Biden's FCC Nominee Withdraws Name (thehill.com) 102
President Biden's nominee to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) withdrew her name Tuesday after two years of partisan gridlock delayed her confirmation, the White House confirmed. From a report: "We appreciate Gigi Sohn's candidacy for this important role. She would have brought tremendous talent, intellect and experience, which is why the president nominated her in the first place," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing. "We also appreciate her dedication to public service, her talent and her years of work as one of the nation's leading public advocates on behalf of American consumers and competition," she added.
In a statement, Sohn said she asked Biden to withdraw her nomination after discussions with her family and "careful consideration." She said the "unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks" on her character and career from cable and media lobbyists "have taken an enormous toll on me and my family. It is a sad day for our country and our democracy when dominant industries, with assistance from unlimited dark money, get to choose their regulators. And with the help of their friends in the Senate, the powerful cable and media companies have done just that."
In a statement, Sohn said she asked Biden to withdraw her nomination after discussions with her family and "careful consideration." She said the "unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks" on her character and career from cable and media lobbyists "have taken an enormous toll on me and my family. It is a sad day for our country and our democracy when dominant industries, with assistance from unlimited dark money, get to choose their regulators. And with the help of their friends in the Senate, the powerful cable and media companies have done just that."
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She'd fit right in with the modern Republican party.
There are no "parties" nowadays. Where you been? Just the haves and the have-nots.
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If that were true, she'd be a Fox News anchor.
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I haven't been keeping up and I'd rather get away from ad hominem. Got a link to a write up of the concerns?
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More importantly, does Trump have a disparaging nickname for her?
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TDS
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Trump has latched on DeSantis for the moment, https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
Tiny D being my favorite.
Re:good (Score:5, Informative)
It's standard performative nonsense in lieu of running the country like adults.
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The concerns seem to be that she thinks net neutrality is a good idea and the ISP monopolies don't, so the republicans are pretending she's a communist. It's standard performative nonsense in lieu of running the country like adults.
Given the endless gridlock that a two-party political system brings us today, perhaps citizens need to start understanding the Weapon of Mass Distraction that it is.
Every time either party starts jumping up and down like rabid monkeys throwing Twittershit at each other (as if that is somehow part of their fucking job), taxpayers need to start paying attention to the ones behind the curtain.
2AM is when high-speed Congressional printers seem to be the busiest spitting out the taxpayer-fed budget for Greed N.
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You don't understand how American politics works.
I shall summarize.
My party, the $myParty, are all smart and educated on the issues and always make the best decisions and love this country and are all about uniting Americans for everyone's best future.
Your party, the $yourParty are all dumb and uneducated on the issues and always make the worst decisions and hate this country and are all about division and hatred at everyone's expense.
This is why I am not registered with a party and I vote for candidates I
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For those still reading this thread, that was a textbook example of the straw man fallacy.
That is when you claim your opposition has said some outrageous or stupid thing they didn't actually say (putting words in their mouth), then knocking down those weak arguments the other person didn't make and claiming victory.
I hope you learned some very basic debate technique today, starting with, "if you are going to straw man someone smarter than you, they are going to humiliate you", assuming you have any sense of
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So, exactly like Ajit Pai?
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No, not just like him. Did you read anything on this? Did you read what you responded to? They are not equal or in the same realm.
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I did. The post I was replying to wasn't very specific. Ajit Pai is motivated by psychotic extremism in the form of neoliberal global capitalism (Fukoyamaism). That's the joke.
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If that were true the Republicans would have been so busy masturbating over getting her into office they wouldn't have been able to keep her confirmation from being blocked.
Re:good (Score:4, Insightful)
Its stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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That and the whole Locast rebroadcasting debacle.
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And President's cokehead sons go to work for Ukrainian oil companies.
I found info on Donald Trump Jr.'s often-corrupt dealings in India, Indonesia, Scotland and a few other countries, but nothing with Ukrainian oil companies.
Do you have a link?
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He's referring to the current President's son, Hunter Biden. And that happened pre-2014.
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Four years on that laptop now. I'm sure we'll hear something soon.
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Maybe they'll find some of Hillary's emails on it.
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The story isn't what's on the laptop, that was mostly nothingburger. The story is how the Media immediately determined it was fake, and pointed fingers at the Russians before they knew anything, just before an election.
It's like the Clinton era impeachment. The story wasn't the sex. The story was him lying under oath. Generally the real story is how people respond to minor bad things.
Re: Its stupid (Score:1)
It happened while Joe Biden was vice president. It is still happening with Hunterâ(TM)s uncle today. And if youâ(TM)re still waiting on the contents of the laptop, then you havenâ(TM)t been paying attention, most of it has been well published.
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I was responding to their repeated accusation that the people who disagree are just "political cheerleaders", when it's pretty obvious that the OP is not exempt from that label.
