AFIK, ATT has NO plans to provide fiber to the entire state.

They lie and label wireless as broadband.

The law seems to be useless.

The premise is already flawed, by putting the restriction on the funds in the first place they are already violating the law as written or at least torturing it's language to death.

The NTIA is interpreting this law in an expansive way by categorizing net neutrality rules as impermissible rate regulation and by demanding statewide exemptions from state laws for ISPs that obtain grant money.

By the rules the Trump admin plays by any state should take the money, agree to comply and once the funds are in hand give em the old "lol jk" and do net neutrality anyway. Make them sue you instead. If the admin can violate every trade agreement unilaterally and against the law what good is their word anyway?

Besides, in about 45 days the [1]makeup of the government could look very different. [votehub.com]

[1] https://votehub.com/2026-forecast/senate/

Has California's net neutrality law changed anything? Does it do anything? I remember how we didn't have it at a national level, then we did have it, then we didn't have it again. So far as I could tell, nothing changed.

The federal government has always (for at least several decades) used the threat of removing federal funding to force states to do things that they don't want to do. This is nothing new, and is not, as this summary implies, setting a dangerous precedent.

The difference is that normally, this is used to do things that add standards intended to make things better/safer for the general public or serve some legitimate public need.

This is being done to remove standards intended to protect the general public. As a general rule, states have always been allowed to have stricter laws than the federal government, just not more lax laws. Using the threat of removing federal funding to take away laws intended to protect the public's rights, reduce competition among content providers, and push the Internet more and more towards a content monopoly is doing the opposite of that.

It's not the federal government using the threat of withdrawing funding to push its agenda that is bad. It is the agenda itself that is bad. It is fundamentally antithetical to the rule of law, fundamentally contrary to the regulatory powers required to maintain a functioning capitalist system, and fundamentally contrary to the public interest. It is putting greedy corporations ahead of the American people.

Additionally, the executive branch taking such an action without authorization from Congress is also bad. The long history of doing this has, to my knowledge, been limited to the executive branch acting on laws passed by Congress that give them the authority to withhold funds for specific non-compliance reasons. Doing so in the absence of such laws is likely a violation of the separation of powers.

But unfortunately, the current administration has a long history of violating that separation of powers, doing various illegal acts, knowing full well that it will take months for the courts to strike down those acts, and that the damage will have been done by then, and using the threat of such illegal executive orders as a way to extort concessions out of states, government agencies, corporations, nonprofits, and individuals. And that right there — the repeated willful commission of unconstitutional acts for borderline felonious purposes — is a fundamental abrogation of their oath of office.

So the way I see it, there are only three ways to fix the problem:

A. Pass laws clarifying that Congress has exclusive power of the purse, and that the executive branch shall not retract funding to any state, any agency, or any individual for any reason unless the right to retract funding for that specific reason is explicitly codified in the relevant law as an executive power, and that this rule shall apply to all government agencies, without exception, superseding all previously assumed authority, and providing criminal liability for anyone acting in contravention of this law, with no statute of limitations. That way, federal agency heads who act on such executive orders will no longer be protected by any assumption of legality or constitutionality, and will risk future criminal charges if they act on an executive order that violates the separation of powers in this way.

B. Remove the people who are pushing this agenda, whether through the ballot box, through impeachment, or both.

C. Do both A and B.

...is this fucking legal to withhold federal funding to strong arm states into anti-consumer policies?

Oh wait, it isn't.

Congress itself wrote into the BEAD statute that states must ensure that prospective subgrantees can carry out their projects “in compliance with all applicable Federal, State, and local laws.” And also “Nothing in this subchapter may be construed to authorize” the excutive branch's NTIA to regulate broadband. Trump is abusing a grant agreement to do something Congress explicitly declined to authorize because state laws were already expected to be a part of getting the grant money.

So, as per usual, Trump is just being a bully and making shit up.

But thanks for the useless outrage porn. They will sue and they will win because the letter of the law is pretty fucking clear here and Trump does not have the authority to do this but they will waste a huge awount of energy fighting Trump.

Voters will get angry at democrats for doing nothing but not at Republicans for actively harming the country.

This is something Democrat strategists have been complaining about. Specifically if you're a republican you can get up on stage and yell God and country! And get votes.

The exact same thing does not work for democrats. Democrat voters could care less about your religious affiliation or how stupidly patriotic you might be. Democrat voters expect results and that would be fine if the Democrats could deliver results but it's really hard to do that when the other party is actively sabotaging the country and has been since newt Gingrich created the contract with America as a unified policy of blocking the Democrats from doing any good while doing active harm whenever the Republicans happen to get any power

And because we have all been conditioned to revile partisan politics when you point this out people just dismiss it. Almost as if someone was actively trying to do that for a reason ...

I'm not a conspiracy theorist I'm a conspiracy analyst.

If you make deals with fascists, you're a suicidal sucker.

It demonstrates weakness, is interpreted as submission, and Stumpy be back with more demands. If you grow a pair you might have a fight, but probably not - he's a fucking coward, but more relevantly, he's desperate to avoid people publicly standing up to him.

The answer is "Eat shit you goofy fuckup, give us the money you're illegally withholding."