Tag: net neutrality

Soros Funding Government Takeover of the Internet

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

sorosobamapuppetYesterday, I wrote  about Net Neutrality, the Government Takeover of the Internet, which the FCC will vote on this morning.

The Washington Examiner reports that

Liberal philanthropist George Soros and the Ford Foundation have lavished groups supporting the administration’s “net neutrality” agenda, donating $196 million and landing proponents on the White House staff, according to a new report.

And now, as the Federal Communications Commission nears approving a type of government control over the Internet, the groups are poised to declare victory in the years-long fight, according to the report fromMRC Business, an arm of the conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center.

“The Ford Foundation, which claims to be the second-largest private foundation in the U.S., and Open Society Foundations, founded by far-left billionaire George Soros, have given more than $196 million to pro-net neutrality groups between 2000 and 2013,” said the report, authored by Media Research Center’s Joseph Rossell, and provided to Secrets.

“These left-wing groups not only impacted the public debate and funded top liberal think tanks from the Center for American Progress to Free Press. They also have direct ties to the White House and regulatory agencies. At least five individuals from these groups have ascended to key positions at the White House and FCC,” said the report which included funding details to pro-net neutrality advocates.

It quoted critic Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, saying, “The biggest money in this debate is from the liberal foundations that lavish millions on self-styled grassroots groups pushing for more and more regulation and federal control.”

Groups funded by Soros and Ford include the Center for American Progress, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Media Matters for America. They received a total of $54,226,097 from the Ford and Open Society Foundations.

Both Ford and Open Society support the initiative.

Some of those supported by the two groups’ funding have also worked the White House, notably John Podesta, former Center for American Progress head and now expected to run Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

MRC Business regularly follows the spending and activity of Soros, and even has an initiative to keep an eye on his advocacy called the Soros Project.

What a noble, giving guy Mr. Soros is, huh? Wrong.

A while back, I posted an article titled, “Black Thursday…Almost” about an unexpected dive in the Stock Market.  Within that post, I included a short summary of how George Soros made his money:

George Soros set up the now famous Quantum Fund as one of the world’s first Hedge Funds. It took money from the wealthy and invested in risky but potentially highly profitable international deals.

It did very well out of the collapse of fixed exchange rates in the 1970s and the deregulation of global capital markets. By 1980, George Soros was worth more than £16.5 million and his fund £67 million. The stage was set for his intervention in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a system established in 1979 for controlling exchange rates within the European Monetary System of the European Union(EU) that was intended to prepare the way for a single currency.

Around spring 1992, Soros had decided that the pound would have to be devalued because it had been pushed into the Exchange Rate Mechanism at too high a rate.

He knew that the Bundesbank was in favor of a devaluation of both sterling and the Italian lira and believed it would have to happen because of the disastrous impact that high British interest rates were having on asset prices.

Soros spent the next few months in preparation to profit from that devaluation. He borrowed sterling heavily, reportedly to the tune of £6.5 billion, and converted that into a mixture of Deutschmarks and French francs.

On Black Wednesday, September 16, 1992, Soros won his bet.  The UK Conservative government was forced to withdraw the Pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) due to pressure by currency speculators, most notably Soros himself.

In the following days, he took care of business, paying back what he borrowed and ending with a profit of around £1 billion.  At the same time, Soros bought as much as £350 million of British shares, gambling that equities often rise after a currency devalues.

He later admitted that his actions had benefited no one but himself.

There are several culprits in the American Stock Market Crash of 2008 that helped cost John McCain the Presidency, but one key source of the problem escaped almost everyone’s attention:  an economic index that can be easily manipulated by Hedge Funds and whose erratic movements have shaken the foundation of Wall Street: the ABX index, launched in 2007 by the Markit Group, aLondon-based company that specializes in credit derivative pricing and that administers the index.

The heart of the mortgage mess [we are still recovering from] was uncertainty regarding the value of subprime securities. The ABX Index is used to determine the value of these securities: it is a benchmark of the market for all the home loans issued to borrowers with weak credit . A collapse of this index led to home loans being marked down in value.

Looking back, it’s pretty clear that the ABX was manipulated by Hedge Funds. As the ABX subprime mortgage index crashed, so did much of our economy.

Some investors made out like bandits. George Soros for one. Soros had become a political powerbroker of unrivaled influence within the Democratic Party (see The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party) and, even now, has an empire of politically active 527 groups, of which he is the number one donor, by far, in America.

There is a now infamous lunch whispered about between Soros and John Paulson, a Hedge Fund Manager who made millions during the collapse.  Soros invited Paulson for lunch, “asking for details of how he laid his bets, with instruments that didn’t exist a few years ago”.

