Trump To End Biden-Era High-Speed Internet Program (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0177395277
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/09/0059239/trump-to-end-biden-era-high-speed-internet-program
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/us/politics/trump-biden-digital-equity-act.html
> Mr. Trump's statement was one of the starkest examples yet of his slash-and-burn approach to dismantling the legacy of his immediate predecessor in this term in office. The Digital Equity Act, a little-known effort to improve high-speed internet access in communities with poor access, was tucked into the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr. Biden signed into law early in his presidency.
>
> The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities. But Mr. Trump, using the incendiary language that has been a trademark of his political career, denounced the law on Thursday for also seeking to improve internet access for ethnic and racial minorities, raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/us/politics/trump-biden-digital-equity-act.html
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And gas is 1.98 a gallon, right?
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Sure and Charlie Brown had hoes. Do show the worse health outcomes and finance statements of said countries and said healthcare systems. Which country has the highest per capita costs and by how much?
George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:1, Troll)
You know what we need more of? People paying for their own stuff and pulling their own weight.
You know what we need less of? Expecting that federal dollars will rain down like manna from heaven to pay for all the stuff you want but can't afford yourself.
You know why that is? Because we're almost $40T in the hole (that's 4e13 USD, folks) and the annual bill for interest on the debt is close to $500B.
When I was in college, it was a scandal that George W let the debt go from 4T to 8T during his eight years in
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> You know why that is? Because we're almost $40T in the hole (that's 4e13 USD, folks) and the annual bill for interest on the debt is close to $500B.
Yet it's the US taxpayers who will be paying that debt for generations to come, not the Military Industrial Complex, the oligarchs or the corporations suckling on the government teat.
Even the impoverished low-waged US citizen cannot evade paying taxes on penalty of imprisonment and should be given a leg up. Whereas if a corporation pays actually taxes, it's time to get new accountants. Socialism bad, unless of course it's for the big corporations and oligarchs.
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:4, Insightful)
Are we going to start with the handouts to Elon that are funding SpaceX? Or maybe, we could start taxing billionaires at the tax rates that were in effect in the Bush era and have them pay their fair share of taxes (or at least some taxes). The ideological cuts that we're currently seeing are just that, politically motivated moves that will do little or nothing to solve the deficit.
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I would like the 60 trillion dollars at the 1% have taken from the bottom 99 in the last 40 years. I would like to get that money back. That doesn't include the 10 trillion we handed out to them during covid or the additional 10 trillion Trump is trying to hand out to them right now. But that's 60 trillion is a good start.
Oh and that's trillion with a t in every single example above. How much better would your life be if they didn't have that money? Yeah you wouldn't have all of it but I mean it's 80 tr
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> (trump) raging in a social media post that it amounted to providing "woke handouts based on race."
You see, leon is a white illegal immigrant. It's ok to give him free handouts from the government.
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Socialism for the rich = good
Socialism for the poor = bad
Don't blame me for saying the quiet part out loud - it's the American Way (tm).
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TLDR: "Hurr-durr. Freeloaders. Gimme that ladder! I used it, and it's mine now. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!"
Re: George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:2)
Username checks out
Re:George Bush vetoed Little Timmy's future! (Score:4, Interesting)
The USA is $40T in the hole because (1) Americans are greedy and want lots of stuff, and (2) Americans are selfish and don't want to pay taxes.
These traits are multiplied one-hundred fold for the super-rich, which is why the super-rich are still getting handouts and tax cuts while everyone else is getting shafted.
Want to cut the deficit? Tax the rich a lot more. Tax everyone else a bit more. Cut spending on the military and other high-cost but limited-benefit items.
And then spend strategically by lowering the cost of university education and spending more on R&D to make the USA competitive again.
Trump, of course, is doing the opposite of all of these things and is sending the USA straight down the crapper.
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For (1) a big portion of that is the military and wars. We could have been investing in our infrastructure but instead we blew up infrastructure
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Yes, because there absolutely is never a return on investment for infrastructure spending.
You know this was essentially the 21st century version of rural electrification, yeah? I mean the 20th century version (actual electrification of rural areas) certainly paid no dividends...
Look past the end of your own nose, please.
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To be fair Obama had to deal with the economic crisis after 2008 and 8 years of Republican economics. And Biden had to clean up the post-covid mess left for him.
Almost like there's a trend of Democrats having to clean up the messes only for Republicans to scold them for spending money to clean up said mess. The only Democrat in my lifetime to be handed anything close to a reasonable economy was Clinton and he famously left with a surplus.
So maybe this isn't "both sides" after all and maybe the GOP has bee
Well, Duh (Score:1, Offtopic)
If it discriminates on race, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. And any law repugnant to the constitution is void. It doesn't matter if you think it should be allowed. It is illegal. End of debate.
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> If it discriminates on race, ...
Just because he says it does doesn't mean it's actually so -- and that's for the Courts to decide, not him. Also, from TFS:
> The act was written to help many different groups, including veterans, older people and disabled and rural communities.
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Weird how every time Klan Fuck Trump does stuff it hurts veterans, older people and rural communities. It's like the Dirty Shitbag Klanass Republicans have some kind of masochistic streak.
I guess that goes with the fake-christian "martyrdom complex" bullshit these inbred satan-worshiping shit-turds keep whining about. You're 80% of the population, NOBODY is discriminating against your religion DESPITE the fact that all your priests and pastors are disgusting fucking pedophiles...
