Biden Appoints Jessica Rosenworcel To Officially Lead the FCC (theverge.com) 73
President Joe Biden named acting Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to officially head the agency on Tuesday, propping her up as the administration's leader to tackle broadband expansion and net neutrality. Biden also nominated progressive advocate Gigi Sohn as the third Democrat for the bench. From a report: The decision comes late into Biden's term, beating out both former presidents Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon who nominated their FCC chairs well into September of their first years. If confirmed by the Senate before December, the FCC's 2-2 deadlock would end and provide Democrats with a majority to push forward Biden's telecom agenda. But it's unclear if senators plan to move on Rosenworcel and Sohn's confirmations before the end of the year. Without a majority, current Democratic commissioners Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks have their hands tied when it comes to implementing Biden's agenda. In July, Biden signed an executive order urging the FCC to restore Obama-era net neutrality rules and to take up other measures to promote broadband competition, including requiring companies to provide transparency into pricing.
What is really needed (Score:1)
What is really needed is a law/requirement that forces competition in all localities. Without that, most of these rules will be reversed.
Odd the republications, the free market party, does not want to open up competition in broadband.
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That is a complete lie, total bullshit. Why do you assholes keep lying about NN? Because you and your corporate overlords don't like it. True equality and neutrality is the enemy of all big corporations so that's why they need a specific law to guarantee that the "little guy" you speak of isn't bulldozed by the big ISP's and their ability to provide free or reduced price services for their "friends".
Either you assholes really don't know what NN is or you deliberately keep mis-quoting it to confuse others
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...municipal broadband because it results in tax funds killing off competition.
Care to give an example? Even one time?
Re:What is really needed (Score:5, Informative)
What's interesting is how eager non-elite Republicans are to screw themselves
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I don't fully understand this phenomenon either. Overall Republicans tend to have lower levels of education. Surveys bear that out. Maybe that explains some of it.
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Yeah but gender studies degrees are worthless. I mean that's the meme right?
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Also you're missing that every study that claims that Democrats are higher educated treat a two year gender studies degree as more highly educated than someone with 30 years of trade skill knowledge which is given an education value of zero.
Re:What is really needed (Score:5, Informative)
if I recall, gas was cheap and the store shelves were stacked full of stuff back when Trump was the President.
Really? Because I remember seeing a lot of empty shelves. Toilet paper shortages are notable, of course, but I also remember that I wasn't able to buy bleach wipes and other common household supplies for most of 2020.
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it's still shutting down a significant portion of the economy.
That's simply not true. We've see a few high-profile stories, sure, but even in those "worst case" situations it's always just a tiny fraction of affected groups that actually walk-out. The overwhelming majority of people are either vaccinated already or just suck it up and get the jab.
The doom and gloom predictions from the anti-vaxxers just didn't come true.
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As far as gas prices go, you can find the history here. [eia.gov] It shows that gas prices went up steadily during the Bush years, crashed with the financial crises at the end, rose back up during the Obama years then went back down before Trump was elected, and went up and down again during the Trump years. Most of that had to do with supply and demand, not presidents. Fracking and general econ
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It shows that gas prices went up steadily during the Bush years, crashed with the financial crises at the end, rose back up during the Obama years then went back down before Trump was elected, and went up and down again during the Trump years. Most of that had to do with supply and demand, not presidents.
Uhh, as you just outlined, gas prices seem to have EVERYTHING to do with presidential elections ever since Bush. Election year? gas prices down. Not an election year? gas prices up.
Trump was kind of an exception to the rule, in that gas prices didn't exactly go up a lot during his non-election years.
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Maybe I'm just "one of them dumbkins,"
Yes, that is clear from the rest of your comment. You seem to think no-one remembers the panic buying last year when Trump was the president and shelves were bare.
Weirdly you also seem to think Biden sets the price of gas.
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Weirdly you also seem to think Biden sets the price of gas.
Riiight. Because canceling the Keystone pipeline doesn't affect the price of gas.
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Why would cancelling a pipeline that doesn't exist and wouldn't have been operational for a few years affect the price of gasoline that was already refined and shipped to the local filling station for sale today?
I don't think you've thought that comment all the way through.
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Yeah, because there weren't any product shortages in the spring of 2020 when the Former Guy was still in charge. Absolutely none of these products were in short supply:
toilet paper
disinfectant wipes
isopropyl alcohol
hand sanitizer
N95 masks
paper towels
various raw meats (ground beef, chicken)
How quickly you forget what a shit show 2020 was.
