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Congress Hammers FCC

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TheBigA

Walk of Fame Participant
It's not been a good month for the FCC. They've made several trips to Congress, testifying before various committees, and it's not gone well. Just yesterday, they went before the House Appropriations Committee, the folks who provide their funding, and they were told that they're trying to do too much. Here's what Tom Taylor reported today:

“We believe the FCC should do less with less,” says Rep. Ander Crenshaw.

There you have the philosophical divide in the House, from Appropriations subcommittee chair Crenshaw, a Republican from northern Florida. He tells visiting FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai “we have kept your funding purposely low, in hopes that” it would focus on fewer items and do them the way Congress wants.

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So for those of you who dream of radio re-regulation, or want the FCC to take a more active role in policing radio stations, pirates, and the broader range of communications, you now can see why those days are gone.

This is simply an extension of the smaller government mantra the Republicans have been chanting for 30 years. Those of you in conservative talk radio know what they're talking about, but you probably never expected it to have an affect on radio regulation. This is an example of how it does.

Today, the FCC goes to the Judiciary Committee, where they'll be slammed about their Net Neutrality proposals.
 
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This isn't a "smaller government" effort, this is a "government our way" effort. The Republican-controlled Congress is trying to directly control the FCC, rejecting the idea that the commission is necessary altogether. They're attempting to consolidate their power. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's all about net neutrality. But they're not going to win this war. Oh, sure, they'll drag the FCC into the chambers and berate and belittle them for doing the job that, you know, Congress actually created the FCC to do, but what the neocons are trying to do here is reject both the will of the people and the endangered openness of the Internet to satisfy the corporations who paid their way into office. Not that the Democrats are any better in regards to doing the bidding of their donors, but they're not the ones in power right now. This is strictly fascism, and the American public is having none of it.
 
It's called oversight, conducted by those in Congress by the will of the people.
 
TheBigA said:
It's not been a good month for the FCC. They've made several trips to Congress, testifying before various committees, and it's not gone well. Just yesterday, they went before the House Appropriations Committee, the folks who provide their funding, and they were told that they're trying to do too much. Here's what Tom Taylor reported today:

“We believe the FCC should do less with less,” says Rep. Ander Crenshaw.

There you have the philosophical divide in the House, from Appropriations subcommittee chair Crenshaw, a Republican from northern Florida. He tells visiting FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai “we have kept your funding purposely low, in hopes that” it would focus on fewer items and do them the way Congress wants.

-------------

So for those of you who dream of radio re-regulation, or want the FCC to take a more active role in policing radio stations, pirates, and the broader range of communications, you now can see why those days are gone.

This is simply an extension of the smaller government mantra the Republicans have been chanting for 30 years. Those of you in conservative talk radio know what they're talking about, but you probably never expected it to have an affect on radio regulation. This is an example of how it does.

Today, the FCC goes to the Judiciary Committee, where they'll be slammed about their Net Neutrality proposals.
Click to expand...

With all the money in the world, they wouldn't re-regulate radio. They've moved on to controlling the Internet. But go ahead with your blame Republicans gag. It's not old at all.

Silkie said:
It's called oversight, conducted by those in Congress by the will of the people.
Click to expand...

IT'S GRIDLOCK! MUST PASS LAWS FOR THE SAKE OF PASSING LAWS! GIVE THE FCC ANYTHING THEY WANT! THEY ONLY WANT THE BEST FOR US!
 
Ravens said:
But go ahead with your blame Republicans gag. It's not old at all.
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Where did I "blame Republicans?" Nowhere.

My comment is directed at all the radio critics who want to get rid of the 96 Telecom Act, as though that will fix everything. The truth is the FCC doesn't have the staff or the mandate to re-regulate radio. If anything, you'll be seeing less government in broadcasting in the future. And that's regardless of which party is in power.
 
TheBigA said:
Where did I "blame Republicans?" Nowhere.

My comment is directed at all the radio critics who want to get rid of the 96 Telecom Act, as though that will fix everything. The truth is the FCC doesn't have the staff or the mandate to re-regulate radio. If anything, you'll be seeing less government in broadcasting in the future. And that's regardless of which party is in power.
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I'm afraid the radio horse left the barn a long time ago. The FCC has moved on to the Internet. The problem with Net Neutrality, even though the basic premise is well intended, is it imposes a whole new set of regulations and reporting requirements on service providers. That won't hurt the big guys like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T etc. They have plenty of lawyers and minions to take care of that. Any new costs or taxes will just be passed on to the consumer. After all, who wants to go without Internet? Most people will do whatever it takes to get it. It will hurt the small providers, especially those who are WISP's (Wireless Internet Service Providers). These are the guys who invested their own time and money to provide service to areas where fiber or cable don't go and probably never will. They are not big companies, usually just a couple of guys who think they can make a living by providing a local service. They just don't have the staff or budget to deal with this. I'm afraid a lot of them will go away. Somehow this is beginning to sound a lot like what happened to radio in 96...
 
