1. Monthly archive
  2. November 2015

November 2015

Latino Groups Call on ‘SNL’ to Drop Donald Trump

The decision by “Saturday Night Live” to invite Donald Trump as its host is no laughing matter — at least for the Hispanic and pro-immigration groups that have intensified their calls for Lorne Michaels, the show’s producer, to rescind the invitation.

More than a dozen of the nation’s leading Hispanic groups are planning to hold a “Dump Trump” rally outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where “Saturday Night Live” is taped. Latino and immigration groups also plan to deliver a petition, with 460,000 signatures, calling on NBC Studios and Michaels to drop Trump. The groups have cited comments by Trump dismissing some Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.” The Congressional Hispanic Caucus issued a statement also calling on NBC Universal and Michaels “to disinvite Mr. Trump.” The caucus called Trump’s comments “divisive and hateful rhetoric toward Mexicans and Latinos alike” and said they could lead to violence and raised fears within immigrant and Hispanic communities throughout the country.

FCC's Wheeler and the 'Common Good' Standard

Appearing on the Charlie Rose show, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler defended the FCC's new network neutrality rules and appeared to come up with his own variation of the public interest standard -- "the common good" standard -- to back it up. He also gave a hint of how the FCC would treat its new broadband privacy oversight under those new Open Internet rules, which redefine Internet access as a common carrier.

As a former lobbyist, Chairman Wheeler spoke to being lobbied by the Google's and AT&T's of the world and recognizing that each side is going to say that without their asks, it will be the end of Western civilization. The regulator's job, he said, is to recognize that and try to find a solution that has the "common good" in it, suggesting that was the public interest, but that that term was vague. Rose said the common good was also about stimulating innovation, which ISPs have said the rules would not do. Wheeler said the new rules were all about stimulating "permissionless innovation."

House Commerce Committee Members Call for Swift Resolution to Safe Harbor Negotiations

The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade and the Communications Subcommittee held a joint hearing to review the status of United States and European Union safe harbor negotiations. The safe harbor agreement that allowed for data to be transferred between the US and EU was recently nullified by the European Court of Justice. With over 4,000 American businesses, including those in technology, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, and retail, relying on the agreement, members reviewed the uncertainty generated by the court’s decision and discussed the administration’s work to finalize a new framework with their European counterparts.

“The borderless nature of the Internet is an important force driving economic success and innovation. For Internet-based companies, the value of the free flow of digital data between the EU and the US is obvious,” said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR). “Without the shelter of a Safe Harbor, these businesses have the choice of operating at increased risk, paying expensive costs to lower that risk, or simply stopping the flow of information altogether -- that is, stopping business altogether.”

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