More like thank you to all the very big companies that oppossed this being very vocal about it's effects and rallying support.

The Obama administration didn't say anything about this until last week, at which point I'm quite sure they already knew it was going to be dead. If they were really oppossed to this all along they would have said a while ago that it would get his veto. But to my knowledge they didn't.

They will still be trying to pass this in different forms and if they need to break it up in order to do so and pass the individual elements of it they will.

The administration OPPOSED SOPA. Period.

Why the freaking hell is that not good enough?

It's not good enough because as soon as this bill was introduced and gained support he should have said he would veto it. It was/is that bad and that dangerous.

But like many other things he waits to see which way the political/popular wind is blowing and then bravely comes out against it and gullible sycophantic cheerleaders give him the credit.

Again, if you have instances that I may have missed prior to last week when it was clear to anyone with eyes and ears that it was dead thanks to the clear opposition and work from many others that the bill was dead, please by all means show me. I'm open to the fact that I might have missed his brave opposition to this.

Oh, but maybe he'll just add a signing statement telling us how much he really doesn't like it but he's signing it anyway. That'll help.

Mittens doesn't yet oppose SOPA. Maybe he's your guy?

Just like the veto that was assumed on NDAA?

And if Mittens hasn't stated that he opposed it then my assumption would be the same as it was for Obama until last week. The bill is out there for all to read. It's a shitty bill. If it's not supported then come out and say that it is oppossed and would be vetoed.

clearly you stated you "assumed" the administration knew SOPA would die. Please.....how did you know this from any other informative source other that your personal assumption. And how suddenly do you deride another poster for doing the same thing you just did?

where I said I "assume" anything? Since you put that word in quotes and attributed it to me I can only suppose that I must have written exactly that. But for the life of me I couldn't find out where I used the word "assume" (unlike the poster I was responding to, who explicitly used the word "assume&quot .

But in any event, I would say the fact that the White House issued it's statement AFTER many of the bills own sponsors came out in favor of shelving the vote, and AFTER many others had already reversed their stance on it, was a pretty clear indication that the bill was going down prior to this weekend's statement by the White House.

So the basic laws of space and time indicate that if someone comes out with a statement AFTER other people come out with statements, that their information is based on and in some way related to the actions and impacts of those statements which came BEFORE their own.

NGU.

How do I know that? Because he opposes SOPA.

But by all means blame him for doing the right thing. That's so much more logical.

...juvenile statements.

NGU.

that and ignoring all the future dead children killed by drones.

I received the e-mail in response to the petition I signed about this on Saturday. That's the first I personally heard about white house opposition to this bill.

As I stated in my original post on this, by all means if there were earlier statements that I missed I'd be happy to see them and admit that I may have reached erroneous conclusions as to the timing of his opposition to these 2 specific bills.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

I posted this in a draft folder a little over a week ago so I'm assuming it's about 2 weeks old. Also, the WH doesn't usually comment on bills that have yet to even be voted on, but they did this time.

You'll forgive me if I don't use something in your draft folder that you're assuming is 2 weeks old as irrefutable evidence though.

This is an administration that deserves praise on many fronts - no doubt about it.

But it's become obvious that it's usually best to hold one's praise till something's a done deal.

NGU.

Obama wasn't able to hold a gun to their head and force them into doing something they don't want.

Then another bill was killed in the House that was introduced by Alan Grayson.

Reading comprehension is your friend.

NGU.

...or are you really that way?

NGU.

I'm guessing Obama approved.

Just sayin'...

NGU.

What can't he ever be against an unconstitutional bill from the start?

Which he doesn't and hasn't.

Deal with it. The President doesn't operate on YOUR timeline. If the truth is known, he probably didn't even understand what was being proposed as it requires a bit of technical knowledge to understand why the outcome would be bad. And he does like to know what hes talking about before he speaks.

Regardless, you nor I know anything about what the thinking really was with the Whitehouse. But unlike you, I'll only pass judgement on the things I know for certain. And what I know for certain is that the WH said it wouldn't support the bill as it stands. Which is exactly what I wanted them to do and thats what they did. End of story. Your baseless assumptions have no value as they are without any evidence to back them up.

We all like to believe things. I'm glad you have yours.

May that give you comfort.

You're the one that speculated as to the Whitehouse's reasoning on the bill and proclaimed it as gospel without actually having one shred of evidence.

But I know for a FACT that the Whitehouse said "no". When they said no, is irrelevant, because I don't know what conversations have been taking place during the time prior to that. So based on whats actually known, I'm thanking the President for making the right call. I don't just fill in the gaps with my own biases in order to push a narrative and thats exactly what you just did. Its shameful.

That presupposes that this bill was shelved because of his opposition.
Do you have any evidence of that? Or are you just filling in the gaps with your own bias?

Because there's a hell of a lot more actual evidence that the bill was losing steam and losing supporters BEFORE he came out against it than there is any evidence that it was shelved because people were afraid of his opposition to it.

My thanking him in this thread was more a show of defiance to your BS assumptions than it was anything else.

Was not in response to a post or article about him coming out against it. And it included no references to any of the other many entities and individuals who worked in opposition to this bad bill

If your thanks were in response to a post (of which there were many) about him finally coming out in opposition to the bill, in that case it would have been perfectly appropriate and despite what anyone may think about my position with regard to the president, I wouldn't have taken any issue with a post thanking him in a thread about his direct statements or actions.

