US lawmakers dig into FCC's $900M Starlink snub in wake of Hurricane Helene The Chairman of the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, James Comer, is investigating the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) decision to revoke an award of almost $900 million in rural broadband subsidies to Elon Musk's Starlink. Comer's probe comes after Starlink was pressed into service in the …
Every accusation is a confession with you guys.
There is nothing more deranged than the cult worship of Trump. Ironically, you sad, worthless sheep will; be the first to suffer if Trump gets in.
You really think MAGA plebs are anything more than a vote and a cash cow for him?
The convicted rapist you worship is a stupid grifter.. He has no core Republican values (other than socialism for the rich, and serfdom for the poor). He hitched his wagon to the gullible knuckle dragging betas who seem to drool over a Trump dictatorship. They seemingly think that they will be treated as princes, and everyone will be free to "own the libs".
Sigh.
WAKE UP.
Now go on, downvote this post to show how deranged you actually are.
a) You're being pedantic now. Desperate.
But hell, 2 can play at that game. He's been convicted of business fraud and is a proven rapist. Therefore, he is a rapist who has been convicted, or, a convicted rapist.
b) Read this, or Google. There are many similar articles: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/a-federal-judge-has-gone-to-great-lengths-to-make-clear-trump-really-did-rape-e-jean-carroll/
So, Mr. anon. Why are you defending a convicted rapist?
"proven rapist"
Not convicted, not agreed by the jury, only claimed by a seriously mentally addled judge for political points. The article you posted even states that. This is not being pedantic. This is how actual real life works rather than how you believe things work from within your echo chamber.
No-one knew of or cared about E Jean Carol until rabid TDS sufferer Reid Hoffman decided to bankroll some lawfare against Trump and E Jean Carol decided she was up for making some money from the whole deal. If you've seen any of the interviews with her you will know she is totally insane and the looks on her lawyers faces when she was boasting about what to do with the money were priceless. If they could have dragged her out of the interview they would have as all she was doing was proving she was in it for the money and nothing else.
And the 'fraud' conviction is very likely to be overturned as the appellate judges were tearing shreds off the NY lawyers.
Pretty funny really. The only.president to loose money from the presidency and not even take a salary and he is the grifter.. look at Obama's worth before presidency and after.
Also the woe and damnation you predict is exactly what everyone said in 2016. And no wars, troops brought home. Tried to start an arab treaty. Gave missiles to Ukraine on the condition of use for defence only and pretty much everything everything was cheaper. If that is the consequence of him getting into power again... Maybe you could use some of that.. things have certainly gone to crap since then.
Surprising he got anything done at all with the fake Russian narrative the DNC purchased that you all believed..
Im not even an american and i know BS when i see it. Democrats are teaching the world political hatred and when the world turns to shit you will accept zero responsibility for it.
Im a centrist, i vote for substantive policy, not people who orate their speech writers talking points well. but the hatred we get invariably drags us away in the end. Even Ana at the young turks has realised that.
Do i wish trump talked like Ronald Reagan? Hell yes.. does it matter? Only to democrats.
I hate that australia is too weak to defend itself and relies on the US via treaty to be safe because if you turn to shit we are treaty bound to follow you to hell and right now we are closer to WW3 than during the cuban missile crisis. The only upside is that we all have fusion bombs now so at least radiation isnt the big bady it was.
When NASA used the the shuttle to build the IIS it cost 1.5 billion USD to put 28 tons of stuff in space.
Musk and spaceX have reduced that to 60 million for 22 tons, and when starship has its kinks worked out its launch system will bring that down even more. (Starship has basically made the SLS redundant and that cost 24 billion and is not reusable.) the SLS costs more than the shuttle.. its over 2 billion per launch.
That is a hell of a lot of savings of tax payers dollars no? Way more than the grants you speak of.
You'd think that anyone with half a brain could understand that providing wired internet access to very rural locations in the US (where even wired phone lines are rare) would be hugely expensive in the initial deployment (poles, ducts, wires and fibre) but also susceptible to natural forces damaging that infrastructure.
Rural California has learned the lesson when unmaintained PG&E high voltage overhead wires started a huge wildfire.
The $42B Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program was essentially DC pork to the legacy wired carriers to line their own pockets and give kickbacks to the political class. From all accounts the programme has been a complete white elephant and has failed to deliver (as most large govt programmes do) as the carriers are all whinging about costs and 'its too hard to run wires here'.
The US govt 'worry' about monopolistic behaviour but are happy when areas have only a single wired phone/internet provider.
