Political Journalist Does Blog Stuff [LOS ANGELES]

Ugh.

Listen. I know you think tough works. Tough on crime, tough on immigration, and tough on terrorism. The “don’t bog me down with details, I know enough to know when to put my foot down” breed of tough. It’s American as hell, isn’t it?

But I have some bad news for you if this is as far as you’re willing to go when forming your opinion on our public policy: tough is an ingredient -- not a meal, a main dish, or even a side. Tough is necessary like oil is necessary so the chicken doesn’t stick to the pan.

In America, we do tough, and we do it well. But tough means nothing if we can’t back it up, and right now, we’re failing. You can be tough, sure. But you also need to be smart, strategic, and most of all: you have to know your enemy.

What can you tell me about ISIS, right now? 

“They hate America!”

“They want to destroy our way of life.”

“They’re braindead assholes who deserve to die!”

I may not disagree with any of those statements. But that’s not the point. The point is, if that’s all we care to know about our enemy, this is going to be a LONG war. Unfortunately though, we’re no strangers to long wars. Because we do this a lot.

You can’t talk Syrian refugees unless you’ve gotten the primer on ISIS. So if you haven’t yet, here it is:

1. ISIS exists to fulfill an old-as-fuck psuedo-Quaranic prophecy (that looks a lot like our violent Old Testament, but different.) They want to establish a caliphate, which is a word you’ve probably heard, but also maybe don’t know what it means. Let’s do that first. A caliphate is a land that operates under the rule of a caliph (a leader they believe to be a direct successor of Muhammad, who is kind of like our Jesus, except Muhammad and Jesus actually hung out according to the Quaran. Wouldn’t put it past ‘em.) 

This caliphate would operate under strict Sharia law (which advocates things like cutting off the hand of a thief without trial [our Old Testament does this, too], but also advocates for providing free healthcare and public services to its members, so they think it’s totally worth it.) They believe that non-believers CAN exist in this caliphate, but they must pay a tax that HAS to make them feel "utterly subdued.”

I hate that I have to say this, but pretty much every Muslim except members of ISIS thinks this is all bullshit, too. Just like we do. So chill.

2. They consider America, NATO, and all western-allied nations (including Japan -- thanks for the support!) as “crusaders.” You know what they’re talking about. These crusaders:

Those fuckers who also cut peoples’ heads off a thousand years ago until they submitted to Jesus or whateverthefuck. That’s how they see us, and how they see our current military strategy. (We’re not winning. We should be winning.)

3. According to their prophecy (and their English-language magazine, which we should be READING if we want to know their strategy*), they are awaiting a final battle in Syria. The original text says the Romans will fight the final war, but Christian-led Syria certainly fits the bill here.

 *I know it’s probably forbidden to post links to real ISIS things. I don’t give even half of a fuck. You should be reading this, and so should all of us, if only to understand the enemy. 

4. IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, READ THIS PART:

ISIS is probably the most predictable enemy the United States has ever faced. WHY THE FUCK AREN’T WE USING THIS TO OUR ADVANTAGE? This is what I feel like I’m seeing in our current approach:

- “Hm, ISIS is telling us exactly where and when they’re going to attack. Looks like they want to lure us in for an ultimate battle that kills most of them, but leaves a chosen few behind!”

- “Why don’t you SHUT THE FUCK UP and stop reading terrorist propaganda, huh? How about that? What we’re going to do is go in for an ultimate battle that kills at least most of them! That’s an America-style victory!”

- “But... but that’s exactly what they want?”

- “WHAT PART OF SHUT THE FUCK UP ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING? We’re going to kill the enemy because that is what we do.”

This strategy is killer. In the bad sense of the word killer, because it’s going to end in a lot of dead Americans. Can we not, maybe?

I get it. We should use their understanding of their own impending doom against them. Except we can’t use human soldiers, because that’s exactly what their book said we would do. So let’s use drones! For the first time in forever, I’m a full supporter of drone warfare. There is no ancient Quaranic text about drones, and we got plenty.

NOW WHO ARE THE SYRIAN REFUGEES?

I get that you know that they’re women and children and helpless and homeless and even in grave danger! But you know who they are to ISIS? They’re the apostates. That is, they’re the non-believers in the ISIS strategy who need to get the fuck out of Syria before they themselves are beheaded. It’s already happened to hundreds of people just minding their own business, and their religion is irrelevant. Like I said before, pretty much all Muslims who aren’t ISIS think this shit is just as ridiculous as we do. Except where they’re from, that perfectly logical belief will get you and your family massacred before you even know what hit you. Wouldn’t you get the fuck out? Is that even a question?

