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Hillary Clinton's Lobbyist Driven Telecom Plans
Excuse me for a second while I delve into something substantive. I've written about Obama's transformative proposals on media and contrasted them to Hillary Clinton's 'Connect America' plan to expand broadband access, which is based on a private-public partnership model called Connect Kentucky. Well, it turns out that Connect Kentucky is basically a fraudulent front group funded by government grants set up by telecom interests to advance their legislatve agenda and lie about internet access. And what Clinton wants to do is spread it nationwide.
Connect Kentucky's own Andrew McNeill came onto our blog during our legislation 2.0 experiment to discuss his organization's achievements.
And, if I may say so myself, the results have been impressive. Currently 94% of Kentucky households have access to broadband internet service - up from only 60% two years ago.
Art Brodsky has the story debunking this from sources in Kentucky.
Connect's claim that more than 90 percent of the state has access to broadband has been met with a great deal of skepticism. "It's a joke," one knowledgeable source said, echoing what others also believe.
Sources with knowledge of the program said there were a myriad of problems. Connect Kentucky's results were overstated by a methodology that determined everyone within a 2.5-mile radius from a telephone company facility capable of supplying Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service was indeed capable of getting the service. However, that assumption was not always true, the source said.There are other weaknesses. Carriers aren't required to submit any information, and information considered proprietary can be withheld.
And Kentucky has fallen behind other states in terms of broadband.
Kentucky ranked 40th in broadband deployment, dropping three places from 2002, according to ITIF. The state in 2007 also ranked 44th in high-tech jobs, 46th in scientists and engineers as a percentage of the workforce.
Connect Kentucky also uses government funds to lobby aggressively for anti-consumer legislation, and is spreading to a bunch of different states as well as making its way into Clinton's technology plan. Currently, Dick Durbin is pushing to expand Connect Kentucky nationwide, probably because his former telecom policy aide is lobbying for Verizon.
I've been skeptical of both Connect Kentucky and Hillary Clinton's telecom plans for some time. Art Brodsky has shown that the reality is much worse than I had imagined. Hopefully Senator Clinton will get rid of the telecom lobbyist inspired dreck writing the plans in her shop. There's room for Clinton to maneuver away from Connect Kentucky, but her plan still doesn't contain a commitment that her FCC will uphold net neutrality provisions. Clinton's media and internet proposals may allow the destruction of the internet.
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Sometimes, I wonder what "access" means. Really! For city folks here in Kentucky, I suppose that "access" means that they can get broadband Internet service via DSL or cable companies - if they can afford it. For rural folks like me, "access" to broadband means I have to pay $70 per month to get a satellite Internet connection that usually - not always - is fast enough to allow me to read HuffPost without waiting more than 2 or 3 minutes for each page to download.
Why is it that "access" never seems to include cost? And never seems to include rural areas? Just curious. The same people who say that a voter ID card with a picture on it is "too expensive" (at less than $70 / year) and "too hard for people to get" seem to think that broadband Internet "access" at $70 / month is fine and dandy. (Of course, that's before the telecoms get to charge extra to non-preferred customers.)
I can afford my alleged broadband service. I hate paying as much as I do for what I know is inferior service at superior cost, but I'm stuck with it.
And I never heard of "Kentucky Connect" before. They must not be very good at marketing...
This is seriously scary, the Net being the only medium left between us and the total disinformation of a fascist state -- but then how could we expect anything better from a Clinton? Bill, let's not forget, gave us media conglomeration, along with NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, PNTR with China and the rest of Reagan's left-over "to do" list.
Preserving Net Neutrality is something John Edwards feels strongly about, and I'd trust him on it a lot more than Obama, who's about as cozy with the corporatists as Hillary is.
I haven't heard about Hillary's broadband plans, but I suspect she will be so busy with the war and balancing the budget. She isn't going to have the kind of time it is going to take, to help out some conservative wish list embellishments. If she has ever fielded that question, it probably was a "what if" irrelevant question posited by some low level reporter, as we see them do. Again, some people have too much time on their hands. Why aren't you talking about some of Bush's embellishments, as they are aplenty. Why is Hillary the fulcrum for all this hysteria and not Bush? You are talking about virtual splinters here, instead of the cancer.
