Thanks for sharing examples of the dangerous lies being spread in order to help Trump. Just another reason why people should vote against him to ensure he doesn’t win the Presidency again.
How do you believe a voter, other than yourself, is telling an untruth? Just because the “belief, opinion, comment, or quote” differs from yours? Wow!
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a high-speed internet infrastructure announcement, Washington, June 26, 2023. PHOTO: ROD LAMKEY/ZUMA PRESS
Government makes many promises, the Biden Administration more than most. Results are another story. For the latest example of the latter, consider the “internet for all” plan that President Biden tapped Kamala Harris to lead. Fiasco is the word for it.
The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project. The Administration recently said construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade.
Blame the Administration’s political regulations. States must submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use the funds and their bidding process for providers. Commerce has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals.
Take how the Administration is forcing providers to subsidize service for low-income customers. Commerce required that Virginia revise its plan so bidders had to offer a specified “affordable” price. This is rate regulation.
Brent Christensen of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance recently reported that none of his trade group’s 70 or so members plan to bid for federal grants because of the rate rules and other burdens. “To put those obligations on small rural providers is a hell of a roadblock,” he said. “Most of our members are small and can’t afford to offer a low-cost option.”
Commerce hoped to spread the cash to small rural cooperatives, but the main beneficiaries will be large providers that can better manage the regulatory burden. Bigger businesses always win from bigger government.
Commerce is all but refusing to fund anything other than fiber broadband, though satellite services like SpaceX’s Starlink and wireless carriers can expand coverage at lower cost. A Starlink terminal costs about $600 per home. Extending 5G to rural communities costs a couple thousand dollars per connection. Building out fiber runs into the tens of thousands.
Fiber networks will require more permits, which delay construction. But fiber will require more union labor to build. Commerce wants grant recipients to pay union-scale wages and not oppose union organizing.
The Administration has also stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Good luck trying to find “underrepresented” hard-hats in Montana. An official overseeing Montana’s program told Congress last month that the Administration has given “conflicting or even new and changed guidance after submitting our plans” and is “slowing states down and second-guessing good-faith efforts.”
The official added that “we have yet to receive clarity on permitting, a foundational component of broadband deployment.” The government system that states are required to use for federal permits, she noted, “will not be available for another 6 to 8 months to evaluate each project’s environmental and historic preservation effects.”
Then there’s this Catch-22. The Biden National Environmental Policy Act guidance requires companies that receive federal funds to consider alternative plans with smaller environmental impact. But the program’s rules disfavor such alternatives as satellites and home 5G.
States must also identify future climate risks and “how the proposed plan will avoid and/or mitigate” them. Broadband providers already safeguard their systems against natural disasters in part with redundant networks, so the extraneous mandates will merely make building more expensive.
Cox Communications last week sued Rhode Island over the state’s plan to “build taxpayer-subsidized and duplicative high-speed broadband internet in affluent areas of Rhode Island like the Breakers Mansion in Newport and affluent areas of Westerly,” where Taylor Swift owns a $17 million vacation home. Cox says there are better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 99.97% of U.S. households already have access to high-speed internet.
The broadband non-rollout is a classic of modern progressive government. Authorize money for a cause that private industry could do better, but then botch the execution with identity politics and union favoritism. Ms. Harris is promising four more years of the same.
Thanks for sharing examples of the dangerous lies being spread in order to help Trump. Just another reason why people should vote against him to ensure he doesn’t win the Presidency again.
How do you believe a voter, other than yourself, is telling an untruth? Just because the “belief, opinion, comment, or quote” differs from yours? Wow!
Well, when you say things that are contradicted by facts, that's called telling an untruth. It's not a matter of belief, opinion, comment, or quote.
Facts are defined as information which another person can counter with their own storehouse of “facts” — information gathered, experiences, education, etc all produce what an individual perceives or believes to be true. It would be a very dangerous world in which only some of its inhabitants knew the the truth.
The basic, one size fits all, facts can be found in The Ten Commandments— most everything else relating to political machinations is up for personal interpretation, digestion, and regurgitation.
Facts are defined as information which another person can counter with their own storehouse of “facts” — information gathered, experiences, education, etc all produce what an individual perceives or believes to be true. It would be a very dangerous world in which only some of its inhabitants knew the the truth.
The basic, one size fits all, facts can be found in The Ten Commandments— most everything else relating to political machinations is up for personal interpretation, digestion, and regurgitation.