So when a refugee asks to enter your country -- (not your home, or even your life) -- telling them no is the equivalent of telling ISIS yes. Yes you can have these people who hate you back, and yes you can cut their throats one by one to instill fear into anyone who disagrees with your asinine plans.

[insert explanation of the meticulous steps the UNCHR takes to verify the refugee status of Syrian immigrants, and mention how so far, every ISIS member with a refugee passport has stolen that passport, probably from one of the [insert number] of poor fuckers who have died on their journey to sustain life.]

So let’s do all of humanity a favor, and stop saying no to our allies. The Syrian refugees have more of a stake in ISIS’s destruction than ANYONE else. No other population of reasonable people just trying to live their lives is more against ISIS succeeding. So by letting these destitute families into our nation, we’re not just going above and beyond our charitable tendencies. We’re sending a BIG fuck you to ISIS, and we’re making our loyalties clear -- if you fuck with the Satan America, you will get droned to oblivion, and no one will feel bad.

Wanna know why ISIS burns people to death or cuts their heads off with dull knives? It’s for the shock value.

WARNING: This is a long post. If you’re not a fan of my long-winded tirades, please scroll to the bottom for a tl;dr. I’ve got your back, yo.

Fuck, guys. Abortion sucks. I’m not being sarcastic, or facetious, or whatever snarky business you think I’m up to. Even people who have had abortions know abortions suck. They just do. 

In preparation for this post, I started reading up on Planned Parenthood statistics. Then, something drove me to search youtube for actual footage of abortion procedures. I don’t know why I did this, because the bill I’m writing about today has absolutely nothing to do with abortions. I want to make that clear. Anyway, it was terrible and awful and abortion is just the worst. God fucking damn. The worst. :(

Moving on, let’s talk about the Defund Planned Parenthood bill that passed the House of Representatives today. First, let’s clarify that the House doesn’t make laws. They just help laws get made, and thank God for that (because they are awful). 

It’s easy to post scandalous headlines claiming that the House has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, and therefore Planned Parenthood has been defunded. But that’s just not how it works. Not even a little. Please unsubscribe from any newsletter that tells you that, because they’re playing you like a dollar store melodica. And you’re smarter than that.

I love Planned Parenthood-- I should get that out of the way right now. For the past 5+ years, Planned Parenthood has been my sole women’s health clinic. They’ve smeared my pap in all their freezing-cold speculum glory. They’ve tested me for STD’s one hundred thousand times (I’m a nervous person, okay?), and they’ve provided me with a year’s supply (every year!) of 28-day birth control pills which have successfully kept me out of the ol’ abortion room for almost a decade.

I know. It’s weird to hear me talk about my vagina, because I’m basically a dude most of the time. But ignoring one’s vagina has always seemed like an unwise idea to me, so I care for mine pretty closely. It’s working out so far.

It’s hard for me to stop talking about abortion, because the majority of the debate on the House floor this morning focused on the horrors of abortion. But I have to remind myself that the federal proposal to defund Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion. Let me explain why.

Planned Parenthood is funded under a federal provision called Title X, which is an equally badass and ominous name for the Family Planning Program, started by our very own Richard Nixon. Not kidding. Look it up. 

Nixon created Title X funding primarily to issue contraceptives to those with human urges who really shouldn’t be having kids. It was an overwhelming success, partially because human urges are surprisingly common. But also partially due to the fact that Title X prohibits funding of “abortion as a means of family planning.” Maybe if you or the baby was actually in danger of dying from uncontrollable circumstances, the procedure would be treated as a necessary medical one and funded. But since the majority of abortions are voluntary and societal-pressure based, almost all abortions are discounted from any type of federal funding.

This means that your tax dollars do not, and have never, funded abortion. Moreover, in the more than 820 Planned Parenthood clinics, only 3% of the Planned Parenthood services performed are abortion-related. The majority of Planned Parenthood’s services are split between providing contraceptives (35%), and STI (STD) testing and treatment (also 35%). 16% of that funding is cancer screening and prevention, and again, 3% is abortions. That sector is doing pretty well without our funding, mostly because Planned Parenthood is not a fucking abortion clinic. 

