Julius Genachowski To Head FCC 177
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The US President-elect, Barack Obama, has selected Julius Genachowski to lead the Federal Communications Commission. This appears to bode well for a forward-looking (or at least clued) Internet policy, since Genachowski is credited with running Obama's internet-based election campaign, and, according to 'Fierce Telecom,' 'has an impressive record working with technology and communications companies: He was Chief of Business Operations at InterActiveCorp; he's co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures, which currently backs 11 internet-based start-ups, and he's also served on the boards of numerous technology and new media companies, including The Motley Fool, Web.com, Truveo, and Rapt'."
Yes... but... (Score:2)
Does his appointment know who our base are belong to? [kotaku.com]
I love having a presidential nerd [dailykos.com]. ;)
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I love having a presidential nerd. ;)
First, I woudn't go so far as to call Obama a nerd, although compared to the guy he's replacing... Second, there was one President in my lifetime who was a bona-fide nerd; the man held a degree in nuclear engineering. But Carter was a terrible President; I never thought I'd see a worse one, although with Bush I did.
Using a blackberry and checking email doesn't make you a nerd. Ever see the movie Apollo 13? That was a movie about nerds (note the pocket protectors).
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Hell yeah.
I had a Math teacher once that worked for NASA as a Mathematician during the Apollo years. One can see him in a documentary of the Apollo 13 incident that includes footage shot in the control room and there's an actor playing the same part in the Tom Hanks movie, albeit a nonspeaking role. Anyways all that to say that guy was an uber nerd of the tenth order. Obama's got nothing on this guy in the world of nerdery. Obama might be a step up that ladder from what we've had in the past, but he's
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Using a blackberry and checking email doesn't make you a nerd.
Nice pick and choose there. To sum up:
* One of the first things Barack Obama did when he became president-elect was to post his own Web site
* At the Al Smith dinner, Obama made a relatively obscure joke about Superman, cracking that his real father's name was Jor-El.
* Not only did Obama pose for a photo in front of a statue of Superman in Metropolis, Illinois, he went even geekier and posted the photo at his Senate Web si
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Have you used the <li> operator for bullet points rather than using an asterisk?
You mean the <li> element?
HTML doesn't have operators - its markup, not script.
Does that make me a nerd?
What's his stance on censorship? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's his stance on censorship? (Score:4, Insightful)
or will he take steps to allow parents to determine what their kids can and cannot see?
Why is that even a job for Government? I have a novel idea: supervise your kids when they are watching TV or using the internet.
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Supervise and/or...
The novel idea of supervision does seem to escape most people. I guess it's the government's job to educate, supervise, instill morals, AND otherwise pay for their kids...
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Don't have TV
That's my vote. I've seen kids that are absolutely mesmerized by the TV. They stare at it for hours on end. If they aren't watching Cartoon Network they are probably playing video games. And people really wonder why we have a childhood obesity problem?
At the very least, ditch the cable TV service and go with over the air broadcasting only. This accomplishes three things:
1) Cuts down on the number of shows your kids are going to care about and encourages them to do other things.
2) Encourages them to w
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That's my vote. I've seen kids that are absolutely mesmerized by the TV. They stare at it for hours on end. If they aren't watching Cartoon Network they are probably playing video games. And people really wonder why we have a childhood obesity problem?
My thoughts exactly. I grew up with computers and played video games... too much, most likely. But I also played outside, loved playing basketball, skated, went skiing (weird word. :P), etc. My house, growing up, never had anything other than TV coming in from the aerial, which where we lived, meant two to four channels. I occasionally watched cartoons Saturday morning and Spiderman at 4:30, if the channel came in. We watched football on Sunday/Monday, depending on who was playing.
As far as bypassing
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so by then if I haven't done the whole parenting thing that well, it's probably too late.
Amen to that.
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That's my vote. I've seen kids that are absolutely mesmerized by the TV. They stare at it for hours on end. If they aren't watching Cartoon Network they are probably playing video games. And people really wonder why we have a childhood obesity problem?
It depends on the age group, but there are multiple sides to this - particularly with video games. In certain areas, sometimes the only perceived alternative to doing stuff at home is doing illegal stuff (underage drinking/drugs) with friends elsewhere.
