God our government is so fucking useless for anything that might actually help people.
this is a direct consequence of the Supreme Court overturning the Chevron deference back in June. the appeals court has to apply the law. so you know who to blame.
expect more cases like this in coming years…
Sarcastically speaking, if they want white only public bathrooms, that would be interesting. On the one hand people gave up their lives for us to have the freedom to go in the same places as white people. On the other hand… Its public restrooms!
Corrupt beyond belief.
It’s by design: the rich know how easily “representatives” can be bought.
It’s currently not fill with people who want to help “prople”. It currently is setup to help corporate America only at this point. At the expense of your rights.
You know, in Germany there are some (we call them Reichsbürger ~ Empire Citizens) that believe the allied installed a puppet government in Germany and we are actually a GmbH (equivalent to US LLCs according to Wikipedia) called the Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH and a kind of proof should be that are ID cards are called “Personalausweis” which could be taken as Personal (eng. Employee) and Ausweis (eng. Identification).
The US basically does all of the Corpo things those conspiracy nuts see into the German government.
From the BS corp politics down to the office rumors.Sounds a lot like American sovereign citizens. SovCits believe America is a corporation that was set up on top of the Articles of Confederation, (which was the precursor to the American Constitution). They basically believe that they can refuse to do business with the “corporation” (government) and be able to break any laws that aren’t written in the Articles of Confederation.
It’s where the “I’m not driving, I’m traveling” memes come from, because the articles of confederation mentioned a right to freely travel. So the SovCits think they can drive without a valid license or vehicle registration, which leads to lots of police dashcam footage of SovCits getting tased during traffic stops when they become irate or try to flee.
Basically the US equivalent.
Afaik they (try to) have their own IDs, car license plates and many more things.
But they are also dangerous folks as they like to arm themselves with guns (which are obviously uncommon to have as a regular citizen).
Technically speaking every country is a company and government is supervisory board elected by citizens that are owners that pay wages that are called tax. Just the purpose of country establishement is different or used to be different before 21th century. Right now the differentce is not so much visible as it was 100 or even 1000 years ago where people that were government leaders (kings, princes, lords, army generals) fought with people for independence and human rights. Right now elected people are no different than influencers or actors. They just do stuff to get to the table, not more not less.
I believe we call them Corporate-Americans these days, they’re legally people.
God our government is so fucking useless for anything that might actually help people.
More specifically: gop.gov
Obama installed Apeshit Pie. They’re all to blame.
Some more than others. Some much more than others.
This isn’t “our government” these are the oligarch’s meatbags purchased for surprisingly low dollar amounts. These men (and women that silently stand next to them until they are told they are allowed to speak) are cowards and traitors. They are not “our government”
Your post is the right energy, wrong message.
One could go for a hundred years and not touch this shit. But nah. Some dirtbag judge asshole actively working to fuck us all over.
That’s because they’re not even trying to help people, except people who can pay.
If the FCC can’t regulate anything I guess I’ll just run a high power jammer and block all cell signal in the area.
Wait! You will get in trouble for that. Instead you need to have an LLC that does that for Profit somehow. Then all is forgiven!
It’s a privacy subscription service.
Privacy? You can’t have privacy.
It’s to block access to CSAM. Shame it blocks everything else.
Bonus points if it involves an “app”.
Put hundreds of them in a pretty boxes, form an LLC, get a few VCs to sign on, flip the switch, then charge a monthly fee to “open previously-inacessible service areas to cellular customers” and you’ll have a successful startup!
Hold on, GumpyDuckling… checks clipboard tsk tsk, I see here you’re not wealthy enough to effectively lobby to get us in trouble; I’m afraid that’ll be a $10,000 fine.
Ah but technically it’s still illegal to disrupt emergency services and also leaves you liable to lawsuits.
But yeah, the FCC in particular can’t stop you from doing that.
Ahh, but you can subscribe to my private emergency services on my own frequencies which aren’t blocked, then nobody can block mine because they are the only available emergency service frequency.