What? Facts most certainly are not whatever one subjectively has in one's own "storehouse". They exist independently of personal beliefs. And we do in fact live in a dangerous world, not because only some people are able to see facts, but because some people actively choose to believe lies. You are a prime example, regularly posting things that are objectively untrue.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a high-speed internet infrastructure announcement, Washington, June 26, 2023. PHOTO: ROD LAMKEY/ZUMA PRESS
Government makes many promises, the Biden Administration more than most. Results are another story. For the latest example of the latter, consider the “internet for all” plan that President Biden tapped Kamala Harris to lead. Fiasco is the word for it.
The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project. The Administration recently said construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade.
Blame the Administration’s political regulations. States must submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use the funds and their bidding process for providers. Commerce has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals.
Take how the Administration is forcing providers to subsidize service for low-income customers. Commerce required that Virginia revise its plan so bidders had to offer a specified “affordable” price. This is rate regulation.
Brent Christensen of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance recently reported that none of his trade group’s 70 or so members plan to bid for federal grants because of the rate rules and other burdens. “To put those obligations on small rural providers is a hell of a roadblock,” he said. “Most of our members are small and can’t afford to offer a low-cost option.”
Commerce hoped to spread the cash to small rural cooperatives, but the main beneficiaries will be large providers that can better manage the regulatory burden. Bigger businesses always win from bigger government.
Commerce is all but refusing to fund anything other than fiber broadband, though satellite services like SpaceX’s Starlink and wireless carriers can expand coverage at lower cost. A Starlink terminal costs about $600 per home. Extending 5G to rural communities costs a couple thousand dollars per connection. Building out fiber runs into the tens of thousands.
Fiber networks will require more permits, which delay construction. But fiber will require more union labor to build. Commerce wants grant recipients to pay union-scale wages and not oppose union organizing.
The Administration has also stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Good luck trying to find “underrepresented” hard-hats in Montana. An official overseeing Montana’s program told Congress last month that the Administration has given “conflicting or even new and changed guidance after submitting our plans” and is “slowing states down and second-guessing good-faith efforts.”
The official added that “we have yet to receive clarity on permitting, a foundational component of broadband deployment.” The government system that states are required to use for federal permits, she noted, “will not be available for another 6 to 8 months to evaluate each project’s environmental and historic preservation effects.”
Then there’s this Catch-22. The Biden National Environmental Policy Act guidance requires companies that receive federal funds to consider alternative plans with smaller environmental impact. But the program’s rules disfavor such alternatives as satellites and home 5G.
States must also identify future climate risks and “how the proposed plan will avoid and/or mitigate” them. Broadband providers already safeguard their systems against natural disasters in part with redundant networks, so the extraneous mandates will merely make building more expensive.
Cox Communications last week sued Rhode Island over the state’s plan to “build taxpayer-subsidized and duplicative high-speed broadband internet in affluent areas of Rhode Island like the Breakers Mansion in Newport and affluent areas of Westerly,” where Taylor Swift owns a $17 million vacation home. Cox says there are better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 99.97% of U.S. households already have access to high-speed internet.
The broadband non-rollout is a classic of modern progressive government. Authorize money for a cause that private industry could do better, but then botch the execution with identity politics and union favoritism. Ms. Harris is promising four more years of the same.
First of all, the irony of the WSJ complaining about the slow rollout of a program opposed by Republicans (and probably themselves) is delicious.
It's the Republican whiner version of:
"Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."
Also too, the lazy WSJ is just recycling a Washington Times story.
Residents in rural America are eager to access high-speed internet under a $42.5 billion federal modernization program, but not a single home or business has been connected to new broadband networks nearly three years after President Biden signed the funding into law, and no project will break ground until sometime next year.
....Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr said the program’s goal of providing high-speed internet to most underserved areas will not be fully realized until 2030, nine years after its enactment.... “There hasn’t been a single shovel’s worth of dirt that has even been turned towards connecting people,” Mr. Carr said.
The Times portrays this as a problem caused by liberal demands in the law: union workers, climate change considerations, etc. But that's not really the story.
The BEAD program was authorized in late 2021 as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Act. But the feds only provide the money. All of the actual buildout is done by the states, so the first step was to use an FCC map to determine which areas were most underserved—something that obviously had nothing to do with liberal wish lists. Following that, state allocations were set in June 2023, and every state had submitted an application by the start of 2024. That was only six months ago.
