47 Democrats Cave On Net Neutrality After GOP Calls Bill 'Dead On Arrival' (arstechnica.com) 178
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Forty-seven Democratic members of Congress are calling for a net neutrality compromise with Republicans, who have refused to support a full restoration of the net neutrality rules repealed by the Ajit Pai-led Federal Communications Commission. The Democratic-majority U.S. House of Representatives voted in April to pass the Save the Internet Act, which would restore the Obama-era FCC's net neutrality rules. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared the bill "dead on arrival" in the Republican-majority Senate.
Republican lawmakers say they'll only accept a net neutrality law that isn't as strict -- even though large majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters support the FCC's old net neutrality rules. On Wednesday, dozens of Democrats asked their party leadership to compromise with the GOP leadership. "We, the undersigned, voted for [the Save the Internet Act] because it represented an opportunity to resolve questions that courts have struggled with for decades," the Democrats wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "At the same time, we recognize that this legislation is unlikely to become law, or pass through the Senate, in its current form. If that proves true, consumers will be left without enforceable net neutrality protections while partisan conflict continues. We believe this result is unacceptable and unnecessary." The letter to Pelosi was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and signed by another 45 Democratic members of the House. It goes on to suggest that the House create "a bipartisan working group" that would write a net neutrality law that's acceptable to Republican lawmakers.
Republican lawmakers say they'll only accept a net neutrality law that isn't as strict -- even though large majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters support the FCC's old net neutrality rules. On Wednesday, dozens of Democrats asked their party leadership to compromise with the GOP leadership. "We, the undersigned, voted for [the Save the Internet Act] because it represented an opportunity to resolve questions that courts have struggled with for decades," the Democrats wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "At the same time, we recognize that this legislation is unlikely to become law, or pass through the Senate, in its current form. If that proves true, consumers will be left without enforceable net neutrality protections while partisan conflict continues. We believe this result is unacceptable and unnecessary." The letter to Pelosi was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and signed by another 45 Democratic members of the House. It goes on to suggest that the House create "a bipartisan working group" that would write a net neutrality law that's acceptable to Republican lawmakers.
Trump Vs Mitch (Score:2, Insightful)
Who wins this traitor-off?
Re:Trump Vs Mitch (Score:4, Insightful)
Who wins this traitor-off?
The Democrats face a choice:
1. Stand firm, get nothing, campaign on the issue in 2020.
2. Compromise, and get something.
The problem with #1 is that most voters, especially swing voters, don't care about NN.
So #2 may be their best choice.
For Republicans, the tradeoff is easier. They realized long ago that most of their voters don't care, so they have instead focused on getting industry campaign contributions. #2 is fine with Republicans, as long as the lobbyists from Comcast and Spectrum write the bill.
Re:Trump Vs Mitch (Score:5, Interesting)
Then worse than that, the issue is then considered to have been addressed, and instead of being able to get real NN in 2020 or 2024, it'll be a decade or more before there's the will to fight for any change again.
They should wait and not compromise, or we'll have a 'compromise' that guts NN as the law of the land for the next 10-20 years.
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Re:Trump Vs Mitch (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if the Congress passes a bad NN law then there's nothing FCC would be able to do.
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That's not true, unless new law precludes implementation of the old regulations.
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Seems to think pResident 39% will rule forever.
This is why they keep losing (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why the Democrats keep losing ground. They compromise and try to make peace on every issue rather than standing their ground. The correct strategy would be to send the bill forward and force the Senate to shoot it down, demonstrating to the voters which side the Republicans are on.
Scrapping this bill and sitting down to hash out a new bill will take too long, not provide any usable protection for net neutrality and tells the voters the Democrats aren't going to stand up for them.
It was the same with health care. The Democrats pushed the ACA, which was originally a Republican plan, rather than one of their own. And the Republicans still voted against it and then spent the next eight years attacking it, even though they created it.
No, the Dems keep losing because of (Score:5, Insightful)
These are Dems like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer & Joe Biden. Joe Biden is my current favorite, as he literally came out in favor of the same Social Security "reform" [youtube.com] Paul Ryan proposed.
Bill Clinton moved the Democratic party hard right to appeal to elite donors and get the money he needed to run his campaign (speaking of which, Biden tried that [youtube.com] but apparently failed). The result was the Democrats became moderate Republicans and the GOP shifted far, far right (to the point where their president has said good things about literal Nazis).
Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and a wing of the Party called "Justice Democrats" is trying (and I'd argue succeeding) at shifting the party back to the left and back to grassroots, pro-middle class government. I recommend everyone register as a Dem and Vote Bernie or Liz in the primary.
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The Justice Democrats are part of the reason the Democrats are losing the mainstream voter. They're basically the Democrat version of the Tea Party and it's where the nutters like AOC came from. Just to give you an idea of how crazy they are, they kicked out two of their founders [huffpost.com] over shit written 15 years ago.
If you're going to vote D
No, that claim is a load of bollocks. (Score:4, Insightful)
They're further right than Obama, who was so rightwing that he peddled the previously right-wing affordable care act. And what is this bullshit about "justice democrats are losing them the mainstream voter"???? Medicare for all (something from the JD side) has 70% polling. If that isn't fucking "mainstream", then your head is wedged RIGHT up your arse.
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It was designed by the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation, which is now owned by the Kochs & Mercers. The ultra-right-wing Heritage Foundation. The ACA is based on the law written by the Heritage Foundation. That's right, it was written by the Heritage Foundation.
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The original idea was designed by the Heritage Foundation....in the 90's
I know. I used to support the Heritage Foundation, back when it was pro-free-market and conservative.
Now it's just a propaganda-for-hire outlet, and the only people who can afford to pay the bills are the Kochs and the Mercers.
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The ACA was based off Romneycare, which was a state level thing.
I know. I live in that state. I voted for Romney.
Romney got the plan, pre-written, from the Heritage Foundation.
Just like Republicans get most of their bills today, pre-written, from ALEC. (Also owned by the Kochs.)
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False. Romney signed the health care law on 2006 April 12. There were specific sections that he disagreed with, and he vetoed 8 sections, but the law that he signed and that went into effect immediately was a derivative of the law that Romney originally proposed. His 8 vetoes were eventually all overridden by the legislature, which is not surprising, since the Massachusetts legislature is overwhelmingly composed of Democrats (and Romney was a Republican governor).
Anonymous Coward Bollocks (Score:1)
No, the ACA is not based on anything from the Heritage Foundation.
Facts matter, and you're wrong. [forbes.com]
But please, keep lying under the cover of anonymity.
Not really (Score:5, Informative)
The Justice Dem's platform (Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, legal weed, ending the 8 wars, tuition free college, etc, etc ) consistently polls in the 70 percentile. You've been watching too much CNN and/or MSNBC; media of, by and for the establishment.
Yang isn't going to get anywhere with UBI in 2019 any more than Bernie did with Single Payer and ending the Wars in 1990. It's going to take decades for him to build his case. He should, like Bernie, go get a Senate seat. On the plus side his presidential run might get him enough name recognition for that. I'm not trying to talk down to him, I'm saying what he's trying to do is _hard_. I mean motherfucking _hard_. It takes a long, long time to shift people's views. Being on the right side of history is seldom easy.
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Ya, UBI isn't going through anytime soon. Our society hasn't quite gone through the upheaval in the rural regions that will put pressure on this. I think one of the big shifts will be with automated freighting, which will gut trucking and probably numerous other sectors. The other one is super speculative though and it banks on The Boring Company being successful in its advances. If TBC gets drilling speeds up like they want, there is a good chance farming could move to the large cities. You can build large
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Yea, because places like California, which has a lot of agriculture could totally support that, without even mentioning the amount of electricity needed for hydroponics under ground. You may want to rethink that a bit.
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Generally in the past we haven't looked at the possibility of doing something and discounted it on "electricity requirements" alone. Its possible that with shifts to renewables and attempts to get off of fossil fuels, that this might become a limiting factor. Its also possible that a lot of that regular farmland becomes more valuable as solar farms and pushes towards hydroponics set ups regardless. Electricity may also not be that big of a deal for these setups with a mixture of LED and Fiber optic lighting
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Look at the state of infrastructure, that is realistically out of the real of today. And will continue to be that way for at least a few decades.
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"They're center or right of center policies everywhere else in the world"
You're missing the point: nobody gives a shit about what 'the rest of the world' thinks. Well Democrats desperately do, apparently.