The word used is “Disrupt” which implies you cannot impede access to them even if you offer an alternative method.
Call the cops then, oh wait.
Sure they will!
https://www.fcc.gov/enforcement/orders
They’d be more than happy to fine you 10k for that.
I’m not completely clear on what happens if you don’t pay though…
Their excuse is that telecom services aren’t actually providing telecom services, but information services.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, it’s because you aren’t brain-damaged.
Courted reclassified the services to remove FCC ability to regulate telecos?
Talk about bad faith behavior.
Welcome to the day and age where courts have all the power :/
So… They’re responsible for the misinformation sent to my device against my will now, right?
Obviously not because our leaders need to be killed brutally where all can see what happens, but in principle?
Amazing how much the US judiciary branch seems to hate the plebs.
Republicans have spent the last 40 years purchasing the entire system, obviously it works for them. They’re the ones that paid for it.
Democrats passed ACA and removed student loans from being discharged in BK court.
Both parties actively fight against working class.
Democrats passed ACA
So they got healthcare for tens of millions of people. That’s fantastic. I used it for awhile myself.
What’s wrong with the affordable care act?
We elected Obama with the hope for single payer healthcare and received Romney Care in a rebrand effort called the ACA. The ACA was designed by a venture capitalist.
Ok…well. I see what you’re saying, but consider this.
Before the ACA, I didn’t have medical coverage at ALL. Hospitals just didn’t exist to me. There was a day in 2005 where I had incredible pain. Could not move. Like, could not move an inch. Otherwise the pain would get so much worse. Not that I was pain free laying still. I was still in tremendous pain. But it’s like the difference between a knife being stuck in your arm, and twisting the knife thats stuck in your arm.
And this pain was coming from the inside. After 3 days of laying in a pool of my own sweat, the pain subsidded enough for me to take a shower and use the bathroom. I was now peeing blood. I layed in my bathtub, called off work, and was 95% sure I was dying.
Eventually the pain went away on its own. I stopped peeing blood. 10 years later, I had the same thing, but not as painful. But it was a very distinct pain. It was like shards of glass were inside your nerve endings and kept traveling from your lower back, down to your balls, inside your balls.
Except this time, I had the ACA. Turns out I had several kidney stones that were too big to pass. After they did this thing where everybody stuck lazors up my pee hole, and shot them like star wars, they said some of them were smoothed over, which suggested I had them for years. I explained what had happened 10 years earlier, and he said "yeah that has been inside you, for 10 years. We broke it up, and it should be expelled via your pee over the next day or so.
Then I peed blood for a month.
Then a few years later I got cancer. They took a reading of red blood cells. They said a healthy blood count for a male my age and size would be a score between 14-18. Anything below 6 is considered potentially fatal. I was at like 4.6. They said I should have been so weak that I shouldn’t have been able to walk.
So I spent the next year in recovery. I’ve now beat cancer. I’ve expelled kidney stones that were bigger than my peehole, and thus would have been stuck forever causing me pain.
I looked at one of my 3 month quarterly “statement not a bill”, and without coverage, one quarter of cancer treatment would have been over 1 million dollars. I’d have been dead. Now due to my income, I haven’t paid a dime of that.
Sooooooooo, ACA may not be perfect, but I’m a big fan for sure.
Before the ACA, I didn’t have medical coverage at ALL.
The health care insurance companies literally created a shared database of blacklist victims who they denied health care to. It was at mib.com, which is now a completely different site.
And just think that our collective taxes could have paid for your life saving treatment instead of going to tax breaks for the rich.
Before the ACA I had no healthcare and nothing has changed. Glad it worked for you but even with your triumph it has left many more dead than need be for the greed of the few.
I hate to speak for everyone else here, but I think its also important to remember to not let perfect be the enemy of good.
