the exact opposite of that time where most people had 4
Re:Purity tests (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a single thing you said challenged what the above post said. What Democrats did in any context is irrelevant. The fact that he prosided over a moderatly sized economic boom is irrelevant. The modern poor shape of the economy is irrelevant.
The point is that Reagan certainly wasn't very conservative by the standards many want to put on the party today and that is clearly demomstrated by his 11 tax hikes (amoung a lot of other things, like say negotiating with Democrats)
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Not a single thing you said challenged what the above post said. What Democrats did in any context is irrelevant. The fact that he prosided over a moderatly sized economic boom is irrelevant.
No? Maybe you missed a few things. By the way, do you define a "moderatly sized economic boom" as -18% growth tailing out at the end of 1980 to a +18% economic growth by 1989? Or is moderate defined as the US economy expanded by 1/3 under his term as president? You can try rewriting this as much as you want, but reality is fundamentally different. And I realize that progressive professors really like going out of their way to try and rewrite history on this. Just like they do with Thatcher and Churchil
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The old system was better than the new one. They are one vote away from getting it back.
Why would they write a new bill from the ground up and start fresh building support for it?
Also, do you not see the irony of complaining about people screeching "nazi" and the immediately, in the very same sentence, screeching "nazi" yourself?
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Why would they write a new bill from the ground up and start fresh building support for it?
Ask yourself the question: "Why do I want to support a bill which has the backing of organizations that are actively censoring."
Also, do you not see the irony of complaining about people screeching "nazi" and the immediately, in the very same sentence, screeching "nazi" yourself?
No, because I'm using the left's definition of "nazi." If the left wants to screech that Richard Spencer is a nazi for being an ethnonationalist, and the democrats vote in a person who's an ethonationalist. They are by their own definition a nazi.
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Ask yourself the question: "Why do I want to support a bill which has the backing of organizations that are actively censoring."
Ask yourself the question: "Why do I want to block a bill that will prevent organizations that are actively censoring having an even greater financial interest in censorship?"
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Ask yourself the question: "Why do I want to block a bill that will prevent organizations that are actively censoring having an even greater financial interest in censorship?"
So in other words you have nothing? That bill doesn't prevent organizations from censoring anything, if you actually read it? It's far more useless then anything else with so many loopholes that it actually allows censorship via regulations to exist at the behest of the ISP.
Then again, for a Brit that has serious problems in their own country censoring speech and the police acting as modern day censors? I'd say look to your own damn mess before commenting on things on this side of the pond.
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You are conflating two completely different issues. Net Neutrality isn't about censorship, it's about charging more for access to some services or giving preferential treatment to some services.
The new rules don't do anything about censorship anyway, so by going back to the old ones you will not be in a worse position on that front. The old position is well understood, and has almost enough support now. Starting over with a new anti-censorship bill would only ensure that nothing gets passed and you get to p
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You are conflating two completely different issues. Net Neutrality isn't about censorship, it's about charging more for access to some services or giving preferential treatment to some services.
No, I'm actually not. Go read all the regulations and get back to me, you'll figure out the ones that allow organizations to censor fairly quickly if you've studied law at all.
you get to pay $49.95/month extra for "HD video services" on your broadband bill.
Funny thing, that was already happening under that set of regulations. Including restricting traffic, and traffic shaping.
Re:scare quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since when are you the person who defines what being a Republican means? Maybe it's you guys on the extreme right who are RINOs as most are far more moderate then you.
"Extreme right" aka constitutionalist that believes it's not a "living breathing document", holds "pro-gun" views, doesn't like censorship, and believes that "smaller government" and "state rights" should be the primary drivers.
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So why don't you tell everyone why a bureaucrat in Washington DC., should be the one to decide where a new hospital is built. I'm not sure what's worse, that Canadian provinces have more control over healthcare decisions then US states, or you bringing up "ye olde Somalia" bullshit because that's the very definition of spewing ignorant talking points like a parrot.
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Ever been to Switzerland? How about Singapore? No, I'm guessing not. How about before China started cracking down on Hong Kong. How about you should grow the fuck up and realize that *smaller government* doesn't mean no government? The only thing you're doing is showing everyone that your range and understanding of politics could fill a teaspoon.
