America’s telcoms sector is hugely concentrated and corrupt, and systematically underinvests in maintenance and infrastructure even as it gouges customers, which it can get away with thanks to its monopoly power, leaving Americans with some of the world’s worst, most expensive communications services.
Continue reading “FCC Chairman Pai’s former employer, Verizon, lied about coverage, and then Pai tried to bury the news”
Tag: usausausa
Peak billionaire: a billionaire tries to purchase a party nomination to outflank anti-billionaires so he can run against another billionaire
The past two years have seen a tremendous shift in the public perception of capitalism and socialism, the character of philanthropy as reputation-laundry rather than generosity, and the nature of wealth as an indicator of sociopathy, not virtue or cleverness.
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Elizabeth Warren’s plan to denazify America
Elizabeth Warren has released a characteristically detailed campaign plan to counter white nationalist violence in the USA, whose multi-pronged approach includes directing the DoJ to be more vigorous in pursuing white nationalist groups (and to lay off the Cointelpro-style surveillance of groups that advocate for protections for racialized people); centralized data collection on white nationalist violence; FBI assistance in local investigations of white nationalist groups; global collaboration to disrupt international white terrorist organizations; purges of Nazis in the US military; using background checks to deny firearms to members and supporters of violent white nationalist groups; reforming school curriculum to head off white nationalist trends; creating an interagency task-force to combat white nationalism; and to “combat violent extremist content on the Internet in a manner consistent with freedom of expression” (a neat trick if she can manage it).
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Cable is bullshit, and so is 5G: give me fiber or give me death!
America has some of the worst, most expensive broadband in the developed world, thanks to massive market concentration, grotesque regulatory capture, and systematic underinvestment in crumbling telcoms infrastructure.
Continue reading “Cable is bullshit, and so is 5G: give me fiber or give me death!”
Across America, the average worker can’t afford the median home
In 74% of US counties, the average worker can’t afford the median home. It’s getting worse: Six months ago, it was 71% of counties. The results come from Attom’s new survey of house prices.
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NYT calls for an end to legacy college admissions
In the wake of the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, a new debate opened up, about the mundane, everyday ways that wealthy people buy their way into elite institutions: from hiring, poorer, smarter kids to write their kids’ essays, to surrendering custody of your kids in order to misappropriate low-income tuition grants, to simply “donating” shit-tons of money to the school.
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Small town, independent and municipally owned ISPs offer America’s best connectivity
An article of faith among neoliberals is that monopolies are efficient because they are so profitable that they can offer better prices to their customers as well as better services.
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Heirs’ property: how southern states allow white land developers to steal reconstruction-era land from Black families
Back in 2017, The Nation ran a superb, in-depth story on “heirs’ property,” a legalized form of property theft that allows primarily rich white developers to expropriate land owned by the descendants of Black slaves.
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Britain’s US ambassador: Trump is “insecure, incompetent, inept”
A leaked cable from the British ambassador to the US, sent home to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has the ambassador calling Trump “insecure,” “incompetent” and “inept.” In the ambassador’s defense, it’s completely true. Trump has not yet commented on the news.
Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
1852: “This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day.”
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