The Trump Administration (just Trump) Thread

King Stannis said:

And it isn't a hypothetical that ISPs and others will abuse the shit out of consumers who are trapped by effective monopolies. Here are examples:

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Add to that, the new rules don't just put us back to 2015 rules. They just have to disclose when they are doing these things and it's perfectly fine. The admin is trying to sell it as just a repeal of 2015 net neutrality rules but it seems to go much further than that. They will be able to throttle and block at will, by just "disclosing" it on their website or the FCC website. This gives a monopoly of a single service the ability to force people into more monopolize services. That isn't more competition or the free market.

They force us into shitty and/or more expensive services. Most will be TV based services. If you have Sony Vue, Hulu live, YouTube tv, etc I assume they will be blocked or barely work. Comcast has a 30% interest in Hulu, I bet they will degrade Netflix to push people towards Hulu.

inliner311 said:

Add to that, the new rules don't just put us back to 2015 rules. They just have to disclose when they are doing these things and it's perfectly fine. The admin is trying to sell it as just a repeal of 2015 net neutrality rules but it seems to go much further than that. They will be able to throttle and block at will, by just "disclosing" it on their website or the FCC website. This gives a monopoly of a single service the ability to force people into more monopolize services. That isn't more competition or the free market.

They force us into shitty and/or more expensive services. Most will be TV based services. If you have Sony Vue, Hulu live, YouTube tv, etc I assume they will be blocked or barely work. Comcast has a 30% interest in Hulu, I bet they will degrade Netflix to push people towards Hulu.

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Why people are surprised the GOP is arguing in favor of this is beyond me. The GOP has been little more than a corporate lobbying organization for years when it comes to fiscal matters in the name of "government is bad." They aren't wrong, but the government is more responsive to the electorate than corporations.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the possibility of ISPs throttling bandwidth for political reasons...

New York Attorney General Probing Fake Net Neutrality Comments to FCC

by Melissa Quinn | Nov 22, 2017, 10:54 AM

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been investigating a plot to flood the Federal Communications Commission with fake public comments on net neutrality and claims the agency has refused to respond to requests for information, he said Wednesday.

In an open letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Schneiderman said his office has spent the last six months trying to figure out who is behind a scheme to “corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process” by using New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities.

Schneiderman said the FCC has refused requests for evidence in its possession that would help move the investigation forward.

“The process the FCC has employed to consider potentially sweeping alterations to current net neutrality rules has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans’ identifies — and the FCC has been unwilling to assist my office in our efforts to investigate this unlawful activity,” Schneiderman said.

A spokesperson for the FCC slammed Schneiderman's probe as an exercise in self-promotion.

“This so-called investigation is nothing more than a transparent attempt by a partisan supporter of the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed Internet regulations to gain publicity for himself," the spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.

The FCC announced in April it would issue a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the rollback of net neutrality rules, which requires the agency to accept public comments on the proposed rules.

One month later, researchers and reporters found that “enormous numbers” of fake comments regarding net neutrality were being submitted to the FCC. Many of the comments used fake names and addresses, but others fraudulently used the real names and addresses of Americans, which Schneiderman said is "akin to identity theft."

"The perpetrator or perpetrators attacked what is supposed to be an open public process by attempting to drown out and negate the views of the real people, businesses, and others who honestly commented on this important issue," he said.

According to the FCC, there was suspicious activity surrounding comments supporting the net neutrality rules, and more than 7.5 million comments the agency received consisted of the same form letter. The comments came from roughly 45,000 unique email addresses that were created by a website that generates fake ones, the FCC said.

Additionally, at least 400,000 comments in support of the net neutrality rules originated from an address in Russia, the FCC said.

Schneiderman's office analyzed the fake comments and discovered “tens of thousands” of New Yorkers’ identifies may have been misused. He also found tens of thousands of residents in California, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas may have also had their identifies used in the same way.

Because misusing one’s identity is a violation of New York law, Schneiderman’s office launched an investigation and asked the FCC in June for records related to the public comment system. Schneiderman made similar requests nine times in five months, he said.