Yeah mate, he tried. Congress didn’t pass single-payer and he didn’t anticipate that level of Republican hostility because it hadn’t happened on that scale in the modern era of politics. So we got the ACA instead, which has likely saved thousands of lives just through no denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, let alone everything else it did.
Obligatory fuck Joe Lieberman. To be clear, you’re not blaming the lack of a public option on Democrats right?
Honestly I blame the entire fraudulent system and those that refused to fight for the policies they campaigned on. Are the dems solely to blame, no. Did they fight, no. FDR knew how to wield the power of his office and he got shit done! Since the neoliberal takeover of the democratic party in the 90’s actually fighting for the people has taken a back seat to kissing up to corporate power and we are all living in that hell they willingly helped create.
Without the neoliberal takeover we might still have governance for and by the people and not some form of fascistic broligarchy masquerading as a democracy.
You say fuck Lieberman and rightly so, but fuck the entire system that made Lieberman possible in the first place. He is not the only dem to blame here, he was just the sacrificial lamb to keep the money machine churning people into profit.
And fuck the entire republican party in its entirety!
I truly think the last real republican was Ike, and the last real democrat had his brains spattered over the back of a motorcade. Sure there are sprinkles of hope like Sanders but he is literally fighting his own party as much as the opposition party.
Anyway that’s my 2¢.
Lieberman wasn’t a Democrat.
We elected Obama with the hope for single payer healthcare and received Romney Care in a rebrand effort called the ACA.
Dude if you didn’t read Obama’s 2008 campaign proposal for health care reform that’s on you. The only thing we didn’t get was the public option, thanks to Joe Lieberman.
https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/obama_campaign_position_on_health_care.pdf
https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/obama_health_care_reform_proposal.pdf
Have you considered. That rather than a problem of the Obama administration. That perhaps that’s more an issue of you not setting realistic expectations?
Democrats with anything short of an unassailable commanding majority that could afford the attrition of 10 or more members. Would never be able to do that sort of thing. And they didn’t. Because the Democrat Party is a coalition. Not a monolithic party. It is made up of Democrats, and people who understand how the American election system works. And will do what they can to keep Republicans from as many offices as possible. Democrats at best had a tenuous veto proof majority for not even 2 weeks. And to even get what they got passed. Rapey drowny man who was only a year or two from death. Literally got up out of his hospital death bed to come in and vote.
No one I know who voted for Obama had any serious expectation that we were getting Single Payer. Did we hope that maybe a miracle would happen? Absolutely. But no one expected it. Most of us were pretty chuffed with what we got as lackluster as it was.
And no I’m not saying that we should all love and kiss the ass of liberal Democrats. They talk a good social Progressive talk. But are financially beholden to the problem. Therefore any solutions they have to offer are going to be handicapped at best.
But it’s kind of bullshit for us to attack them over it. If we cannot offer them similar resources and support so that they don’t have to rely on Wealthy oligarchs who are the problem. That’s an us problem. And not a problem of those trying to survive the system as it exists and get elected.
Short of a mass resurgence and re-energization of unions. Or some other similar solidarity group. It’s not going to change either. Because let’s be clear. We’re where we are today. Because back in the '80s unions thought they were so Irreplaceable and secure. They did what third-party voters do now. Withholding support for the only group with a chance of beating the fascist. Thinking that they would teach Democrats a lesson. Only to find out that they were the ones that were learning a lesson. That they were no longer relevant. When first they came for labor and unions. One of the worst miscalculations in post World War II American history. An epic self own. And no one learned.
No one I know who voted for Obama had any serious expectation that we were getting Single Payer.
Because that was never his proposal.
https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/obama_health_care_reform_proposal.pdf
Which is also an absolutely important thing to keep pointing out. Considering how much we are Awash in revisionist history no matter what side of the political divide you are on.
Almost everything you said I agree with. All but unrealistic expectations. Obama was not a fighter. If he wielded the power of his office like FDR or almost any republican we wouldn’t be having this conversation about health care. In retrospect I don’t believe for a second that he had any intention of doing much of anything. Just empty campaign lies.