If you get nothing else out of this writing, please, please, PLEASE for the love of GOD, hear this: Women who go to Planned Parenthood for an abortion pay for their abortion themselves. Much like lunches, there is no such thing as a free abortion.

You may have seen the 3 or 4 “leaked” videos of “undercover whistleblowers” conversing with Planned Parenthood employees about fetal tissue sales “for profit.” (what?! that part didn’t even happen, but I still hear about it constantly on the House floor.) Take what you want from those, but know this:

In the first video, there are no less than FORTY cuts and edits that leave out vital words like, “We would never do this for profit,” or “We are only recovering our costs.” Isn’t it crazy what we learn once we get our hands on the unedited footage? So crazy. So crazy that it’s almost suspicious.

Each one of the undercover Planned Parenthood videos circulating the web was edited so heavily, that combined, they created an uproar of epic proportions. For those not familiar with slyly-added cuts and edits, the video reads as if Planned Parenthood doctors were talking poor, confused women into going through with the procedure so they could carefully remove intact body parts and sell them to the black market. 

But what actually happened when the full, unedited footage was released, was this: 

Nothing. Nothing happened. Several federal entities investigated, and based on the raw data, found that no laws were broken, and there was no reason to blow more taxpayer money on a fool’s errand. I really want you to remember that.

For the abortions that do happen, I will tell you that some good does come of them, as horrible as they are. You can be 100% anti-abortion and still see my point on this one, so here it is: Stem cells.

I can not count the number of times I’ve yelled “STEM CELLS STEM CELLS STEM CELLS!” at C-SPAN radio today. Maybe you can ask my saintly boyfriend, who had to sit through each overly-vocal rant.

Stem cells are cells that can become anything. We’re still learning what it is that helps them realize their purpose, but it’s become very clear to us in recent years that they will serve a huge role in not just treating, but curing devastating diseases like MS, Cerebral Palsy, Alzheimer's, and a thousand other afflictions. Stem cells are truly the most incredible kind of cell, and they’re very hard to find in nature. Most stem cells that end up in top scientific laboratories, endlessly searching for a cure to these ailments, come from fetal tissue.

So you can hate abortion more than anything. You can consider the start of life as the moment of conception, and cringe at the thought that this practice is legal in any form. But you would be remiss to ignore the above.

The fact is, no matter your feelings, early-term abortion is legal in every state in the US. And the earlier the term, the more useful the stem cells. So while it’s happening, and while you live in a nation where people are free to decide to have such a procedure, you can at least hope that tissue, person, or whatever you call it, will serve a higher purpose. And stem cell research is an incredibly noble one. To deny that is to deny reality. Really.

UGH! I’m talking about abortion again! Fuck you, the House. I wanted to write about how the fact that this bill passed the House of Representatives doesn’t make it a law. The Senate very likely won’t pass it (the Senate is where awful bills go to die), and the president will certainly not sign it. But the government may very well shut down if we don’t get our budget in on time, and the last time that happened, it cost our nation over $100 million. So we ought to be a little upset if that happens.

Anyway, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act is 100% unrelated to abortion, because abortion is never allowed to be funded by the federal government. It’s the law, and it has been since 1970. Planned Parenthood funding goes to people like me, who use it to not have babies before they’re ready. And if what you just read infuriated you, I’ll bet you’re pretty glad that an ignoramus like me isn’t reproducing. (I will though. I’m going to have a thousand babies someday, when I’m rich. Get ready.)

Thanks for sticking with me through this, if you happened to. I’ll include a tl;dr at the end in case you simply could not even.

It’s not because he’s easy to make fun of, though that will always be true no matter what else happens.

It’s not because he allowed his team to shut down two of Fort Lee’s three toll lanes in an insolent effort to lash out at a political opponent. Although, that was pretty fucking funny.

Actually, I’m gonna touch on this real quick, because I don’t think anyone has explained it well enough yet. Let’s say you have great political ambitions, and you end up working as an aide to Chris Christie. Awesome, right?! Fuck, you’re so powerful. You’ve been trusted to deal with the mundane in order to clear the way for the big-picture governor who gave you that trust. So what do you do? You make enemies, and you love it. You concoct a dastardly plan with your cohorts to make your enemies squirm, and you require no oversight from the big guy himself. You got this. Chris Christie’s gonna be so proud of you. He’ll totally think this is a good idea. Once he finds out about it. After you’ve already done it.

Damn. He’s mad at you now.