The New York attorney general said he has not received a “substantive response” to the requests.

“Misuse of identity online by the hundreds of thousands should concern everyone—for and against net neutrality, New Yorker or Texas, Democrat or Republican,” Schneiderman said.

He asked the FCC to “reconsider its refusal to assist” his office’s investigation to find the perpetrator behind the scheme.

“In an era where foreign governments have indisputably tried to use the Internet and social media to influence our elections, federal and state governments should be working together to ensure that malevolent actors cannot subvert our administrative agencies’ decision-making processes,” Schneiderman said.

The New York attorney general’s claims come one day after Pai announced his plan to repeal net neutrality rules, which are designed to ensure that Internet service providers treat all web content equally by preventing providers from blocking, slowing or interfering with traffic from specific websites and services.

The agency will vote Dec. 14 to repeal the Obama-era rules.

King Stannis said:

Why people are surprised the GOP is arguing in favor of this is beyond me. The GOP has been little more than a corporate lobbying organization for years when it comes to fiscal matters in the name of "government is bad." They aren't wrong, but the government is more responsive to the electorate than corporations.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the possibility of ISPs throttling bandwidth for political reasons...

New York Attorney General Probing Fake Net Neutrality Comments to FCC

by Melissa Quinn | Nov 22, 2017, 10:54 AM

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been investigating a plot to flood the Federal Communications Commission with fake public comments on net neutrality and claims the agency has refused to respond to requests for information, he said Wednesday.

In an open letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Schneiderman said his office has spent the last six months trying to figure out who is behind a scheme to “corrupt the FCC’s notice and comment process” by using New Yorkers’ and other Americans’ identities.

Schneiderman said the FCC has refused requests for evidence in its possession that would help move the investigation forward.

“The process the FCC has employed to consider potentially sweeping alterations to current net neutrality rules has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans’ identifies — and the FCC has been unwilling to assist my office in our efforts to investigate this unlawful activity,” Schneiderman said.

A spokesperson for the FCC slammed Schneiderman's probe as an exercise in self-promotion.

“This so-called investigation is nothing more than a transparent attempt by a partisan supporter of the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed Internet regulations to gain publicity for himself," the spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.

The FCC announced in April it would issue a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the rollback of net neutrality rules, which requires the agency to accept public comments on the proposed rules.

One month later, researchers and reporters found that “enormous numbers” of fake comments regarding net neutrality were being submitted to the FCC. Many of the comments used fake names and addresses, but others fraudulently used the real names and addresses of Americans, which Schneiderman said is "akin to identity theft."

"The perpetrator or perpetrators attacked what is supposed to be an open public process by attempting to drown out and negate the views of the real people, businesses, and others who honestly commented on this important issue," he said.

According to the FCC, there was suspicious activity surrounding comments supporting the net neutrality rules, and more than 7.5 million comments the agency received consisted of the same form letter. The comments came from roughly 45,000 unique email addresses that were created by a website that generates fake ones, the FCC said.

Additionally, at least 400,000 comments in support of the net neutrality rules originated from an address in Russia, the FCC said.

Schneiderman's office analyzed the fake comments and discovered “tens of thousands” of New Yorkers’ identifies may have been misused. He also found tens of thousands of residents in California, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas may have also had their identifies used in the same way.

Because misusing one’s identity is a violation of New York law, Schneiderman’s office launched an investigation and asked the FCC in June for records related to the public comment system. Schneiderman made similar requests nine times in five months, he said.

The New York attorney general said he has not received a “substantive response” to the requests.

“Misuse of identity online by the hundreds of thousands should concern everyone—for and against net neutrality, New Yorker or Texas, Democrat or Republican,” Schneiderman said.

He asked the FCC to “reconsider its refusal to assist” his office’s investigation to find the perpetrator behind the scheme.

“In an era where foreign governments have indisputably tried to use the Internet and social media to influence our elections, federal and state governments should be working together to ensure that malevolent actors cannot subvert our administrative agencies’ decision-making processes,” Schneiderman said.