Republicans can do that because they’ve been largely unified. If a Democrat tried that others in their own party with different agendas would sell them out immediately. Solidarity goes a long long way. And while I hate all the empty campaign lies. You cannot deny that they still work. Trump has made good on it twice now. Not fulfilling his promises that is. But promising the world and delivering nothing. All because Republicans generally have solidarity
In retrospect I don’t believe for a second that he had any intention of doing much of anything. Just empty campaign lies.
We literally got everything Obama campaigned on in health care except the public option. This is what Obama promised you. If you say he promised something else, that’s your lie, not his.
https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/obama_health_care_reform_proposal.pdf
Democrats at best had a tenuous veto proof majority for not even 2 weeks.
They had the house, the senate, and the POTUS. That’s “veto proof”. And it was for nearly two years.
If you mean “filibuster proof”, the filibuster is just a made up rule by the senate. A rule they could have, and should have, discarded the moment they took the senate.
A rule they could have, and should have, discarded the moment they took the senate.
Whoa, that would mean the democrats have to actually wield their authority in alignment with their purported popular agendas – the very thing they absolutely must never do!
The public option was also torn out at the last minute because someone died and was replaced by a Republican. So we got 75% of the improvements we wanted instead of 100%.
I think 75% is far too generous an estimate, tbh. Every policy I’ve acquired through the ACA-mandated marketplace has been garbage, right from the start. For-profit health care is evil, and the ACA just served to further entrench this evil in our lives. It did some marginal good, and I’m certainly not advocating for its repeal in favor of ‘concepts of a plan’. But 75%? I can’t get on board with that.
Fair enough. The point is we achieved things we wouldn’t have without it.
Regime whores always betray the working people after they get to elected.
A lot of things, but at least it got rid of insurance companies denying people over pre-existing conditions.
It got us the privilege of HAVING to pay insurance companies, who make up reasons to deny, delay, and depose.
And if the individual can’t afford it, we funnel tax dollars to those same corporations, who make up reasons to deny, delay, and depose.
Its a cash grab for the insurance industry, really.
It created the current version of the private health insurance industry and enabled it to systemically deny care care to people who are most vulnerable.
You are batshit if you think that was not happening before the ACA.
It was happening before the ACA as well.
So, the problem was never fixed.
So how is it an improvement?
It technically forbids insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, but clearly they just realized they can take our money then deny services instead.
Also it threw a bone to the insurance companies by fining anyone not covered by insurance - incentivising new customers to just pay for insurance instead.
So tbh it was indeed a flop imo
If you want to see how it was before the ACA, watch Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko”. You’ll understand how the ACA is an improvement, regardless of its flaws and failure to be The Ideal One True Universal Healthcare we wish for.
Trying to get something, anything, passed to improve the HC situation took decades of fights. Read the history of it. Did you know Nixon tried to get universal coverage done back in the late '70’s, but Ted Kennedy decided to make the perfect be the enemy of the good and led the effort against it, killing it (before he died he said that was his biggest regret). He and the unions calculated that if they killed it they could deny Nixon a win (sound familiar?) and get single-payer next time there was a Dem president, which of course they couldn’t. Clinton tried to do it, HRC led the effort and they were inundated with massive opposition. It got nowhere, not even close.
Next up, Obama. However imperfect it is, it was a significant accomplishment to get the ACA done. It was hoped it could continue to be improved and worked on going forward. Instead it’s been a constant battle just to keep it from being repealed.
Note that it piggybacks on the SCROTUS decision earlier about preventing government from protecting anything from industry.
at least we got actual consumer protection under biden’s FTC’s lawsuits and stuff…
edit: FTC, not FCC
They will be promptly rolled back under President Musk
We are losing big time with each successive administration since Congress will never legislate in favour of the working class.
Relying on regulatory agencies for customer protection just creates endless opportunity for corpos to challenge anything favourable to the peasants.