Now that we’ve squared that away, let’s resume my maybe unexpected explanation of a candidate few would expect me to endorse. And remember, this is only my second endorsement in the 5+ years I’ve been waxing politically. This is bigger for me than you might think.

Chris Christie is running under the GOP. I fucking hate the GOP. But you wanna know how I know my love for Christopher Christie is real? Because even though I’m me, I’m gonna vote for the GOP if he ends up being their candidate. I really, really am, and I’m not scared of what’s gonna happen if people know that. Because I’ve thought about this, long and hard, for years. For about four years. Which is a whopping 15% of my life, because I am but a baby politico.

Chris Christie is the most refreshing thing I’ve had the pleasure to absorb since I started following politics in elementary school. All my life, I’ve known three things about my ill-advised topic of obsession:

1. Politicians lie. They lie for job security. They lie to save face. They lie because they want you to love them. Because they can never love themselves, because they know they’ve done wrong, and they can’t stand to have you mad at them.

2. Even when our votes matter, we will vote irresponsibly according to a delicate equation that is based on the amount each candidate spends on our love. We are sugar babies, and most of us are okay with that. Entertainment is its own currency, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s disgustingly American and I love it.

3. Almost every Washington politician feels helpless in their own right. That’s something almost nobody thinks about. But think about it right now. If a candidate’s funding determines their employment, and their funding comes from less-than-reputable sources, how do they keep their jobs? There is only one real answer to that question, it makes everyone uncomfortable, and it’s also completely true. They skeez.

Now let me tell you what I know about Chris Christie:

1. Chris Christie does not give a flying fuck what you think about him. Never will a day go by when a person like Christie wakes up, and asks himself, “Do the people still love me?” He truly does not give a single fuck. This means that he has no motivation to lie so you’ll like him. Your approval of his mandates has never made him feel a thing. You may as well not exist. And that is the beauty of Chris Christie.

2. When Chris Christie talks, people listen. Just like when the owner of your favorite bar comes out from the back room to tell you about his day, you don’t interrupt him. This a fucking good story. This is not the kind of story that needs a well-funded ad campaign around it. It’s just a good fucking story, and you’re listening.

3. Some people entangle themselves into systems that they know can never justify their actions. Chris Christie was born with a pocket full of wrenches to throw into these systems. He is just not fucking having it. Seriously, try him. He wants you to fuck with him. Go ahead, try it.

But although he has zero tolerance for your nonsense, there is one remaining selling point that I promise you’ve never seen exalted in your entire adult life.

Christie loves compromise. The ability to reasonably and responsibly sit down with your opponent, and work some shit out. That raw, unbridled agreement to hash out your differences, see eye-to-eye, and make a god-damned decision for once. 

When Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, and the GOP, Christie’s own party, overwhelmingly voted against relief funds, here is literally what Chris Christie said about that:

"There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims-- the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner. This is not a republican or a democratic issue. National disasters happen in red states and blue states and states with democratic governors and republican governors. We respond to innocent victims of natural disasters, not as republicans or democrats, but as Americans. Or at least we did until last night.”

This is a real excerpt of Chris Christie talking mad shit about his own party. Go ahead and find me a Hillary Clinton quote that even peripherally resembles that.

If you've ever read my stuff, you'll know that I rarely (read: never) endorse candidates for any election. I try to always keep things informational, and even when I do get opinionated, I generally stay away from outright endorsements and instead just ask you to please vote. For anything.

I've met Adam Schiff, and I've even had the pleasure of interviewing him when he visited Glendale College in 2011. He's a smart guy and a great politician, but he's a staunch Democrat in a House of partisan politics he just isn't trying very hard to fix. This is Schiff's voting record:

The reason Congress is so laughably inactive is because both parties-- Democrats and Republicans-- refuse to budge when voting according to the party line. As great a guy as Adam Schiff is, this would be his 14th consecutive year as Representative, and that alone is a poisonous factor.

On its own, incumbency is definitely not a good enough reason to kick someone out of office. But their record certainly is. And in the last 13 years, Rep. Schiff has been a consistently unilateral presence, acting only in the interest of other staunch Democrats who urge him to stay the party line-- sometimes outright defying logic.

I left the Democratic party when I was 21, realizing how hypocritical it was to align myself with 50% of the problem. I may have my personal beliefs, and a good lot of them might even align better with the left than the right-- but I wanted to pledge my allegiance to facts, not immensely flawed parties.

If you're still not convinced that no party is better than any party, I'm not going to change your mind. But if you're tired of both sides refusing to compromise on even the simplest issues, read on.

