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In a speech last month, Pai vowed to to take a “weed whacker” to Net Neutrality and other regulations once Trump was swore in. If Pai is to follow through with that promise, Internet service providers could create a two-tier pay-to-play Internet, where websites are charged extra fees for faster load speeds and other preferential treatments. ISPs could also slow down its competitors’ websites, block content it disagrees with, and impose data limits on users.
In a speech last month, Pai vowed to to take a “weed whacker” to Net Neutrality and other regulations once Trump was swore in. If Pai is to follow through with that promise, Internet service providers could create a two-tier pay-to-play Internet, where websites are charged extra fees for faster load speeds and other preferential treatments. ISPs could also slow down its competitors’ websites, block content it disagrees with, and impose data limits on users.
As a programmer, I'll definitely be trying to find ways to circumvent this from my website to your home computer. We want as many users as we can get, by them creating tier systems, they're effectively billing both the consumer and the business.
Ironic that the only good pick so far is a guy called 'Mad Dog'. It seems Trump's trying to make every department a mess by either picking incompetent heads or ones that are ideologically opposed to their department's purpose.
On January 21 2017 16:49 Scarecrow wrote: Ironic that the only good pick so far is a guy called 'Mad Dog'. It seems Trump's trying to make every department a mess by either picking incompetent heads or ones that are ideologically opposed to their department's purpose.
Well, when you pick people who are beholden to the only interest known as their wallet, it's pretty obvious. Screwing a few million people here or there is obviously just second nature when they earn money for each one.
I'm in the same boat, America seems to be unable to join the rest of the developed world due to the sheer ignorance and gullibility of half its voting base and the general corruption on both sides of politics. It's going to get way more ugly at some point when the weight of incompetence and corruption lead to further, more widespread, collapses in basic infrastructure and quality of life.
I don't think that is fair. UK left Brexit. Netherlands are about to elect Wilders. Front National in France. All Germany 'needs' is a charismatic demagogue and their far right and populist will be triggered. Expect Golden Dawn to do really well in Greece, after Syriza was destroyed by the European Central Bank and European Commission.
Hungary with Obran has a actually elected dictator already. Poland isn't much better off. They also elected some fuckface that is turning back the clock.
And even if moderate mainstream status quo parties do get reelected in Europe, it won't solve anything for the next election.
After banks deregulated by the traditional center-left, who joined the right in their neoliberal views, and the banks almost crashed human civilization (don't underestimate how close we were to lose it completely), people just voted right wing all across Europe, doubling down on the neoliberalism that caused the crisis. Why? Because when the economy is important, you vote right wing. This resulted in austerity, which was horrible for the EU economy.
The US economy actually did great. The economy recovered. The jobs did not. Or at least not the same jobs for the same people. And Obama failed to take any credit. Trump gets 2000 jobs to not leave at the cost of a tax cut, and he is a national hero. CNN says since 2010, there are 14 million new jobs. (other numbers are just above 10 million) Of course, Obama didn't personally create those. But there is a stark difference between Europe and the US. And part of the difference is the job numbers and the lack of austerity in the US.
And then we have the EU, Russia with free play now because of Trump, and the euro. There are huge weaving errors in the European institutions. Ones we refused to fix. And inside institutions we cannot live without, though the average voter will see this differently.
People were punished in their wallet for voting wrong. What did they do. They doubled down even harder on voting wrong. And that is in Europe, where people seem more accepting of facts, science, and reason.
On January 21 2017 16:49 Scarecrow wrote: Ironic that the only good pick so far is a guy called 'Mad Dog'. It seems Trump's trying to make every department a mess by either picking incompetent heads or ones that are ideologically opposed to their department's purpose.
This is 100% the story of his presidency so far. Every department is going to grind to a halt because the people Trump picked will be unable to even talk with the top management.
Maybe this is his strategy. Or maybe returning favours is just that much more important to him. Why would you pick the people you picked? So odd. Is it really impossible to find someone that actually aligns with you and that also knows something about the subject, at least? Rick Perry wanted to close down the department of energy, since he didn't know what the department of energy does. But there must be someone out there with a science or engineering background, who does know what the department does, and who also would like to close it down.
And some people see and look at this and they see 'Trump draining the swamp'.
We're not about to elect Wilders. He's polling as the biggest party with 30 out of 150 seats. He's only the biggest because our political system is so fractured nowadays. Wilders frequently polls higher than he gets in elections so I doubt he'll even get 30 seats.
On January 21 2017 20:33 RvB wrote: We're not about to elect Wilders. He's polling as the biggest party with 30 out of 150 seats. He's only the biggest because our political system is so fractured nowadays. Wilders frequently polls higher than he gets in elections so I doubt he'll even get 30 seats.
If he is biggest, he gets to be prime minister.
The Netherlands used to be an example of what good things progressive policy could do, even if they were right wing progressive policy. Wilders is actually more extreme than Trump. And unlike Trump, Wilders never finished a degree or held a real job or managed more than two people. But even the Dutch are voting en-masse for such a person. So I don't understand why Europeans bash American Rednecks for voting Trump. At least those Americans can't know better. Europeans do. And some of them vote even worse.
True, if Wilders turns out to have sexually assaulted woman, his political career would be over. I guess in that respect, Europe is different.
Folks who dislike politicians like Trump have an interest in working together, nation of origin notwithstanding, so yeah, nation blaming ain't so useful.