The New York attorney general’s claims come one day after Pai announced his plan to repeal net neutrality rules, which are designed to ensure that Internet service providers treat all web content equally by preventing providers from blocking, slowing or interfering with traffic from specific websites and services.

The agency will vote Dec. 14 to repeal the Obama-era rules.

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I'd much rather have the government control this than a corporation especially ones that 51% of households are in a monopoly. The solution to fixing something the public doesn't like in government is protesting, calling representatives, and electing people every 2-6 years.

What is the solution when you don't agree with a corporation, to not buy the service or product anymore from them. I guess the solution for 51% of the country is they will have to move to change internet providers. That seems logical instead of the heavy hand of government.

It's crazy that something like net neutrality is even an issue. I read something like 76% of people are in favor of net neutrality. I can't even think of an issue that has that much support.

inliner311 said:

I'd much rather have the government control this than a corporation especially ones that 51% of households are in a monopoly. The solution to fixing something the public doesn't like in government is protesting, calling representatives, and electing people every 2-6 years.

What is the solution when you don't agree with a corporation, to not buy the service or product anymore from them. I guess the solution for 51% of the country is they will have to move to change internet providers. That seems logical instead of the heavy hand of government.

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Usually it takes lengthy litigation to get corporations to do the "right" thing. Of course, they aren't in the business of doing the right thing. Their business model is to get away with as much as possible until they are stopped.

The argument that "the invisible hand" will produce favorable results has been demonstrated to be a fiction when it comes to cable/ISPs. Monopolies have no incentive to accommodate the consumer.

King Stannis said:

Usually it takes lengthy litigation to get corporations to do the "right" thing. Of course, they aren't in the business of doing the right thing. Their business model is to get away with as much as possible until they are stopped.

The argument that "the invisible hand" will produce favorable results has been demonstrated to be a fiction when it comes to cable/ISPs. Monopolies have no incentive to accommodate the consumer.

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I honestly can't see how anyone who has ever had to call one of these companies for any issue whatsoever would be comfortable giving them free reign over what consumers can access and just assume they'll do the right thing.

Fucking nuts, man. Companies like Time Warner basically go out of their way to screw their customers at every turn and we want to give them more power to do that?

inliner311 said:

I'd much rather have the government control this than a corporation especially ones that 51% of households are in a monopoly. The solution to fixing something the public doesn't like in government is protesting, calling representatives, and electing people every 2-6 years.

What is the solution when you don't agree with a corporation, to not buy the service or product anymore from them. I guess the solution for 51% of the country is they will have to move to change internet providers. That seems logical instead of the heavy hand of government.

It's crazy that something like net neutrality is even an issue. I read something like 76% of people are in favor of net neutrality. I can't even think of an issue that has that much support.

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What the people want is of little importance. What Superior Citizens, our corporate persons, want is paramount. Because trickle down economics, job creators, Ayn Rand or something. Par for the course.

Jack Brickman said:

I honestly can't see how anyone who has ever had to call one of these companies for any issue whatsoever would be comfortable giving them free reign over what consumers can access and just assume they'll do the right thing.

Fucking nuts, man. Companies like Time Warner basically go out of their way to screw their customers at every turn and we want to give them more power to do that?

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I remember back when Time Warner merged with AOL they gave a "free" AOL account when I signed up for cable internet. The problem came when I cancelled my cable internet. The "free" AOL account wasn't canceled at the same time nor did they inform me to do so. A few months later I got a bill from AOL for an account that I had never used, it literally didn't have a username for it. They kept trying to make me pay for it and sometime agreed to take it off to later bill me again. At one point they told me they were ending the call for excessive swearing. I agree I don't understand anyone who thinks giving more power to these companies is a good idea.

inliner311 said:

I'd much rather have the government control this than a corporation especially ones that 51% of households are in a monopoly.