But let's be clear: the whole "Biden got the prosecutor fired" meme is absolutely propaganda that has been repeatedly debunked. Biden was implementing US policy, in coordination with the president, congress, the state department, and many other nations who wanted the corrupt prosecutor fired. They wanted to support Ukraine to fend of
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Next time I may have ask someone to "be specific, and please don't include any obvious bullshit."
Alright, sounds reasonable.
Tell me how and why the grossly unqualified cokehead son of a sitting Vice President got on the board of an energy company under investigation for corruption in a country that Dad is now conveniently funneling billions in aid to.
Tell me why that same person has buried their entire political career. Anyone running and hiding that hard from accusations, knows damn well how much of them are true. Otherwise, it would be rather easy to stand up debunk all of it, especially with the (
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You're here regurgitating debunked Fox and friends propaganda, ignoring everything that Trump and his family did, yet you're sure that it's everyone else that are "political cheerleaders".
Yep, that's projection.
Instead of peddling Faux News, try and provide facts that Hunters involvement in Burisma somehow never existed. Try and provide facts as to why he was even there. I'm not ignoring anything. I'm asking you to prove what you are claiming as "propeganda", actually is. And it's quite clear you cannot.
Let me be clear. I don't give a shit if it's a Trump, a Clinton, a Bush, an Obama, or a Biden doing it. Corruption, is corruption. Political cheerleading enables ignorance to dismiss it, and it's wrong. Non
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You weren't quite so demanding when Trump was president and the media was declaring outright lies.
The Big Guy was identified to be Joe Biden by a grand jury and openly admitted by James Gilliar who wrote the sentence in the first place. Tony Bobulinski, later revealed that “the big guy” was Hunter’s dad. Investigations have since showed plenty of bank records that show that the Biden family was in cahoots with Chinese state-controlled businesses, corrupt Ukrainians and Russian oligarchs.
Tw
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The Laptop is BS. You can't prove shit; the chain of custody is all fucked up which is why it'll never be seen in a court room. They have to parallel reconstruct as the FBI illegally does probably all the time... that is, if they can find anything at all.
All for somebody who never worked for the government and merely exploited his name recognition like everybody else. The Ukrainian company means nothing because the west was already biased undermining Russian oil companies. The real story would be if Hunter
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The attorneys for Hunter Biden have conclusively proven that it's his laptop and the contents are true by threatening to sue people for it. If it's not his laptop, his lawyers and the Biden admin would've said so a LONG time ago.
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Go ahead. Ask yourself. Do you really need a "link" to prove how bad the corruption is today in politics, or is the fact that Joe Biden beat out twenty other candidates proof enough? I don't even need to start on the joke that became the Vice President.
Maybe you'll realize the harm caused by Distraction when you put down those political pom poms.
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1) Is Trump in office? You mentioned things "years ago" can be ignored. *cough*
2) why must we only look at Trump? How about we look at him *and* at Biden's family deals, too? Investigate, indict, convict, imprison. All of them.
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It[so his only item because it is. Do we all have to be concerned about everything everywhere all at once? And if we're not then the things we are concerned about should be dismissed?
Hey, I'm concerned about teenaged pregnancy. But I didn't mention fentanyl use among adults in rural communities. Does that makes my concern about teen pregnancy unworthy of discussion and solution?
That makes no sense at all.
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I'm always intellectually honest. That is the entire point and the thing that gives value to debate for me. I'm not here to score points with rhetorical fallacies. Nor am I a troll unless the definition of troll is "anyone who disagrees with me".
I didn't see the Tucker segment, I have never watched his show. But if he has video showing cops escorting people around, opening doors for them, etc, then how is that a lie?
And how would you know it's a lie anyway? Because the other team said so? Why trust the
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Oh you mean the people who were denied several of their constitutional rights and were not allowed full access to video of their actions that day?
Your logic is circular. The entire point is there is video proving the charges against at least some of these people were bullshit or do you think the videos were faked?
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You can believe whatever you like, including that it's ok in a free country to deny a defendant access to exculpatory video.
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Yes. I am referring to something specific. If you'd been following the cases for real and not just "oh a bunch of people got sent to prison so they must be guilty of really bad things because our justice system is flawless and unbiased" then you'd be super aware and shocked at how Soviet era these people are being treated.
I could easily provide you links but it is better for you if you look around yourself so you can find sources you trust.
I never troll. I just say things that don't fit the narrative beca
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Go read something on your own. Stop getting spoon fed from agenda driven people (which is everyone who isn't a primary source). I rely on primary sources. Do you? My guess is no since you are unaware of what's going on. You only know what someone else wants you to know. I feel bad for you.
Self education is the most powerful form of learning. Try it sometime.
