“Before Tuesday’s midterm elections, there were 95 House and Senate candidates who pledged support for Net neutrality, a bill that would force Internet providers to not charge users more for certain kinds of Web content,” David Goldman reports for CNNMoney. “All of them lost — and that could mean the contentious proposal may now be all but dead.”
“The Federal Communications Commission tried to implement Net neutrality rules but got smacked down in April by a court ruling saying it did not have the authority to do so,” Goldman reports. “As a result, it is preparing a proposal asking Congress to give it new authority to regulate broadband Internet service.”
Goldman reports, “Republican lawmakers largely oppose the idea of Net neutrality. Though a majority of Democratic lawmakers support the issue — all of the 95 candidates that said they would support Net neutrality on the left-leaning Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s website were Democrats — they have been divided on whether to pass the FCC’s proposed legislation. The debate over Net neutrality has been fiercely fought on both sides, and experts say the FCC’s proposed legislation had little chance of passing even in the current Congress.
“The widespread Democratic losses made an already uphill battle even tougher. More than a dozen incumbent congressmen who had voted for a similar Net neutrality bill in 2006 were voted out of office on Tuesday, most notably Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., a 28-year House veteran,” Goldman reports. “Now, experts say the FCC needs to regroup and weigh its options.”
Read more in the full article here.
Where are the TSOL of this decade?
UN-FSCKING-BELIEVABLE. Rest In Peace, fair Internet. Rest In Peace, America.
I want to see all the rightwingnuts on this site argue that net neutrality is a bad thing just because Republicans oppose it. Should be fun to watch then try to spin it.
Greater fees paid to Comcast to allow you to access websites they deem should cost you more will ultimately help business and trickle down to benefit the poor, just like it works with Bank of America and BP.
What were the odds of this happening?
Astronomical.
Makes you wonder.
“Americans will always do the right thing, after they have tried everything else.”
Sir Winston Churchill
Good Grief! Who would have the party of corporate lackeys that argued the complete corporate control of as many media outlets in as many markets as you could afford was a “free speech” issue, will now back to corpratisation of the Internet. Remember this when your bills keep going ip and up and up, more of the content you want is available from fewer and fewer providers.
It really is telling how effective corporate propaganda has become when the party that always, always, always defers to coroporate interests can portray itself as looking out for the “average” USAnian, and those same USAnians just suck up the lies without a clue. But I guess it’s not surprising given that 8 years of Bush drove the US to world record debt and bone crushing poverty for many while pushing the lie that giving more money to those who have more than they will ever spend is somehow going to make life better for everyone. Time to wake up from your corporation induced coma, USA.
…and I thought America was the home of Democracy and all that? Some men are created more equal than others.
Idiots, can’t fsking count.
From TechDirt:
Apparently the big mainstream reporters don’t even bother with basic fact-checking any more. Last week, we wrote about how a bogus story was making the rounds, pretending that this last election was a referendum on net neutrality, after a paid consultant to the broadband industry put up a blog post noting that 95 Democratic candidates who had signed a pro-net neutrality pledge had lost. What was not mentioned by all the press who covered this was that (a) that particular list involved challengers, not incumbents, and almost all of them were in districts where they were almost certainly going to lose anyway (b) if you looked at a different list of incumbent Democrats who signed a pledge supporting net neutrality, none of them lost and (c) if you looked at a list of incumbent Democrats who signed an anti-net neutrality pledge, many of them did, in fact, lose their races to challengers. Point being: this race was not at all about net neutrality, but the press seems to have glommed onto that “all 95 who supported net neutrality lost” and simply refuse to fact-check it at all.
Take, for example, the piece written by reporter Chris Lefkow, of AFP, and published over the weekend — long after many sites had debunked this particular talking point. In it, Lefkow seems to get pretty much all of the details wrong. Admittedly, he’s “paraphrasing” from (notoriously anti-net neutrality) Richard Bennett’s blog:
Bennett, in a blog post at Hightechforum.org, noted that all 95 Democratic members of the House and Senate who had signed a public pledge to protect an “open Internet” had lost their seats in the Republican tidal wave.
