Cable companies and Trump’s FCC chair agree: Data caps are good for you

Data caps reflect "highly competitive environment," cable lobby tells FCC.

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[C.M. Allen]

Data caps reflect "highly competitive environment," cable lobby tells FCC.

Funny how these 'signs of a highly competitive environment' only ever seem to happen in places where ISPs have little or no competition....

 

[C.M. Allen]

FIFY

According to the latest numbers the US has a voting age population of 231, 000, 000 and Trump received 76,657,498. That's 33% of voting eligible people.

Every election you hear a call to revamp the electoral college. Last time Trump won the Dems were screaming about it because they won the popular vote. This time they lost the popular vote, albeit just among registered voters, so I'm surprised to hear that call this time. Each elector represents a finite number of people since their number is based on how many Congressmen each state has in the House, but once they go to the Electoral College none of that matters, each vote stands alone. Traditionally a states electors represent the way the population voted, however they are not held to that rule. How they vote is only a tradition, they don't have to vote for their party.

It's not likely to happen, but it can, and if it did, this would be the first.

The intended purpose of the electoral college -- a preventative measure against faux-populist political movements -- and the role it actually performs now, are also two wildly different things. Now it's actually enabling the very thing it was created and intended to prevent. And it's done so multiple times. Electors were also a product of the realities of trying to handle a general vote when people might live hundreds of miles from the nearest town or city where they could vote, at a time when that was a journey of (often dangerous) several days.

So when people say it's time to abolish the electoral college, that's why. It hasn't simply outlived its usefulness. It is now actively counterproductive to a functional and healthy democracy.

 

[C.M. Allen]

I'm not too excited about a populist vote. Mainly because doing so will limit representation to those areas with a high population density. The Electoral College is still working in that way even if it wasn't originally envisioned as such.

The senate would like to remind you that it already performs that function. Low-population states have substantially greater power than high-population states. And since the Electoral College only operates on a per-state basis, this function is redundant and a core feature of how conservatives have managed to so frequently bypass and subvert the will of the people, or what they call the "Tyranny of the Majority." As opposed to the tyranny of minority that they practice, aka actual tyranny.

 

[C.M. Allen]

Maybe, next time we have a D victory in congress, we could ... legislate this shit?

Also, next time we have a D president, how about we don't waste two fucking years with a 2-2 deadlock before we get the FCC fixing the problems caused by the previous guy ?

When one party is very busy destroying everything in sight, the other needs to get better at using the tools they are provided to fix the mess. Otherwise they get blamed for not fixing the mess, and the breakers get back in charge, more extreme each time.
Rinse and repeat.

While I wish that would be the case, you have to understand why that's never going to happen. There isn't 'one' Democratic party. There are roughly two or three (depending on where you want to draw some ideological lines). You have the progressives, who represent a very small number of democrats who are genuinely trying to make those kinds of changes and improve the quality of life for all Americans. And you have the 'not fascist or regressive' yesteryear conservatives who abandoned their party when it became clear where it was headed. And finally you have the 'moderates' somewhere in between. Under another governmental system, these groups would be voting against each other, each being an entire political party of its own. But under a governmental system so far gone as the US's, they're all allies of convenience against the fanatical fascism that's spreading throughout the country.

That's why the only major legislative changes Democrats ever seem to get through are modeled after or generally resemble proposed legislation from conservatives of previous years. Like Affordable Care Act -- that's nearly a verbatim copy of 'Romney Care.' It's because that's the only way they come together as a party. Progressives have no real power on their own, but 'a little something' for regular Americans is better than nothing, the moderates are mostly out for themselves, and the conservatives want to preserve the status quo of 'wealth for the wealthy, power for the powerful.' And that's how we got here, the proverbial death by a thousand cuts. One little compromise at a time. Regular Americans keep getting screwed, no matter which way the wind blows, because it's always blowing in favor of the wealthy and powerful. Because that's the only way any legislative action can get enough votes to pass. Politicians don't vote against their own interests. And their interests are the interests that make them wealthier and/or more powerful.