Would you rather have a child:
a) Be a nerd/gamer on the internet who potentially learns how to program, or at the worst has better hand-eye coordination.
b) Potentially start to rely on drugs/alcohol for entertainment and develop serious issues in the future.
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Potentially start to rely on drugs/alcohol for entertainment and develop serious issues in the future.
If that happens then you probably should have been paying closer attention to what they were doing.....
I would just like to say that you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss certain things (video games, in particular)
I didn't say video games were bad. I think the tone of my post was that playing them to excess is bad. If your kids are playing video games to the exclusion of doing anything else then wouldn't you say that you have a problem? If video games are part of a healthy mix of recreational activities (that hopefully includes some amount of physical/outdoors activity) then I don't see a problem.
I grew up playin
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I'm curious then - How would you view games with social networks? For example - if your child grew an interest in World of Warcraft, would you prevent him from playing it?
What is your criteria for not allowing certain games? Online social interactions not allowable under a certain age? Violent games not allowable under a certain age?
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How would you view games with social networks? For example - if your child grew an interest in World of Warcraft, would you prevent him from playing it?
I grew up playing AD&D so I wouldn't really object to the content in WoW. I'd be concerned about who they were playing with but again this would come back to supervising them. Beyond that I don't think I'd have any major issues with WoW beyond the sheer amount of time that some people wind up "investing" into it. Again though, this is controllable.
Violent games not allowable under a certain age?
Depends on the context of that violence. I honestly don't see any compelling reason that kids need to be exposed to games like GTA or even Halo -- if the
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Thoughtful response on the WoW discussion - Thanks :).
Depends on the context of that violence. I honestly don't see any compelling reason that kids need to be exposed to games like GTA or even Halo -- if the entire game consists of shooting things then what the hell is there to learn exactly? Hand-eye coordination? You could gain that playing basketball or flight simulators.....
That's the thing - it's hard to tell what kids will get out of these games. I grew up playing Doom (age ~7-8), Duke Nukem 3D (age 10-11), and Quake (age 11-23).
Aside from killing crap in Doom in singleplayer, I messed around with freebie level editors and had fun making my own creations. In Duke3D, I had my first experiences in online games, I messed around with the .ini files to change attributes of the games, and once again I made (more intricate) le
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I'm with ya on the learning stuff from games. I self-taught myself how to program C by administering a MUD when I was 14-17 years old. I guess I just don't see the appeal in the console FPS games for kids though. What do you learn from playing Halo? How to veg out in front of the TV and eat junk food?
I wouldn't tell someone else what to buy for their kids but my kids won't be getting copies of those games for Christmas....
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Supervise and/or...
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My TVs are 17+ years old, and refuse to die, and I won't replace them until they do.
Got my digital converters months ago. For the amount of over-the-air TV I watch, that's just fine. No, I don't have cable. For the rest there's Hulu and Netflix.
If your TVs are too old to have the v-chip, your recently acquired digital converters have them. Learn how to use them if you want something protecting your children.
Re:What's his stance on censorship? (Score:4, Insightful)
The V chip is as useless as the ratings. Say "shit" three times in a movie and it's rated R. But you can chop people's arms and legs off and burn them up in lava and it's PG-13 (Star Wars). It's the sort of censorship that the establishment wants, and not necessarily the choices a parent migh make.
An example with my own kids when they were little: They were fans of Pee Wee's Playhouse, so I showed them the scene in the Cheech and Chong movie where Paul Ruebens gets arrested and spews obscenities at the cops. You should have seen the girls' faces!
OTOH I wouldn't let them watch Robin Hood, as watching a guy get his hand chopped off is IMO a bit much for kids, and I wouldn't even let them watch the TV version of The Terminator, because you still have Arnold ripping a guy's heart out and cutting up his own eyeball.
Pee Wee cursing isn't going to give them nightmares. Watching someone being dismembered will. The V chip was useless; I watched TV with them.
They still love Star Trek!
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It's the sort of censorship that the establishment wants, and not necessarily the choices a parent migh make.
I love how a five second shot of tits gains a movie an instant R-rating but all that violence and gore typically only garners a PG-13. Personally I'd rather have my kids see the tit than Anakin burning but that's just me.