The constitution only protects billionaires i guess.
Always has…
Are you JUST NOW getting this?
Well, no. The OG framers only thought the owner class should have any power, thats why only white wealthy male landowners could vote.
Quite accurate since the US judiciaries are like kings, inmune, rule for life and get to write and struck down laws with the flimsiest “precedent” arguments. All they’re missing is appointment via bloodline, but the sponsorship line seems to have taken its place.
They’re going to use this for censorship.
Torproject.org. There’s absolutely no way to censor the entire internet, short of entirely disconnecting the internet.
They’re trying to ban tiktok. I’ve never used it but it’s just because it’s Chinese, social media from any other company based in any other country is just as fucked and unhealthy and unregulated in the US, but they are going to ban it specifically for its country of origin. China pills a lot of weight and the company tiktok is powerful and fighting it in court and all but it seems pretty obvious it’ll go through even under current admin watch–let alone when a direct competitor and owner of Xitter owns the White House.
While yes, you’re logistically correct it would be very difficult to shut down the whole Internet, that’s not the goal, the goal is to massively control it and enshittify it beyond your worst dreams.
Look to China and Russia for "internet"TM
Fair point. But I just believe it goes to show that more websites need to be available on the darknet. Not because it’s a scary or bad place to be, but because it can’t be censored. Not nearly as easily, anyway. Top level domains can very easily be seized by the domain registrar or ICANN, etc. But since onion domains use keys, it’s impossible to seize them without seizing the server they run on.
The vast majority of people are woefully ill-prepared for an adversarial internet.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories but I could see where some come from that TikTok is made to dumb down the generation and make them even more addicted than local versions (FB, IG, YT).
And with how much weight is behind Tiktok they are probably a very good entry for outside adversaries into local networks.I mean how many have installed AliExpress or WeChat on their phone? Not many have gizmo apps from China (like DJI) but TikTok? Oh boy a fuckload of people have that.
But they’ll call it freedom of speech. Speech someone/corp paid for of course, but Citizens United…
Corporations are just sovereign citizens.
That’s funny because the local amazon delivery contractor doesn’t have license plates on their rental delivery trucks just like SovCits. I hadn’t thought of that but yes corporations have become sovereign citizens.
Ministry of truth and all that.
Comcast going to start hiring reddit mods?
We could crowdsourse and pay Comcast tier 1 division to block reddit.
All laws protecting the people’s interests are now banned. Don’t like it? Well become a billionaire and maybe the supreme Court will care
otoh:
Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social
I mean, this is a terrible (if unsurprising) decision, but I’m left wondering how Brendan Carr is going to still try to claim regulatory authority over social media companies…
There is no possible consistency between “ISPs can throttle and block, but edge services cannot…” nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social
2h
Sixth Circuit decision striking down net neutrality doesn’t even remotely pass the sniff test lol www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf…
January 2, 2025 at 3:11 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social/post/3lerv476tes22
Bottom line: precedent, rulings, laws, etc have no bearing on the courts.
What matters to the courts is paying back for the favor of appointment. Which means they will rule whatever our oligarchs tell them to rule.
Can you please explain what this means? I’m not sure I understand correctly.
Trump wants to weaponise the FCC to go against social media companies who “ban free speech” or whatever, just like Elon complained about before buying Twitter, and like all other right wingers are so mad about. But if the FCC doesn’t have any authority to regulate ISPs, why should it have authority to regulate social media companies. Not that the courts seem to care about precedent anymore, but that’s the silver lining they are looking for.
Thank you for the explanation, that makes sense
The FCC has authority to punish whomever is the enemy of Reich Wingers, and Trump more specifically. Nothing more, nothing less.
Can the FCC punish a social media company for censoring the approved ideology? Yes. Can the FCC punish a social media company for not censoring the approved ideology? Yes. Can telcos be punished by the FCC for the same two things above? Yes.
It’s all about punishing the enemy, not logical consistency.