Some states have been faster than others. Some allow cities to apply for funds, others keep it all at the state level. All of them have to come up with 25% matching funds. Nevertheless, in the past six months 15 states have been fully approved and every one of the others are very close. This too has nothing to do with liberal demands. Six months is just not a very long time when it comes to planning the disbursement of billion-dollar grants.
Bottom line: Disbursing $42 billion takes a while, especially when it's being funneled through all 50 states. You have to allocate the money fairly. You have to get plans from each state about how they're going to use the money. And finally the states have to actually begin digging holes and laying fiber. Along the way there will be the usual disagreements about what's acceptable and what's not, some along partisan lines and some just garden variety complaints from broadband providers. Overall, though, there's been nothing unusual about BEAD and it's rolling out pretty much on schedule.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a high-speed internet infrastructure announcement, Washington, June 26, 2023. PHOTO: ROD LAMKEY/ZUMA PRESS
Government makes many promises, the Biden Administration more than most. Results are another story. For the latest example of the latter, consider the “internet for all” plan that President Biden tapped Kamala Harris to lead. Fiasco is the word for it.
The 2021 infrastructure law included $42.5 billion for states to expand broadband to “unserved,” mostly rural, communities. Three years later, ground hasn’t been broken on a single project. The Administration recently said construction won’t start until next year at the earliest, meaning many projects won’t be up and running until the end of the decade.
Blame the Administration’s political regulations. States must submit plans to the Commerce Department about how they’ll use the funds and their bidding process for providers. Commerce has piled on mandates that are nowhere in the law and has rejected state plans that don’t advance progressive goals.
Take how the Administration is forcing providers to subsidize service for low-income customers. Commerce required that Virginia revise its plan so bidders had to offer a specified “affordable” price. This is rate regulation.
Brent Christensen of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance recently reported that none of his trade group’s 70 or so members plan to bid for federal grants because of the rate rules and other burdens. “To put those obligations on small rural providers is a hell of a roadblock,” he said. “Most of our members are small and can’t afford to offer a low-cost option.”
Commerce hoped to spread the cash to small rural cooperatives, but the main beneficiaries will be large providers that can better manage the regulatory burden. Bigger businesses always win from bigger government.
Commerce is all but refusing to fund anything other than fiber broadband, though satellite services like SpaceX’s Starlink and wireless carriers can expand coverage at lower cost. A Starlink terminal costs about $600 per home. Extending 5G to rural communities costs a couple thousand dollars per connection. Building out fiber runs into the tens of thousands.
Fiber networks will require more permits, which delay construction. But fiber will require more union labor to build. Commerce wants grant recipients to pay union-scale wages and not oppose union organizing.
The Administration has also stipulated hiring preferences for “underrepresented” groups, including “aging individuals,” prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, “Indigenous and Native American persons,” “LGBTQI+ persons,” and “persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”
Good luck trying to find “underrepresented” hard-hats in Montana. An official overseeing Montana’s program told Congress last month that the Administration has given “conflicting or even new and changed guidance after submitting our plans” and is “slowing states down and second-guessing good-faith efforts.”
The official added that “we have yet to receive clarity on permitting, a foundational component of broadband deployment.” The government system that states are required to use for federal permits, she noted, “will not be available for another 6 to 8 months to evaluate each project’s environmental and historic preservation effects.”
Then there’s this Catch-22. The Biden National Environmental Policy Act guidance requires companies that receive federal funds to consider alternative plans with smaller environmental impact. But the program’s rules disfavor such alternatives as satellites and home 5G.
States must also identify future climate risks and “how the proposed plan will avoid and/or mitigate” them. Broadband providers already safeguard their systems against natural disasters in part with redundant networks, so the extraneous mandates will merely make building more expensive.
Cox Communications last week sued Rhode Island over the state’s plan to “build taxpayer-subsidized and duplicative high-speed broadband internet in affluent areas of Rhode Island like the Breakers Mansion in Newport and affluent areas of Westerly,” where Taylor Swift owns a $17 million vacation home. Cox says there are better ways to spend taxpayer dollars. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 99.97% of U.S. households already have access to high-speed internet.
The broadband non-rollout is a classic of modern progressive government. Authorize money for a cause that private industry could do better, but then botch the execution with identity politics and union favoritism. Ms. Harris is promising four more years of the same.
This article is false.
