Cruz claims grant program is "boondoggle," urges Biden admin to halt activities.
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Ted Cruz wants to overhaul $42B broadband program, nix low-cost requirement
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Politics used to be complicated.
Now, it usually is simply...take from the poor and give to the rich.
And then the rich can send in millions of contributions to a Republican candidate, thanks to Citizens' United and of course, the way PACS work.
Now, it usually is simply...take from the poor and give to the rich.
And then the rich can send in millions of contributions to a Republican candidate, thanks to Citizens' United and of course, the way PACS work.
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Because they can't see the forest for the trees. Just like how limited building codes lead to deaths when freezes happen. But it's cheaper to build. Hey, save money then die, who cares?
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what we've got now, is a lack of broadband infrastructure due to the FCC's refusal for the past few decades to require funding recipients to use the money to provide actual service.
The only saving grace of BEAD, is that it isn't being handled by the FCC. Unfortunately, BEAD requires the involvement of state utility commissions, and one need look no further than California's PUC and their intimate involvement with the murderous PG&E corporation to realize that commissions able and willing to do the bidding of Wall St corporations isn't limited to the Federal government.
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Such two face bs. Under Trump they pushed everything till the end, including supreme court picks. Screw them, push as many states to lock in useful broadband programs as possible before they gut them and turn them into straight subsidies for their ISP stock.
The idea of taking away the low cost requirement is just idiocy. It's pretty much the whole damn point of the program. Just canceling the thing at that point would be better, but then they can't pay off the money they got for campaigns and support from ISP lobbyists.
Look whatever side you are on of the political divide I don't really care but...how in the ever loving F did anyone vote for this scum bag. Everyone who holds their nose and votes for their side for this level of idiot should be ashamed.
The idea of taking away the low cost requirement is just idiocy. It's pretty much the whole damn point of the program. Just canceling the thing at that point would be better, but then they can't pay off the money they got for campaigns and support from ISP lobbyists.
Look whatever side you are on of the political divide I don't really care but...how in the ever loving F did anyone vote for this scum bag. Everyone who holds their nose and votes for their side for this level of idiot should be ashamed.
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Politics was never 'complicated'. Being bought by the wealthy has been happening since day 1, and it isn't limited to the republican party. It is unpopular to say, but democrats are just as much in the pocket of Wall St corporations as their republican colleagues; especially when it comes to being sponsored by ISPs and Telecoms.
Taking money from the poor and giving to the rich, is an apt way to describe every single broadband subsidy that has been given to the billion-dollar investor-owned ISPs.
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Given their anti-democratic activities, I'd seriously consider voter fraud in the form of restricting people from voting, or simply not counting certain ballots.
When the villains take over, who's holding them accountable?
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Finally! The enshittification of the Internet is complete. We will all revolt and go offline. Taking our angst with us in the physical world.
Maybe he should spend some time investigating where all the money telecoms have been charging us for those upgrades...
Maybe he should spend some time investigating where all the money telecoms have been charging us for those upgrades...
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Traditional Republicans used to be all about giving the poor the crumbs from the table. MAGA skips all that and just shits on their heads.
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And they love it. Because they don't care as long as SOMEONE is getting shit on and they get to crow about it.
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Drop table users;
Ars Centurion
If they didn’t get off their asses to vote. Then this is what they want.
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All this is fine. Just lift all restrictions blocking municipal and public broadband start ups. The problem will fix itself.
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I understand and appreciate the sentiment, but it's doomed to fail for one simple reason: they will never consider the possibility that they're being used and manipulated. They will pivot from one scapegoat to the next, one lie to the next, without a second thought. Just like they've been doing all along. Because blaming someone else is always easier than acknowledging your own culpability. And after decades of falling victim to conservative bullshit, the schism between them and reality is basically impassable. They are, for lack of a better description, too far gone. They'll go down with the ship while protecting the people setting it on fire, and while they're drowning, they'll fight and blame the people trying to save them for all of it.
COVID deniers on their death beds refusing to believe they have COVID should have been a wake up call about what was to come, about the level of impenetrable denial building up in America. Some opportunistic psychopath weaponizing that for personal gain was going to happen, sooner rather than later. It was too easy and too lucrative for any other possible outcome.
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Right, because the majority get most of their news from right wing propaganda outlets. It's interesting that the HORRIBLE STATE OF THE ECONOMY was magically fixed by an election. The Biden economy would be JUST FINE with Republicans, if Trump was responsible for it...
Just wait. Trump can wreck the economy again. It won't be Covid that he mishandles this time, but it WILL be something.
$2.87 for gas? ROFL
Cheaper groceries? Ditto
Protecting Medicare and Social Security? I seriously doubt it.