Chuck said:
Somehow this is beginning to sound a lot like what happened to radio in 96...
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No...the money left radio in the 80s. That's why companies like GE abandoned it. Too many radio stations dividing an ever-shrinking pie.
 
Silkie said:
It's called oversight, conducted by those in Congress by the will of the people.
Click to expand...
No, "oversight" is when Congress regularly calls in the commissioner every few months and catches up with what the commission is doing, going over budgets, figuring out what policy to focus on, et cetera. What Congress is doing right now is throwing a three-year-old's hissy fit because their corporate sponsors don't like what the FCC is doing. That's not oversight, it's inverse fascism. It's corporate-owned-and-operated government. Period. No debate to be had here.
 
JoshTheRadioDude said:
That's not oversight, it's inverse fascism. It's corporate-owned-and-operated government. Period. No debate to be had here.
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Sure there is debate to be had here. To some extent I may share some of your prejudices about the two participants in our "Two Party System" but there is ALWAYS debate to be had.

The corporations take the time and the expense to make sure the legislators hear their views, their side of the story. Those of us who are NOT big corporations don't do a very good job of making sure the legislators hear OUR views.

If you want to experience all of that first hand, pick the political party that is least dominant in your community and go attend the meetings. You may well get to see "a walking corpse at work" and your elected representatives have observed that. And if you want ulcers and frustration in your life, make up your mind that YOU and YOU ALONE can breath life into that local political organization, and that your congressman and your senator will immediately be shaking in their books and constantly calling you for political input.
 
Tom Taylor reports today about yesterday's FCC hearings with the House Judiciary Committee. He writes:

The truth is, both the House and Senate are working on their own Net Neutrality bills, but may have trouble passing them. Those bills would likely contain many of the same points Wheeler wants – “no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization.”
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
The corporations take the time and the expense to make sure the legislators hear their views, their side of the story. Those of us who are NOT big corporations don't do a very good job of making sure the legislators hear OUR views.
Click to expand...
Ah, but that's the difference here. The public has made sure the legislature has heard our views, and the public is overwhelmingly in favor of net neutrality in exactly the way the FCC is going about it. This was an issue that generated more public response than almost any other in recent history. The legislature doesn't care. Congress is beholden to their donors, and that's not the system the Constitution created. The ISP's paid to have their will enacted into law, and damn the system and American public if they won't get their way. That's what's taking place here. That's not up for debate, it's observable fact, noted in just about every bit of media coverage you can find.
 
TheBigA said:
Tom Taylor reports today about yesterday's FCC hearings with the House Judiciary Committee. He writes:

The truth is, both the House and Senate are working on their own Net Neutrality bills, but may have trouble passing them. Those bills would likely contain many of the same points Wheeler wants – “no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization.”
Click to expand...

The same points... watered down to fit what the ISP's want, and put into law by Congress rather than the commission that Congress created to do these things. Like I said, consolidation of power and pleasing their corporate donors. Inverse fascism, nothing more, nothing less.
 
JoshTheRadioDude said:
Ah, but that's the difference here. The public has made sure the legislature has heard our views, and the public is overwhelmingly in favor of net neutrality in exactly the way the FCC is going about it. This was an issue that generated more public response than almost any other in recent history. The legislature doesn't care.
Click to expand...

Josh, are you familiar with the term "astro turf" as used in political discussions today? I understand that "logic" you think you are using, but you have more confidence in those numbers than I do. And I am not in a debate with you over WHAT the FCC or Congress (or both) should do "in the public interest".

Significant amounts of response that is dumped on our government process... which has the appearance being from self-motivated rank-and-file voters is actually the result of well-orchestrated plans by the money of interest-groups, corporations and individuals with overly abundant supplies of personal money.

I don't know how we are supposed to know these days what is a "public groundswell" and what is a money-fed "astro turf landslide".

My point is: You may be right about who is supporting what, but your indignation with the rest of us for not understanding and agreeing with your point of view gets to where it chaffs a bit.

I wish you and I could go for a ride in my neighborhood. I live right where the Atlanta market, a classic example of a modern market place that lives and dies based on big money and big corporations.... butts up against rural Appalachia. If we leave my house and head toward The Blue Ridge, you would be struck by the number of people living in out-of-date tumble-down manufactured housing (trailers if you please) that have at least one vehicle in the yard up on blocks, and in the front yard or down at the corner by the hiway there will be an unpainted piece of plywood with a hand-lettered political message that only a rich man, a corporate man could love. But the astro-turf machine has "Bubba" thinking that what is good for the rich and the corporations is what is good for him.

If ever there was a group of people who should love Obamacare and Medicaid expansion, Bubba is their poster-child. But no, the most popular hand-lettered sign in front of trailler-dwellings is "Impeach Obama".

I wonder if Bubba wrote to the FCC. If so, did Bubba use the Internet and e-mail, or did the FCC get a letter that matched those unpained pieces of plywood nailed to a fence post with hand lettering in red pain?

Our political process is a sight to behold.

Who was it years ago who said: "Our political system is the worst in the world..... except for all the others."
 