Another problem I see with the ratings system is how an NC-17 (movie) or AO (video game) rating results in retailers pulling the title from their shelves. Net result: The movie/game receives some minor tweaks and winds up being released as R/M. Perhaps the retailers should consider stock
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The idea is fairly simple, actually - the government requires TV shows to have ratings (sort of like they do now) and parents can use government-required technology in their TVs (sort of like the V-Chip) to filter out shows they are objectionable. In return, broadcasters can broadcast anything they want, as long as it's properly rated. (OK, so not anything, but, well, almost anything...)
Several "parents groups" have claimed this is what they're demanding from the government, and that once it's in place, the
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The idea is fairly simple, actually - the government requires TV shows to have ratings (sort of like they do now) and parents can use government-required technology in their TVs (sort of like the V-Chip) to filter out shows they are objectionable. In return, broadcasters can broadcast anything they want, as long as it's properly rated. (OK, so not anything, but, well, almost anything...)
See, to my way of thinking the bigger problem isn't the violence/sex on TV (although the v-chip is certainly helpful with that) but the sheer amount of TV aimed at children. How many different cable networks are aimed at kids? They can literally zone out in front of the TV from the time they wake up in the morning to the time they go to bed at night.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere. We received a grand total of three channels (CBS, ABC and PBS) with our aerial antenna. Consequently we wound up (*gasp*
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I have a novel idea: supervise your kids when they are watching TV or using the internet.
I don't think you can lump TV and the intarwebs into a single category. TV (and TV stations) has to have rules that enforce some sort of community standards. I don't think even the most idealogical Slashdotter would agree that allowing sexual or violent programming during prime-time is a wise idea for family households. You can argue what those standard should be, of course, but that's a different matter.
The internet
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I don't think even the most idealogical Slashdotter would agree that allowing sexual or violent programming during prime-time is a wise idea for family households
I would agree if you are talking about over the air broadcasts. I would disagree if you are talking about cable TV. Cable TV requires that you opt-in and pay money for it. Anybody with a pair of rabbit ears can tune into OTA.
Most families need 2 wage earners just to get by.
Then move somewhere with a cheaper cost of living. Or seek help from your expanded friends and family network. Most families have someone (Grandma or Grandpa?) whom isn't working. Why rely on the TV to supervise your kids after school if you have a family member or friend to fall
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Why is that even a job for Government?
Because their job is no longer to do for the public good. Their job is to bring in votes.
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I'm sure the Obama administration will correct the double standard you are bringing to light by ensuring that violence gets fully censored as well.
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Well, apparently he's involved with Common Sense Media [commonsensemedia.org] which seems to provide ratings, tools, and advice for parents with concerns to the media. It seems to be fairly parental-responsibility oriented. However, their "Common Sense Belief" sections contains a couple of statements you might be interested in:
# We believe in media sanity, not censorship.
We believe that the price for free and open media is a bit of extra homework for families. Parents need to know about media content and need to manage media use.
# We believe appropriate regulations about right time, right place, and right manner exist. They need to be upheld by our elected and appointed leaders.
# We believe ratings systems should be independent and transparent for all media.
Seems like they'd support some government toe-stepping in the form of mandatory ratings and enforcement of time-slots, but stop short of outright censorship.
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He'll be forced to enforce and expand it. Google for "fairness doctrine."
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No one is advocating bringing back the fairness doctrine. This is a right-wing/libertarian talking point. Let it go, ffs.
How about Schumer and Pelosi [broadcastingcable.com]? Or Sen. Jeff Bingaman [freerepublic.com]? Then there's the fact that it was included as part of the Democratic Party Platform [freedomforum.org] in 2000. Oh, then there's this article [humanevents.com] quoting Nancy Pelosi's support of it. Illustrious leader Dick Durbin [thehill.com] has also advocated its reinstatement.
Just because they're paranoid, doesn't mean there's nobody out to get them.
Why is nudity vs violence backwards? (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, but, you know, this whole hippy thing of nudity is love and violence is evil is just stupid.
Nudity has nothing to do with love. Sticking your dick into some slut's snatch and gushing it around until she says she loves you doesn't do anything for the country at all. Unless she decides she's up for breeding some good old babies for Jesus, otherwise, it's useless.
On the other hand, violence is plenty useful. It can get you more oil, access at the bargaining table with the great powers, AND, most of all, it can get your more broads to ram that fuckstick of yours into.