From wiki: "The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American fact tank based in Washington, D.C."
Pew Research is a US organization. It reports on world issues in US context, and in US context legal weed, high minimum wage, and socialized medicine are all far left.
Everyone all the way back to de Tocquev
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Democrats are much further left from where they were in the mid-90's.
Even so, remaining much further to the right than even Canadian conservatives. It's very much a matter of perspective.
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identity politics goons that have infested the political left and handed Trump the last election
You can't criticize the parent for inaccuracy and then dump this out there like it's gospel. All politicians appeal to identity politics, they just don't necessarily cater to the same identities. And the notion that Clinton would have won if she had directed her identity appeals more to white voters and less to minority voters isn't necessarily true either: she had fairly low turnout among black voters and could potentially have won if she had gone further with her appeals to them. Five Thirty Eight had an
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Bill Clinton moved the Democratic party hard right
He also balanced the budget and presided over the biggest peacetime economic expansion in history.
... to appeal to elite donors and get the money he needed to run his campaign
Or maybe he actually believed in sensible pro-business economic policies.
Re: No, the Dems keep losing because of (Score:1, Troll)
Re:No, the Dems keep losing because of (Score:4, Informative)
Bill Clinton moved the Democratic party hard right
He also balanced the budget and presided over the biggest peacetime economic expansion in history.
By, among other things repealing the Glass–Steagall act. His policies ulitmately resulted in this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
... to appeal to elite donors and get the money he needed to run his campaign
Or maybe he actually believed in sensible pro-business economic policies.
Which, several years later, resulted in this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (did I mention that before?)
Admittedly, the Bush administration helped significantly to bring the Subprime Mortgage crisis about but it all started with the repeal of the Glass–Steagall act.
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Mighty nice straw man you got there (Score:4, Insightful)
SJW's are the new welfare queen. A boogieman to keep you up at night worrying about blue haired college girls instead of the billionaires who are busy shipping your jobs overseas.
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A boogieman to keep you up at night worrying about blue haired college girls instead of the billionaires who are busy shipping your jobs overseas.
And selling your underage daughter for sex. [thedailybeast.com]
They aren't a minority (Score:4, Insightful)
The only people pushing toxic identity politics are the GOP and right wing Democrats like Pelosi, Schumer & Biden. They want you (and everyone reading your rant) to stay laser focused on social issues and identity politics so you'll let them have all the money while they either save you from the Big Bad SJW (GOP) or protect you from Toxic Masculinity ( Pelosi/Schumer/Biden).
It's the exact same trick either say. You trade money and economic security for a raging hate boner against SJWs. It's not worth it man. It's just not worth it.
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It's the exact same trick either say. You trade money and economic security for a raging hate boner against SJWs. It's not worth it man. It's just not worth it.
You don't get it. The SJW issue is the political equivalent of "first world problems" to most right-wingers. This is not the kind of shit you worry about if you can't afford healthcare, your only option to switch broadband providers is moving to a different home, and you frequently shop at Aldi because Walmart has actually become kind of expensive.
People only give this issue brain time on election day if everything else in their life is actually going pretty decently. You'll never bring these people over
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Elections are won by convincing enough of the middle-of-the-road moderate voters that your candidate isn't as batshit crazy dangerous in their day-to-day lives as the other candidate. The fact that Clinton lost to Trump should make liberals seriously rethink the value proposition of their SJWs. At least the conservatives have the Media to thank for allowing them to distance themselves from the neo-Nazis and full-tilt fascists in their midst. OTOH, the liberals and their Media continue to embrace SJW loonine
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The fact that Clinton lost to Trump should make liberals seriously rethink the value proposition of their SJWs.
Again, the SJW issue is only something worth feeling one way or the other about politically if you have no other dogs in any other fights. Living in the south, I know a lot of Republicans and the biggie is that they don't want to foot the bill (as in literally paying more taxes) for anything they see as a socialist agenda.
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they don't want to foot the bill (as in literally paying more taxes) for anything they see as a socialist agenda.