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Switzerland and Singapore both have pretty harsh taxation, especially by US standards. I don't think you would like living in those countries.
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Switzerland and Singapore both have pretty harsh taxation, especially by US standards. I don't think you would like living in those countries.
Tax rates don't determine the ability for citizens to actually have control. I realize that this might be difficult for you, but systems of government outside of a westminister parliament exist, and a system of hereditary senate which isn't elected doesn't exist in most places.
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You know that I don't actually like the UK or the UK parliamentary system, right? I guess not, as you keep arguing against this imaginary version of me.
Re:scare quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
> well show me and example of this so called great "small government" you crave.
Health insurance before Obamacare. My state handled it well on it's own. I could buy insurance on my own independent of my employer. The private option was actually better and cheaper than what any employer offered.
Now the private market has been destroyed. Prices tripled. The best class of plans is no longer available. If I were in the private market, a lot of doctors would be out of network for me. I would be locked out of the single best facility available to treat my condition.
After 10 years of having the same very good insurance company, I now have to switch policies annually at the whim of my employer. They do this in the middle of the year to screw me out of my deductible (companies get around the new ACA rules meant to stop this).
Every time I have to deal with the crap from a crappy insurance company I would never have chosen to use, I want to kick Obama in the balls and I get a renewed appreciation for federalism.
I don't mind that my city has a free hospital. I don't mind that we pay for it directly. That is far more sensible than sending our money to DC and then having our local hospital mired in federal nonsense.
You're trying to conflate more localized governance with Somalia. That's the kind of dishonest nonsense that poisons useful public policy debate.
We just don't want idiots that can't manage their own states spreading their incompetence around any further.
Re:scare quotes (Score:4, Interesting)
> I don't even think you have a clue where and how the term "states rights" originated.
It originated with the fact that the original colonies viewed themselves as independent nations. Even now, individual states run their own affairs. The national government was never meant to micromanage things. It's supposed to be inherently limited. Even the Constitution is supposed to be limits on government (rather than an enumeration individual rights).
The original colonies were so wary of a national government that they tried and failed to set up the US as a loose confederacy.
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"Paul is far closer to an actual Liberal(not the modern corrupted version)...."
Sigh...
In America a liberal is some one associated with the political Left. If you want the classical deffinition to be used, go elsewhere but please stop with the convoluted word play.
We also call what the rest of the world calls football, soccer.
Furthermore, your claim that a self declared Libertarian would vote for a strong federal government program that helped people get health care if only it were simpler is rediculous.
Re: scare quotes (Score:2, Informative)
That's a lie comcast was blocking torrents before net neutrality. Look it up. Even now video gets throttled on various ISPs. We need net neutrality now!
You can thank Clinton (Bill) for that one (Score:2)
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How old were you in 1992? Any analysis of "How Bill Clinton became President" that doesn't begin and end with Ross Perot. is wrong.
Fake News (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot summary is retarded. From the article:
"The measure must survive the Republican-majority House and be signed by President Trump to take effect."
It's a toxic measure (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a very very toxic measure, especially among rural Republican voters who are the ones usually stuck with one ISP. They're the ones who get screwed over by Verizon/Comcast/ ATnT. So each Republican Senator they force to support Ajit's toxic measure, is a Republican that will have to face his constituents later and explain why they supported this anti consumer measure.
This has value even if Republicans overturn it later.
Ajit has helped enormously with his insulting and patronizing videos and ignoring of all those fake comments with half a million of them from Russian email addresses. I assume he'll go on helping as the State Attorneys investigate all the identity theft. Identity theft is a crime, and obstruction of the investigation of it, is also a crime, and Ajit loves to make smug videos, reveling in his temporary power.
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It's a very very toxic measure, especially among rural Republican voters who are the ones usually stuck with one ISP. They're the ones who get screwed over by Verizon/Comcast/ ATnT. So each Republican Senator they force to support Ajit's toxic measure, is a Republican that will have to face his constituents later and explain why they supported this anti consumer measure.