I own a home on the side of a mountain in Fairview, NC. It is a definitely rural area outside of Asheville. (We fared very well in Helene)
For our first 18 months there we relied on internet via a line-of-sight signal cast from a tower on another mountain over 10 miles away. The service was OK, not great. We paid $85/month.
In May and June of this year, buried fiber optic cable was installed throughout the community. Scores of miles of cable. We paid $99 for the termination of the cable inside the house. Not a penny more.
The F.O. cable installation was funded by the Infrastructure Act.
We now have much faster, more reliable service for $70/month. We could get service that is 100X faster than we had for just $99 per month.
Facts are defined as information which another person can counter with their own storehouse of “facts” — information gathered, experiences, education, etc all produce what an individual perceives or believes to be true. It would be a very dangerous world in which only some of its inhabitants knew the the truth.
The basic, one size fits all, facts can be found in The Ten Commandments— most everything else relating to political machinations is up for personal interpretation, digestion, and regurgitation.
What? Facts most certainly are not whatever one subjectively has in one's own "storehouse". They exist independently of personal beliefs. And we do in fact live in a dangerous world, not because only some people are able to see facts, but because some people actively choose to believe lies. You are a prime example, regularly posting things that are objectively untrue.
Here's a fact about the Ten Commandments - There's disagreement about the fact of how they're numbered, and what they are, among different Catholic, Protestant, and other Christian denominations.
Facts are defined as information which another person can counter with their own storehouse of “facts” — information gathered, experiences, education, etc all produce what an individual perceives or believes to be true. It would be a very dangerous world in which only some of its inhabitants knew the the truth.
The basic, one size fits all, facts can be found in The Ten Commandments— most everything else relating to political machinations is up for personal interpretation, digestion, and regurgitation.
No.
If the original set of “facts” is disproven by the counter, then the original set was false, and therefore not facts.
Facts are defined as information which another person can counter with their own storehouse of “facts” — information gathered, experiences, education, etc all produce what an individual perceives or believes to be true. It would be a very dangerous world in which only some of its inhabitants knew the the truth.
The basic, one size fits all, facts can be found in The Ten Commandments— most everything else relating to political machinations is up for personal interpretation, digestion, and regurgitation.
What? Facts most certainly are not whatever one subjectively has in one's own "storehouse". They exist independently of personal beliefs. And we do in fact live in a dangerous world, not because only some people are able to see facts, but because some people actively choose to believe lies. You are a prime example, regularly posting things that are objectively untrue.
Here's a fact about the Ten Commandments - There's disagreement about the fact of how they're numbered, and what they are, among different Catholic, Protestant, and other Christian denominations.
there are no facts in the Ten Commandments. it is not an encyclopedia.
The only poster here, as far as I can discern from reading his posts only, who truly believes his facts are the only truths out there is — tah dah — drummerboy! It must be good to be King!
My bestest friend, Jim M., writes of the cost of internet in a land far removed from MOL. But he benefitted from the Infrastructure Bill, so his loyalty to the current administration is understandable.
Inquiring minds must ask: Do you live in that region full-time, or is it a vacation home?
May I publicly thank you for your advice and guidance in audio matters? — I am now enjoying audio books, along with the world of music! It does cut back somewhat on my MOL presence, so there is that…
The only poster here, as far as I can discern from reading his posts only, who truly believes his facts are the only truths out there is — tah dah — drummerboy! It must be good to be King!
all of the facts that I express here can be challenged and shown to be false, in which case I will alter my view.
you have never, ever come close to doing that.
are you saying that the 10 Commandments contain facts?
name one.
you might want to check the definition of fact first, because your definition appears to be nan-like*.
* for the uninitiated nan-like means "the opposite of"
My bestest friend, Jim M., writes of the cost of internet in a land far removed from MOL. But he benefitted from the Infrastructure Bill, so his loyalty to the current administration is understandable.
no.
jim was not writing to profess his loyalty to the administration. He was giving you factual information to rebut the lies in your WSJ link.
one AI image of the little girl has her in a rainstorm, but the inside of the boat she's sitting in is dry. The water behind her is being pelted with raindrops, yet there are no drops falling in front of her face.
How people fall for this stuff is amazing. They want so desperately to believe these things are true they'll overlook obvious clues that they're false.
My bestest friend, Jim M., writes of the cost of internet in a land far removed from MOL. But he benefitted from the Infrastructure Bill, so his loyalty to the current administration is understandable.