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He claims BEAD is unlawful. I guess because it's Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment.
Can't have any of that horrible Equity. That's code for people Republicans don't like getting something, which is the definition of Wokeness.
And there's this hilarity in the article:
Can't have any of that horrible Equity. That's code for people Republicans don't like getting something, which is the definition of Wokeness.
And there's this hilarity in the article:
I guess with the new Congress they can reallocate that money to the RNC, or maybe rename it something with Anti-Woke in the acronym.
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I live in Australia, a big country with a small population.
We have nearly universal broadband coverage - it's far from perfect, but it exists.
But American Exceptionalism says "it wont work here because the US is different.
Sigh.
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No, they just think rockets are more important than anything else in the world, and Elon is St. Rocket (or Rokket). Nothing else matters.
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But America is different. Just not in a way that any rational person would consider 'exceptional.'
And what's probably more worrying is how America is exporting its 'different' to other countries and governments in the name of America's 'exceptionalism' -- Australia being one of the country's (slowly) following the US down that rabbit hole to hell. Because America being a 'world leader' has the same problem as Trump being a 'leader.' Just on a whole other scale.
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The old line was "Why does everyone take an instant dislike to Ted Cruz?" "It saves time."
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Knowledge is always the primary threat to the perfect polarization of wealth. The poor can best be kept in poverty by keeping them ignorant. Millions of neofeudal corporate serfs require thousands of wretched, filthy souls visibly dying in the gutter to keep them from risking their precarious survival. Ironically, the whole system stands on the backs of those it's killing.
Controlled, the internet is the perfect propaganda tool for maintaining plutocracy. Uncontrolled, it's a threat to whatever degree people can seek out information and trust it. Since we're not quite at the stage where the powerful can simply disappear their detractors, it's wise to cut off the access for entire classes of people who might otherwise become desperate enough to threaten the status quo.
No authoritarian dares tolerate the free and open exchange of information for long.
Controlled, the internet is the perfect propaganda tool for maintaining plutocracy. Uncontrolled, it's a threat to whatever degree people can seek out information and trust it. Since we're not quite at the stage where the powerful can simply disappear their detractors, it's wise to cut off the access for entire classes of people who might otherwise become desperate enough to threaten the status quo.
No authoritarian dares tolerate the free and open exchange of information for long.
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America is different. Our legislatures are whorehouses where any action or inaction is sold daily to whatever DaddyCo waves the fattest roll. The grotesquely misnamed Citizens United removed all limits on secret bribery of elected officials. Spandex-clad Members now work the corner in thigh high boots; Senators in too-tight Versace still require an overpriced dinner and some sweet talk, but provide the exact same services.
The U.S. is one nation, under quid pro quo. We're the land of the buyer, the home of the bought. That America is different from Australia is a credit to the folks down under. Bless their nasal twangy hearts, may they remain so for as long as they can. Here we're all neofeudal corporate serfs weeping and cheering over sham elections, none of which have the potential to change anything at all.
Please remain as different from us as you can. To be an American is to living knowing that no matter how cynical you are today, tomorrow's headlines will prove it insufficient. There's a reason fentanyl has replace nicotine as our national passtime. Facing our reality straight up is unbearable, and no sane person wants any part of it.
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O/T
Yeah.
Our right-wing parties organise "PAC's" (which is a meaningless acronym here) and invite MAGA crazies to speak at them.
On the other hand, a state conservative party (South Aus) has been nearly wiped out due to embracing the religious loonies, while another (QLD) are trying to distance themselves from the anti-abortion wing, as it's seen as electoral poison.
But back on-topic (ish), the national broadband project here was generally popular, despite it's flaws and cost overruns.
Some things are important for a country, even if the benefit is spread thinly.
You know, roads, schools, clean water, communications, all that lefty shit.
And it's tragic that access to e.g. clean water, education and broadband has been turned into a partisan political football - some things should not be seen as "left" or "socialist" just because they help poor people (the rich can afford bottled water & private tuition).
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It's in a similar boat in the US, too. Lots of social projects have strong bipartisan support. It's all in how you describe it, how you talk about it. Because as soon as a conservatives gets even a whiff 'woke' or 'socialism' off anything, they immediately turn on it. It's practically a Pavlovian-level conditioned response in them.
For example, take the Affordable Care Act. If you talk about everything it does in a vacuum, without the context of its political connections, most Americans generally or strongly support it. But the instant you call it by the deliberately derogatory name conservatives gave it, Obamacare, Republicans/conservatives are immediately opposed to it and everything it stands for, and talk about like it was an unconscionable crime against the nation.
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Exhibit A: The reaction to FEMA workers in North Carolina after Helene
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Texans fundamentally don't believe the government can do anything useful, so they don't vote based on who will help them; they vote on who will weaponize the government against people they hate.