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To some extent, that's exactly what it comes down to. Would you rather have this regulated by the government, or by private industry? I'd obviously prefer the latter, but that clearly isn't the majority opinion around here. And I don't really have any interest in trying to convince anyone otherwise.

I do want to point out that the one scenario that keeps getting raised is an ISP deliberately throttling competitors of a service that it controls. That particular issue can still be addressed under antitrust laws even if there is no net neutrality.

In other words, you can say "there is no general net neutrality requirement" and still say "however, an ISP may not act in an uncompetitive manner to favor ancillary services that it offers."

From a Trumpist perspective this doesn't seem like a good idea unless you support venality above all. It really doesn't help anyone.


Pro-Trump Media May Be the Big Loser With Trump’s New Internet Rules
The alt-right is gleeful about the FCC’s plan to axe net neutrality—but the move would end up penalizing their own websites in favor of giants like Comcast.

Citing an “unprecedented power grab of the Obama-era FCC” that is a “trojan horse for censorship,” pro-Trump websites like InfoWars and Reddit’s r/The_Donald applauded the Republican-controlled FCC for its plans to strip Net Neutrality protections on Tuesday.

Experts say, however, sites like InfoWars and fringe communities like 4chan would likely be the first to have their websites slowed down by telecoms in the new plan, unveiled by Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Tuesday.

Tim Karr, the senior director of strategy at the internet rights nonprofit Free Press, said Pai’s plan would allow telecom giants like Comcast to prioritize their own websites and properties, like Comcast-owned NBC sites.

In turn, this would slow traffic to fringe or non-mainstream political sites like InfoWars and 4chan—unless users paid more for a “higher tier” internet, which currently doesn’t exist.

“The thing about the internet that is truly revolutionary is that it took out the middleman, by virtue of the actual way the internet was originally engineered. The middleman model is the one that mainstream media, television, radio, and newspapers is built upon,” Karr told The Daily Beast.

“What this proposed rule change effectively does is it reinserts the middleman in the form of these internet access providers. In so doing, it deprioritizes the kind of content that political organizers rely upon.”

Reddit’s r/The_Donald, the web’s most active pro-Trump community, backed the FCC’s new proposal that would stall or maybe halt traffic to their own sites, in part because of a common enemy with the Trump administration.

“Just look at the four companies in FAVOR of ‘net neutrality’: Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook,” reads the title of one popular on the subreddit Tuesday. “Anything that pisses them off is what I want.”

InfoWars ran several stories endorsing Pai’s plan this week, including one titled “FCC to Free Internet from Obama’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules.” The story claimed opposition to the plan was pushed primarily by “(liberal billionaire George) Soros’ pro-censorship coalition.”

“Since these 2015 regulations passed, Internet giant portals like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have moved to become the judge, jury, and executioner of the contact we read on the Internet, under the guise of eliminating ‘fake news,’” InfoWars writer Jerome Corsi wrote.

But Karr said the new bill would make telecoms like Comcast actual juries of content, forcing users to pay more for speedier access to some website.

“It’s largely a mystery how this has become a bipartisan issue,” said Karr. “Anyone who sees the internet as a tool to organize and get their message beyond the mainstream media, protecting an open internet is vital.”

Internet consumer advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have lobbied against the changes for years, saying the changes would create a caste system on the web that allows people with more money to access some parts of the web faster than other users.

Opposition came in the form of lobbying money from companies like Verizon and Comcast, which used social media to launch a months-long ad campaign in favor of stripping Obama-era net neutrality protections.

“Usually when we see that sort of saber-rattling activism on the far right, there is some money behind it,” said Karr. “The phone and cable lobby very actively funds some of the net neutrality activism.”

Earlier this year, 27 Americans filed a complaint to the FCC when their identities were stolen and attached to public comments to the FCC, asking for the end of Net Neutrality.

Polls by real Republicans show that they support Net Neutrality protections. A GOP polling firm found that 75 percent of Republicans said that internet service providers should be “prohibited from slowing or blocking websites or video services like Netflix” in July.