HILLARY CLINTON WILL BE THE AIR-HEAD PRESIDENT THIS COUNTRY DESERVES --CELEBRITY, CELIBRITY, CELIBRITY. GEO W BUSH-LITE. WE HAVE LOST THE MEDIA / FOURTH ESTATE DUE TO RONNY REAGAN AND HUSBAND BILL. FORGET IT.
Don't forget that it was Bill Clinton who deregulated the Telecomm industry in the first place because of extensive lobbying by that industry.
Bill Clinton allowed the Telecomm giants to run smaller companies out of busniess. As a direct result of that, the media has become increasingly consolidated. Information is now provided by a select few, too few in fact. When so few entities can control virtually all the news and information, they can manipulate it.
Media diversification has been irrepairably damaged because of the Clintons.
Anybody here have a problem with the main stream media?
You can thank Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary supporters have to be either the stupidest people out there, or they don't give a shit about corporate dominance of America.
Obama 2008.
This is my major concern with Hillary, everyone wants to point to Bush and his cronies as the 'good ol boys' club, but when you look at the democrat 'establishment' they back Hillary, because no matter what people want to beleive her decisions aren't made on a moral guideline they are made based on the highest bidder. She takes exorbitant amounts of lobby money, and I'm sorry put senators and congressman as a whole strike fear in my heart when I think of them in the White House. Hillary isn't a puppet, but she's not a champion of the little guy like so many people believe. The Clintons are tied to so many big businesses it's obscene. Liberal's need to take note that the Clintons are on the take, and that is going to play out terribly if she gets into office.
This article states: "Currently, Dick Durbin is pushing to expand Connect Kentucky nationwide, probably because his former telecom policy aide is lobbying for Verizon."
I just want to point out that Dick Durbin is Sen. Obama's senior colleague from Illinois, and is regarded as something of a mentor to Obama. So on this issue we seem to have a tangled web of Washington lobbying intrigue where Durbin is helping Clinton on the one hand, and being a mentor to Obama on the other.
Washington style incest?
How would you feel if you were from here in New York State?HRC has been re elected senator, and since her running for president she has not even showed up at her "Job".She wants us all to buy health insurance coverage from a company that paid her 800,00 Dollars to drop universal health care, so what do you expect? We need to get out the message to all the misguided women who are going to vote for her just because she's a woman.HRC knows that the internet gives us more information than she wants released, and will try everything to stop it.
The CNET news questionaire that the candidates submitted has a lot more information than what you chose to sketch out here.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6224039.html (Hillary's answers are here and there's a link there to Obama and Edward's answers)
She discusses her thoughts and actions on net neutrality there.
I dont know where the idea that Hilary is a centrist arose. Perhaps the MSM. But if you think bashing the First, Second, and Forth Amendments of the Bill of Rights is centrist then God help you! Again...Look at her voting record!
Investigative reporting! I love it!
Criticizing Hillary Clinton? Oh my God! You must be a misogynist!
It's time to break up the vertical monopoly of the cable industry. Let our taxes pay to bid out a project to develop a nationwide fibre optic system. Let media corporations compete in the market place to provide the content.
If Senator Clinton goes into the White House next year it seems pretty clear she will be bringing a heavy load of political baggage with her, including her telcom policies.
This is unfortunate, but something that no serious voter can afford to ignore.
I'm not saying she should be rejected by Democrats, but she should be subjected to some rigorous questioning regarding this issue as well as others.
If Hillary were so in the pockets of the corporations, why would the Neanderthal republicans hate her so much? They hate her because she represents real, affirmative, and assertive change in a direction that they do not want to go.
I don't understand why affluent progressives are so hostile to Hillary. They criticize her on cosmetic grounds, as though we're all still in high school--"she's too stiff, she too boring, she too ambitious, blah, blah, blah." But she has devoted her entire political life to the cause of people who need help. She bridges the gap between the powerful and those who are struggling. The real proof of this is in who actually votes for her. Obama gets the support of the trendy and the affluent. I think of him as the iPhone of politcs--a marketing phenomenon, looks good, but doesn't really work so well at what it is supposed to do. He is so fashionable and in style. Hillary continues to get the support of people who are actually struggling by wide margins. In the early 1990s, she was devoting herself to getting universal health care for the uninsured. It wasn't a big issue then. She was younger then than Obama is now, and she is one of the reasons that universal health care may become a reality. That may not matter too much to you if you're affluent, have a good job with health insurance, and someone else cleans your apartment. But for people who are struggling, Hillary is the real deal.
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