Ah, Free Press. One of my early favorite tech topics at RedState. One of the more visible George Soros-funded fronts, along with Public Knowledge. I have to say my early hits have been somewhat successful too, when Free Press completely gave up on Save the Internet as a fake left-right thing, instead fully integrating it with the Free Press extremist brand. Remember when they could fool solid groups like Gun Owners of America with their dishonest rhetoric?
I mean, they do still have language up that says “Organizations as diverse as the Christian Coalition for America, Moveon.org, the ACLU and the American Library Association have joined in support of Net Neutrality.” But, what? MoveOn, ACLU, and ALA are ‘diverse?’ Get real. Christian Coalition is the only right-wing fig leaf they have left, and Christian Coalition isn’t exactly known as a small-government group, nor a tech policy leader. Come on. I won, they lost. Net Neutrality was exposed as a single-party, left-wing effort, like so many others of the extremist Obama regulators. Time to… Move On.
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Gigi Sohn talked to Personal Democracy Forum about the work she does at her organization, Public Knowledge. She took time to call out RedState and Less Government. Here’s my hastily-created transcript of the key passage around the 28:00 mark:
[On AT&T/T-Mobile] We often get attacked by the right-wing press, folks like, you know, RedState and Less Government, so I’m constantly dealing with attacks fully funded by AT&T – it’s like not even a secret – calling us, you know, Soros-supported Marxists and Google shills and all these kind… So, I mean I don’t want to respond to those things, but they shape the debate. They’re out in the air.
She says RedState, but at RedState I’m the one who posts on these issues, and mostly in my Tech at Night series. In that series I do highlight repeatedly that Public Knowledge takes money from George Soros’s Open Society Institute. This is a documented fact on their own webpage.
However I don’t get paid a dime by AT&T. I don’t make a penny off of my tech policy writing. I don’t work for AT&T and never have. I don’t accept money from them and never have, not directly or indirectly. I’m one guy who devotes a few nights a week to studying and writing about these issues, and the fully-funded, paid professional Gigi Sohn feels the need to single me out.
I actually am looking for work in the DC or Austin areas to fund my escape from California. So if AT&T did want to hire me, well, serious offers would be listened to. Heck, if Sprint Nextel wanted to hire me, I’d listen. But the fact of the matter is, I’m a lone amateur. I’m not corporate funded and I’m not foundation funded. RedState doesn’t even pay its writers, let alone AT&T.
And that’s the whole story.
Steve Jobs died today after a long battle with cancer. He was 56. Founding NeXT would have been enough to turn anyone into a cult hero in his field. Acquiring Lucasfilm’s Graphics Group and turning it into Pixar would have made anyone a respected business leader.
But for Steve Jobs, those were feathers in his cap called Apple, the company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak, and then later saved from extinction by returning to lead it again. He led Apple to its point today as the most valuable corporation in America, measured by public market capitalization. To do that, Jobs had to beat Microsoft and he had to beat IBM. He won in the end.
Far from just a visionary, people from Apple have always said he was a hands-on leader, who had a personal stake in the success of the company and of the products he helped create. Apple ][. Macintosh. NextStep. iMac. MacOS X. iPod. iPhone. iPad. Jobs leaves behind an incredible legacy, and his death will be felt by his industry, and the world. RIP.
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Friday has come and gone at last, and in fact we’re well into Saturday now unfortunately, due to my needing to have covered so much this time.
Additionally, at long last it looks like the ongoing saga of California vs Amazon is coming to an end. Amazon had already floated the idea of compromise with the Democrats on their unconstitutional plan to try to bully Amazon with respect to California’s high sales tax rates.
But now it looks like the firm got cold feet. Having already put itself on the line with a plan to lobby for a national law on the matter, with a promise to pay the tax if now law is passed in two years, they caved and cut the “safe harbor” down to one year. As you might guess from how I said that, I disagree that Amazon was wrong to play hardball. I think Amazon was wrong to give in after playing hardball, because if things go wrong they risk victor’s justice.
Joe Mathews says Amazon has given an example of “how not to do business in California.” At this point, I don’t see why anyone should do business in California, with all the corruption and corporatist socialism going on in this one great state.
This matters if you don’t live in California, by the way, because of the next steps.