I know what Jesus said and all, but, the reality is different. If you want to be a big pussy and wish you had a girlfriend, value nudity. But, if you want to have tons of oil and power, then be violent, as you'll get tons of pussy to boot, and, they'll all be cranking out your genetic destiny in the form of children.
Who would you rather be, Ghandi, living impoversished in a tent, and getting shot in the end by some punk. Or, would you rather be Ghengis Khan, with an empire the size of Asia and the Middle East, tons of loot, and more women than you can name colors?
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You're talking about real life. We're talking about television.
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Peace is plenty useful to. If you disagree I'm sure you're real popular in your neighborhood.
And I'd rather be Gandhi, thank you very much. Stealing shit and raping women is not living the good life.
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I see what you're saying, but give hippies their due. After all, the main gist of your argument for why violence is so great is that in the end it gets you laid, and let's be honest here that's the ultimate motivation for all the would-be Ghengis Khans and their legions. But the hippies were up to their necks in "free love", without the need for all that violence and the dangers of the resulting counter-violence. Their biggest risks were a bad acid trip and a case of the clap -- gotta take antibiotics, b
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Well, let's don't do away with violence...just allow more nudity.
I think it'd be a shame if they couldn't show Dirty Harry on TV (I think they censor it too much as it is). Let's just allow nudit
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Nudity is bad because people complain about it. Violence is OK because people don't complain about it. And violence is more than OK, because it's a sort of representational sex. Consider the fight scene at the end of the second TOS. Are William Shatner and Gary Lockwood fighting or making love? It's not all that obvious.
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No, he won't. Because such steps do not and cannot exist, for the very simple reason that parents already can determine what their kids watch on TV.
It is still just one person (Score:2, Interesting)
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Anything would be an improvement (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly they could put a lobster in charge of the FCC and it would be just as well off as it is at this moment. So any sentient being will likely be an improvement.
The FCC is so frustrating I went to go stand in line at the DMV afterwards because I wanted to feel like I accomplished something that day.
lobster + FCC = (Score:5, Funny)
Frankly they could put a lobster in charge of the FCC and it would be just as well off as it is at this moment.
It occurred to me after writing that rant that if a lobster were indeed in charge of the FCC, it could then be the Federal Crustacean Commission.
Thank you, and don't forget to tip your server.
Re:lobster + FCC = (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you, and don't forget to tip your server.
I did as you said; it landed with a thud and now it won't reboot.
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The FCC is undoubtedly a runaway bureaucracy, but there are some good apples there. Kevin Martin has been in favor of net neutraility, anti-government censorship, pro-competition, and Michael Copps understands exactly where the FCC has screwed up [bfccomputing.com] on high-speed Internet policy.
I know, that's two out of how many, but some guys there deserve kudos; there's been some progress in the past couple years.
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I also have a complaint response here on my desk (against the "This is your second notice that your warranty has expired" people). Somehow the FCC thinks this clear cut violation of multiple telemarketing laws is somehow not a violation.
That is one of the 800 number-related incidents that I would like to report, but we don't have caller ID so I have never been able to get a number for where those calls are coming from. I presume that is the same call about vehicle warranties that you are referring to? I have even managed to answer that call once or twice, and told them that I don't own a car. They kept calling anyways.
Though the one I have been trying most to address is the "reduce your credit card payment" scam. We get this call 1
Credentials aren't so hot (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather have someone who didn't spend their life in management making decisions about how the internet should work. And that's all this guy has... Funding, venture capital, management. So he's great at money! Good--I'm sure he'll make a bunch of businesses very rich. But does he know what TCP/IP is? Does he understand what makes effective QoS policy? How about the difference between bandwidth and latency or (shudder) the OSI 7 layer [burrito] model of networking? Bluntly stated -- does this guy give two sh*ts about consumer interests?
This guy will be head of the FCC. Isn't that organization also very much about engineering, not just policy. If the FCC has become a policy-making organization and left its engineering roots, well how shall I say -- "Houston, we have a problem." And yes, the comparison to NASA I think is fitting, given it was another engineering-based governmental body that later become all about policies and management and has now sent two shuttles smashing into the ground because of it.
Change we can believe in. Heh--Yeah. Right. Looks like more of the same to me.
Re:Credentials aren't so hot (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd make an awful manager.