Soros’s Hedge Fund, like most Hedge Funds, is based overseas and escapes much scrutiny and regulation.
Especially, during this Administration.
Obama and his Administration are acting in such a brazen manner, regarding their takeover of the Internet, in the name of “Net Neutrality”, because they truly believe themselves to be above the scrutiny of mere mortals.
Which explains why the Chairman of the FCC refused a request to appear in front of Congress before Thursday’s vote.
The Internet has been a marvelous experiment in Freedom of Speech…while it lasted.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Net Neutrality: Fascism By Any Other Name…

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

image

 

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help. – United States President Ronald Wilson Reagan

Now that the Obama Administration has successfully controlled the food which our children and grandchildren are fed in their school cafeterias, they now are attempting to seize control of World Wide Web.

TheHill.com reports that

A Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission wants to narrow the scope of new net neutrality rules that are set for a vote on Thursday, The Hill has learned.

Mignon Clyburn, one of three Democrats on the FCC, has asked Chairman Tom Wheeler to roll back some of the restrictions before the full commission votes on them, FCC officials said.

The request — which Wheeler has yet to respond to — puts the chairman in the awkward position of having to either roll back his proposals, or defend the tough rules and convince Clyburn to back down.

It’s an ironic spot for Wheeler, who for months was considered to be favoring weaker rules than those pushed for by his fellow Democrats, before he reversed himself about backing tougher restrictions on Internet service providers.

Wheeler will need the votes of both Clyburn and Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to pass the rules since the two Republicans on the commission are expected to vote against anything he proposes.  

Clyburn’s changes would leave in place the central and most controversial component of Wheeler’s rules — the notion that broadband Internet service should be reclassified so that it can be treated as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the Communications Act, similar to utilities like phone lines.

Proponents of net neutrality have said that move is the surest way to prevent Internet service providers from interfering with people’s access to the Web.

However, she wants to eliminate a new legal category of “broadband subscriber access services,” which was created as an additional point of legal authority for the FCC to monitor the ways that companies hand off traffic on the back end of the Internet.

Those deals, known as “interconnection” arrangements, became a point of contention last year, when Netflix accused Comcast and other companies of erecting “Internet tolls” before easily passing Web traffic from one network to another.

The initial plan sought by Wheeler would allow the FCC to investigate and take action against deals that are “not just and reasonable,” according to a fact sheetreleased by the FCC earlier this month.

Eliminating the new legal category could make it trickier for the FCC to police those arrangements, said the FCC officials, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the ongoing negotiations. 

Other FCC officials have previously said that the broader act of reclassifying broadband Internet service would, in and of itself, give the commission enough powers to oversee interconnection deals. That opinion has been backed up by lawyers at Google, among others, who made the argument to FCC officials last week.

Clyburn’s changes also would replace a new standard for Internet service providers’ conduct, which was meant to act as a catchall rule for any future behavior that might abuse consumers. That standard would be swapped out with potentially narrower language from 2010 rules that prevented “unreasonable discrimination.” A federal court tossed out those 2010 rules early last year, setting the stage for the FCC to write new rules. 

The full text of the rules will not be revealed to the public until after the FCC’s vote on Thursday morning.

So, what exactly does “Net Neutrality” mean to average Americans, like you and me?

Rush Limbaugh breaks it down for us, as only he can…

Do you own a website, do you operate a website?  If Obama gets his way, you’re gonna have to get a license for it just like radio and TV stations get licenses, because the Internet is gonna be subject to regulation under Title II like broadcast facilities are.  Cable is not, but over the air broadcast — But they can’t wait to regulate the Internet, folks, they just can’t wait. 

There’s too much freedom out there.  There’s too many people, quote, unquote, “out of control” on the Internet, and Obama and the Democrats have gotta get it controlled.  And the way they’re doing it is capitalizing on the stupidity of young people.  Maybe “stupidity” is the wrong word.  Ignorance and lack of information resulting from they haven’t lived long enough to know. 

The way net neutrality is being sold to Millennials is — and I read these tech bloggers, these little guys. I read ’em, they hate their cable providers. They hate their web service providers, Internet service, they hate ’em.  Just like you were made to hate Big Oil and just like you were made to hate Big Tobacco. Just like you’ve been oriented to hate Big Anything, Big Retail, big box retail like Walmart.  The Democrats’ enemies list now includes all of the telecommunications companies and the Internet service providers.

The way Obama is targeting support, gaining support from young people on this, is he’s got them confused that what he’s gonna do with net neutrality is punish the people they hate.  Does this sound familiar?  They’re gonna go after Comcast, Time Warner, any other telecommunications, cell provider, Internet service, they’re gonna really hammer ’em, and they’re gonna make sure that they don’t overcharge.  Then they’re gonna make sure they provide equal access to high speed.  The big, rich people aren’t gonna get any more access to high speed than people who can’t afford it are, and the government’s gonna take care of it, and the government’s gonna punish, and government’s gonna make people behave right.