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There is a HUGE difference between officials or even their family working for USA lobbyists in their own country and going to work for a foreign company that has zero influence here.... and a foreign company which was upsetting Russian companies at that...
Re:Its stupid (Score:5, Informative)
She would have been awesome. She was a board member of the EFF, she would have made the media company's lives a living hell and they know it. that's why punks like Josh Hawley were after her.
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Let's not forget Joe Manchin (D, WV) who opposed her nomination and said he would vote against it. DINO much? (See TFA linked in TFS.)
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Because the industry doesn't want to be forced to do things they don't want to do. We need less people that are tied to the industry. Ajit Pai was in my opinion one of the worst things to happen to the FCC, he was a basically a sales rep for the cellphone companies.
How dare you speak of Ashit Pie and such a manner, the horror!
Surprise! (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
She couldn't get through a Democrat-controlled Senate. That's how bad she is.
Manchin is about as Democratic as John McCain was. He delights in voting to ratify Republican hyper-partisans while shooting down Democrats.
You can tell just how much the attacks against here are BS by noticing that literally none of them here say anything bad that she actually did. They're just all mischaracterizations.
Seriously. Go look at her wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]. "Since 2018, Sohn has been a member of the Board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation." The horror!
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And that freaked out that ultra-right wing conservative Joe Manchin. How he's considered a Democrat is beyond me. Shows he's a Republican though, probably didn't understand the simple 2 checkbox form he had to fill out.
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And that freaked out that ultra-right wing conservative Joe Manchin. How he's considered a Democrat is beyond me. Shows he's a Republican though, probably didn't understand the simple 2 checkbox form he had to fill out.
Would you prefer a Republican?
The problem isn't Manchin. Republicans in red states are way more Conservative than the population and Democrats in blue states are more Liberal, the ones like Manchin, who win opposite party states, tend to represent the political views of their constituents far more than other officials.
The problem is the US Political system that gives a state with 1.8m people the same Senate representation (and thus veto power) as a state with 39m people.
The Joe Manchin who reliably votes wi
Re:Surprise! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is the US Political system that gives a state with 1.8m people the same Senate representation (and thus veto power) as a state with 39m people.
That's a feature, not a bug. The point being to keep large states from running roughshod over small ones. The representation by population is in the House, not the Senate. Now, there is an argument that House proportionality is broken, and I would agree with that statement - the amount of population per representative should be at least as low as the smallest state population to compensate (actually, half that would be even better).
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No, the point was to keep the slave states in the Union. And it didn't even work.
Replacing a tyranny of the majority with a tyranny of the minority is not an improvement.
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Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the US Political system that gives a state with 1.8m people the same Senate representation (and thus veto power) as a state with 39m people.
That's a feature, not a bug. The point being to keep large states from running roughshod over small ones. The representation by population is in the House, not the Senate. Now, there is an argument that House proportionality is broken, and I would agree with that statement - the amount of population per representative should be at least as low as the smallest state population to compensate (actually, half that would be even better).
It's supposed to be a feature, but it's a bad one.
It made sense back when the US was a collection semi-independent governments and they wanted to make sure they retained some degree of control. But now it's creating a system where there's vast imbalances in political representation.
You do want some imbalance in the proportionality, but closer to the +2 states get in electoral college votes (minus the winner take all aspect).
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It's weird, if you think about it. Most Rs right now are pro corporation (aka if you're big, you get power). this is contrary to the political system where if you're small, you still have a *HUGE* sway of things.
Conservatives tend to favour stable communities with strict hierarchies. This leads to an assumption that even if the rich and powerful haven't earned their place it's not worthwhile trying to displace them.
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So you're saying the government is unable to pass enough new laws?
They don't enforce the ones already on the books. What do we need new ones for?
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Today's Republican party is not conservative.
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You can tell just how much the attacks against here are BS by noticing that literally none of them here say anything bad that she actually did. They're just all mischaracterizations.
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
I don't care why ISP's opposed her. I, and most others that were against her, was because of her on-the-record statements backing the whole "hate speech isn't free speech" horseshit. And of course, people like her get to decide what speech should be allowed and forbidden. She called media outlets she didn't like "a danger to Democracy". She demanded that the broadcast licenses for Fox and Sinclair be revoked. She spoke often of how "problematic" blogs could and should be banned. This wom
What is with this blurb? (Score:5, Insightful)
No info about Sohn's views or background or why they might be controversial? Not even a concrete example of one of the "attacks" being referenced? The Slashdot blurb doesn't even mention what position at the FCC she was nominated for. It's just the person that the Whitehouse pays to spin things in their favor saying their candidate was a good choice, and the candidate themselves saying attacks on them were unfair.
Could we perchance have some content and not just the preferred political framing?
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Google may or may not be our friend, but there's a reason why the GP is on _slashdot_ looking at this story, not Google. Sure, sometimes stories here are just starting points to seek out more information, but it's generally a good thing if most of the main points of a story are self-contained.