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You'd make an awful manager.
Probably, but the same could be said of Scotty. And without Scotty, Kirk wouldn't have a ship.
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We need both managers and engineers, the problem is... Where are the engineers in the FCC and why don't they have a voice in how things are going? Because a lot of the FCC's decisions lately seem to be rolling out the doors with glaring implementation problems. Do they even employ them anymore?
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Re:Credentials aren't so hot (Score:4, Insightful)
Management is a different skill set than technology. Whats important in a leader is being able to listen to people who are experts, learn from them, and then make a reasoned decision. Its not so concerning if he's not a techy if he has a track record of listening to informed techies and making good decisions based on that information. A track record of leading companies that effectively utilize the internet is such a track record.
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Management is a different skill set than technology. Whats important in a leader is being able to listen to people who are experts, learn from them, and then make a reasoned decision. Its not so concerning if he's not a techy if he has a track record of listening to informed techies and making good decisions based on that information. A track record of leading companies that effectively utilize the internet is such a track record.
That's an excellent point. But I don't think the credentials listed so far speak to that. It only speaks to him knowing where and how to invest. That isn't leadership ability, that's financial know-how. What is there here that speaks to his ability to lead?
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Good point. He does have senior level experience in the FCC. He was on the Board of Directors for a lot of companies, and Chief of Business Operations at another. I would assume that the only way to determine if he is a good leader or not is how he participated in these positions, but I don't have access to that information.
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In defense of managers, you don't make money managing technical firms by being ignorant about the business you are in.
That's not to say all managers in tech are successful managers.
The FCC is a federal regulatory group. It's there to make policy, not engineering decisions. If they wanted engineering decisions, they form an IEEE working group. Now, you may argue that the scope of their authority should be limited to regulation of the spectrum proper, and not what goes over the spectrum, but policy is defi
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My point isn't that policy is one of their roles. My point is that it is not their only role and putting someone in charge that only knows the policy side of the equation will not make effective decisions about implementation of those policies. His policies could be the best thing since sliced bread but if the implementation is crap it doesn't matter. And given that the FCC has legal power over just about every electronic device sold, used, and produced in the United States... I'd like to know the man has s
Re:Credentials aren't so hot (Score:5, Interesting)
The guy pretty much wrote Obama's tech plan [barackobama.com], the motto of which is "Open Government, Open Networks, Open Market." And he's an advocate for 'Net Neutrality.
The FCC isn't charged with creating standards and products, it's about policy. Technology policy, but policy nonetheless. It is a regulatory body [wikipedia.org]. Nothing more, nothing less.
I know it's the cool thing today to be cynical about Obama's decisions, and I haven't agreed with many of them lately as well, but this is a good pick.
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The guy pretty much wrote Obama's tech plan
That page doesn't indicate he authored it. And the page you gave looks like a power-point presentation, not a policy paper. That does not inspire my confidence.
The FCC isn't charged with creating standards and products, it's about policy.
Flip over whatever you typed that with. There should be a sticker there that says "Part 16, FCC rules." Read it.
I know it's the cool thing today to be cynical about Obama's decisions, and I haven't agreed with many of them lately as well, but this is a good pick.
I'm not cynical about his decisions, I'm cynical about his administration. He hasn't been sworn in yet, so he hasn't made any decisions yet per-se.
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Yep. He's not a geek, he's a suit. A suit who happens to be involved in money-making geek-ish business, but a suit.
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I'd say that is a large exaggeration of one of his many jobs.
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> But his last 10 years or so, he has worked in the IT industry.
No. You just listed the resume of a LAWYER, not a tech type. The guy is a lawyer that has worked for a couple of tech companies in a legal capacity or business operations capacity, never as a technical type.
But I'll bet he is deeply connected to the corrupt monsters who run Chicago, just like almost every other Obama pick.
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But does he know what TCP/IP is?
I don't want the FCC to have anything whatever to do with the internet, except make the telcos and ISPs keep it open and free. You don't have to know anything about tech to do that.
We don't need an engineer in charge of the FCC, we need a manager. Engineers are as bad at management as managers are at engineering.
Bluntly stated -- does this guy give two sh*ts about consumer interests?
That's what's important IMO, not his tech creds.
Isn't that organization also very much about e
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
He is what the new FCC head should do: (Score:4, Funny)
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I nominate...Slashdot!