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Republicans stopped being the free market party long ago (if they ever were). They're in fact the whatever-is-good-for-Republican-elites-screw-everyone-else party.
What's interesting is how eager non-elite Republicans are to screw themselves
Republicans are the party of Business Owners, and not the party of Business. This why their entire focus is on the stock market (rich people getting richer), instead of infrastructure to support SMBs and employee availability (health care, dependent care, education, etc).
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...wealthiest corporations in the US are left leaning...
That is the most American phrase I have seen today. "Left-leaning" corporations? You live in a fantasy.
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The party system in the United States is severely broken anyways.
They are two major political parties, that have to make themselves seem different enough, to make sure that the other party is just too scary. To get to be able to play in the main election, each political candidate will need to prove to their own side that they are the more pure (and often the most radical) version of what the party see itself and its ideology as. So other than getting two candidates who will focus on important issues and h
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You aren't wrong.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
They might as well come out and say I'm bought and paid for.
As opposed to... (Score:1)
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Democrats are in fact the whatever-is-good-for-Democrat-elites-screw-everyone-else party.
Equivalence denied. I don't see Democrats disenfranchising voters and gerrymandering voting districts to shut out their opponents on the massive scale that Republicans are doing. Nor do I see a Democratic counterpart of Mitch McConnell making up bullshit ad hoc rules to stack the Supreme Court in their favor. Or carpet bombing any and every Democratic action in the Senate with the filibuster. But Democrats are doing things like advocating an increase in the minimum wage and universal healthcare -- you know
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I do not accept the premise of your comment. You assume facts not in evidence.
Please cite evidence of a "rigged election" - and I don't mean some conspiracy theory bullshit. I mean actual election audit results that show clear and conclusive electoral oddity that would have made a material difference in any precinct results, anywhere.
I won't wait for your response, because there won't be one that actually shows anything. Why am I so sure? Because it doesn't exist or it would have been nonstop coverage f
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There are some free market republicans, but there is only one thing that all Republicans can agree on:
Cut taxes.
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There are some free market republicans, but there is only one thing that all Republicans can agree on:
Cut taxes.
"(Call) What is the Answer? (Response) Cut taxes!"
"(Call) What is the Question? (Response) Doesn't matter!!!!"
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That is exactly right.
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Odd the republications, the free market party, does not want to open up competition in broadband.
Probably the most fair explanation of the standard Republican point of view here is that the free market doesn't / shouldn't need help from regulation in order to maintain a free market. My actual opinion on the underlying motives for this part of the Republican platform is less cordial.
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The free market was the old Republican stance, back when it was the elitist party. The current Republicans seems to not like the free market so much, or at least not in areas that concern them. So spend those tax dollars, create tariffs, remove all regulations that foster competition and prevent monopolies, bail out failing businesses, have oil and gas subsidies, etc.
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None of the political parties today are based on any real sort of ideals, or ideology.
They are just doing what they can do keep or usurp power from the other party.
The Republicans know if they keep the big ISP in favor, they can political funding and support. The Democrats know if they keep the Big Technology Companies in favor, they can fund their political stance.
Competition in broadband will make ATT, Verizon and a number of Cable companies angry at them, because Big Tech wanting to cut out the middle
Re: What is really needed (Score:2)
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And do you have these fantasies about Marines often or just when you are "in the mood"?
I look forward to a rational and calm discussion (Score:2)
Oops. Almost got that out without laughing.
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Does She Know Morse Code? (Score:2)
Or maybe how a ham radio works?
Re:Does She Know Morse Code? (Score:4, Informative)
Does not appear to be a highly technical person from her bio. Undergraduate in economics and English lit. and then a J.D. So, she's basically a lawyer. Not perfect, but not necessarily a bad thing. On the plus side, she appears to have never been an employee of a telecoms company or a lobbyist. She did work for 3 or 4 years out of law school as a communications lawyer, so she could have worked indirectly for a telecom, but that would have been decades ago. So, it does not look like she's one of those revolving door types who seem to still be working for whatever company they temporarily left to go run a government agency.
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Which is exactly why her confirmation will be blocked by Senate Republicans. Oh, you want an FCC Chair that isn't a big-telco shill? Nope.
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Meh. I'm an Extra and active in my local club. I can assure you that most amateur radio operators don't have any idea how a ham radio works either. The preppers aren't even interested.