The government’s gonna make it all fair.  The government’s gonna make it all equal.  And that’s what they’ve been led to believe.  The same government that has, right in front of these little people, these young people’s faces, blown up the health care system. The same government that has made a mockery of HealthCare.gov. The same government that has messed up and on the verge of totally destroying, under the guise of transforming it, the best health care system in the world.

Liberals can not legitimately defend this suppression of the First Amendment Rights of Christian Americans.

This is fascism, boys and girls, pure and simple.

Fascism, in any form, remains indefensible, especially when it’s done in the name of “making things fair.”

When Barack Hussein Obama assumed the position of President of the United States, the Far Left became empowered. Obama’s handlers saw the opportunity to “radically change” America into a Democratic Socialist Republic. You know, the kind of government that is currently failing over in Europe.

Every piece of legislation that Barack Hussein Obama has tried to get passed, has been designed to either overtly or covertly limit our freedom.

From the stimulus bill on up to this Thursday’s vote, every single piece of legislation and every overt and covert action by Obama and his Administration has been designed to further the Far Left’s agenda.

Alinsky and Marx would be proud.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Why Are Liberal Democrats So Gung Ho About “Controlling” the Internet?

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

obamabillofrightsCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

The Washington Examiner reports that

Claiming that thousands of public comments condemning “dark money” in politics can’t be ignored, the Democrat-chaired Federal Election Commission on Wednesday appeared ready to open the door to new regulations on donors, bloggers and others who use the Internet to influence policy and campaigns.

During a broad FEC hearing to discuss a recent Supreme Court decision that eliminated some donor limits, proponents encouraged the agency to draw up new funding disclosure rules and require even third-party internet-based groups to reveal donors, a move that would extinguish a 2006 decision to keep the agency’s hands off the Internet.

Noting the 32,000 public comments that came into the FEC in advance of the hearing, Democratic Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub said, “75 percent thought that we need to do more about money in politics, particularly in the area of disclosure. And I think that’s something that we can’t ignore.”

But a former Republican FEC chairman said in his testimony that if the agency moves to regulate the Internet, including news voices like the Drudge Report as GOP commissioners have warned, many thousands more comments will flood in in opposition of regulation.

“If you produce a rule that says we are going to start regulating this stuff, including the internet and so on, I think you will see a lot more than 32,000 comments come in and I don’t think staff will analyze them and find that 75 percent are favorable to more regulation,” said Bradley Smith, now with the Center for Competitive Politics.

Democratic Chairwoman Ann Ravel, who called the hearing, has said she wants to regulate politicking on the Internet, though she has pulled back amid a public outcry, especially among conservatives who see her move as a bid to silence center-right websites and Internet based conservative groups and news sites.

However, two groups, including the League of Women Voters, said they support more disclosure by those who use the Internet to influence campaigns and policy.

It has always amazed me, during the time I spend on the internet, on Political Facebook Pages and Websites, how those who claim to be the most tolerant among us are actually the least tolerant of all.

This congressperson and her dear leader, President Barack Hussein Obama, epitomize Liberals’ intolerance toward those of us who do not share their political ideology.

Both seek to restrict the Internet, as a means of shutting down Americans’ Freedom of Speech.

The reason for that, is simple. Citizen bloggers, such as myself, daily expose the shenanigans and chicanery of an Administration and a political party seemingly bereft of Traditional American Values and Ethics.

For a president and political party, who claimed to be the most transparent public servants whom we have ever seen in national office, they seem overly concerned at the free flow of information about them, that the public not only needs, but deserves to know.

Of course, this reluctancy to allow information to get to the public, is nothing new in the annuls of American politics… or in the political history of President Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama learned to ply his trade in the smoke-filled backrooms of Chicago, Illinois, where shady political deals were made and potential candidates were created.

Obama became president as a result of these backroom dealings and as a result of a restricted flow of information concerning his background, which hampered anyone who wished to vet him as a candidate.

Of course, the fact that both the Chicago and the national news media covered for him by creating fairy tales about how wonderful he was and how the oceans would recede at the wave of his mighty hand and we would all get unicorns in our backyards, had something to do with his election, as well.

But, I digress..

Obama and the Democrats have been trying to regulate the Internet for years now. And, there’s a reason for that.

The cold hard fact of the matter is that Liberalism, like Socialism, is a failed ideology, which took a divergent path from reality, a long time ago.

The only way that Liberals, who actually are still only 23% of America’s population, can maintain any sort of political leverage and power, is by concealing their true intentions through manipulation of the Main Stream Media and by controlling the flow of information, so that the public remains in the dark as to the Machiavellian nature of their true feelings about their relationship with the average American voter.

Obama and the Democratic Party prefer to employ a Mushroom Policy, when it comes to informing the Public as to what they are doing.