But in a thread about how the bill was shelved you said "Thanks President Obama." And when I pointed out that other people did a lot more work to stop this and deserved a good deal more credit, you doubled down on your "Thanks President Obama" shtick.

Nice try though.

I'm not the one that initially said "thank you President Obama". That was morningfog. I only said it in response to your petty outburst at he/she.

destroyed the net for anything but shopping. No thanks, fellas.

It will be back in another incarnation soon because the music industry and film industry want it so badly. They just can't come to terms with the idea that laws against piracy already exist and if they haven't stopped piracy, nothing will. All they can do is keep going after content pirates and shutting them down the hard way, with traces and police work.

Stuff like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and Rdio are awesome alternative concepts in my view. I guarantee if Spotify had existed back when Napster first started to take off, the music side of piracy would be way less significant.

People just wanted to watch and listen to what they want, when they want, without paying a fortune for it all. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant because, as you said, they aren't going to be stopped anyway. The industry needs to go with the flow and outcompete piracy. Its doable.

But when horrible legislation passes and gets his signature, it's not his fault because he just had no choice.

When he threatens or exercises a a veto of bad legislation, I give him credit.

I wish he had threatened, and then vetoed, the NDAA bill. That was horrible and he failed us. He seems to have, so far, gotten SOPA right. Was him coming out against it the reason it got shelved? Probably not entirely, but certainly in part.

Detention provisions or no detention provisions, I don't expect the President to guarantee a President Romney over it. Its a shame that the American public is so pro-military that we are even in a situation like that, but thats the political reality. And considering the overwhelming bipartisan support for its passage, a veto would have been an exercise in futility. If a President IS going to commit political suicide, they shouldn't do it for something that won't make a damn bit of difference.

They just all have to figure out how they can get this through within another bill or break it up into bits and pieces so that they acheive the same results.

I don't believe for a minute that it's done, just as I don't believe that Obama would actually veto this.

then Obama HAS to sign it! Haven't you read the New Constitution?

There are just enough people suspicious of it and outwardly oppossed to it. Sadly, just as many if not more Republicans as there are Democrats.

And shame on Senator Franken for sponsoring one of these bills.

Dick Durbin and Debbi Wasserman Schultz. They support it also. No one holds them accountable for their support. They only blame the President who is on record opposing it.

A partial victory for Internet freedom, but not a complete one. According to The Hill, SOPA has been shevled (for now) until a ‘consensus’ on the bill can be found. House Republican Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa who claims he doesn’t support SOPA said that he was assured by Majority Leader Eric Cantor that the House will not take up SOPA for now. It doesn’t mean that SOPA is dead and buried. Issa claimed that the House will work to the bill to “address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus” before coming up for a House vote. Aka, just more BS from the power hungry politicians. It’s just delayed until they can sneak it past the American people.

I have little faith in Obama not to use the slightest arm-twisting as an excuse to sign it, like passing it as part of a poison pill or passing it because it passed with a "veto-proof" majority, so might as well sign it. But until then, I give him the benefit of the doubt and thank him for taking a stand for once. And I thank Google and Facebook for their large voices against this, and all the smaller voices that probably contributed to those larger voices actually paying attention and understanding what's going on here.

For once???? He has taken many stands over the past 3 years. Including one also related to the internet - i.e., "net neutrality" and threatening to halt the efforts to repeal it... Unfortunately so much discussion on DU is fact-free and positive news is summarily dismissed. It's like Stockholm syndrome around here among the defenders of the hand-wringers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/idUS211494328220111110

he listed it as one of the Democrats' priorities for getting the economy going, he said he was working with Diane Feinstein on reconciling the various corporate interests.

He was talking as if the opposition he was worried about was the GOP, not the White House.

than I have Democrat.

Pathetic and said. I guess they have to pay back their Hollywood donors in the same way that the GOP has to pay back their oil and defense industry donors.

It's truly amazing how much anti-Democratic mythological bullshit you packed into one sentence.

Are you voting for Mittens who has not yet said he opposes SOPA?

With these mutliple "Mittens" posts?

If my issue with Obama was that he didn't come out in opposition to SOPA earlier, by what logic would I then be supporting ANOTHER guy who didn't come out against it.

Never mind. I know. It's the "with us or against us" mentality originated by the Bushies and perfected by their Democratic counterparts.

From which it may be aroused some day when we least expect it.

But that's better than it being passed, so I'll take it.

Until the end of the next election.

It will be back in a bunch of Frankenstein bills. We will be notified of passage in the Friday News Dumps

Thanks for the thread, MrScorpio.

he is. It's possible he didn't want to be vocal about it right away, because he wanted the people to get riled up against it first.

In any case, so long as SOPA doesn't pass, it doesn't matter much.

People should still keep up a fight against this sort of thing. I'm very wary of any sort of control of the Internet. We all know republicans have a strong influence over the media, whether it be on television, radio or newspapers. The Internet is the single thorn in their side, and they won't rest until they can control the message -- Internet included.

Your announcement dealt it a death blow.

Aren't you usually one of the people pushing the notion that he can't effect legislation until the bill gets to his desk?

I've noticed reality seems to shift from issue to issue with Obama's biggest fans.

Usually it's "he had no choice! He's not a king you know! Rarrr Congress!"

Has it had a stake driven through it's heart? Had it's head cut off and garlic stuffed in it's mouth? Burned to ashes in bright sunlight then buried in hallow ground?

Then it's not dead.