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United States Communications The Internet

Trump To End Biden-Era High-Speed Internet Program (nytimes.com) 128

President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately." The New York TimesL: Mr. Trump's statement was one of the starkest examples yet of his slash-and-burn approach to dismantling the legacy of his immediate predecessor in this term in office. The Digital Equity Act, a little-known effort to improve high-speed internet access in communities with poor access, was tucked into the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr. Biden signed into law early in his presidency.

The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities. But Mr. Trump, using the incendiary language that has been a trademark of his political career, denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access for ethnic and racial minorities, raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."

Trump To End Biden-Era High-Speed Internet Program

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  • 00 DAYS (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frogking ( 126462 ) on Thursday May 08, 2025 @09:05PM (#65362833) Homepage

    IT HAS BEEN |00| DAYS Since Trump Has Been AN INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT.

    • Re:00 DAYS (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Thursday May 08, 2025 @09:39PM (#65362889) Homepage

      I think you need to reduce the unit of time to HOURS. Or maybe even MINUTES.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      IT HAS BEEN |00| DAYS Since Trump Has Been AN INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT.

      I don't think you'll need 2 digits.

    • You can write that on the wall in ink.

    • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      From what I gathered from the process of distributing all that cash, it's such a convoluted, expensive system that to this day almost nothing has been actually accomplished.

      Is that no longer relevant in today's world? That a bill not only sound good but actually accomplishes good things?

      Or have Americans gotten so used to the method of attaching all kinds of things to nice sounding bills that they stopped even looking at the corruption that is happening in DC?

      You can be in favor of the "Everyone gets broadb

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        SS, Medicare, and Medicaid are expenditures to the bureaucracy and the military? Hardly. It is clear you do not know where the money is going. This is precisely the attitude of Elmo when he started in cutting the government: fail to understand how the system works and then fuck it up by mindless cutting that accomplishes nothing except fucking it up.

        Elmo started by claiming, with no evidence, that he could cut $2 trillion from the Fed. Gov. Then he lowered it to $1 trillion. Then he claimed $168 billion. Of

  • You know what we need more of? People paying for their own stuff and pulling their own weight.

    You know what we need less of? Expecting that federal dollars will rain down like manna from heaven to pay for all the stuff you want but can't afford yourself.

    You know why that is? Because we're almost $40T in the hole (that's 4e13 USD, folks) and the annual bill for interest on the debt is close to $500B.

    When I was in college, it was a scandal that George W let the debt go from 4T to 8T during his eight years in

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You know why that is? Because we're almost $40T in the hole (that's 4e13 USD, folks) and the annual bill for interest on the debt is close to $500B.

      Yet it's the US taxpayers who will be paying that debt for generations to come, not the Military Industrial Complex, the oligarchs or the corporations suckling on the government teat.

      Even the impoverished low-waged US citizen cannot evade paying taxes on penalty of imprisonment and should be given a leg up. Whereas if a corporation pays actually taxes, it's time to get new accountants. Socialism bad, unless of course it's for the big corporations and oligarchs.

    • by Art Challenor ( 2621733 ) on Thursday May 08, 2025 @09:28PM (#65362869)
      Are we going to start with the handouts to Elon that are funding SpaceX? Or maybe, we could start taxing billionaires at the tax rates that were in effect in the Bush era and have them pay their fair share of taxes (or at least some taxes). The ideological cuts that we're currently seeing are just that, politically motivated moves that will do little or nothing to solve the deficit.
      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
        I would like the 60 trillion dollars at the 1% have taken from the bottom 99 in the last 40 years. I would like to get that money back. That doesn't include the 10 trillion we handed out to them during covid or the additional 10 trillion Trump is trying to hand out to them right now. But that's 60 trillion is a good start.

        Oh and that's trillion with a t in every single example above. How much better would your life be if they didn't have that money? Yeah you wouldn't have all of it but I mean it's 80 tr
      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        (trump) raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."

        You see, leon is a white illegal immigrant. It's ok to give him free handouts from the government.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Socialism for the rich = good
      Socialism for the poor = bad

      Don't blame me for saying the quiet part out loud - it's the American Way (tm).
    • by Anonymous Coward

      TLDR: "Hurr-durr. Freeloaders. Gimme that ladder! I used it, and it's mine now. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!"

    • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Thursday May 08, 2025 @09:43PM (#65362895) Homepage

      The USA is $40T in the hole because (1) Americans are greedy and want lots of stuff, and (2) Americans are selfish and don't want to pay taxes.

      These traits are multiplied one-hundred fold for the super-rich, which is why the super-rich are still getting handouts and tax cuts while everyone else is getting shafted.

      Want to cut the deficit? Tax the rich a lot more. Tax everyone else a bit more. Cut spending on the military and other high-cost but limited-benefit items.

      And then spend strategically by lowering the cost of university education and spending more on R&D to make the USA competitive again.

      Trump, of course, is doing the opposite of all of these things and is sending the USA straight down the crapper.

      • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        For (1) a big portion of that is the military and wars. We could have been investing in our infrastructure but instead we blew up infrastructure

      • We owe most of it to ourselves and the only problem there is we gave all that money to the 1% and they used it to buy up all their competitors and jack up prices on us

        The stuff we all overseas is basically imperial tribute. It's how we prop up the dollar and force it to exist as the world's reserve currency. This maintains the Petro dollar which is why you can afford to drive that gas guzzling SUV you probably own or why you could afford to buy a fancy EV if you decided you wanted a cool piece of tech to
        • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

          Yes, it's good to be the Hegemon: you're expected to keep the world running in a predictable and orderly fashion, but that means you are given lots of leeway to do things your way, and as a side benefit you get to take economic advantage of the world's faith in your competent leadership, in the form of cheap capital provided to you at very low interest rates whenever you sell Treasury bonds to foreigners.

          That works fine (for the USA anyway) until the day the world loses faith in the USA's ability to run th

        • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          And Trump is so stupid, he thinks that looting the world of its material goods, which America does, is "ripping us off". Trump views taking wealth from others as an entitlement, why pay for anything you can take for free? And why pay a debt you can welch on it instead? You can sell us your goods so long as the money you get you give back to us in taxes. That's literally the tariff plan, half the trade imbalance "returned" in taxes. What moron thinks this works? An orange utan, that's who.

    • Yes, because there absolutely is never a return on investment for infrastructure spending.

      You know this was essentially the 21st century version of rural electrification, yeah? I mean the 20th century version (actual electrification of rural areas) certainly paid no dividends...

      Look past the end of your own nose, please.

      • Look past the end of your own nose, please.

        Unfortunately the thing past the end of his nose to look at is Fox News.

        • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          You have to look past the end of your nose to find the people you want to shoot at. Oddly, MAGA isn't even good at doing that.

    • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Thursday May 08, 2025 @11:40PM (#65363085)

      To be fair Obama had to deal with the economic crisis after 2008 and 8 years of Republican economics. And Biden had to clean up the post-covid mess left for him.

      Almost like there's a trend of Democrats having to clean up the messes only for Republicans to scold them for spending money to clean up said mess. The only Democrat in my lifetime to be handed anything close to a reasonable economy was Clinton and he famously left with a surplus.

      So maybe this isn't "both sides" after all and maybe the GOP has been lying to us for our entire lives for craven political power.

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Almost like there's a trend of Democrats having to clean up the messes only for Republicans to scold them for spending money to clean up said mess."

        This is literally what "Two Santas" refers to. There is a name for it, and it is deliberate and intentional. Republicans don't overspend and undertax when they have power because they are bad at governing, they do it because they are evil, because it puts money in the pockets of their base AND it gives them leverage to harm their opponents when they lose powe

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      The perhaps you should stop supporting the Two Santas Republicans. Nothing rings up the debt faster than a Republican President.

      "Expecting that federal dollars will rain down like manna from heaven to pay for all the stuff you want but can't afford yourself."

      Some of your biggest heroes can attribute their wealth to these very federal dollars. That's literally what the military budget is.

  • If it discriminates on race, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. And any law repugnant to the constitution is void. It doesn't matter if you think it should be allowed. It is illegal. End of debate.

    • If it discriminates on race, ...

      Just because he says it does doesn't mean it's actually so -- and that's for the Courts to decide, not him. Also, from TFS:

      The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities.

    • by Biljrat ( 45007 )

      Definitely do not want those farmers and ranchers through the middle of the country to get their hands on affordable high speed internet.

      • That leads to being informed by more than nutjob talk radio and nutjob right wing cable news!