It means that folks are still expecting logic and consistency out of US lawmakers.
Like trying to pass gun control with a political party vocally advocating for the purge? Or after a insurrection? or after police brutality across the nation captured on high definition cameras during a protest about police brutality?
comes a time when blue states just need to draw the line and flat out refuse to follow federal laws and judges until federal judges stop being corrupt.
They do it for marijuana laws but won’t treat anything else like that. I don’t understand.
Money.
Lots of potential tax revenue with cannabis.
You say “secede” funny.
Ppppssshhhhhhh!!! That’s not gonna happen!
They would if they also didn’t rely so much on federal funding
most blue states send more than they receive; all they have to do is stop sending money back to the federal government and red states would go broke.
The states never see that money though. It’s directly from blue state workers’ paychecks and never passes through state owned bank accounts.
That can change pretty quickly.
You’re going to have to explain how that can change. And how it could be done quickly. Because I’ll tell you neither of those are remotely true.
The IRS can’t hunt down the current tax evading people even with state help
If state enforcement stops helping federal enforcement and the state tells everyone to stop paying their federal taxes then short of an actual invasion by the US military there’s basically jack shit the fed can do
No company is going to stop paying their withholding if they don’t want to get shut down. Don’t be daft.
NYS pays more in federal taxes than we get in Federal dollars.
I think we’ll be ok.
long-winded sigh
I really ought to set up that community meshnet I keep thinking about setting up…
I really ought to set up that community meshnet I keep thinking about setting up…
Oh hey, I keep thinking about doing this to and hosting a website like the old days lol, but when I search about it the biggest thing that comes up is like LoRa, but ig it’s too slow for hosting internet-like services
Meshtastic is 80% geeky fun hobby, 20% preparedness, and 0% ready to facilitate anything more than simple text messages. Still neat, though.
Yeah, we’ve got some T-decks and so far it’s only been a novelty and the intended purpose is just so we can text from a decent distance if infrastructure goes down. Will probably also see some occasional use camping as a backup for our radios with a T-beam attached to a bear bag up in a tree as a relay.
Can be used to transfer data between app, like location pins in ATAK
That’s true, but from what I’ve seen they haven’t really been a standard in the nodes that folks are building.
That 0% hurts so much.
You want Meshtastic
I’ve already got some gear and there are a few other nodes around, but basically all it is currently is an emergency backup for texting family members if the Internet and cell service go down. I’d like to start making some cooler stuff like maybe a weather/sensor station and maybe even some online stuff, but I’ve got so many half-done projects I’m hesitant to start another one lol.
You might be interested in an episode of Linux Unplugged from a few months ago that goes into Meshtastic quite nicely.
https://linuxunplugged.com/584
There’s also this link with a ton of resources for Meshtastic:
Cool, thank you!
Is this really shocking with the incoming sadministration?
That’s not a typo.
Comment section tries not to blame Biden for actions taken by the judicial branch, with judges appointed by Bush and Trump. Difficulty: Impossible.
In its opinion, a three-judge panel pointed to a Supreme Court decision in June, known as Loper Bright, that overturned a 1984 legal precedent that gave deference to government agencies on regulations.
“Applying Loper Bright means we can end the F.C.C.’s vacillations,” the court ruled.
“Nyyeaahh nyyeaah nyyeaaaahh ppffthhhhthhth!!” they said.
So now all regulatory policy has to through the fucking gauntlet of legislative process where the wealthy will just veto everything that doesn’t benefit them…this nation is captured beyond belief.
If only we could have helped it somehow
Like most large changes, it requires an act of Congress. Doing these via the executive leads to weak outcomes like this.
The thing is Congress doesn’t have time to deal with technical details. That’s why they passed a law authorizing the FCC to make exactly this kind of regulation. The conservative courts throwing everything they don’t like under the Major Questions Doctrine is just a way to make sure regulation never happens and Corporations are free to exploit people however they want. The problem here isn’t the FCC, it’s bad faith judges with the power to stop the entire government.