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[1]"29.2% of households do not have wireline broadband such as cable, fiber optic or DSL. 35.6% of households with incomes below $20,000 are without an internet subscription. 22% of persons aged 65 and older do not have a computer or have a computer but no Internet." ... "“About a quarter of the population still does not have a broadband internet connection at home. And broadband non-adopters continue to cite financial constraints as one of the most important reasons why they forgo these services. Among [digitalequityact.org]
[1] https://www.digitalequityact.org/why/
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Wrong. Any of the three branches can declare something unconstitutional and proceed as if it were. The judiciary gets the final say, barring amendment, but not the only say.
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Definitely do not want those farmers and ranchers through the middle of the country to get their hands on affordable high speed internet.
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That leads to being informed by more than nutjob talk radio and nutjob right wing cable news!
Can't have that, can we? Same reason public education needs to be gutted: an educated electorate is an electorate that votes for other people.
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And he was correct there. He's not a lawyer. If he were he would know that illegal aliens are not entitled to the same amount of due process before being deported that citizens are for criminal matters. That's not my opinion, it's specifically written into the law and upheld by acres and acres of case law.
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Or, if he had ever actually read the Constitution at any point during the 4+ years he took an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend" it, he would have seen that the first two words of the 5th Amendment answer that question quite firmly - no law degree required. Here's the condensed version:
> No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
No PERSON. Not "citizen". PERSON.
Everyone gets due process of law; and the law dictates what that process is. This is a surprise only to him, as any kid in 7th grade US history learns this kind of thing. If he doesn'
Re: Well, Duh (Score:2)
But you would at the very least have to establish whether someone is actually a citizen or not, which requires at least that much due process. And even that seems to be missing at the moment.
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Yeah nobodies saying that, that's Trumps stupid line of "we gotta give them all trials?"
Just like acres of case law there is many such acres describing what that due process is, the admin isn't following that. Obama and Biden deported plenty of folks and didn't have to violate the Constitution or employ a 3rd party work prison either. This admin is extraordinarily lazy, cruel and incompetent all at once.
[1]https://constitution.congress.... [congress.gov]
aliens who have once passed through our gates, even illegally, may be
[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8-7-2/ALDE_00001262/#ALDF_00015328
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Lots of laws have been written to protect minorities. Is that discrimination? SCOTUS doesn't think so, and if they don't think so, then the laws are in fact constitutional.
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Try again. Laws that give minorities protections the majority are not privy to are illegal. Laws protecting everyone are what is constitutionally required by the 14th.
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Fine. But that hasn't actually happened here. The idea that "helping poor people access the internet" somehow discriminates against a particular race is severe lizard-brain thinking.
Unilaterally end a law? (Score:5, Insightful)
> President Trump on Thursday attacked a law signed by President Joe Biden aimed at expanding high-speed internet access, calling the effort "racist" and "totally unconstitutional" and threatening to end it "immediately."
Well... A king could do that, but not a president. As president, his job under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution is that, "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Someone should explain to him that oath he took on Jan 20, 2025 and read him the pertinent parts of the Constitution. That way, he can't credibly say, "I don't know" when (repeatedly) asked if he has to "uphold the the Constitution" in interviews. Google: [1]trump I don't know [google.com]
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+I+don't+know
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> Well... A king could do that
And how did the first king get to be king? People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time. Not so neat that it's happening in our country.
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> And how did the first king get to be king? People around him were probably like "Yeah, let's blindly follow this guy unquestionably." Kinda neat that we're getting to see how that happened in real time. Not so neat that it's happening in our country.
Alpha leaders are common in many species. Competition among candidates decides who becomes the leader.
As humans went from small groups of itinerant hunters to larger groups that settled in certain areas, the mythology of the leader grew in order to make the larger group more cohesive.
Eventually leaders became kings, whose sovereignty was not questioned, and whose power passed down through their family line. They could be deposed, but only rarely. ( When you strike a king, you must kill him. - Ralph Waldo Em
Re: Unilaterally end a law? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Ttump is using it in its original meaning. And thinks that since racism doesn't exist and black people are just losers, it's nonsense.
Pro tip too late... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Biden should have included the word "Trump" in all the bills passed -- for example: "Trump Inflation Reduction Act" (just in case this happened) ... :-)
How many people were connected: Digital Equity Act (Score:2)
How many people were connected through the Digital Equity Act?
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I can't find exact numbers, but I did find [1]a recently published Princeton study [princeton.edu]. According to it, grant submissions for the Competitive Grant Program closed in September 2024 (for a bill passed in 2021), and "[a]s of January 2025, over fourty (sic) entities, including a varied mix of municipalities, school districts, trade associations, and a hospital, among others, have been recommended for award of a combined $369 million pending 'budget review and processing.'" There's also a table showing grant status.
A
[1] https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2025/04/29/announcing-a-study-assessing-the-impact-of-federal-funding-in-promoting-digital-equity/
Biden (Score:2)
Biden really has a lock on Trump's mind. He is obsessed with him.
00 DAYS (Score:4, Funny)
IT HAS BEEN |00| DAYS Since Trump Has Been AN INTERNATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT.
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I think you need to reduce the unit of time to HOURS. Or maybe even MINUTES.
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Well, Canada is doing a hell of a lot better than the USA. But then again their Prime Minister is an actual Economist whereas the USA's POTUS is a shit-eating Con Artist with a predilection towards pedophilia (and we have [1]the Epstein records to prove it [nbcnews.com]).
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-introduced-trump-14-ghislaine-maxwell-accuser-says-rcna7253
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Well tell us, what is happening?