Apparently, Lefkow and the AFP (which I had thought was better than this), don’t think you need to fact-check even the most basic claims as long as they appear on a blog somewhere. First of all, anyone who paid any attention whatsoever to the election last week would know that between the House and the Senate, 95 seats were not lost — in total. As I’m writing this up, there are still some races that haven’t been officially called, but of the official races, the Dems lost 60 seats in the House and another 6 in the Senate. There are 9 uncalled House races and 1 uncalled Senate race — so at most, the Democrats could have lost 76 seats. So anyone who even paid minimal attention to the election would know that this claim is false. The 95 number, as we noted, is about 95 Democratic challengers, not incumbents. And yet here’s one of the bigger mainstream publications claiming, without any support, that 95 incumbents lost their seats over net neutrality.
And people wonder why no one trusts the big news wires any more.
I guess I am a rightwingnut… Government should never control the price of anything!!!!!!!!!!
When “evil capitalism” or free market principles really work, you get low cost products with high quality. When Government steps in to control cost and quality you get, Socialism.
Spend time studying Hugo Chavez and all the great cost controls he is doing to help the people of Venezuela.
Another example, we are about to get a heavy dose of Obamacare… cost are going up and quality will go down.
The American electorate is ignorant. Those in the lower and middle classes who voted Republican this year, voted against themselves.
Teatard Scum marks the demise of civilized debate, the turning of the USA into a third world.
Don’t buy into this. Info is so bad. CNN has lost a lot of credibility over the years. rwahrens got the number problem correct. But this a subject that is split on both parties.
@wmd
Don’t know where you’ve been, but healthcare quality in this country has been down for a long time. Much lower than a lot of European countries.
I also don’t understand the older people who complain about ObamaCare yet continue to insist on Medicare and Medicaid. You are either for gov’t support of health care or you are not.
Hidden money bankrolls the election of all officials and you think the internet is the only thing under attack?
Bansksters and filthy oil money at work.
Welcome to the plutocracy of the United States of Unconsciousness!
Thank you rwahrens.
The US Chamber of Commerce Thanks You for your vote- you’ve been punched.
1 Remember when the teabaggers said they were not Republicans- except they were and are.
2 Remember all that talk about being balanced budget hawks- except they are for a tax cut extension that will blow a $700 Billion + hole in the budget EVERY YEAR.
3 Remember all that talk about killing earmarks- except they are not.
They are, however, going to carry the water for the US CoC and the Koch brothers, who funded and egged on this astroturf movement. This supposedly leaderless movement lead by Dick Armey.
A world without regulation is a world run amuck.
When compassion and moderation are natural human qualities… we will need less government.
So far, I just don’t see it.
Right wing, Left wing, Middle wing… if you think the FCC has a rat’s arse clue about what it’s doing and needs MORE POWER, then you really need to get back on your meds.
See what happens when you privatize? The U.S. government is owned by big business, you no longer have a say anymore. ‘Course for some, “….This is what you want, and this is what you get.” But keep on railing about how Capitalism is so much better than Democracy or Civil Society: “Some men you just can’t reach.”
And when groceries go up 18% and your stomach’s rumbling, just think how much better off ConAgra stock is. And thank god that there are enough multi million dollar F-22s® to defend against non existent enemy superpowers. F-22 Raptor copyright the Lockheed Martin/Boeing corporations – not the American taxpayers who paid for them.
@His Shadow
“But I guess it’s not surprising given that 8 years of Bush drove the US to world record debt”
Obama/Pelosi/Reid added more to the national debt in less than two years than had been accumulated since the Washington administration.
@wmd: Healthcare in the USA is the best in the world (for the very few who can afford it)
Nothing about free reign private enterprise run companies = quality + cheap. China is about as unregulated a place as you can get, is communist and yet consistently churns out lower and lower quality. Germany is “socialist”, with 5 week vacations and plenty of social aid and has some of the highest quality precision instruments and knives in the world.
Quit using the word “socialism” as boogeyman.
MDN take:
Just goes to show – the Republicans are the party of the big corporations. Help those cable companies raise their rates. It is a big corporate tax on the the people.
Republicans believe in raising taxes. It is just that your tax $$ go to the corporations, not to your schools or roads or fire departments.
Before all you left-wingers get your panties in a bunch (not that I could stop you), you all need to read rwahrens comment above. The article as written is, while not technically a lie, such a spin-job that ass-hat Keith Olberman might as well be telling (screaming) it.
That said, I support net neutrality. Bits are bits, pipes are pipes, and if the telecoms want to “regulate to provide fair usage”, they should do that with tiered pricing and not controlling what kind of bits get through.
“Teatard Scum marks the demise of civilized debate”
Imagine that, the people you call scum not wanting a civilized debate. Did you even think about that before you wrote it? Or after, for that matter?