Regulating ISPs as a utility is a pretty big change, not simply a technical detail; it is in the purview of Congress.
Congressmen aren’t individually drafting bills, they direct their aids to draft the bills and hammer out the details. We don’t need to overhaul our system, we need congressmen to do their job rather than offloading their job to the Executive.
Edit: Said bill would direct the Executive on how to regulate them as a utility at which point small technical details, as you mention, are handled by the Executive.
ISPs are just transmitting a different kind of data on the same infrastructure backbone as the rest of our telecommunications. Don’t act like it’s some huge difference.
And they are doing their jobs, they’d have to hire exponentially more staffers to go over what was in bills or just vote the way their preferred donor says to vote. Which do you think is more likely there?
Congress has the power to delegate regulations, they used that power, and now a radical judiciary is claiming the plain text of the Constitution doesn’t mean what it clearly means.
Congressmen aren’t individually drafting bills, they direct their aids to draft the bills and hammer out the details
One slight point, this isn’t how they get legislative drafts. Legislative drafts come from thinktanks like Heritage, ALEC, Vote Blue, etc.
Oligarchs write legislation, and then find a congresscritter that owes them a favor. They “lobby” for it, ie they stop into the congresscritter’s office, drop the envelope with the text, drop a check for their campaign fund, and then the congresscritter gets it to pass.
This is ridiculous how difficult it is to get this law through. Clearly it must be something good. I am 100% behind it.
The problem is that it isn’t a law, it’s a regulation.
On the one hand, the Republicans are definitely playing politics by attacking the ability of agencies to come up with regulations. But on the other, it really is just another example of how various parts of the US government have been ceding or delegating their responsibilities around willy-nilly in ways that weren’t constitutionally intended. Congress hasn’t made a declaration of war since 1942, despite all the wars the US has entered into since then. The Supreme Court was never even intended to decide the constitutionality of laws, that’s something they declared for themselves and everyone’s just gone along with it since then. The debt ceiling limit is just plain incoherent, Congress allocates money so a budget they pass should automatically override previous legislation (like the debt ceiling limit).
I don’t know what the US should do to resolve all this, but it’s getting to be quite the mess.
Setting up a Commission and giving it regulatory power is very much in the power of Congress. The Constitution literally says
Congress shall have the power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
So they are well within their rights to pass a law setting up the FCC to promulgate regulations based on the Telecommunications Act. They are also well within their rights to pass a law recognizing the President’s emergency military power, restraining it, and formalizing the process to declare war with different words. Both of which are things they have done. The FCC didn’t magic this shit out of nowhere, and Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of Congressional votes in favor of an AUMF, as outlined in the War Powers Act.
This idea that shit happens willy-nilly is fucking propaganda meant to normalize it so people don’t think it’s weird when a corrupt politician tries it.
So they are well within their rights to pass a law setting up the FCC to promulgate regulations based on the Telecommunications Act.
The Supreme Court apparently disagreed, both in this specific case and more generally when the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine. The Supreme Court basically said “if an agency is going to make a regulation it needs to be very specifically based on a law that says they can do that.” So they’re saying that Congress is going to have to pass some actual laws about net neutrality before the FCC can make regulations enforcing it. The fact that agencies have been making those regulations without laws backing them up is the problem here.
Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of Congressional votes in favor of an AUMF, as outlined in the War Powers Act.
That happened, sure. I’m saying it shouldn’t have. The US went to war without a declaration of war, which is something that should be made by Congress. By passing generic “the President can bomb whatever he wants to” legislation Congress is shirking a responsibility that’s supposed to be theirs.
If you want to have a government where the President is in charge of deciding when to go to war, go ahead and have one. By setting up a constitution that says that’s how it’s supposed to work. Don’t have a constitution that says “here’s how war is supposed to be declared” and then just go do something else instead of that.
The Supreme Court apparently disagreed, both in this specific case and more generally when the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference doctrine.