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I think a practical lab in civics, where the consequences of sticking your face into different chemicals has grave consequences, is necessary at this point.
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While we’re being pedantic, it’s also what just over 50% of eligible voters couldn’t bothered to stop.
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That is highly offensive to wicked witches everywhere and you owe them an apology for the Ted Cruz comparison.
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I have no insight to the program as a whole. I can say with certainty that it's working as intended in our area, where fiber direct to my rural farm is in the ground and will be activated in the next few weeks. Meaning, among other things, I can get rid of my Starlink. The sooner I can stop sending money to a Musk business, the better.
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There's a wide perception that ISPs just take this money and pocket it without building anything. So I don't think that's going to scare many people.
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That tends to be the way with infrastructure programs. No one has line of sight into where the money is spent and just assume it's being wasted.
We see the same thing here with infrastructure projects. People just voted down a local penny tax to fix locally owned roads, in part citing a state increase in road funding that "didn't do anything." There are massive, multiyear state road infrastructure projects going on right now in our county, but people somehow don't associate that state funding increase with those projects.
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what state are you in? I really need to hear about examples of Federal broadband funding being used to actually provide service.
I live where AT&T received federal funding to provide service in 2016, and despite AT&T reporting to the FCC that the federally funded service was deployed at my address a total of 5 times, the service was never made available and satellite is still the only option. Thankfully there is Starlink to make up for the government's lack of regulations of funding recipients. Sadly, due to regulatory capture, my state PUC is wholeheartedly on the side of the corporations.
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Can we use some numbers here??? The government has spent $42B on this program and connected 2.4M people at a cost of $18K PER CONNECTION. If that weren’t bad enough, a portion of those connected already had alternative high speed connections available whereas the purpose of the program was to make high speed connections available where it didn’t exist. Our government pulled an $850M+ contract from Starlink claiming they didn’t think Starlink could deliver. I was just in Bestbuy and can buy a Starlink terminal. Such BS. Furthermore, it is estimated that Starlink could deliver those connections at $600 each. Starlink terminals were used in NC to assist those affected by the hurricane. Ironically in areas this program was targeting. Our current budget trajectory is unsustainable. I cannot understand why anyone, regardless of how you voted, can defend this program. Please tell me where I’m wrong.
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Given that I've heard of people who were quoted $10K or more for fiber that weren't even in rural areas, that actually sounds shockingly reasonable for truly rural properties. Running miles of cable is expensive.
Starlink, by their own admission, is reaching saturation in a lot of areas. It doesn't have the capacity to serve everyone who is currently underserved. It's part of the solution but can't meet all the need out there.
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And what percentage of that 50% that didn't vote, actually did vote, but the GOP controlled poling stations found ways to challenge or otherwise discard the votes? At least one person has complained that their vote was rejected because the ballet was printed with the wrong zip code! They were given a provisional ballot, that never got counted. Of course, we will never know the answer, since the Democrats have a long history of "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory". They are the perpetual "Washington Generals" of politics. We have seen how well "going high" works out against a career criminal GOP.
https://www.propublica.org/article/right-wing-activists-georgia-voter-challenges
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The democrats fought the voter registration issues out in court before the election, with varying success. Thanks to the Republicans packing the courts after the 2016 election there's a strong rightward tilt in a lot of circuits.
The reason you didn't hear about more post-election challenges is most races weren't close enough for provisional ballots to make a difference. Both sides had large legal teams ready to go in case that wasn't the case, and indeed there have been recounts in a lot of house races, but the Presidential outcome was not in doubt.
The problem is the Democrats just plain lost. They didn't snatch "defeat from the jaws of victory" because there was no plausible victory this time.
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Thanks for your comments - both of which are accurate. Yes it does cost a lot of money to run fibre or cable. If there are alternative technologies that meet the need then we should use them versus throwing a ton of public money at something that has an alternative.
The guy who said he’s happy not to pay Starlink is happy because taxpayers are footing his bill. The telecom companies themselves have been trying to get us to use 5G to our houses instead or wiring them directly because it’s cheaper. Maybe not the exact same situation but I’m sure you get the point. If wireless works then don’t run wires.
On the issue of saturation - that is true but only for certain high density areas which is not likely to apply to the areas the program is targeting. Also, Starlink is putting it’s V2 satellites into orbit now which have a higher bandwidth are are supposed to address that issue - and that upgrade is costing the tax payers $0.
Currently watching football and at pretty much every commercial break I see a telecommunications advertisement. Is it any wonder why we don’t hear more about this?
We should kill this program and get focused on more important topics like net neutrality. Otherwise, discussions like these could be throttled.
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