And the sad thing is, I cannot see any way to get around that. The system is just so antithetical to genuine democracy and representation of the American people and their needs. That's why the Democrats talking about how good the economy is rings hollow to so many Americans. It's because they aren't benefiting from the economy 'doing good.' Sure, if you've got plenty of excess income and can invest liberally, the economy seems to be doing fine. But that's not most Americans. They aren't in a position to benefit from those things. They are struggling to make ends meet, all the while the price of everything just keeps going up and up. They are actually the victims from whom the 'economy doing good' is being forcibly extracted. So when they're told 'Actually, the economy is doing good!" they have no idea what the hell that person is talking about. For them, shit is bad and getting worse every day. And that is an environment in which faux-populist fascists thrive. The rise of Trump, or someone like him, was inevitable.

 

[C.M. Allen]

Absolutely and wholeheartedly agree, unfortunately.

Not only were the dying still believers, there are videos of family members getting physically violent wanting to remove their respirator-dependent loved ones from ICUs because it's all a sham/scam and they refuse to believe anything is wrong with them.

These extremes may be MAGAs, but there's far, far too many that are at least apathetic, if not sympathetic, to those MAGAs and the bat shit insanity all that entails.

I know we bandy about the joke about this timeline - but I really do fear for what is coming, especially out of the USA, which seems - as usual - to be the leader in Western democracies. Unfortunately, this is one lead it doesn't (shouldn't) want, and a path we don't (shouldn't) want to follow.

That's what happens when a country lets its inequality problems fester for so long that its people's desperation and anger makes them easy targets for radicalization. Which is exactly what Trump has done. And if it wasn't Trump, it would have been some other equally opportunistic psychopath instead. This is America's 'cows coming home to roost.'

 

[C.M. Allen]

That's a flat out fucking lie.



Yes, she fucking did. And when did Trump detail his plans? What did he say he was going to do?


And those people are completely fucking stupid.

Well, Waltz didn't help her case. Because when he was asked, point blank, what his plans were for addressing the cost of housing in the US, he fumbled it. Badly. And it's not like he shouldn't know what it would take to address the problem. His state is doing it, and under his supervision, no less. But he either forgot about it or wouldn't say it, because he knew the answer would be unpopular with a large percentage of voters and wildly unpopular with the wealthy and powerful who are (knowing or otherwise) exploiting the socially toxic housing market to make themselves rich.

But you are right. There a lot of completely fucking stupid Americans making a lot of completely fucking stupid choices. And it's pretty hard to reach those kinds of people and reason with them. Especially when you have scum like Trump howling in their ears 24/7/365.

 

[C.M. Allen]

I mean, at this point, it seems that if you want change you're going to have to get your hands dirty.

Large, noisy, unpleasant protests at all cable company headquarters for as long as it takes to remind them of their place.

You mean under the same government that gave anti-protestors explicit permission to use vehicles to run over protestors?? The same government that repeatedly and violently attacks any protests that might upset the status quo in any way. The same government that dispatches 'law enforcement' armed with military hardware at even the slightest sign of a protest with anti-corporate sentiment?

I think you might be misjudging the situation....

 

[C.M. Allen]

Why were there no presidential campaign ads about this? Would have been such an easy one for Democrats:
"Vote Harris to remove data caps"

Because the people who voted for Trump wouldn't know what that meant, have no idea how that would impact them personally, or have already been convinced that data caps are a 'good thing.' Just like tariffs. And while you're trying to educate them about it, they've been spoon fed a hundred other equally effective lies that make them even more likely to vote for a 'Trump' and that much harder to pull out of their cult bubble.

That's what reality is up against -- an avalanche of lies. Preemptive lies, specifically designed to drown out the truth (like how the 2020 election was being 'stolen' before it even started). And the truth is powerless against that. Especially when that avalanche is being used on a poorly educated, heavily indoctrinated and willingly subservient population. And conservatives know it. That's why it's been the backbone of their political platform for decades. It's cheap and effective. Just keep pivoting from one lie to another, never giving anyone time actually think critically about what they're being told let alone stop to evaluate any of it after the fact.