Re:He is what the new FCC head should do: (Score:4, Funny)
Simply abolish the FCC and replace it with a citizen run mod point system.
Does that mean Olbermann will get cut off on the days that the right-wingers have mod points and O'reilly will get cut off on the days that the left-wingers have em? ;)
Nepotism? (Score:2)
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Even if they do, that's not nepotism, unless his companies are run by his family members.
I believe the phrase you are looking for is Modern American "Democracy".
Crashing this Obama parade! (Score:4, Interesting)
You guys are all giving each other high fives over Obama's FCC pick, and what you do not get is that commercially, he's going to be a very strong IP guy and a lot of you are going to be disappointed in that.
Think, people! How does a man who does venture capital for web startups NOT wind up being strongly in favor of copyright enforcement, software patents, and all the litigation that this board has come to despise?
I see a lot of media companies that did Obama a lot of favors, and Obama's bill for them is coming due. I would expect to see an Obama administration have -stricter- regulation than Bush's administration ever did, all to protect the big city newspapers, publishing houses, record companies, movie studios and other enterprises that form the economic backbone of what we would call the "liberal economy". I would expect to see increased liability on telcos for copyrighted content, a federal bureacracy to handle copyright claims, greater pressure on the rest of the world to get on board, and what's France going to do, when their own newspapers, movie studios, and more, are telling them to do the same thing. Bush had to sell out to Exxon and Halliburton, but Obama is a sellout to Time Warner and the New York Times. Every President, regardless of political party, has a business constituency that they whore out too, and in Obama's case, its the publishing industry. Bush brought us $4/gallon gasoline to appease his corporate masters, and Obama's going to kill the open internet, to do the same.
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There's nothing hysterical or half mad about what I said at all. All I said was that Obama was beholden to media interests. They are going to want some concessions from him, and they are going to get them.
1. Web startups like to have patents of their own, to get venture capital.
2. Liberal economy means exactly what I said. The problem is the USA is a liberal economy with mercantile trading partners, except that instead of holding gold, they hold dollars and treasury bills.
3. Net neutrality isn't bad,
Venture capitalists (Score:3, Interesting)
Having a venture capitalist in any appointed position in what is supposed to be a representative democracy does not strike me as very wise. Whose interests exactly do we expect such a person to represent? Certainly not mine nor those of any of my friends and family....
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I meant to title that "Venture capitalists in the henhouse". Ooops.
Federal Communications Commission? (Score:2)
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As opposed to the news of the new "fuck everybody" "Global Climate Change Czar", who was the one responsible for the Clinton-era ozone changes that had no scientific basis, then joined up as a high-ranking member of Socialist International, and has a husband who's head of an energy-policy lobbying firm...
I mean, sheesh. The word "graft" has taken on an entirely new meaning and Obama's not even sworn in yet. First the MafiAA guy, then the Socialist in a "new position" designed to be sure she doesn't have to
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As opposed to the news of the new "fuck everybody" "Global Climate Change Czar", who was the one responsible for the Clinton-era ozone changes that had no scientific basis,
Amazing the anti-science idiocy that grows on this site like weeds. "95% of peer-reviewed papers on the subject say one thing, but the remaining 5% are the ABSOLUTE TRUTH and action on the other 95% has no scientific basis!"
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Well, consensus is not science. What I find to be more telling is that the 95% tends to be moderately good to very good science (supported by evidence, peer-reviewed, predictive) while the 5% tends to be moderate-at-best to bad science. At least that's what I have gathered from discussions of said papers.
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if you still havent realized what that was, its bush & co's employment policy. wage a war in a distant land, pump up credit consumption at home, hey - employment !
the entire world is having to bear the burden, and your country's bankruptcy severely disrupted global economy. bankruptcy, yes. you have
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, competent people from the startup-world with real success are "extreme leftists" but Bush's pick of fucking lawyer with no tech business experience is "good business sense?" Get off it already, no one but the Rush Limbaugh echo chamber believes these talking points.
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No, he was making a statement about all the Obama cabinet appointees. A laughably dumb statement Obamas cabinet.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Informative)
There's been far too little scrutiny of a number of Obama appointees... he seems to be stacking the cabinet with nothing but extreme left-wingers every chance he gets.
