Republicans' net neutrality attack written by… you guessed it, the cable lobby A "toolkit" provided to House Republicans to defend US comms watchdog the FCC's recent decision to tear up net neutrality rules was written by the cable lobby. In just the latest example of special interests literally dictating what lawmakers say on significant policy issues, the "Draft Member Toolkit" [PDF] stretches to 24 …
It used to be the 'revolving door' of corruption, legislators become the legislated and back again. It still works well, but can be slow, so why not throw the pretense of independence aside, and go the direct route. It makes good business sense. And who cares if the corruption is blatant, it's not like people care, much.
Meta-data? Jeez, Loueez. Everyone knows that you remove all those extraneous markings from your Microsoft documents. As far as I know, that's one of the major reasons we convert to PDF (no fan of that either) - to get rid of those hidden tags in the Word/etc. document.
Of course, now it's much easier. We used to spot plagiarism by looking for sections of exact word matching. Those loverly AI folks at google/amazon/etc have enhanced these to locate large texts/etc. that sport a reasonably high rate of "similarity". Shit like moving sections of text or substituting Jack for Jill don't work any more.
One of my favorite tricks in school (as long as I lasted) was to take a potential block of text from a foreign language oeuvre and translate it in my own words. I got several positive grades from that technique altho someone called out my "stilted English". Nowadays, I suspect that google/translate would also detect my boyhood misdeeds.
-- I submit the following, from Senator Ron Wyden:
"Net neutrality is a pillar of economic growth and free speech, and rolling back strong net neutrality protections is a huge giveaway to big cable corporations. We will not watch idly while an open Internet is stripped away."
Certainly you can smell corporate d*** on the breath of many pols. But painting with broad brushes, etc. I'm always pleased to mark my ballot for Mr. W.
"That the cable industry is in bed with the Republican Party will not come as a surprise to many – GOP lawmakers have persistently and sometimes peculiarly parroted arguments made by Big Cable in congressional hearings, speeches on the floor and whenever talking to reporters.But the fact that their own briefing documents are being written by a special interest group is extraordinary even for Washington, DC.
Perhaps more disturbingly, the one-page "FCC Title II Repeal Talking Points" looks very much like a template for the speech given by FCC chair Ajit Pai in announcing his decision to reopen the rules, even including the highly misleading (ie, false) claim that investment in internet networks fell by 5.6 per cent since the net neutrality rules were introduced.
In short, the document is perhaps a perfect representation of how special interest lobbyists – in this case from the cable industry – have managed to infiltrate the government at the highest levels and stir up partisan ill-feeling as part of a divide-and-conquer effort to undermine any rules and regulations placed against them"...
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https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/23/comcast_lawyers_on_net_neutrality/
Politicians are lobbied by both sides. This is not necessarily a corrupt process, but a necessary interaction between citizen and government. Google has the deepest pockets in this game.
To my mind, "net neutrality" is a brilliant piece of naming-as-propaganda. It is actually a kind of nationalisation.
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Why do you think the majority keeps losing power/wealth while the wealth and power keeps concentrating in fewer people and planetary systems are being destroyed in pursuit of unbridled power/wealth hoarding? It is common knowledge that most "representatives" have no idea what they are actually voting on....
OK lets analyse this.
- Politicians get briefings from interested parties.
- - - Well damn me, I'd never have guessed.
- Politicians reuse briefing material if they agree with it
- - - No s*** Sherlock. And there was me thinking they wrote every word themselves.
Now you may agree or disagree with this bunch of politicians about net neutrality. I'm kinda neutral on the topic. But I can hardly say that I'm shocked that politicians put their names to a paper someone else had written, and not bothered at all if it were to turn out that they had influenced its content.
I for one am not shocked. It's a little talking points memo, not legislation, that includes an opinion piece from the WSJ and transcripts of Limbaugh. Just because it doesn't lean the way the author wants it to it somehow becomes news? Kieren, you're whinging more than Wayne LaPierre talking about a memo written by team Bloomberg and distributed to the blue team by Chuck Schumer. It's always clear who writes these things so why is any surprise or even noteworthy? None with a lick of common sense ever gets fooled by it. Perhaps it's because they were honest enough to credit the actual author of the memo when other memos of both teams are typically sanitized. Seriously, if this gets your panties in a twist, you aren't cut to cover politics because lobby groups write crap like this all the time.
Remember. This is Drumpf's [a.k.a. 45*, a.k.a. Agent Orange] America. Lobbying, bribes, and the related don't exist in America now.
Drumpf wants big business to reek trillions in profit at the expense of the middle and lower class. Just look at his cabinet. Probably more billionaires and millionaires than any other cabinet ever.
you guessed it, by those west coast insanely overvalued companies that profit solely by a strong protection of their pipeline slurpage.
You think anyone pro-or anti- NN gives two sh*ts about "rights' or "freedom of information? Its just two different Business Models looking for maximum exploitation of the resource that is Bandwidth. Whomever buys the most politicians in office, wins.
the issue is not that the GOP were lobbied or copied ideas from lobists, the issue is they just wholesale took their opinon and changed the name on the top.
Anyone knows you fact check things if the source has a vested intrest, but US Politicians dont really care they will do anything as long as the campaign contributions are enough....
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