Not a problem; They're also the ones who are thoroughly convinced that Net Neutrality is the digital equivalent to Nazi concentration camps... the most egregious attempt at government control and censorship in all of history.
Ajit has helped enormously with his insulting and patronizing videos and ignoring of all those fake comments with half a million of them from Russian email addresses.
...which, ironically, few of the aforementioned constituents have seen since they lack decent internet speeds. Besides, if/when things do come to a head, I'm sure Fox News will slap a (D) next to his name.
=Smidge=
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If Trump won't sign it then he also declares that he's for coporate interests and against NN for American citizens.
Either way they come out clearly on one side of the fence or another.
Quick, someone start a GoFundMe (Score:5, Funny)
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olsmeister urged:
We need to buy a Senator.
Someone with points: please mod parent +1 Funny ... !
What about abstenations? (Score:3)
I know the senate has some weird rules about some of these things, so what I'm really asking is whether any of those apply here.
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The remaining 50 GOP Senators know who their campaign contributors are and will vote accordingly.
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I know who my contributors are; I just don't care. Then again, I'm also running for D-MD07 so.
Never let money get in the way of integrity. People will literally back you when you tell them what you're trying to do is going to harm them if they think you have integrity. I'm not sure why; I think it has something to do with folks not wanting to be the one against doing the right thing, even if it's personally inconvenient. You can't buy that.
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You need a majority to vote "yes" to pass the bill. Abstentions are effectively voting "no" when it comes to passing the bill.
Misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Republicans are stronger in the House making restoration unlikely there. Even then Trump will almost certainly veto it. If NN is going to come back the Dems have to take the House and Senate by a wide enough margin to overturn a veto.
And as the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act has shown, it is much easier to gather support for something that has no hope of winning ("look, I can engage in some posturing, support something politically popular with my base without actually being on the hook if things go wrong") than it is to actually change something. So, even if the Democrats take both houses of congress and the next president is a Democrat, it wouldn't be surprising if this falls victim to political maneuver
I don't think so. (Score:2)
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The trouble with the ACA repeal was that the electorate figured out it meant losing access to healthcare and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies. That's what shut it down.
Maybe you can tell that to the millions of americans who had their healthcare premiums go up by 400%(to 500-600/mo) with a $6000 deductible. To the point where the penalty for not having ACA insurance was cheaper then having insurance in the first place, or the millions who lost health insurance because of it. Because I'll tell ya something, there were a lot of seniors in FL(Zephyrhills) where I stay for part of the winter who couldn't afford insurance anymore.
The ACA wasn't responsible for that (Score:5, Insightful)
The ACA was a bad law. But it was the best we could get with a Congress full of Republicans and Blue Dog Dems. We already know the solution, which is Single Payer. Bernie Sander's has a townhall meeting [google.com] coming up to discuss it. Hopefully it gets some traction and we can join the rest of the civilized world (who pay 1/2 what we do for better results).
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I would have more faith in Sander's single payer if his state and others would implement it first. California is the closest I think to try and it was a law that had no mechanism to fund it.
If democrats can't get it to work at the state level why would it work at the national level?
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the rest of the civilized world (who pay 1/2 what we do for better results)
The problem with this old tired meme is that Americans' higher prices subsidize the rest of the world's lower prices. If we join the rest of the world and institute our own governmental price fixing, some combination of availability and/or innovation in care will disappear -- for everyone. There is no free lunch, no matter how many Bernie Sanders there are out there sweetly crooning otherwise to people who really really wish it were true.
(And if I'm late to the party and shittier-but-equal services for al
Um... no. That's not true (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm talking percentages (Score:2)
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This doesn't makes sense. By design change at the federal level is slow and requires broad support in the country. Obviously, polls will be disconnected from federal initiative. The Senate was supposed to be a bulwark to public opinion and passion! The article and you are complaining that the federal government isn't as whimsical as popular opinion. Duh. That article is saying, "536 people were given more power and it costs a lot of time and money to influence their opinion that is beyond the reach of the a
No excuse for another partisan vote... (Score:2)
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If you want to talk about free speech on the internet, that's fine, and that's a discussion worth having, but that is not what Net Neutrality is about. Please don't confuse the issue.