“It imposes the gatekeeper media model on the internet by giving power to prioritize content to phone and cable companies,” said Karr. “There are economic incentives for them to prioritize, but also political incentives for these companies to want these rules.”

In other words, the new net neutrality rules would re-fill the mainstream media swamp that a lot of the fringe websites claim they’re trying to drain.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/to-spite-obama-pro-trump-media-lobbies-fcc-to-slow-down-their-websites

The Human Q-Tip said:

To some extent, that's exactly what it comes down to. Would you rather have this regulated by the government, or by private industry? I'd obviously prefer the latter, but that clearly isn't the majority opinion around here. And I don't really have any interest in trying to convince anyone otherwise.

I do want to point out that the one scenario that keeps getting raised is an ISP deliberately throttling competitors of a service that it controls. That particular issue can still be addressed under antitrust laws even if there is no net neutrality.

In other words, you can say "there is no general net neutrality requirement" and still say "however, an ISP may not act in an uncompetitive manner to favor ancillary services that it offers."

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That is a good point, but that shit takes years. And years. In the meantime consumers get fucked. Or it could be long enough to swing an election. Republicans attack the MSM but now they are willing to hand over control to the very companies that control the MSM? Sounds like a very poorly thought out strategy.

The Human Q-Tip said:

To some extent, that's exactly what it comes down to. Would you rather have this regulated by the government, or by private industry? I'd obviously prefer the latter, but that clearly isn't the majority opinion around here. And I don't really have any interest in trying to convince anyone otherwise.

I do want to point out that the one scenario that keeps getting raised is an ISP deliberately throttling competitors of a service that it controls. That particular issue can still be addressed under antitrust laws even if there is no net neutrality.

In other words, you can say "there is no general net neutrality requirement" and still say "however, an ISP may not act in an uncompetitive manner to favor ancillary services that it offers."

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The part of the repeal that I have concerns about is the disclosure part. It really seems like a loophole into antitrust laws. I feel like they will disclose throttling and blocking just to test the how far they can go with the FTC. They will walk the line as far as they can go.

The Human Q-Tip said:

I do want to point out that the one scenario that keeps getting raised is an ISP deliberately throttling competitors of a service that it controls. That particular issue can still be addressed under antitrust laws even if there is no net neutrality.

In other words, you can say "there is no general net neutrality requirement" and still say "however, an ISP may not act in an uncompetitive manner to favor ancillary services that it offers."

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That's not actually the case. ISPs are not in competition with SaaS or content providers; so one couldn't bring an antitrust suit against the other. They're simply selling tiered business-class pipelines on their own bandwidth. It works through content sniffing/identification and QoS; which are established technologies and have been for almost 20 years.

For example, there's no way Netflix (SaaS) could sue Comcast (ISP) if they signed an exclusive agreement with say .. Hulu (SaaS). It wouldn't make sense... It'd be like Walmart suing a freight company for carrying Amazon products at a cheaper rate or with faster delivery times even if that rate was negotiated.. These companies negotiate rates all the time, including the aforementioned companies.

And even then, you'd have a very difficult time with ISPs suing each other because they could simply wall each other off and force ISPs to pay for packets to traverse their private networks... which is a nightmare scenario where the American internet would regress back to the AOL/Prodigy/CompuServe days of walled gardens.

That's just one of many reasons why net neutrality is important.

Talk about a Thanksgiving gift for Trump....

Fusion GPS paid journalists before and after the election based on new documents. Unreal.....

https://www.investors.com/politics/...evelations-take-down-hillary-clinton-and-dnc/


Will Shocking New Fusion GPS Revelations Take Down Hillary Clinton And DNC?

Russian Scandal: The Fusion GPS mess just keeps getting messier. New court filings show that the opposition research firm that the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee hired to dig up dirt on Donald Trump also paid at least three journalists. For what? Was it part of a Democratic plan to spread fake news about Trump?

It may be that people are becoming jaded about the news emerging on Fusion GPS. But, increasingly, it appears to be the nexus of a massive campaign by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party for a post-election investigation into Trump's supposed "ties" to Russian officials.