The SCOTUS disagreed because that’s what their oligarch told them to decide. Not because of any actual legal framework or reasoning involved.
Ahh yes the people who openly take bribes from the wealthy elite ruled that the government can not regulate the wealthy elite. I’m so surprised. Are we listening to the Fox’s opinions on gate to the chicken roost too now?
It’s in plain text for all to see. This isn’t some highly technical debate that this court was the first to see the light on. Chevron was 4 decades old and has supporting decisions from the supreme courts reaching back to st least the 1940’s. But sure, these guys saw something different suddenly. And it had nothing to do with the massive amounts of money they’ve received from billionaires.
And no. Not using the specific words, “declaration of war” doesn’t mean anything. Congress had to pass the AUMF bills the same as a declaration of war. Declaring open war was always a possibility.
I’m not making any statements here about what’s “right” or “good”, I’m just saying what is. The US government is operating in ways not intended by the constitution. At least not clearly intended. If you want to interpret that as me taking a position then it would be that they should fix their constitution. Until they do that then their government will be unstable and unpredictable.
Here’s the section again.
Congress shall have the power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
If they deem the regulatory power of agencies like the FCC to be necessary to carry out something in the entire list of powers I ellipsed; then it is constitutional. And no amount of “fixing” would work as long as we have a captured court ignoring the Constitution, straight up lying about it and about history.
So you’re saying that it’s the courts that are behaving incorrectly according to their role in the constitution? If so, that doesn’t change the underlying point I’m making here.
I don’t know what the US should do to resolve all this, but it’s getting to be quite the mess.
it really is just another example of how various parts of the US government have been ceding or delegating their responsibilities around willy-nilly
This is the big one. Congress has been delegating their power to the Executive for decades. Rather than meaningful law, they tell the Executive to make regulations that don’t stand the test of time. Congress needs to pass laws again, instead of delegating large swaths of their power.
I can see it being difficult to keep up with the law-writing given how much more complicated the world is now than when Congress was first established. To keep things working properly there should really be a whole lot more congressmen, Congress hasn’t been expanded in a long time and representation is starting to get pretty wonky as a result.
When you get right down to it, I think the root of the problem is just that the American system of governance is just too old. It was one of the first big democracies so it was built without any prior experience of what worked well and what didn’t, and the patches it’s had since it was established have been too minor and are too difficult to apply for it to keep up with things. But a large swath of the American public have been indoctrinated that American democracy is the “greatest in the world” and that the US constitution is a sacred document, so major changes are nigh on impossible even if American politics wasn’t in such a dysfunctionally divided state.
All in all, I’m glad not to be in their shoes right now. Though my own country (Canada) is having some political problems of its own these days they feel more resolvable than all this.
Expanding Congress won’t solve that. There’s only so many votes they can hold in a year and stuffing bills with ever more information and regulations means less and less time for a Representative or Senator to understand it, which reverts to team politics. We should absolutely expand Congress, but this isn’t a reason. Every well functioning government has non legislators promulgating regulations based off legislative guidance.
Exactly. Maybe the agencies should be joint legislative executive or something but we do need them, because I don’t want Jim fucking Jordan deciding how much lead is safe for baby food, but even worse would be for nobody to decide
tbf it’s not hard to convince hayseed chucklefuck trumplings that regulations which exist to protect them are a bad thing because they cost money. we had condo buildings collapsing and people dying WITH regulations.
when bridges start collapsing left and right, they’ll blame drag queens and the maga trumpistan patriots will lap it up like hogs at the trough
we had condo buildings collapsing and people dying WITH regulations.
Further proof that regulations don’t work! The Invisible
Sky DaddyHand shalt self-correct! All is right with the world! Praise be unto The Market, may its blessed Line forever Go Up.Now, let us prey.
This is really just a game of tech billionaires vs telecom/media billionaries
2025 is off to a good start.
…is it?
Dumpster fire speedrun any%
