Ali Velshi Schooled on Net Neutrality

I heard of an interview that happened late last week on MSNBC with Ali Velshi.

This guy is a former CNN reporter. He’s an economic dunderhead, but he thinks he is an expert on everything. And he literally doesn’t know 90% of what he claims to be an expert on. He interviewed a man by the name of Robert McDowell, who is a former FCC commissioner. And it’s about the net neutrality vote.

First sound bite, Ali Velshi. “The internet, as we know it today, and the things most people consume, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, those companies came about because small startups had access to this fantastic internet. And if we were to impose the ability to slow down some parts of the internet or speed it up for money, we may end up freezing the internet in time and that these big companies exist as big companies, there will be no competition to Facebook or Google or Amazon because startups are gonna be denied access to the internet.” Here’s Mr. McDowell.

MCDOWELL: What the FCC did in February of 2015 was put a 1934 law, the Communications Act of 1934, a part of it called Title II on to broadband internet networks. But before that that’s when all those companies you just cited were actually started in dorm rooms and then became some of the world’s largest corporations. The question is before February 2015, what worked? You have the Federal Trade Commission Act, you have the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act, those are three very powerful federal statutes that kept the internet open and free prior to February 2015. To hear some people talk today you’d think the internet started in February 2015.

RUSH: Okay so what this guy was telling Ali, “Ali, the thing you’re afraid of actually happened from the day the internet was invented until 2015 when Obama put net neutrality laws on it. Exactly what you want was what the internet was. It’s Obama who has changed access to the internet in the last two years.” But Ali Velshi doesn’t get this. He thinks that there has never been a free and open internet until Obama came along and made it free and open two years ago.

Next question: “But if Facebook wants to say that they’ll spend a billion to subsidize your internet plan so that you pay less for your monthly fee, but Facebook gets preferential treatment, if a startup tries to launch a competitor to Facebook and if I don’t have that money to pay, I could get slow speed and people will say, why would you ever use my service as opposed to existing one that paid for the fast one?”

MCDOWELL: Section 1 and section 2 of Sherman Act and section 3 of Clayton Act, you just triggered all three of those sections, that would be an anti-trust violation. Federal Trade Commission could go after ’em also under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. That was against the law before February 2015, and it will be against the law as of today.

VELSHI: Look, I don’t feel like we’re having a really, a really fair conversation here.

VELSHI: I’m trying to have a conversation on the — on the merits of the principle of unintended consequences of reversing net neutrality, and you’re dropping a lot of legalese.

MCDOWELL: I understand. But to your point, which is you’re saying consumers aren’t protected. That’s just not true.

VELSHI: I did not make that argument once. I didn’t say consumers. You’ve come to this show ready for an argument that I’m not giving you. I’m saying —

MCDOWELL: Okay.

VELSHI: — that if someone has an advantage in streaming their content over the internet, an established player has an advantage because they’ve got the money to be able to buy better, faster, quicker access or prevent somebody else from getting it, the incumbent is favored over the startup. That’s the only point I wanted to make. That’s the only point.

MCDOWELL: And that would be illegal. That’s the point I’m making. What you just said is already illegal. I know it’s good clickbait to say the internet’s being destroyed, but it’s not.

RUSH: It’s already illegal! The point about net neutrality is from the beginning of its interception to two years ago was exactly when it grew and expanded and offered freedom. It was only the last two years we’ve had net neutrality. Ali Velshi is sitting here worried that the big guys are gonna eat the little guys and deny the little guys. And what McDowell was telling him, everything you’re afraid of has been against the law and still is against the law. There are three different antitrust laws that all would have impact here.

But these people live under the mistaken impression their starting point is that Obama fixed because Obama could do no wrong.

These folks are so dense and so stupid but arrogant about their ignorance, it is stunning!

He thinks he knows so much about this, he doesn’t know half of anything. Of course, he’s a liberal and everything they know is propaganda and lies that’s presented and received in hatred.

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