{"id":2348150,"date":"2024-10-01T16:18:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T20:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fccs-political-attack-on-musk-has-put-american-lives-in-danger\/"},"modified":"2024-10-01T16:21:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T20:21:33","slug":"fccs-political-attack-on-musk-has-put-american-lives-in-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fccs-political-attack-on-musk-has-put-american-lives-in-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"FCC&#8217;s Political Attack On Musk Has Put American Lives In Danger"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffccs-political-attack-on-musk-has-put-american-lives-in-danger%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2348150&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The \u200darticle discusses the impact of the Federal Communications\u2062 Commission&#8217;s (FCC) decision to cut off broadband access to rural Americans amidst a broader political conflict involving Elon Musk, a tech billionaire known for advocating free\u200c speech. The FCC had\u200d previously awarded Musk&#8217;s Starlink $885.5 million to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/desantis-presses-biden-to-provide-internet-access-to-cuban-protesters-amid-communist-crackdown\/\" title=\"DeSantis Presses Biden To Provide Internet Access To Cuban Protesters Amid Communist Crackdown\">provide internet access<\/a> to rural areas, particularly in the wake \u2063of Hurricane Helene&#8217;s devastation in \u200bparts\u2064 of the Southeastern U.S.\u2063 However, the grant was canceled in 2022 under \u200bpolitically charged circumstances, just before President Biden&#8217;s administration began efforts against Musk.<\/p>\n<p>As \u200ca result of this cancellation, rural \u2063communities, \u200cincluding many severely\u2062 affected\u2062 by the hurricane, have\u2064 faced dire communication challenges during the\u2063 disaster, leading to potential loss of life and hindered rescue efforts. \u2062Critics, including Musk&#8217;s mother,\u200c have called out the Biden administration and the FCC for prioritizing political maneuvers over\u2062 the essential needs of citizens during emergencies. \u200cThe article suggests that the FCC&#8217;s actions are not isolated, as various government agencies have engaged in investigations and scrutiny of Musk and his ventures, further complicating the landscape for rural internet\u2064 access, evidenced by failed broadband initiatives under Harris&#8217;s oversight.<\/p>\n<p>the piece \u200cpaints a picture\u2064 of how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-dozen-former-fbi-agents-break-silence-on-the-state-of-the-bureau\/\" title=\"12 ex-FBI agents speak out on agency&#039;s condition.\">politically motivated decisions<\/a>\u2064 can have severe repercussions for public welfare, especially in vulnerable rural areas.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Disrupting communications is a military strategy that has been deployed during wars throughout history. It&rsquo;s also what the federal government has done to rural Americans as part of its war on Elon Musk, a tech billionaire whose support of free speech has put him at odds with the Biden administration and other powerful Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to cut rural Americans off from broadband communications had already been strongly criticized as harmful, politically motivated, and completely without merit even before Category 4 Hurricane Helene wrought destruction last week in some of the most remote areas of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>Now the FCC&rsquo;s war on Musk may have turned deadly. The death toll is already at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxweather.com\/weather-news\/helene-north-carolina-florida-southeast-recovery-dead\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">138 Americans<\/a> across six states, with many hundreds still missing. Among the serious problems facing rural victims is an inability to communicate with potential rescuers as roads are washed out, telecommunications are down, electricity is out, and people are facing fatal flooding.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&rsquo;t have to be this way.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, the Federal Communications Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/space\/us-agency-will-not-reinstate-900-mln-subsidy-spacex-starlink-unit-2023-12-13\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">awarded<\/a> Musk&rsquo;s Starlink an $885.5 million award to help get broadband access to 642,000 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. A subsidiary of SpaceX, Starlink is a satellite internet system delivering high-speed internet to anyone on the planet. The plan would work out to less than $1,400 per linkup, same-day delivery of the necessary hardware, and only a few hours to get up and running.<\/p>\n<p>Some <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ajtourville\/status\/1840577643839955098\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">19,552 households and businesses in North Carolina<\/a> would have had access to Starlink if they desired. Of the 21 worst-hit counties in North Carolina, the FCC-funded Starlink program would have served all or part of 17 of them, according to multiple officials. The FCC suddenly canceled that grant in 2022, a few months before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/speeches-remarks\/2022\/11\/09\/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference-8\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Joe Biden suggested<\/a> that the federal government find ways to go after Musk, a former Democrat who began criticizing some of the Democrat Party&rsquo;s support of censorship of and lawfare against political opponents. After a challenge from SpaceX, the FCC reaffirmed its decision to cancel the award in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Democrat FCC Chairwoman <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SawyerMerritt\/status\/1840783831609262433\/photo\/2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jessica Rosenworcel<\/a> implausibly claimed to believe that Starlink couldn&rsquo;t provide the service it had promised, a claim that didn&rsquo;t pass the smell test for many industry observers at the time it was made. Starlink and its military counterpart were in wide use by other government programs. What&rsquo;s more, at this moment Donald Trump and Elon Musk are <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/113233063446007867\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rushing Starlink kits<\/a> to remote North Carolina on their own. So are <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nicksortor\/status\/1841016063208669568\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">other Americans<\/a> doing relief operations. And the White House is claiming it is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/trump-says-he-spoke-musk-about-getting-internet-areas-hit-by-hurricane-2024-09-30\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">going to send Starlink kits<\/a> to the area.