Steve Stokes is running against Adam Schiff for California's 28th district seat. And this is me choosing him as my first-ever endorsement. This time, instead of just asking you to vote, I want you to vote for Steve Stokes. And I'll tell you why, at the risk of you trusting me less if you disagree.

When I think of the ideal Congressional candidate (Congress' current state considered), I want fresh meat. But doesn't experience breed competence? I used to think so too, until I started paying attention to the daily lives of politicians.

This is how a typical "broken-in" House rep's workday goes:

• Make your way to the House floor.

• If you have something to say, you approach the speaker and debate, using already-prepared remarks instead of responding to the opposition directly. If you have nothing to say that day, you generally leave during debates and come back when it's time to vote.

• Vote on a bill you very likely did not read in its entirety. Your intern says they did, but they probably didn't either. Some bills are over five hundred pages long.

• Once the proverbial bell rings, you dash across the street to a special building used specifically for calling wealthy donors and asking for their generosity to help keep your political career alive. They do this in a separate building, because it's technically illegal to do it from the Capitol building.

If you think this is a pathetic way to do your job, I can assure you that most Congressional reps agree with you. But for the ones who have been around a while, they know it's just the way it goes, and they strive to be better at it than anyone else.

This is why we need fresh meat to challenge the system. And Steve Stokes is the freshest.

Steve Stokes is not affiliated with any party, which I already love. I want to link you to his website, but it's horribly designed, so I'll give you some bullet points instead.

• Stokes believes that GMO's should be labeled. I also believe that, and I even did a video about it in 2012. Simply put, I personally do not fear GM foods, but I have absolutely zero qualms about informing anyone about what is in their food. I still can not even believe this is a question. Adam Schiff voted Yes on HR 933 last year, affectionately called the "Monsanto Protection Act." For a guy who openly opposes Monsanto's takeover of America's food supplies, that's a little depressing.

• Steve Stokes believes that the Dodd-Frank was a toothless excuse of a knee-jerk reaction to the '07-'08 US financial crisis-- and so do I. Schiff was in full favor of the resolution, because it looked a lot more effective than it was.

• Stokes favors term limits of 10 years. That's a bit generous IMO, but it clearly doesn't factor into Schiff's plans. There's a reason James K. Polk makes my list of top-5 presidents of all time-- he knew when to step down, scandal-free. I've already said what I could about what negative effects decades-deep incumbents suffer. We are not better off for their years of experience.

There's a lot more to say, so screw it-- I'll link to his poorly-designed website.

And listen-- Steve Stokes is almost definitely not going to win next month. But if you vote for him, I vote for him, and we support the remedies he could bring to the seat he deserves, we can absolutely make him our next representative. Doing what's right, even when it's not what's popular, has always been the smartest way to approach a political conundrum. 

ISIS, (which is what I'm going to call that group of maniacs probably forever, because unlike good people with pronoun preferences, these fuckers don't deserve constant name-change recognition), is not winning hearts and minds by droves in the Middle East like you've heard.

The western media (and the UN) will have you believe that it's ISIS's ideology that's infecting Middle Eastern youth, causing the group to expand and grow more rapidly than anyone had expected.

Well, ISIS is for sure growing. But it's not because they're right, and it's DEFINITELY not because they're inspiring. It's because they're insanely wealthy.

ISIS is wealthy because of its oil reserves, mostly. They claim to represent the best interests of all Muslims, which is bullshit because roughly 99% of all Muslims deplore their actions. I can throw around figures in the nineties, because there are 1.6 BILLION Muslims in the world, and MAYBE 30 thousand ISIS fighters. But even then, most of those aren't gung-ho for ISIS ideology.

They're mercenaries. 

Because ISIS is so god damned rich, and because so many citizens of isolated nations in Eastern Europe and the Middle East are so god damned poor, ISIS continues to grow.

They're growing because ISIS will pay you 60 Euro per DAY to fight on their behalf. And as a resident of an isolated nation, you likely aren't aware of the gruesome atrocities being committed on ISIS's behalf.

It makes about as much sense as working for a corporation you don't really believe in, but it's a job and it feeds your family. And once you arrive to the training camp, they get you so pumped about the freedom fighting you're gonna do, you try to convince yourself your job can maybe be okay if you try to make it feel kind of fun. Like we all kind of do at our jobs, but with much, much more dire consequences.