Now come two stunning revelations that only make the Fusion GPS picture sleazier, if that's possible.

The Washington Examiner reports that Fusion GPS paid three journalists between June 2016 and February 2017. It came in an affidavit filed by Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch, who noted that the House Intelligence Committee had sought information "related to transactions between Fusion GPS and certain journalists.

Fritsch asserted that the payments in question "are not pertinent to work related to Russia or Donald Trump." Sounds clear cut. But the Examiner's Todd Shepard notes that "One of the documents filed by lawyers for the House Intelligence Committee said each of the three reporters who received payments had written about the Russia probe, which could indicate that reporters were using Fusion GPS's work to write their stories."


That would seriously undermine Fritsch's assertion. Moreover, in another filing, the lawyers maintained that Fusion GPS "brokered meetings for (Trump) dossier author Christopher Steele with at least five major media outlets in September 2016, including Yahoo news."

Did Fusion GPS intentionally mislead Congress? It seems like a real possibility.

Meanwhile, as has previously been reported, neither the FBI nor the Justice Department have been able to "verify or corroborate" the allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump that came from the Trump dossier.

More and more, it looks like a giant setup, intended to trap then-candidate Donald Trump into implicating himself in a plot to undermine the U.S. election. But it was Clinton and her bought-and-paid-for lackeys in the DNC who were in fact colluding with Russian officials.

We promised a second revelation, so here it is:

• Daily Caller investigative reporter Chuck Ross reports that the U.S. law firm BakerHostetler paid Fusion GPS $523,651 from March 2016 to October 2016 to investigate Bill Browder, a London-based banker who was behind the passage of the Magnitsky Act, a set of U.S. sanctions that the Russian government strongly opposed.

And who paid BakerHostetler to make that payment to Fusion GPS? Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, through his company, Prevezon Holdings. Indeed, it turns out that Fusion founding partner and former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson compiled the information for Katsyv.

This is yet another Russian link to Fusion GPS. The man whom Fusion paid to concoct the Trump Dossier, former British spy Christopher Steele, interviewed a number of Russian officials for his Trump research, and was paid $168,000 for his work by Fusion.

The picture emerges of Fusion, the Democrats and the Russians colluding to eliminate a wild-card politician that could be trouble for all of them.

Moreover, in a separate transaction, the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie paid out some $1,024, 408 between May 2016 and the end of that year, the records show. The biggest check was $365,275 made on Oct. 28, 2016, just days before the election.

And who was Perkins Coie? The attorneys for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

Again, the point is, the fingerprints of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and Russian officials are all over the infamous Trump Dossier. But, as of yet, there has been no actionable evidence of actual ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

More and more, as we said, this looks like a classic setup — a rather clumsy one, until you consider that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were pretty sure she was going to win. All of this would have simply been swept under the rug by deep-state bureaucrats in the Justice Dept. and at the FBI on behalf of President Hillary Clinton.

Based on this, we'll reverse the logic that the left has employed against Trump now for well over a year: If it turns out that the Clinton campaign and DNC not only funded Fusion GPS but also directly or indirectly colluded with Russian officials to subvert an American presidential election, they will be liable for criminal charges — and possibly jail time.

As for the three journalists we mentioned above, if they used this information as the basis of their Russia reporting, it will turn out to be a scandal from which U.S. journalism will have trouble recovering. The media is already held in such low repute by the public that it's hard to think it can go lower. But it can.

King Stannis said:

That is a good point, but that shit takes years. And years. In the meantime consumers get fucked. Or it could be long enough to swing an election. Republicans attack the MSM but now they are willing to hand over control to the very companies that control the MSM? Sounds like a very poorly thought out strategy.

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Yes, how could anyone that is so against media bias be for this? Makes no sense

billmac91 said:

Talk about a Thanksgiving gift for Trump....

Fusion GPS paid journalists before and after the election based on new documents. Unreal.....

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Man.. say what??

The New York Times is reporting Flynn may now be cooperating with Robert Mueller.