Re:What is with this blurb? (Score:5, Informative)
No info about Sohn's views or background or why they might be controversial? Not even a concrete example of one of the "attacks" being referenced? The Slashdot blurb doesn't even mention what position at the FCC she was nominated for. It's just the person that the Whitehouse pays to spin things in their favor saying their candidate was a good choice, and the candidate themselves saying attacks on them were unfair.
Could we perchance have some content and not just the preferred political framing?
FCC commissioner. It's the only position that involves senate confirmation, AFAIK.
She was held up in part because of Locast [bloomberglaw.com], a nonprofit whose board she served on, which provided local TV channel streaming, and eventually got shut down by the courts for massive violation of copyright.
That history gave the Republicans a good excuse to hold up the nomination, and as a result, they did. And in spite of the nomination being a clear no-go, the Biden administration stuck with their nominee for what is now approaching 1.5 years, resulting in the commission being deadlocked on any partisan decisions for more than half of Biden's term in office.
As unfortunate as the whole situation is for everyone involved, I would argue that this decision is at least a year late.
This also demonstrates why, in the hyper-partisan world of Washington, we really need to revisit the advise and consent aspects of Congress by removing Congressional committees' ability to stall nominations from reaching the Senate floor. As long as the opposition party can stall, stall, stall, they have the ability to interfere unconstitutionally with the executive branch's ability to do its job.
You won't find that info (Score:3)
This isn't about political framing, it's about corruption. She was shot down because the Republ
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There was no reason to turn her down that isn't corruption
While I don't agree with the case in question (retransmission should be lawful), I can totally see how some people might think that her being on the board of a company where the entire business model was copyright infringement on a massive scale would be disqualifying.
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Re:What is with this blurb? (Score:5, Informative)
She has attacked Fox News. She tweeted "So do you still want me to believe that social media is more dangerous to our democracy than Fox News?" and she shared a tweet "Your raggedy white supremacist president and his cowardly enablers would rather kill everybody than stop killing black people."
https://twitter.com/gigibsohn/... [twitter.com]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
Gigi Sohn's negative comments about Fox News have led some to believe she could attack them if appointed to a seat on the FCC which is not popular with even some moderate democrats.
I'm not a fan of Faux News myself, but someone who is responsible for regulating broadcast news needs to be seen as a bit more unbiased.
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Fox News is cable, not broadcast. The FCC doesn't have much to do with regulating basic cable channels. (Super old faq because that was the first search result: https://transition.fcc.gov/Bur... [fcc.gov])
Telling the truth shouldn't be disqualifying.
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There is the FOX News Channel on cable TV, but there is also FOX News on FOX broadcast TV stations that covers a lot of the same news and bias. FOX News Network, LLC provides content for both from my understanding. You are correct that the FCC does not regulate the FOX News Channel on cable TV, but it does regulate FOX News on broadcast TV stations, which is why I specified broadcast news. The FOX local news channels have a much higher audience than the FOX News Channel (71% of adults watched local news in
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Too close to politics. (Score:5, Interesting)
I know nothing about her, so I don't particularly have any opinion as to whether or not she was the right person for the job.
What I do know is that to get close to US politics (especially, but not exclusively), you have to understand that you're going to brush up against the worst in "outwardly legal" human beings. Just shitty, shitty people, all the way down. It still kind of works because nearly everybody who gets there is firmly in that camp already. But I really do think that if you entered politics by choice in the last twenty years, it says deep and terrible things about your inner character.
That's right - I'm impugning an entire swathe of humanity on the basis of career choice. And I do it as a conscious, informed decision.
"A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other, professionals offering services for pay--such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients? It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors" - Lazarus Long (Robert Heinlein).
...and VASTLY higher than that of politicians.
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TWO YEARS. How long do the heavily attacked officials last? Most do not make it 4 years. People burn out but the ones fighting corruption generally burn out faster.
This one was attacked for TWO YEARS and wasn't even able to start at the job because of constant delays! That is some powerful corruption at work...
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But I really do think that if you entered politics by choice in the last twenty years, it says deep and terrible things about your inner character. That's right - I'm impugning an entire swathe of humanity on the basis of career choice.
I would say to temper that blanket statement with state-level or national-level politics, or at the very least with labeling "Career" politicians. Politics was never intended to be a career, but that's what it has become.
I am somewhat involved in my local politics at the county and town level. Most of the people I've met at this lowest level of politics are not career politicians, and do so because they love their area and are genuinely trying to make a (positive) difference. Those that are trying to ma
Just goes to show... (Score:1)
explanation (Score:2)
The republicans offered an explanation: she was a very partisan partisan for what should be a non-partisan position. Yeah, Ajit Pai was terrible, but two wongs don't make a white.