While I can't quite say I'm a republican, I am conservative. I view some of the lefts "social agenda" as mental illness, kindof like everybody did 20 years ago when I was a kid. I have no problem paying tax to get these people proper medical treatment. But mutilating their genitals is not proper medical treatment. I even support giving birth control to those on welfare who can obviously not afford to support the family they have now. I do not support paying to abort someones unwanted pregnancy. At least if
Trump shot that full of holes (Score:2)
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Also FOx News and right wing media try to find a scape goat for anything. For example Trump exhibits unpresidential behavior and threatens Pelosi to make the meenies stop their persecutation of him ... Fox News now says Pelosi is out of her mind and is drunk and has dementia! Thus confirming to Trump who watches it that he was correct and 1/3 of the voters buy it!
Republicans murder a young woman in Charlotsville and instead of condemning them Trump blames both sides ... Fox News has Antifa. Now it is HEY LO
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they're a tiny, tiny, itty bitty itsy tinny winnie fraction of a fraction. The entire f'in country has about 2000 women's studies grads a year next to 2 million total grads. That's .001%.
I had no idea the numbers were so extreme. Those graduates must have some kind of amazing superpowers because they had the right wing nutjobs scared shitless even when the right controlled all branches of the government.
The right wing has a well funded media engine (Score:2)
I'm not exaggerating when I say SJWs are the new Welfare Queen. There are hundreds of think tanks dedicated to keeping the middle class at each other's throats so the elites can take all the money and ship our jobs overseas. Sooner or later they're bound to hit something that resonates. SJWs worked.
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Its because their flavor of nazism is virtuous. If you let them tell it.
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Re: This is why they keep losing (Score:1)
Standing their ground in this case means actually losing, because they get jack shit. Pass a compromise bill to get something, and then continue working on the rest.
This is how a functional representative government works.
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"how a functional representative government works" but not how ours works. Once something passes it takes a long time to change it and people get the wrong impression that what was passed was actually wanted, which it usually isn't, it's the result of a lot of bullying by people with power who are NOT representing the interests of the people.
Standing ground here and pointing at Republicans WOULD be better in the democracy we actually have.
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Yeah letting perfect be the enemy of the good always is the best strategy.
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I'm not sure I follow. I don't see anyone on either side here being perfect or good.
Re: This is why they keep losing (Score:3, Informative)
You do knpw that the Senate isn't under any obligation to vote on anything the House sends their way except spending bills, right? The majority leader can just shitcan it and move on - Harry Reid did this with practically every useless obamacare repeal vote coming from the House, and I didn't hear you whining about that.
Your strategy ends in nothing changing, the Senate getting off without voting for or against anything on the record because the majority leader shielded his caucus from having to, and we al
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
don't vote D next election. (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if you lose, make your vote and voice count, vote for a party, candidate, and platform you believe in!
It might get you 2-6 more years of shit, but each time you compromise your principles you give up a little more ground in the next skirmish.
If we the people start voting for who we believe in, rather than against X party, we will eventually erode both parties influence which will erode their corporate sponsorship's centralized influence on capital hill. The more parties, the more different representati
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Even if you lose, make your vote and voice count, vote for a party, candidate, and platform you believe in!
The problem with this line of thinking is that it allows the people who place victory above principles, to win. We ended up with Trump in 2016 because the majority of Republican voters were willing to hold their nose and support their candidate. The Democrats turned into a fractured mess with Bernie or Bust, Never Hillary, etc.
If the only practical choice is between evil and lesser evil, you can't really claim you succeeded at making things better, when your vote for good helped enable evil to win by majo
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The problem with *this* line of thinking is that winning is never even on the table.
If we only ever vote for evils and never good, we've already lost.
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Actually, what Net Neutrality law needs is a ANY service that uses the Internet must honor First Amendment Free Speech rights _in writing_ as part of the law. That way, you won't have the likes of Facebook and Twitter decide on their own who to censor by various means.
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So Congress can't use the internet to pass a law limiting speech? Sounds fine.
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No the reason democrats LOSE is because Joe Redneck low information only gets his info from Fox NEws and AM right wing radio from the farm who voters based on abortion and what his Sunday school teacher tells him to think counts 6 times more than yours. [nbcnews.com]
Gerrymandering is evil!
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"The Democrats pushed the ACA, which was originally a Republican plan, rather than one of their own."
Then you didn't really even understand the argument, did you?
Yes, the ACA was more or less Romneycare in MA.