Aside from low-level appointments to things like HUD and the EPA, this is pretty much backwards. The major positions are being filled by some moderate Democrats (with Napolitano and Richardson being the only thing to approach "extreme left-wingers"), some independents, and some Republicans.
More than half of the major defense, foreign affairs, and economic appointees served in significant positions in Republican administrations (mainly under George W. Bush and/or Ronald Reagan)
Of the "big 3" cabinet positions, 2 are Bush appointees:
Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton (D). Leftie, but hardly extremist.
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates (R). Republican, Bush cabinet member
Secretary of Treasury: Timothy Geithner (I). Generally conservative. Bush appointed him chairman of the New York Fed.
Of the "next 2", one's a Reagan appointee:
Attorney General: Eric Holder (D). A moderate Democrat, Holder is a Reagan appointee (Superior court) most famous for prosecuting Dan Rostenkowski (D).
Secretary of Commerce: Bill Richardson (D). Somewhat of a leftie.
Other major appointments
The other major names on his economic team are Reagan CEA member Lawrence Summers and Reagan Fed Charman Paul Volcker
The other major defense names are 4-star general Jim Jones (recipient of multiple Bush administration appointments and special Middle East envoy under Condaleeza Rice) and Arizona Gov Janet Napolitano.
Napolitano, Richardson, and Hillary Clinton are the 3 most "leftie" of the major appointees.
The other 6 (Gates, Geithner, Holder, Summers, Volcker, and Jones) are all significant Reagan/Bush adminstration figures.
Re: (Score:2)
Eric Holder was Janet Reno's right hand man that went on a rampage against all forms of private firearms ownership. If anti-individual rights zealots like that are "moderate democrats", I'd hate to see the true lefties.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have any faith in the righties either, we're pretty much screwed either way, because both halves are hopping on the fascism train.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Eric Holder was Janet Reno's right hand man that went on a rampage against all forms of private firearms ownership.
Holder filed an amicus brief in support of DC's right to regulate gun ownership in DC vs. Heller. That's clearly a liberal position, but it's also far from going on a rampage against all forms of private gun ownership.
He also supports closing Gitmo.
Those positions are well within the mainstream wing of the Democratic platform. You can disagree with them (and I do disagree with the stance on gun control), but trying to paint him (or any of the nominees for major cabinet/advisory positions) as "extreme left wingers" is completely polemical.
I'm not saying he's a staunch conservative. He's very far from being some crazy lefty. The guy's career in public service started with a Ronald Reagan appointment to Superior Court.
The media consensus has been similar, whether you look at FOX News or the Washington Post or sources ideologically in between.
FOX News wrote: "Barack Obama's Cabinet lineup, completed Friday with a month to spare, sends a signal that the fresh-faced president-elect will lean on experienced hands and moderate voices to steer the nation through turbulent times."
CBS's Bob Schieffer wrote "...a lot of people said this is going to be a very extremist president and all that, that he's a very liberal Democrat, but as we have seen in appointment after appointment, he's hewing to the center. He's picking a bunch of flaming moderates here".
Politico wrote "President-elect Barack Obama spent the campaign fighting the notion that he's an unabashed liberal. Now he can point to Exhibit A: a Cabinet that's a middle-of-the-roader's dream".
The Washington Post wrote: "But many of Obama's other picks reflect his apparent preference for practical-minded centrists who have straddled big policy debates rather than staking out the strongest pro-reform positions. Their reputations as moderates have won Obama plaudits from even some Republicans"
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We do scream bloody murder [zdnet.com]. Politicians suck.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a good point, though. Today, we're in an environment where emails have been ruled to have the same constitutional privacy as telephone conversations. Back in the 90s, that wasn't the case.
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wow I never knew Bush had access to the tinfoil hat illuminati superjew government.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on whether you print them at 8 points or 12.
Re:One other thing to consider... (Score:5, Insightful)
My dad works in a high position in an international company and me, getting into the working world the last year, and him sat down to have one of our many talks about office politics. I showed him some of my many notebooks I use to document all the projects I have to do. He responded in kind of a story about his company being sued over a project he had been involved in; at the time he kept similar paper notebooks. He was terrified at being called in to testify.
