The nation's top internet service providers have settled on a strategy for defeating net neutrality. Like most political strategies of the past few years, they've decided to simply lie.
A week after FCC Chair Ajit Pai outlined his plan to kill net neutrality, the internet providers who support his proposal are spinning the effort harder than a 20-something at SoulCycle. The basic message from companies like Comcast and Verizon is this: “We don’t want to get rid of net neutrality and/or an open internet itself. We merely want to do away with the rules through which net neutrality was established, because reclassifying broadband providers under Title II was bad.” [...]
Verizon, for example, released a sort of slick but mostly bizarre video on the topic last week. The camera starts off behind our host, identified only as Jeremy, who has turned to greet the viewer as if they just wandered into the meeting. Jeremy’s accomplice—Verizon’s general counsel, Craig Silliman—says point blank that the FCC “is not talking about killing the net neutrality rules.” This is an insanely ballsy statement to make, because it’s patently false. He also says that Verizon isn’t asking the FCC to repeal the rules (it is), and that pro-net neutrality groups are just trying to fundraise the issue and “rile up the base.”
The approach being peddled by companies like Verizon and Comcast is straightforward: We love net neutrality, super-duper much, and would ever do anything to harm it. But the rules requiring us to abide by it need to go away, because they make puppies cry. After nobody’s looking anymore we promise we’ll still abide by neutrality rules just as much.
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—Bush’s $1 million ‘political stunt’:
Rep. Henry Waxman, one of those rare congressional Democrats with a pulse (along with Sen. Byrd), is demanding the administration account for the costs of Bush's stunt landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln.The costs reportedly top $1 million, but for me, the biggest cost of the stunt was this:
The Democrats issued a news release headed 'shameless' in large red type that cited the 'nerve required to delay the return of 4,000 sailors to their families after 10 months at sea in order to stage (a) photo-op.'
That's right—our troops, eager to see their families after a 10 month assignment, were required to spend an extra day at sea in order to accommodate Bush's campaign appearance. The Navy's excuse? The ship made good time on its return trip and the sailors still got into port as previously scheduled, but I'm sure the sailors and their families would've loved to have seen each other a day sooner. Too bad their needs were subjugated for Bush's reelection campaign needs.
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