On January 21 2017 20:33 RvB wrote: We're not about to elect Wilders. He's polling as the biggest party with 30 out of 150 seats. He's only the biggest because our political system is so fractured nowadays. Wilders frequently polls higher than he gets in elections so I doubt he'll even get 30 seats.
Same in France. The FN is technically the biggest party, but they represent 25% of the country. And you don't need 25, you need 50.
She can very well win but it's extremely unlikely. Most probably she will face either Fillon, a thatcherian right winger who will just demolish her, or someone like Macron, where i don't expect her to win either.
France has actually had a fascist leader before. It's still in the memories.
On January 21 2017 20:33 RvB wrote: We're not about to elect Wilders. He's polling as the biggest party with 30 out of 150 seats. He's only the biggest because our political system is so fractured nowadays. Wilders frequently polls higher than he gets in elections so I doubt he'll even get 30 seats.
If he is biggest, he gets to be prime minister.
The Netherlands used to be an example of what good things progressive policy could do, even if they were right wing progressive policy. Wilders is actually more extreme than Trump. And unlike Trump, Wilders never finished a degree or held a real job or managed more than two people. But even the Dutch are voting en-masse for such a person. So I don't understand why Europeans bash American Rednecks for voting Trump. At least those Americans can't know better. Europeans do. And some of them vote even worse.
True, if Wilders turns out to have sexually assaulted woman, his political career would be over. I guess in that respect, Europe is different.
Incorrect. If he is the biggest but no one is willing to work with him then he gets 0 and ends up in the opposition.
The biggest party that ends up in a majority coalition normally gets the prime minister.
On January 21 2017 20:33 RvB wrote: We're not about to elect Wilders. He's polling as the biggest party with 30 out of 150 seats. He's only the biggest because our political system is so fractured nowadays. Wilders frequently polls higher than he gets in elections so I doubt he'll even get 30 seats.
If he is biggest, he gets to be prime minister.
The Netherlands used to be an example of what good things progressive policy could do, even if they were right wing progressive policy. Wilders is actually more extreme than Trump. And unlike Trump, Wilders never finished a degree or held a real job or managed more than two people. But even the Dutch are voting en-masse for such a person. So I don't understand why Europeans bash American Rednecks for voting Trump. At least those Americans can't know better. Europeans do. And some of them vote even worse.
True, if Wilders turns out to have sexually assaulted woman, his political career would be over. I guess in that respect, Europe is different.
No that's not how it works. The parties which form a coaltion get to choose who the prime minister is. We've had multiple governments where the prime minister wasn't from the biggest party.
The Netherlands has had a big populist minority since Pim Fortuyn in the early 2000's. Wilders is a joke compared to that guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn
The Dutch aren't voting for Wilders en masse. 30 seats is 20% of the electorate and to reiterate that's in the polls. In the elections Wilders usually does worse. He's actually lost seats like 4 elections in a row now.
Trump only had support from roughly 25% of the Americans. And some of them supported Trump exactly because they thought Trump would make a bad president. Yet still he is now president of 100% of the Americans.
That's how it can work. Same with LePen or Wilders. Wilders is a joke? You mean like Trump? At least Trump was an actual joke. An actual reality tv star turned politician.
On January 21 2017 21:04 Euphorbus wrote: That's a huge 'but'.
Trump only had support from roughly 25% of the Americans. And some of them supported Trump exactly because he would make a bad president. Yet still he is now president of 100% of the Americans.
That's how it can work. Same with LePen or Wilders. Wilders is a joke. You mean like Trump? At least Trump was an actual joke. An actual reality tv star turned politician.
My understanding is that Wilders doesn't really have any possible coalition partners so there's no real threat of him becoming prime minister. I agree with you that most European countries (yay for being Norwegian.. even our right wing populist party has quite reasonable leadership, and only 10% of the vote in polls) have comparable percentages of people voting for someone of comparable clownshipness as Trump, but whether this can result in that person being elected to head of state varies a lot from country to country. Wilders isn't gonna be PM (anytime soon).
On January 21 2017 21:04 Euphorbus wrote: That's a huge 'but'.
Trump only had support from roughly 25% of the Americans. And some of them supported Trump exactly because they thought Trump would make a bad president. Yet still he is now president of 100% of the Americans.
That's how it can work. Same with LePen or Wilders. Wilders is a joke. You mean like Trump? At least Trump was an actual joke. An actual reality tv star turned politician.
It's completely different since we have a parliametary system and we don't have a 2 party system. In our system you'll always have to form a coaltion with another party. Especially since our parliament is incredibly fractured at the moment. After the last disaster when Wilders supported a government nobody wants to form a coalition with him anymore.
I mean, you can hone in on the political feasibility of a specific candidate like Wilders and determine that he has little chance of actually swinging any influence his way, but that's not the end of the conversation. The populist bent that he represents isn't going anywhere, and therein lies the area folks opposed ought focus on.
On January 21 2017 21:04 Euphorbus wrote: That's a huge 'but'.
Trump only had support from roughly 25% of the Americans. And some of them supported Trump exactly because they thought Trump would make a bad president. Yet still he is now president of 100% of the Americans.
That's how it can work. Same with LePen or Wilders. Wilders is a joke? You mean like Trump? At least Trump was an actual joke. An actual reality tv star turned politician.
No, it doesn't work like that, because our political systems are different. The French institutions, for instance, are specifically tailored to make it impossible for “extreme” parties to rule alone, even if they get high scores. Not the same situation or the same side, but the PCF regularly got more than 20% of the votes during the 1970s; they never reached power.
EPT
