from the taco-bell-fart-in-a-suit dept
Final 12 months the Biden FCC handed a brand new rule that will assist carry Wi-Fi entry to highschool children who wrestle to do their homework on-line. Extra particularly, the rule allowed faculties to leverage the FCC’s E-Charge program funds to pay for cell hotspots in issues like busses, making it simpler for youths who lack broadband (or can’t afford broadband) to get on-line. The E-Charge price range was not elevated.
Enter the Taco-Bell-fart-in-a-suit often called Ted Cruz, who has introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) that will eradicate the FCC’s rule. Why? The hassle probably upset firms like AT&T, which might clearly choose it if the poor households’ in query needed to pay them for an costly wi-fi line. The CRA can be utilized to reverse rulings executed inside a set period of time (often 6 months).
Cruz’s press release announcing his change teeters out and in of typical far proper bizarre stuff, together with false claims that the children utilizing these companies are “unmonitored” (in most states these choices include parental controls and monitoring). However this was the enjoyable bit:
“The order additionally heightens the chance of censoring children’ publicity to conservative viewpoints—a development not too long ago already seen in lots of districts.”
This concept that you simply should be uncovered to MAGA race-baiting lies and bullshit to contemplate your self properly rounded has more and more turn out to be a cornerstone of MAGA authoritarian ideology. The motion increasingly relies on propaganda to befuddle the public, as a result of their precise insurance policies (giving wealthy folks tax breaks, letting firms mercilessly fuck folks over) aren’t all that popular.
The “proof” that Cruz factors to is the recent kerfuffles surrounding NewsGuard, the corporate that tries to fee information organizations in accordance with partisan and reliability bias. Trumplings are mad as a result of NewGuard generally factors out that proper wing propaganda isn’t dependable or factual (although it has a protracted historical past of generally giving high marks to that very same right wing propaganda).
NewsGuard apparently partnered with The American Federation of Teachers to incorporate NewsGuard in a few of its faculty hotspot monitoring software program, inflicting Cruz to apparently undergo some kind of cognitive embolism.
That is all very very silly for a lot of causes. One being that NewsGuard doesn’t even do this good of a job criticizing proper wing bullshit and propaganda pretending to be actual information. The opposite being that MAGA knobs maintain attempting to assert that any effort to name them on their bullshit is in some way “censorship.” It’s all a part of an exhausting victimization complicated that’s getting very, very outdated.
Once more, some native telecom lobbyist very probably bought Republicans to attempt to kill the measure considering it hurts native wi-fi revenues. Cruz and different Republican sponsors of this effort shortly started working dressing it up with some bizarre “we’re being censored” bullshit to distract everyone from their corruption. Now children can’t do their homework. Typical MAGA stuff. Hooray for “populism.”
Filed Underneath: broadband, e-rate, fcc, schools, ted cruz, wifi, wireless

Source link