Now I should explain, my dad is about as straight shooting, honest son-of-a-gun you ever knew. To this day he does not allow people to put mp3s on his computer. He paid a speeding ticket when he went to Panama, a country where it's common and accepted as Status Quo to bribe the cop who pulled you over. So why would be he scared to be called to testify?
Lawyers for one, they're professionals at twisting words and documents to their stories. You just don't know how they'll take your simple notebooks and use it against you; and you could then be held PERSONALLY liable. Needless to say, after the trial, my dad destroyed those notebooks.
Point is, just because you have nothing to hide, doesn't mean you won't be found at fault.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do people keep acting like there's some substantial difference between Bush and Obama?
Hell, he's not even in office yet and we're already staying in Iraq. W00t!
Next you'll tell me there's some real difference between the Republican and Democratic parties... that one wants to spend hundreds of billions on corporate welfare, and the other wants to spend hundreds of billions on individual welfare....
ah crap, now I forgot which is which.
Re:Fine, "On Topic" then: (Score:5, Insightful)
Graduated from Columbia College and Harvard magna cum laude, was a senior official in the FCC, was on the board of directors for various companies, some utilizing the internet heavily (expedia.com), and was part of the working group that created Obama's technology and innovation plan. That's hardly what you portrayed, that he's a purely political pick without any credentials.
On a perusal of Common Sense Media's site, it seems that they offer ratings and tools for parents to help parents control what their kids watch. Oh the horrors! I can see how that's super-left-wing *eye roll*. A private org focusing on parental responsibility is EXACTLY the sort of thing I'd like to see from an FCC official.
In summary, I see nothing here that would suggest that he was a bad pick, and on the contrary, by your own link, he seems to be a good pick. I get it: you don't like Obama. But the amount of spin you're throwing into this is intellectually dishonest at best.
Re: (Score:2)
I despise Common Sense Media. Their email opt-out system is broken. I've had to twice threaten them with the CAN SPAM act to get off their mailing list. The first time, they took me off... and then I magically reappeared on it six months later.
Re:Fine, "On Topic" then: (Score:5, Informative)
Harvard Law grad, with honors. Not everyone can say this. Might be a friend of Obama's but doesn't necessarily exclude him from being qualified.
Your statement on clerking is off the mark. My wife clerked for two judges, both of them pretty conservative guys, one at the district level and one on the circuit level (my wife, btw, is not even close to being a conservative). Clerking for any judge is a competitive position, usually sought after by hundreds of applicants. Clerking for the USSC is a highly sought after position and a huge honor. Wouldn't serving for a conservative and a liberal judge at least show an ability to work across the aisle? Plus, having clerking experience really can pay off to know how the court thinks and what they demand in terms of what arguments make the grade.
Did you skip over the part about Barry Diller and IAC? You know Barry, the guy who helped start Fox Broadcasting [wikipedia.org]? His involvement with Common Sense Media seems somewhat balanced out with some of the other companies who's boards he has served on.
Of course you skipped right over the part where it said he previously worked for the FCC as General Council and all, denoting a level of experience with the organization he's being appointed.
The ultimate judge of this guy will be the positions he takes and the moves the FCC make during his reign, but to say that he only got this because he was Obama's buddy (which he is) and that he's not qualified (he's far more qualified than the last few FCC chairs we've had) is missing the forest for the trees.
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Not So Fast (Score:4, Interesting)
You, and the no-doubt +5 Insightful modding to follow will lead to crushed expectations.
1. This poor bloke doesn't stand a chance against the telco's lobbying. His years running VC are not comparable to years running government, defending attacks from the Telcos and Cable Co's.
2. Government changes very slowly. This is part of the human condition more than anything else. One guy, even with the temporary backing of an Administration doesn't have much to work with.
3. The political system we have will create a great deal of friction preventing it from changing. Telco's and cable co's will screw this guy out of a job if he runs too far afield of their goals to capture the media distribution market.
Don't be disappointed when it doesn't go well.
Re:Not So Fast (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't be disappointed when it doesn't go well.
Don't worry, I won't be. I'm aware of all the real-life problems you bring up and more. No matter who is in what position, there's a huge political machine to be dealt with.
So I'm not expecting it to go well. But with someone heading the FCC who doesn't seem bound and determined to fuck us over, I'm confident it will at least go better.
Re:Unlikely choice (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure that's the previous head of the FCC. Or his hat, anyway.