An 8-year-old boy from Kosovo (a STRIKINGLY pro-American nation) was secretly taken from his mother by his father several weeks ago. His father took him to Syria so they could join ISIS as mercenaries for 60 Euros a day. While his father trains to be a fighter, the boy is living with Albanian families among other ISIS kids whose families needed the money. There are pictures of him on social media doing the ISIS gang sign with his pals, and he called his mother and uncle to ask them to come join. His uncle said that the 8-year-old suddenly sounds like a tortured adult when he speaks, from just weeks of being around the training camp in Syria.

We can stop ISIS. We will stop ISIS. But we need to understand why ISIS exists before we can destroy it.

Poverty breeds desperation.

Desperation breeds violence.

Violence breeds prejudice.

My response to NYT readers against the legalization of marijuana.

Levy Thamba fell from a hotel balcony after ingesting 6 x the normal dose of a marijuana cookie and then standing on the edge of a balcony. The marijuana is slightly less at fault than the person trying to balance after eating a frat house’s worth of weed cookies.

Richard Kirk shot his wife after eating some weed candy, and taking opiate painkillers. Coupled with a likely pre-existing mental condition like schizophrenia, and that drug cocktail can make you almost as crazy as too much beer.

Marinol and Epidolex both exclude the cannabinoids that are being studied for their use as a tumor deterrent, mood improvement medication, and many other potential uses.

Drug trafficking in a black market is an unregulated catastrophe whose worst victims have nowhere to turn for protection. This article is about legalization. It’s not drug trafficking if it’s legal.

C-SPAN online has joined the ranks of those requiring an account with a major cable provider in order to view live content.

Congratulations, Big Cable, on taking away my favorite fucking thing on the Internet.

How convenient that you should drastically limit access to live coverage of major political events like net neutrality hearings right before a major decision on the matter.

How convenient that the citizens most involved in the net neutrality debate are also those with the biggest qualms against major cable providers, many of whom don't have cable subscriptions.

How convenient that your massive Washington influence was able to strong-arm America's only long-form public affairs programming station into requiring a subscription to your outdated cable services, just as it was reaching the age of HTML5-level modernization.

And how unfortunate that I and others must now look at C-SPAN and see the ugly influence of Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, and the others, where we used to see hope in the shadows of raw accountability.

Hi Mr. Latta,

I'm a 24-year-old go-getter from New York, living in Los Angeles, and I want to have my own TV show someday. Only, I don't want it to be on TV. I want it to be online, so that I can have control over its content, which is something a television network can't really allow.

Ambitious, I know. But can you blame me? Ever since I was 10 years old, I've had access to some sort of Internet. And ever since I was 10, I've known my future would be made by this strange new tool. It was clear that open access to my peers and beyond would do a much better job at making this weird kid successful than the tools we had laying around when I was born.

Bob, I don't like government regulation either. I help run a very ambitious small business, in California of all places. I can't think of a more overregulated place than Los Angeles county for a business trying to make its mark. The permits, the licenses, the fees we clearly can't afford as a new enterprise. And the mandated LCD recycling fees? It's beyond absurd.

But there is one thing I fear more than the authorities of Los Angeles county, and it's the telecommunications companies that control our Internet infrastructure. I and my business are both mandated to use Time Warner Cable as our service provider of choice. Why? Because each town and city is relegated to a government-allowed monopoly of Internet service, and that's bad enough.

But you know what's worse? That government-allowed monopoly being allowed by the government to charge my blog and my website and my 9-year-old YouTube channel a premium to reach my viewers. I'm 24 years old and as broke as you'd expect. How do you suspect I'd make my way to my viewers without a special interest investment under the lack of regulation your bill encourages?

Bob-- can I call you Bob? We are more similar than we are different. I may be a struggling Los Angeles youth, but government regulation has added more burden to my life than anything else has in the past 2 years. I am by no means a liberal democrat. I'm just a kid trying to make it, and I hope you understand that by pushing to refute the reclassification of Internet as a Title 2 service, you are directly threatening my future, and the future of literally millions of my peers.

Don't believe me? Go to YouTube, and look at the most viewed videos of the day. How many of those content creators could have afforded a fast lane?

Bob, the right thing to do almost never comes from the same place as the money that funds you. I won't purport to know who paid you what, even though I could look it up if I wanted to. That's accusatory, and I don't intend to fight with you. I just hope that you and your staff understand the massive impact that this bill will have on our nation's youth, its future, and its impact on the world as formidable creators of the Internet we all share.