Half Measures (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with this approach. If Congress wants Net Neutrality they should write it as a law, not just force the FCC to not repeal the existing rule which DOES NOT apply to wireless carriers.
Wireless carriers will be the big winners here. It gives them freedom their wired carriers don't have.
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Writing it as a new law requires overcoming some arcane legislative procedures. Most notably, you'd need 60 votes in the Senate to get to an actual vote on the bill.
That's why the Republicans passed the "review" law that is being used here. The Republicans repeatedly could not find 60 votes to block the regulations they wanted to block. So they changed the rules so that they only need 50 votes.
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Democrats changed the rules so they only need 50 votes. That was back when they held majority in the senate FYI.
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Democrats changed the rules so they only need 50 votes. That was back when they held majority in the senate FYI.
Nope. Democrats changed the rules on nominations for Federal judges.
That change has no effect on executive department regulations, since judges are not regulations, nor in the executive branch.
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I disagree with this approach. If Congress wants Net Neutrality they should write it as a law, not just force the FCC to not repeal the existing rule which DOES NOT apply to wireless carriers.
Wireless carriers will be the big winners here. It gives them freedom their wired carriers don't have.
I only disagree with this approach because it doesn't look like it will work so it appears to be more posturing than actual lawmaking. Yes a full law (with some clear short term exceptions for encouraging real infrastructure investments that will eventually improve service for everyone) would be preferable.
Otherwise if they can cobble together a few more votes in the Senate and a bipartisan majority in the House and just get president Trump to sign it because it appears to be popular enough then so be it
As they used to say.... (Score:2)
If they are short one vote, then they are still short.
Also, my understanding of US law is somewhat limited, but I thought the president could still veto a proposal like this, and that being the case, they are actually *two* votes shy of restoring it.... and to that end, for all intents and purposes, they may as well still be 50 votes away.
Democrat party are anti-american (Score:5, Funny)
The USA is a free market, and this means at it basist level NO goverment regulations to put corrupt cronies and fat cat union bosses in charge of critical infastructure such as the internet. That is why I am not surprised that the democrat party are acting so unamerican in their attempt to over ride the duly elected goverment decision to deregulate the internet to bring more freedom and more competition to the market. Really really sad and pathetic attempt at hurting President Pai who is the best FCC president in history.
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I'd mod you funny had I the points
Americans are further becoming... (Score:3, Insightful)
... the laughing stock of the world. Keep it up!
Re:Would the Senate vote be sufficient? (Score:5, Funny)
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TheRaven64 chortled:
The last step is easy. Just call it the Make American Internet Great Again Act and he'll sign it. You don't think he actually reads the bills that he's asked to sign do you?
Of course not. Donald Trump? Read?
Unfortunately, Stephen Miller [wikipedia.org] does read them - and he's the new Steve Bannon ...
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Yes they are.
The Congressional Review Act of 1996 established expedited (or “fast track”) procedures by which Congress may disapprove a broad range of regulatory rules issued by federal agencies by enacting a joint resolution of disapproval. For initial floor consideration, the Act provides an expedited procedure only in the Senate. (The House would likely consider the measure pursuant to a special rule.) The Senate may use the procedure for 60 days of session after the agency transmits the rule to Congress. In both houses, however, to qualify for expedited consideration, a disapproval resolution must be submitted within 60 days after Congress receives the rule, exclusive of recess periods. Pending action on a disapproval resolution, the rule may go into effect, unless it is a “major rule” on which the President or issuing agency does not waive a delay period of 60 calendar days
Stop lying AC.
Re:The other side (Score:5, Insightful)
The right only sees Net Neutrality as "more government control of the internet" because they've been tricked by politicians like Ted Cruz calling net neutrality "Obamacare for the internet", which is completely disingenuous.
The fact is, NN boils down to just this: ISPs can't discriminate against (or be in favor of) data flowing through their pipes.
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How about ditching your iDevice first and using a functional computer?