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The @FCC would rather Americans die, than approve a very inexpensive way to connect people in disaster areas. They should be ashamed,&rdquo; Maye Musk, the mother of Elon Musk, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mayemusk\/status\/1840806351917797863\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said on X<\/a>. &ldquo;Biden, Harris and the FCC are also punishing people in disaster areas and rural areas. Shame on them,&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mayemusk\/status\/1840813114712813793\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">she added<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Other agencies also joined Democrats&rsquo; anti-Musk efforts. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/elon-musk-biden-administration-justice-department-investigations-accdd84a?mod=article_inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Wall Street Journal<\/a> reported, the Department of Justice pursued multiple attacks on Musk and his companies. The Federal Trade Commission began harassing X by making myriad questionable document demands, including requests for information on the journalists who worked on the project exposing how previous leaders of Twitter had colluded with the federal government to censor American speech and debate. The National Labor Relations Board went after Tesla over its dress code. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are also investigating Musk and his companies.<\/p>\n<p>The FCC&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/when-corporate-america-pulls-a-paypal-theres-no-escaping-the-digital-gulag-3\/\" title=\"When Corporate America Pulls A PayPal, There\u2019s No Escaping The Digital Gulag\">politically motivated cancellation<\/a> of the contract in 2022 left rural Americans with no options.<\/p>\n<p>The cancellation &ldquo;is without legal justification,&rdquo; FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who voted against canceling the award, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BrendanCarrFCC\/status\/1562433655578193921\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> at the time. &ldquo;[I]t will leave rural Americans waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The FCC&rsquo;s political action against Musk isn&rsquo;t the only Biden administration action harming Americans who were ravaged by Helene.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Biden named Kamala Harris <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrtc.coop\/biden-taps-vp-harris-to-lead-100-billion-broadband-push\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Broadband Czar<\/a> in April 2021 and placed her in charge of a $100 billion slush fund for broadband projects. At the Commerce Department, a $42.5 billion subset of that program was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2024\/jun\/21\/bidens-stalled-rural-internet-program-ignites-deba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">launched<\/a> in 2021, with guidance written to limit the ability of Starlink to compete for contracts. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program was supposed to fund programs in all <a href=\"https:\/\/broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov\/funding-programs\/broadband-equity-access-and-deployment-bead-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">50 states<\/a>. It has been a complete failure.<\/p>\n<p>More than three years later, not a single rural American family or business has been connected to broadband through the program. At best the groundwork will begin four years after the launch and won&rsquo;t finish until 2030 at the earliest. For that much taxpayer money, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2024\/jun\/21\/bidens-stalled-rural-internet-program-ignites-deba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Starlink could be provided to 140 million people<\/a>, and without the wait, observers noted.<\/p>\n<p>The FCC&rsquo;s anti-Musk efforts come at the same time that the Democrat-run agency fast-tracked a shocking application by a group backed by the Democrat Soros family to purchase more than 200 radio stations across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Federal law requires applicants with significant foreign ownership, as the Soros group has, to go through significant paperwork and security reviews prior to receiving licenses for radio stations. They didn&rsquo;t follow the law and yet the FCC fast-tracked the approval for the first time in its history.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Your last name should not determine how the government treats you, and very clearly that&rsquo;s what is happening here,&rdquo; said Carr of the FCC&rsquo;s politicized actions on behalf of the Soros group and against the Musk group.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>      Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Justice-Trial-Kavanaugh-Confirmation-Supreme\/dp\/1621579832\">Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court<\/a><\/em>. She is the author of &#8220;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rigged-Media-Democrats-Seized-Elections\/dp\/168451259X\/\">Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.<\/a><\/em>&#8221; Reach her at <b><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/mailto:mzhemingway@thefederalist.com\">mzhemingway@thefederalist.com<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disrupting communications is a military tactic used in wars, and the federal government has applied it to rural Americans in its conflict with Elon Musk, a tech billionaire advocating for free speech against the Biden administration<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":2348154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Copy-of-Untitled-2024-10-01T141204.233.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[16609,32313,4250,5894,35975],"class_list":["post-2348150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-fcc","tag-media-influence","tag-musk","tag-politics","tag-public-safety"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Copy-of-Untitled-2024-10-01T141204.233.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2348150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2348154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2348150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2348150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2348150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}