Inquiring minds must ask: Do you live in that region full-time, or is it a vacation home?.…
In which Mtierney demonstrates that she is unencumbered by anything resembling a logical thought process. Mtierney, do you somehow think your comments above have any bearing on the accuracy of Jimmurphy's facts below? Or did you just get distracted?
Jimmurphy introduces the following factual observation:
For our first 18 months there we relied on internet via a line-of-sight signal cast from a tower on another mountain over 10 miles away. The service was OK, not great. We paid $85/month.
In May and June of this year, buried fiber optic cable was installed throughout the community. Scores of miles of cable. We paid $99 for the termination of the cable inside the house. Not a penny more.
The F.O. cable installation was funded by the Infrastructure Act.
We now have much faster, more reliable service for $70/month. We could get service that is 100X faster than we had for just $99 per month.
I had never head anyone refer to the commandments as facts before.
that's kind of weird, but informative about one's mindset.
I guess that makes Jesus the Supreme Factchecker, then.
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. … You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28)
mtierney responds to jimmurphy's informative post about rural broadband: "My bestest friend, Jim M., writes of the cost of internet in a land far removed from MOL. But he benefitted from the Infrastructure Bill, so his loyalty to the current administration is understandable.
"Inquiring minds must ask: Do you live in that region full-time, or is it a vacation home?"
1. jm's post about "far removed" NC was in direct response to discussion about whether the Biden administration had fulfilled any of its promises. Looks like Yes, right?
2. Why would it matter whether jm lives or vacations in NC (or was it just a friendly curious inquiry)? Presumably the broadband improvement is available to residents and part-timers alike. If you'll pardon my tone of voice, IT'S A GOOD THING for quality internet to come to areas that have been underserved because installing the infrastructure might not show an immediate profit an internet company. Good fast internet is a MODERN NECESSITY FOR BUSINESSES, EDUCATION, REMOTE WORKERS.... It's a good thing for NC to have this opportunity to thrive. And the internet company presumably wants as many subscribers as possible, whether residents or vacationers.
President Biden participates in a candle lighting, marking one year since Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel, at the White House in Washington, Oct. 7. PHOTO: YURI GRIPAS/POOL/SHUTTERSTOCK
Oct. 7 has come and gone. The one-year mark since Hamas’s butcheries brought more of what we’ve come to expect—rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, anti-Israel protests at Columbia. Not to mention the warnings about World War III if President Biden can’t persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to exercise the right the president says the Jewish state has to defend itself. It is the perfect capstone to Mr. Biden’s legacy: a foreign policy that projects American weakness.
This weakness dates from the earliest days of the administration. At the United Nations General Assembly two weeks ago, Mr. Biden said he came to office needing to “end the era of war that began on 9/11.” If by that he means a humiliating bug-out from Afghanistan that put the Taliban back in power and claimed the lives of 13 Americans in uniform, then mission accomplished. Remember, this is a president who insists the chaotic pullout from Afghanistan was an “extraordinary success.”
In place of the 9/11 wars, Mr. Biden leaves us with a whole new set of wars. This includes the hot war between Israel and Iran and its proxies, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the regular reminders from an emboldened Xi Jinping that Beijing might invade Taiwan. Saturday’s headline in the New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’s column sums up this legacy well: “Biden Sought Peace but Facilitated War.”
Mr. Kristof gets the causation backward. “Biden has been calling for restraint for a year,” he writes, “but he marginalized himself by continuously providing the weapons that allowed his appeals to be ignored.”
The irony is that Mr. Biden was elected president on his own version of Make America Great Again. Drawing on his foreign-policy chops, he saw himself as restoring America’s global standing by repairing alliances that had been ruptured by Donald Trump and recultivating ties with foreign leaders—many of whom he knew personally from both his days as vice president and his long service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But his managerial approach assumes the status quo is always worth preserving.
Thus Mr. Biden was willing to supply military arms in conflicts that broke out provided doing so wouldn’t seriously threaten the status quo, which is why he gave Ukraine what it needed to fight but not what it needed to prevail. It’s worth recalling that before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Mr. Biden was assuring the world that a “minor incursion” by the Russians wouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately, when maintaining the status quo becomes paramount, all the initiative goes to the bad actors who are always more than willing to disrupt it.