They want to keep us in the dark and feed us…well…you know.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama Pushing Once Again For “Net Neutrality”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

obamabigbroThe nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help. – United States President Ronald Wilson Reagan

Now that the Obama Administration has successfully controlled the food which our children and grandchildren are fed in their school cafeterias, they now, once again, are attempting to regulate the World Wide Web.

Foxnews.com reports that

President Obama threw down the gauntlet Monday with cable companies and Internet providers by declaring they shouldn’t be allowed to cut deals with online services like YouTube to move their content faster.

It was his most definitive statement to date on so-called “net neutrality,” and escalates a battle that has been simmering for years between industry groups and Internet activists who warn against the creation of Internet “fast lanes.” The president’s statement swiftly drew an aggressive response from trade groups, which are fighting against additional regulation, as well as congressional Republicans. 

We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme” regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry.

Obama, in his statement, called for an “explicit ban” on “paid prioritization,” or better, faster service for companies that pay extra. The president said federal regulators should reclassify the Internet as a public utility under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act.

“For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business,” Obama said in his statement. “That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data.”

Obama’s statement puts him in the middle of a debate between industry groups and the Federal Communications Commission, which is under public pressure – now from Obama as well — to prevent broadband providers from creating the “fast lanes.”

According to Senator Ted  Cruz (R-TX),

The biggest regulatory threat to the Internet is “net neutrality.”

In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It puts the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service, and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for consumers.

The Internet should not operate at the speed of government.

Way back on December 10, 2010. the Godfather of Talk Radio. Rush Limbaugh, explained what the Obama Administration’s  backing of “net neutrality” is all about…

…This is about the Feds wanting to control the Internet just as they control the public airwaves. They want to be able to determine who gets to say what, where, how often. They want to be able to determine what search services are providing what answers to your queries. It’s total government control of the Internet and the regime has just awarded it to itself, after a court said no, after a court denied them this authority, they went ahead and did it anyway. 

…Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem. It’s just a bunch of liberals wanting to get their hands on something that is massive, that can harm them. They have to control, as much as they can, the free flow of information. They have to be in charge of it, they have to be able to censor it, and that’s what this is all about.

There is no problem on the Internet. None. In fact, in most of life, there wasn’t a problem until the liberals went in search of one so that they could control people’s behavior and try to legislate the outcomes of individuals in life. The only problem here appears to be too much freedom, at least in the minds of the government. There’s too much freedom on the Internet in the minds of Obama and his FCC people. All you really have to know about net neutrality is that its biggest promoters are George Soros and Google and MoveOn.org, which is heavily funded by Mr. Soros and Google. It is also promoted by a number of other radical left Soros fronts, such as the Free Press, the Center for American Progress, and a couple of additional groups improperly named.

The Center for American Progress is about the opposite. They’re not about American progress. And Free Press is not about a free press. So what we’re doing here is neutering the Internet. It’s another private industry. It’s another gleaming aspect of free speech, free market, private industry, that Obama has decided to take over as a Christmas present to himself and the Democrat National Committee and to Mr. Soros.

Speaking of the evil puppetmaster, George Soros, back in December of 2010, FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced that some of the “net neutrality” fans who support the move, included the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Communications Workers of America.

  • The Consumer Federation for America (CFA) was founded in 1968, based in Washington, DC.  It describes itself as an “advocacy, research, education, and service organization” on issues affecting consumers and “looks out for those who have the greatest needs, especially the least affluent.” CFA’s membership comprises approximately 280 nonprofit consumer organizations from around the U.S.  It receives its funding from unions and corporations, especially the Rockefeller Foundation.   Per activistcash.com, in the year between 1999-2000, CFA received $266,700 From George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
  • The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is a 501(c) “non-profit public policy organization dedicated to promoting the democratic potential of today’s open, decentralized global Internet,” per its website. CDT’s stated mission is “to conceptualize, develop, and implement public policies to preserve and enhance free expression, privacy, open access, and other democratic values in the new and increasingly integrated communications medium.” It was founded in 1994 by Jonah Seiger who also served as its Communications Director.  Per Forbes.com, George Soros gave the Center $300,000 this year.
  • Communication Workers of America (CWA) is the largest telecommunications union in the world and represents over 700,000 men and women in both private and public sectors, including over half a million workers who are building the Information Highway.CWA was founded in 1938 at meetings in Chicago and New Orleans. First known as the National Federation of Telephone Workers, the union became the Communications Workers of America in 1947.   The CWA is aligned with the Communist ideology-driven Working Families Party and the SEIU, who are in turn aligned with, you guessed it, George Soros.

You know, if I were the paranoid type, I would see some sort of conspiracy behind this push to control the Web.

Nah, couldn’t be.  Hey, what’s that black helicopter doing hovering over my roof?

Until He Comes,

KJ