The point being: the ACA was Obama's effort to FEDERALIZE healthcare, an almost-unprecedented Federalization of something which should have constitutionally remained at the state level. The states are meant to be a marketplace of ideas. There's NOTHING inherently wrong with the ACA as a state program
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Brb (Score:2)
Grabbing popcorn..... Ok go on comments!
Republicans Hate You (Score:3, Informative)
If your name doesn't end in "Inc." you can just go fuck yourselves.
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If your name doesn't end in "Inc." you can just go fuck yourselves.
If your don't hand over a big stack of cash you can just go fuck yourselves.
There, fixed that for you.
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If your name doesn't end in "Inc." you can just go fuck yourselves.
Not really. My salary is up. My stocks are up. My taxes are down. Fantastic.
Found the one-percent-er.
I have a moderately upper-middle-class career and salary. My salary has gone up modestly during the Trump years, certainly no better than before Trump, and perhaps even less.
The stock market was climbing in the first two years of Trump in the White House, I'll give you that. Whether he was responsible is debatable. But now it's all going to shit because of his trade wars, his tweets, and his general incompetence that leads to uncertainty.
And taxes? Mine have gone up. A lot. The new
FINALLY, now focus on real competition (Score:5, Interesting)
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I agree; allow local municipalities to install and maintain communication infrastructure for their constituents, and rent access out to ISPs to provide the backhaul.
I'm not usually a fan of government involvement such as this, but I feel in the case of critical infrastructure it's wholly appropriate.
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Let the citizens vote if they want said service. If they do, then city (or whatever local gov is) should provide the fiber to a central location. Then let the citizens pick/choose which service to go with (phone/voip, tv, ISP, alarm, etc). However, the fiber should allow for homes to use the local city services, such as schooling, library, city services, etc.
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Let the citizens vote if they want said service.
Aren't they doing that now? Didn't they have a chance last year to really clean up? I mean, if they don't take the initiative, who is going to do it for them?
Re: FINALLY, now focus on real competition (Score:2)
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State governments are also elected. The voters have the power to change it.
The government created the monopolies (Score:2, Flamebait)
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the Democrats would actually be on record supporting Net Neutrality.
Not all of them [demsagainstthe.net]. There's always enough to help the republicans kill a bill, and still maintain the charade for the believers.
There was no "caving in". It's *The Price is Right*
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Don't get so worked up. It's strictly business. They have to protect each other. The money is non-partisan.
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In today's politics, bipartisanship is the first sign a RINO or DINO displays before it is shot and put out of its misery (electorally) by the true-believing base.
ISP Censorship==Bad (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft and the rest of the Silicon Valley Content delivery oligarchy continue their censorship.
Imagine instead of tech companies, it's a bakery. And instead of hosting objectionable content, it's baking a cake for a gay wedding.
Not as much fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?
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Ok so what is it, Can private business do what it wants? or cant it? What about public businesses? Some consistency would be nice from either side at this point.
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https://www.freepress.net/our-... [freepress.net]
Well, now we know who to vote out (Score:2)
Compromise (Score:5, Insightful)
"Compromise with me," says the insincere man.
You talk a step towards him.
He takes a step backwards.
"Compromise with me," he repeats.
Only one step back though (Score:1)
"Compromise with me," says the insincere man. ... And then he gives you partly what you wanted...
You talk a step towards him.
That is what happened here. Isn't that how compromise works? Isn't that how government is SUPPOSED TO work, with different groups coming to a shared compromise they all support, even if it's not all of what any one group wanted?
The alternative you seek to promote is an angry man, never giving way, even as the angry bull bears down on him - he knows for sure he is in the right, so wh
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...did you just stop reading there, or did you intentionally ignore the second half of my post?
"Democrats Cave" (Score:3)
Sky blue, grass green, water wet.
"Mitch McConnell is a Fucking Dick" (Score:3, Insightful)
both sides are the same (Score:1, Insightful)
Republicans continue to fuck normal people over.
Normal people cheer and vote republican.
The Internet has fallen apart, right? (Score:2)
According to every news report and fear mongering statement on technology sites all over, the Internet would essentially die without Net Neutrality in place and strict. So, it was repealed. Nothing really changed. We have anti-trust laws in place. We have fair competition laws in place. We have all sorts of existing laws in place that already protect the consumer. The #1 law we have is that capitalism actually works. Aside from the government mandated monopolies, there is adequate enough competition in the