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I’ve said before that the case against the AT&T/T-Mobile deal makes no sense. Not only does the historical record suggest that the merger will increase competition, but the actions of key players are the opposite of what we’d predict if the merger were expected to reduce competition and raise margins.
There’s something more to it, though. That something is astroturf pushing a basic agenda of an expanded government role in the media. Why yes, the same forces were behind Net Neutrality are now behind the anti-AT&T coalition, in addition to Sprint who wants to keep prices higher and competition lower, by preventing AT&T and T-Mobile from getting together and being more effective.
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I am so sick of California. While it’s good that the “privacy” bill didn’t make it out of the Senate, it’s not so good that the Amazon tax is going on to the Senate. Texas: Don’t be like us. Defeat your Amazon tax in SB 1.
And the hacks go on: Anonymous attacks.. Iran?, its apparent offshoot lulzsec attacked PBS and Sony, but leaves itself open to law enforcement action? And yet, somehow, our elected officials think the victims are the people to be grilling. I can’t think of a metaphor that doesn’t overstate the situation some, so I’ll be direct: finding fault with the victims is what we need to do only after we’ve exhausted our options related to frogmarching the attackers.
One question though: Why isn’t the House talking to RSA, after the breakin it suffered not too long ago? Is SecurID broken wider open than the Congress wants known publicly?
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Lots to cover tonight, thanks in part to skipping Monday for Memorial Day. But of course I’ll start with my own post on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, explaining from the ground up why the George Soros/Sprint arguments contradict themselves. Government should get out of the way, especially state governments like California’s getting too big for their britches. It’ll be better for all of us who buy wireless services.
Speaking of states running amok, here’s the bill that tax-and-spend Texans have put the Amazon tax into. Unless I’m mistaken, which is possible since I’m not particularly familiar with Texas inside baseball, SB 1 is being considered in the special session of the legislature. Let’s hope Texas can strip that tax out, after Governor Perry already vetoed it once. Texas needs to be America’s example of small government. Texans: get loud and back up the Governor! Give the Governor a harrumph!
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Regular readers of my Tech at Night series have seen me make the case for the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA by pointing out how it would improve competition because the two companies combined could compete better with 4G networks like Verizon and the combined Sprint/Clearwire.
But there’s a more basic reason than that to oppose any government meddling in the deal, as proposed by Sprint Nextel itself, as well as George Soros/OSI-funded front groups like Public Knowledge or Free Press. Both a Constitutional and a common sense approach would be not to intervene unless we have good reason. And the reason for intervention given by the radical left, as well as by competitors like Sprint, just doesn’t make sense.
Put simply, the AT&T/T-Mobile deal cannot simultaneously hurt Sprint and give AT&T price setting power, especially not when the Sprint/Nextel deal had the opposite effect on prices.
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This week I already called upon Rick Perry to veto the Texas Amazon Tax, and now I’m left to hope that California Democrats will be less stupid than Joe Straus. Sigh.
Meanwhile the posturing around the AT&T/T-Mobile deal continues. We find from a press conference with COMPTEL CEO Jerry James that the Rural Cellular Alliance is joining with radical left, George Soros/OSI-funded group Public Knowledge to favor government intervention. If only they realized Soros will turn on them as soon as they’re no longer needed to pursue their socialist agenda.
The Wall Street Journal has also looked into the unholy alliance against AT&T. The leading members are of course direct competitors: Leap Wireless, MetroPCS, Sprint. Verizon is also mentioned, but the WSJ lists good reasons Verizon really wouldn’t mind either way. I also see one good reason for Verizon to want to see AT&T and T-Mobile win this: Anything that happens to AT&T now can also happen to Verizon, and Verizon becomes public enemy number one if it’s the undisputed leader of the industry. Sprint, meanwhile, doesn’t have to worry about being #1 because Sprint these days literally has to mooch off its competitors with things like the FCC Data Roaming order just to service its customers, so relatively little does it invest in its network anymore.
John Conyers and Edward Markey are also pressing for big government here. Look, even if you’re the biggest T-Mobile fan, the writing is on the wall regarding the fans of government intervention here. Everyone who is opposing this deal is self-interested, socialist, or both.
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