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Believe me, I know the difference, and I've been through Appalachia many times (I lived in North Carolina for several years, myself). Yes, there were interest groups on both sides, but the difference is that this is an issue that most of the general public recognizes as directly affecting them, and they responded in an historically large way in favor of Title II reclassification. Many of them did so through those interest groups, certainly, but how many of them would have even known where to begin if not for those efforts? That doesn't make their desires or motivation any less genuine, it means that they realized what was happening, took a side, and used the easier tools at their disposal to be a part of the process. There's nothing "astroturf" about that.

As for my attitude about all of this, you may not like it, but there are facts and there are assumptions. I'm using the former, and I don't particularly care to debate with people who use the latter when the obvious is right in front of them for the finding. Yes, that rubs some people the wrong way, but it's somewhat intended to, because when people get mad, they tend to either drop the issue or go out and find the truth to bolster their argument... which leads to them finding out that I'm right. It's unfortunate, but that's what gets through to people. We don't learn from what we're told, we learn from what we find ourselves.
 
The next step is up to you. I, for one, will continue writing and calling representatives until this is settled to my satisfaction (which would be that the FCC's action stands and Congress gets over it), but what you do is entirely your own decision.
 
JoshTheRadioDude said:
No, "oversight" is when Congress regularly calls in the commissioner every few months and catches up with what the commission is doing, going over budgets, figuring out what policy to focus on, et cetera. What Congress is doing right now is throwing a three-year-old's hissy fit because their corporate sponsors don't like what the FCC is doing. That's not oversight, it's inverse fascism. It's corporate-owned-and-operated government. Period. No debate to be had here.
Click to expand...

You do realize the FCC is run by a cable lobbyist, right?

THIS is oversight. Rubber stamping illegal actions isn't.

JoshTheRadioDude said:
Ah, but that's the difference here. The public has made sure the legislature has heard our views, and the public is overwhelmingly in favor of net neutrality in exactly the way the FCC is going about it.
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No, it's not. It's not even a plurality. 33%, and I guarantee 32% don't even know what's going on.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/233231-poll-finds-skepticism-on-net-neutrality

JoshTheRadioDude said:
The next step is up to you. I, for one, will continue writing and calling representatives until this is settled to my satisfaction (which would be that the FCC's action stands and Congress gets over it), but what you do is entirely your own decision.
Click to expand...

So you're going to throw a three year old hissy fit until you get what you want. You've been lied to and haven't bothered to find out the truth because you think the FCC is going to force Comcast going to give you faster internet for cheaper. They're not. They RUN the FCC.
 
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JoshTheRadioDude said:
The next step is up to you. I, for one, will continue writing and calling representatives until this is settled to my satisfaction (which would be that the FCC's action stands and Congress gets over it), but what you do is entirely your own decision.
Click to expand...

How much money do you contribute their campaigns? If their motivation is corporate money, and all you do is write letters, that doesn't get anything done. At the end of the day, you're just one vote.
 
Their motivation isn't corporate money, it's the power that their office gives them, the corporate money is just a means to convince people they're worth voting for. When the voters actually take charge (the way they're supposed to) and flood their supposed representatives to the point that doing the bidding of the donors is painfully contradictory to what will keep them in power, they tend to do what's going to keep them in power instead. And that's happening here and now.
 
Ravens said:
You do realize the FCC is run by a cable lobbyist, right?

THIS is oversight. Rubber stamping illegal actions isn't.
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I had my doubts about Wheeler, too, and given that he was essentially dragged into this kicking and screaming, I don't trust him any further than I can throw him. But when push came to shove, he did the right thing. As for this being oversight, get your head out of your rectum. What the FCC did is what the FCC is CHARGED to do by mandate of Congress. This is not oversight, this is Congress being a bunch of children. As usual. It's nothing new. Nor is politically slapping them upside the face and telling them to get the hell over it, which is what will be the outcome here.



Ravens said:
No, it's not. It's not even a plurality. 33%, and I guarantee 32% don't even know what's going on.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/233231-poll-finds-skepticism-on-net-neutrality
Click to expand...
Yes, because polls are always accurate, aren't they? Especially polls conducted a specific way to make the numbers come out in favor of one side. You have to know better than that, don't you? Seriously?



Ravens said:
So you're going to throw a three year old hissy fit until you get what you want. You've been lied to and haven't bothered to find out the truth because you think the FCC is going to force Comcast going to give you faster internet for cheaper. They're not. They RUN the FCC.
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Haha! No, I'm going to participate in my government -- just as the founders intended for us to do. Hold our elected officials accountable. That's how this country is supposed to be run. And no, I didn't make the claim that Comcast is going to be forced to give me faster Internet. Nowhere and at no point in time has anyone who understands net neutrality (and that's the majority of its supporters) ever made that claim. YOUR side are the ones misconstruing it that way. And the very fact that the FCC passed Title II reclassification proves that the ISP's don't run the FCC, because they were fighting it tooth and nail. They still are in Congress now that it's been passed. And you claim that I'VE been lied to? You need to get your facts straight, friend.
 
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