        Can't have that, can we? Same reason public education needs to be gutted: an educated electorate is an electorate that votes for other people.

    • Lots of laws have been written to protect minorities. Is that discrimination? SCOTUS doesn't think so, and if they don't think so, then the laws are in fact constitutional.

      • Try again. Laws that give minorities protections the majority are not privy to are illegal. Laws protecting everyone are what is constitutionally required by the 14th.

        • Do you not have laws protecting you?
        • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          "Laws that give minorities protections the majority are not privy to are illegal."

          Do you know what "privy to" means? You realize that law is not secret, right?

          Give some examples of laws that provide "protections" that are denied to "the majority". Let's stop pretending there's any legitimate argument for your racism.

    • Fine. But that hasn't actually happened here. The idea that "helping poor people access the internet" somehow discriminates against a particular race is severe lizard-brain thinking.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "If it discriminates on race, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment."
      Citation please.

      Also, discriminating based on race is now legal, as is denying due process. Furthermore, the President, and therefore the Executive branch, is not bound by the Constitution. The Supreme Court said so in Trump v. US. The President has absolutely immunity from law, the Constitution is merely the highest law.

      We are no longer a country of law, the debate doesn't even exist.

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday May 08, 2025 @09:41PM (#65362893)

    President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately."

    Well... A king could do that, but not a president. As president, his job under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution is that, "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Someone should explain to him that oath he took on Jan 20, 2025 and read him the pertinent parts of the Constitution. That way, he can't credibly say, "I don't know" when (repeatedly) asked if he has to "uphold the the Constitution" in interviews. Google: trump I don't know [google.com]

    • Well... A king could do that

      And how did the first king get to be king? People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time. Not so neat that it's happening in our country.

      • And how did the first king get to be king? People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time. Not so neat that it's happening in our country.

        Alpha leaders are common in many species. Competition among candidates decides who becomes the leader.

        As humans went from small groups of itinerant hunters to larger groups that settled in certain areas, the mythology of the leader grew in order to make the larger group more cohesive.

        Eventually leaders became kings, whose sovereignty was not questioned, and whose power passed down through their family line. They could be deposed, but only rarely. (When you strike a king, you must kill him. - Ralph Waldo Em

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." "

        No, the first king became king by violence. And Trump's not different.

        "Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time."

        No we're not. The fact that you think we are shows how what's really happened is hidden from view. Trump's very first move when he got the nomination was to take control of his party's financing, something he has never reliquished. Once he controlled the money, he had absolu

  • Biden should have included the word "Trump" in all the bills passed -- for example: "Trump Inflation Reduction Act" (just in case this happened) ... :-)

  • How many people were connected through the Digital Equity Act?
    • by Cinder6 ( 894572 )

      I can't find exact numbers, but I did find a recently published Princeton study [princeton.edu]. According to it, grant submissions for the Competitive Grant Program closed in September 2024 (for a bill passed in 2021), and "[a]s of January 2025, over fourty (sic) entities, including a varied mix of municipalities, school districts, trade associations, and a hospital, among others, have been recommended for award of a combined $369 million pending 'budget review and processing.'" There's also a table showing grant status.

      A

      • by malx ( 7723 )

        There was an interesting interview between Jon Stewart and Ezra Klein (both liberals) in which Klein explained to Stewart why nobody had actually been given Internet access under the "Inflation Reduction Act" (in which this Digital Equity Act is embedded) because of the sheer levels of bureaucracy built into it.

        Judging the programs success after "funds have been allocated" is crazy in itself, but in this case, "funds being allocated" doesn't even really have a clear meaning at all: there are literally over

    • one source will say 100000's another 0.

  • Biden really has a lock on Trump's mind. He is obsessed with him.

    • They're talking about bombing Iran soon unless they sign another nuclear deal because Trump didn't want to leave a treaty with Obama's signature on it. Can we get the deep state back in charge soon?

  • All lowercase, no spaces.

  • ... denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access ...

    You've got the wealth to run an end-of-the-world bunker for 2 years, or you're a white Christian/Jewish slave. Everyone else is left to die.

  • 3 years 6 months can't come fast enough....
  • Was it race-based handouts? As in, did the program explicitly indicate race as a qualification? If so it was racist and should have been terminated.

The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project

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