The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Buffalo News has a detailed piece about the fear of gun control that's driving big sales in guns and ammunition. As the News points out, there's really no chance for further gun control legislation in this Congress, and President Obama isn't planning on introducing any. Eric Massa is quoted in the piece saying that the Binghamton shootings, which involved registered guns, shouldn't lead to "sprint" to new legislation.

Time-Warner spokesman Landel Hobb's lack of touch with reality gets another airing at this media blog. Hobbs is the guy who raised fears of an Internet "brownout". The article notes that Internet growth, while still robust at 30-40%, has lessened in recent years.

The Messenger-Post coverage of Eric Massa's Henrietta town hall says that Time-Warner's caps were the main topic of conversation there. Sconsetmonkey has an account of an encounter with Time-Warner reps at the Pittsford town hall, and Rochesterturning promises video of Massa's town hall soon.

As this issue comes to a boil in the 29th, Time-Warner and its industry mouthpieces are laying down fresh new tranches of bullshit. Here's a classic:

"According to industry analysts, the infrastructure may not be able to accommodate the explosion of online content by 2012,” Landel Hobbs, chief operating officer of Time Warner Cable said in an online statement. “This could result in Internet brownouts. It will take a lot of money to fix the problem...”

As has been reported here, the cost for Time-Warner to upgrade its network to support 10X the amount of current traffic is between $20-$100 per subscriber. Also, Time-Warner's per-subscriber bandwidth costs have actually been decreasing. There's something "brown" here all right, but it's not the Internet.

According to Stop the Cap, an industry magazine wonders if Eric Massa's Corning ties are the reason he supports anti-cap legislation. Corning produces fiber-optic cable, and Verizon's FiOS uses fiber-optic cable, so Massa must want FiOS deployment. After more thought, the columnist concludes:

To me, a simpler explanation is that Massa, a freshman congressman, is looking to score populist points and easy press with an anti-corporate tirade.

That is a simpler explanation, if you're an industry shill. "Populism" has become an all-purpose smear word attached to anyone representing citizens' legitimate interests. It's clear that a 4X increase in Internet charges is not in the best interest of Rep. Massa's constituents, and he was elected to represent them, not a corporate monopoly.

Eric Massa's office has posted his earmark requests for the Fiscal Year 2010 budget.

The Corning Leader covers Eric Massa's announcement that he's going to draft a bill to stop Internet caps. The story contains this gem from Time-Warner's COO, Landel Hobbs:

When you go to lunch with a friend, do you split the bill in half if he gets the steak and you have a salad?

Hobbs forgot to mention that Time-Warner's plan is to charge as much for salad as it does now for steak.
Meanwhile, back in the non-Internet world, Massa recalls his days in the Navy when he was on patrol for pirates.

The Star-Gazette reports That Eric Massa will be at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Bath VA on Monday. Massa's other events are available here.

Reader Groundhum points to a D&C editorial about Time-Warner's proposed bandwidth cap. Time-Warner ducked an interview with the D&C editorial board when they learned that the meeting would be taped and streamed over the Internet. Perhaps they were afraid that their subscribers would eat up too much precious bandwidth watching it.

The Democrat and Chronicle covers the reaction to Time-Warner's proposed cap. Eric Massa gets a mention, as does the Stop the Cap website. Another site run by a Rochester local, Stop TWC, gets a mention.

The Tea Party Movement, which is a response to "taxation without representation", will have its day in Hornell at 11:30 a.m. on April 15, according to the Hornell Evening Tribune. One of the scheduled participants is radio host Bill Nojay, who ran in the Republican primary in 2004, and is often mentioned as a potential opponent for Eric Massa in 2010.

StoptheCap, a site run by a Rochester man dedicated to stopping Internet usage caps, reports that Eric Massa may sponsor anti-cap legislation.

Eric Massa was joined by Chairman Collin Peterson [MN-7] of the House Agriculture Committee at news conference that address agriculture, the Binghamton shootings and broadband.

Massa began the conference by noting that the budget that passed the House removed did not have the $500K gross revenue limit on agriculture subsidies. After some other remarks, Rep Peterson joined the call. He spoke about Massa's role in changing the proposed revenue limit on recipients of farm subsidies, characterizing Massa as someone who "stepped up to the plate" to address problems with the bill.

Peterson noted that the issue was simple. As drafted, the budget limited subsidies to farmers with $500K or less gross income. Because farming is a high-expense, low-profit business, the budget should have limited adjusted gross income (AGI). The final bill reflects that change.

At the start of the conference, Massa also mentioned the recent mass murder in Binghamton, and cautioned against a "sprint" to find new laws to address the issues raised there. When pressed by a Buffalo News reporter, Massa noted that the Binghamton shooter had licensed weapons and that he doesn't favor any expansion of current gun control laws when they aren't being enforced.

I asked Massa two questions about broadband. First, in the rural areas of the 29th, how is the infrastructure going to be built to get those areas updated? In the urban area, what can be done to combat monopolistic pricing practices of providers like Time-Warner?

Massa said that the rural issue was being addressed in the 29th by funding in the recent Stimulus bill. Projects in Canandaigua and Cattaraugus, Chemung and Schuyler counties have being funded to bring broadband to those rural areas.

In Rochester, Massa said that the monopolistic practices of providers are "very much on our radar". He doesn't have a specific plan yet, but he plans to work across party lines to engage the issue, and that we should "stand by" for more information.