If she learns what she needs to know, and she is clearly capable, I'll be happy.
It would also be nice to see someone enforce the rules. The bands are getting bad. It's not just 80m anymore. I saw someone transmitting vulgar insults, without identifying their station, on FT8 the other day.
Speaking of FT8, if anyone sees J
Net neutrality (Score:4, Interesting)
So, republicans think companies should have the right to decide what traffic should be prioritized on the internet. One would think they believe in property rights, the right of a business to operate the way it wants. The God-given right of a business owner to be free of government interference. Except, they want to force companies like Twitter and Facebook to allow right wing vitriol on their platforms. They want to force companies to not ban unvaccined people, they want to force companies to cater to right wing nutcases (but not bake/sell cakes to gay people.) They were against government-forced affirmative action, until they realized companies wanted to hire minorities more than them. Now they think government should force companies to not have their own affirmative action programs. Therefore, net neutrality is another example of hypocrisy from Republican death cult. The easiest way to get Republicans to support net neutrality is to remind them that it means ISPs can block traffic to their websites. Actually thinking about that, maybe blocking net neutrality is not so bad .. it is another thing that can backfire on these fools. I would love to see how it all plays out on these idiots.
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400M Security cameras are constantly , sending of the 300k/sec of the cat and dog wandering the living room and the internet works quite fine today. Exactly what was Net neutrality.about on the consumer side. The providers knew long ago that the top 10 providers would need to contribute something to the cost of circuits. The companies using the internet to get data out of the house also have a portion of the expenses to pay. The avoidance of sharing those costs cau
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Nope, in the FCC press release, she's married with two kids and a lawyer husband that will take a leave from his firm:
https://www.fcc.gov/document/c... [fcc.gov]
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Hmmm, methinks your penis envy is showing.
an executive order is a stop gap measure (Score:2)
Congress needs to fix this with common carrier status and ban exclusive contracts, and we all know how well that will work out... So we'll get little more than a lot of drama.
"implementing Biden's agenda" (Score:5, Insightful)
That phrase is an excellent encapsulation of how the USA has failed. Biden (or Trump, or Obama, or Bush, et al) should not be able to implement any "agenda".
The Executive branch is there to oversee the execution and administration of laws enacted by Congress. The agenda of the USA is set by the legislative body which more accurately represents the wide diversity of the entire citizenry. By contrast, the office of the President is only filled by a simple first-past-post plurality, so it would be inequitable for that one quadrennial coin-toss to be allowed to rule over people -- which is why the President has no Constitutional power to issue laws governing human beings.
A country where one man and 2-3 of his buddies can create laws governing the use of electrons on a wire, RF waves in the air, and interactions between people, has long ago ceased being a representative democracy that honors its diversity and the rights of individuals, Unfortunately Congress has been progressively (lazily) abdicating its power to the centralized Executive throne for over a hundred years now, so now people are used to thinking of one person as their potential savior or their potential persecutor -- which greatly compounds the enmity, vitriol, and deception of the presidential election season and guarantees we get oscillating presidencies who feel justified in using every possible means to embrace their existing power, extend the scope of their duties, and thus extinguish the deliberative legislative process.
A legislative body with hundreds of regional representatives requires coalitions and bargains and nuance and debate. No contest solely between two people for all the marbles, can include nuance and coalitions and bargains. The winner is under no obligation or pressure to work with the loser no matter how narrow the victory. it is inherently zero-sum.
So the country now chaotically overcorrects back and forth from GWBush to Obama to Trump to Biden, and all it teaches us is to hate each other more.
Re: "implementing Biden's agenda" (Score:1)
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Yes. The Legislative branch is constantly giving more of its power over to the Executive. Which has created room for the Judicial to partially fill the vacuum and grow into a legislative body decreeing what is and isn't the law. The danger with that is, federal Justices get there via Executive appointments. So instead of having three separate, balanced rock-paper-scissors divisions checking each other, we have a Presidency gaining broad powers to issue laws governing every aspect of people's lives (which us
Don't worry (Score:3)
Don't worry, nothing will come of it. I'm sure the confirmation process has already been blocked by everyone's favorite asshole junior Senator from Texas until he gets what he wants and can crow about "how he brought the Biden administraton to heel" in campaign donation request messaging.
Yet one more reason why the Senate's rules need changing - to prevent self-aggrandizing asshole narcissists from being able to single-handedly hold up the nation's business until they are personally placated.
World's greatest deliberative body, indeed.