After slipping past ‘Kinky Cal’, Tillis back to whoring for PAC cash
A little more than a month after the 2020 election, Thom Tillis is already back to catering to every want and need of the PACs that fund him AND his lousy campaigns against weak opponent. This time it’s Hollywood and the entertainment industry:
Congress has once again put itself in a situation of having to pass a last-minute omnibus bill to fund the government and prevent a shutdown. These truly are must-pass bills since much of the government grinds to a halt without them, so they often get used as vehicles for controversial bills that can’t pass on their own. Senators and representatives work out backroom deals to attach their pet measures to funding for things like food inspections and airport safety and then dare their colleagues to object.
This time around, one of the measures being crammed into the omnibus is a proposal from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to turn unauthorized commercial streaming of copyrighted material like an album on YouTube, a video clip on Twitch, or a song in an Instagram story into a felony offense with a possible prison sentence rather than a misdemeanor, according to Protocol. The text of the measure has not been publicly released yet, but it is expected to be broadly similar to past entertainment industry-backed attempts to criminalize unauthorized streaming, such as the provisions of the SOPA/PIPA bills in 2012 that sparked an unprecedented internet “blackout” protest or the Commercial Felony Streaming Act, which prompted Justin Bieber to say that its sponsor, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), should be “locked up.”
“A felony streaming bill would likely be a chill on expression,” said Katharine Trendacosta, associate director of policy and activism with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “We already see that it’s hard enough in just civil copyright and the DMCA for people to feel comfortable asserting their rights. The chance of a felony would impact both expression and innovation.”
Tillis, the chairman of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee, was recently re-elected for another six-year term by a margin of less than 2% over his Democratic opponent. In the final stretch of his campaign, Tillis received a surge of campaign contributions from PACs affiliated with entertainment companies and trade groups that lobby Congress for aggressive copyright enforcement against internet users, including prison time for unauthorized streaming.
In the third and fourth quarters of 2020, Tillis’ campaign and leadership PAC received donations from PACs affiliated with the Motion Picture Association, Sony Pictures, ASCAP, Universal Music Group, Comcast & NBCUniversal, The Internet and Television Association, Salem Media Group, Warner Music, and others in the entertainment and cable industry that seek to suppress the unauthorized sharing of content. Many other entertainment industry PACs gave Tillis contributions earlier in the 2019-20 cycle, totaling well over $100,000, according to Federal Election Commission records. Executives of Fox Corporation, Sony Entertainment, Charter Communications, and CBS also made large donations to Tillis in the third quarter of this year.
He IS what we knew he was and will always be. Likely why Ga Conservatives not excited about runoff and trying to salvage the Senate for McConnell. We get nothing from the Dems and we get nothing from the GOP. Cal defeated Cal, not Tillis. Same for Burr. He likely wouldn’t be re-elected and about as poorly liked. WHERE are the Jesse Helms?? How did we lose all Jesse proteges?
Future for me: IF not a Jesse Helms, not voting for him or her…NOT. I’ve wasted vote after vote on these so-called ‘conservatives’.
So tired of all these clowns and the clowns that keep telling us to vote for people like Tillis. I did not vote for him this time. Too many people think the “R” behind a candidates name is the gold standard.
Same ones and party officials telling Ga, you have to turn out, save the country. ALL that gets and gives is power, control for McConnell and GOP that will like Tillis forget them the next day and go about ‘the agenda’, none of which is ever conservative.
Why is anyone surprised Tillis has sold out to Hollywood or any other liberal group with money? Have we heard one word from Tillis in support of Trump? Of course not. With Burr and Tillis, we have no conservative NC voice in the Senate.
I’ve been a lifelong Republican, my first vote was for Richard Nixon. I have never NOT voted apart from my time overseas with the military. I’ve sent money to Ronald Reagan, GHWB, Dole, GWB, John McCain, Mitt Romney and (of course) Donald Trump.
After the way DJT has been treated I made myself a promise, henceforth I will never EVER again vote for any candidate that didn’t represent my values REGARDLESS of the consequences. We don’t have to agree 100%, 100% of the time, but our basic values must jibe, and they must have guts… GOD HATES A COWARD!
I’ve been told it’s suicide to abandon the party, that one must vote for the best conservative, that it’s all relative. Well not for me, not anymore. That philosophy has produced a slow, never ending march towards socialism and dictatorship. I see no benefit in temporarily slowing the march with minor, transient victories. If we want to survive we must ELIMINATE all vestiges of the march. One cannot compromise with a cancer, it loses or the host dies.
I do not believe the GOP is up for the fight, in fact I know they aren’t. This party is tired and weak, incapable (or unwilling) to take the moral high ground from demonstrably the most evil political ideology in world history. More often than not the kind of men and women it attracts for public office are easily corrupted by power and status and are quickly consumed by the DC swamp. Tillis is a good example of this.
Therefore I say farewell to the GOP. When a party produces only two Presidents of honor and character in over a half century, the problem IS the party.
Greg Dail’s comments are spot on and I think represent how most conservatives feel today about the GOP Establishment. Politicians like Burr, Tillis, Romney, McCain, and all the Bush hacks have completely turned me off to the Republican Party. The party stands for nothing except simply trying to exist for its own survival.
100%. DONE.
How many follow? Hopefully enough NCGOP is shuttered and unsure National GOP ever does.