Look at the Middle East. The Oct. 7 massacre was horrifying, but what has happened in the year since has helped Israel understand who its friends and enemies are. Mr. Biden resents Mr. Netanyahu for not deferring to his call for a cease-fire and two-state solution. To Mr. Netanyahu, that’s status quo thinking that led to the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. He doesn’t want to get Hamas and Iran back to the status quo ante. He wants to change the environment so that they can no longer threaten Israeli lives.
Of all the 2024 nominees, JD Vance answered best when asked what an American president should do if Israel decided to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran. “Look, it is up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe,” he said. “And we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys.”
That sounds like Ronald Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union during the Cold War: “We win and they lose.” From missile defense to calling for the Berlin Wall to be torn down, Reagan was mocked as a simpleton for initiatives that upset the status quo.
Not that Mr. Biden is without achievements that could help us in the future. These include expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to include Finland and Sweden and strengthening the Quad partnership with India, Japan and Australia. In addition, the Aukus security pact will give Australia its first nuclear submarines as part of a joint effort to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. But these victories are undermined by the projection of American weakness that leaves friends nervous and enemies emboldened.
Outcomes matter. Mr. Biden’s popularity began to fall during the debacle in Afghanistan, and he is leaving behind a far more dangerous world than the one he inherited four years ago. But the president appears to believe the only problem with his foreign policy is that people somehow aren’t bright enough to appreciate all his achievements. In other words, if he has a legacy of failure, it’s your fault.
mtierney responds to jimmurphy's informative post about rural broadband: "My bestest friend, Jim M., writes of the cost of internet in a land far removed from MOL. But he benefitted from the Infrastructure Bill, so his loyalty to the current administration is understandable.
"Inquiring minds must ask: Do you live in that region full-time, or is it a vacation home?"
1. jm's post about "far removed" NC was in direct response to discussion about whether the Biden administration had fulfilled any of its promises. Looks like Yes, right?
2. Why would it matter whether jm lives or vacations in NC (or was it just a friendly curious inquiry)? Presumably the broadband improvement is available to residents and part-timers alike. If you'll pardon my tone of voice, IT'S A GOOD THING for quality internet to come to areas that have been underserved because installing the infrastructure might not show an immediate profit an internet company. Good fast internet is a MODERN NECESSITY FOR BUSINESSES, EDUCATION, REMOTE WORKERS.... It's a good thing for NC to have this opportunity to thrive. And the internet company presumably wants as many subscribers as possible, whether residents or vacationers.
First, I am glad, mtierney, that the small kindness that I performed has been so impactful for you. I'm glad that you can now unlock access to much more information and entertainment than before. I believe that you are likely a good neighbor and would do a similar kindness if you had the ability to do so.
As to our situation, we intend to retire to the NC home in a few years, but for now split time between NJ and NC. Improved internet access has certainly been a help in remote work.
That said...
As to everyones' responses, I share their frustration with your lack of focus on the point being made and the spin that you put on it.
The point of my post was to dispel the notion that the rural broadband initiative has not gotten off the ground. The article you posted and that I responded to was yet another example of your posting of misinformation. I had a concrete rebuttal of your "facts" and wanted to share.
Your cartoon response was yet another example of disinfomation. The administration's response to Helene has been outstanding, with testimonials from Republican and Democratic state officials alike. There are thousands of "boots on the ground." FEMA funds are flowing. Federal and State National Guardsmen are onsite. And as the richest nation on earth, we can certainly both fulfill our responsibilities to our citizens in times of need as well as to our allies abroad.
What has not happened is the authorization of any supplemental funding to deal with the disaster. Why? Because Republican Speaker Johnson has not brought Congress back from recess to authorize it. Why not? Because the Republicans would rather play politics with this disaster than help the poor suffering disaster victims, thereby giving the administration any credit for a "win". Can't let them seem too effective, right??
As ml1 noted, my "loyalty to the administration" has absolutely nothing to do with having benefitted from the Infrastructure grant. I am loyal to the Democratic Party because they are on the side of right and are not led by a truly heinous leader and a bunch of spineless sycophants. As a young man I was a patriotic Republican, albeit a naive one. The party has strayed so far from their values in those times that I could not possibly support them now. I am shocked and horrified that so many of our citizens, including you, support them.
Hope that clears up any confusion, mtierney.
I really do hope that you use the improved access to auditory sources of information as a way to seek out some truth. I suggest that you listen to a few non-right wing podcasts.
How do you believe a voter, other than yourself, is telling an untruth? Just because the “belief, opinion, comment, or quote” differs from yours? Wow!