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It's "far left" to mention that the world's richest person is asking for subsidies? We're not even passing judgement on whether he should or shouldn't get them. Hell, we're reporting that Congress is looking into why the subsidies weren't granted.
I guess we're at the point now where printing information is "far left."
C.
On one hand, satelite broadband is an excellent way to bring access to rural communities, which is what the subsidy exists for.
On the other hand, it seems deploying these satelite clusters provide access regardless of population density. Meaning, there isn't any barrier between building for rural or urban as there is with wired broadband. Not sure how the extra money would help Starlink provide rural access over any other kind of access, other than just building more of it in general.
Money could be used to subsidize the customer equipment. But that isn't what this program was designed to do and it's not how Starlink would use it. It's purpose was to build out infrastructure, and Starlink will not be adding any new infrastructure.
The first question, in a free market, is should the government even be paying for this. It's still socialism if the government is paying to provide the service through corporate welfare. While I'm not necessarily against declaring universal internet access a necessary public service, I don't think these pork projects should be designed to boost a private corporation's profits.
This whole program should be killed. And just like universal phone service, we should be re-evaluating what the best technology is for providing the service.
The problem is that you don't just build the infrastructure and walk away. It needs maintenance and eventual replacement. If you can simply beam the signal through the air you can skip the planning, building and long term looking after. Adding in fibre to these places doesn't actually help short or long term. It would just be added to the long list of stuff destroyed last week.
"It's still socialism if the government is paying to provide the service through corporate welfare"
In this case its cronyism. The fixed line providers have a near monopoly in some areas and charge really rather excessive rates yet expect handouts at every turn.
If the government does not do it...the companies will only seed the areas that generate decent profit. It does not make sense to shareholders to blow a heap of cash for areas that either will barely or not give a return on investment. Which is kinda what has been happening up till now any starlink is useful. It changes the rules.
The system didn't meet the criteria set out for the award. That's very cut and dry. When/if Starlink can meet the specs called for and the award is still available, they can get the money. The downside is that estimated per customer costs for Starlink may make that a losing proposition.
There isn't any point to this fund. If Starlink, Hughes and Viassat are already providing coverage, there's no need for a taxpayer funded incentive and the money might be better spent improving communication systems for emergency responders.
After a mass shooting if anyone dares talk about reasonable measures of gun control like universal background checks or red flag laws all the so-called "conservatives" go nuts saying it is too soon after a tragedy to be delving into politics. But WHILE A DISASTER IS HAPPENING all those same grifters are using a tragedy for their own political benefit not caring one whit about those actually affected. Merely using them as pawns to further their political goals.
"After a mass shooting if anyone dares talk about reasonable measures of gun control like universal background checks or red flag laws all the so-called "conservatives" go nuts saying it is too soon after a tragedy to be delving into politics."
Without going too far into the weeds, the "fixes" that politicians will propose after something has happened will often have had zero effect if that legislation was in place beforehand. They just use the news story as a way to advance their agenda while people's emotions are dominating their thought process. Canada instituted the requirement of registering long guns to aid law enforcement in solving crimes. After a bunch of cost and dubious compliance, it didn't produce any results. I remember some time ago that the UK got concerned with the loss of fuel taxes when people brewed their own biodiesel. Those people had to sign up for an account, fill out forms and pay the tax on the biodiesel they made/used. It didn't take long before government figured out that their cost to have every hobbyist brewing up 100l of chip fat to put in their car cost more than the tax money it brought in and dropped the requirement for producers under a certain quantity. This is why I laugh at people that whine about EV owners not paying "their fair share" of road tax that is normally collected via fuel sales. They scream for taxes on leccy. They want owner to report their mileage, provide trip logs, etc. What they don't see in the US as they don't own an EV is many states have tacked on an EV road maintenance tax/fee to the annual registration. I pay less each year in fuel tax than many of these added fees.
I have no problem going without internet in the wake of a natural disaster. I have radios to receive important information, I'm a licensed HAM operator, I have batteries and solar. One day I'll own a Honda or equivalent generator that's worth owning. Granted, a cheap piece of junk is better than nothing, but then again, wasting money on junk isn't in my nature. What I'd really like to get is a turbine from an aircraft start-cart that I can run off of used motor oil.
> $885.5 million in subsidies
> Elon Musk – the world's richest man, with a net worth of approximately $260 billion
so when are they going to start investigating the world's richest man for this blatant misuse of the resources he's been entrusted with instead of fighting over an amount so small that Elon wouldn't even notice if it was a pile of cash on the ground right in front of him?
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