 As many people know, this week we are all expecting former Vice President Joe Biden to launch his 2020 campaign. And in fact, by the time you watch this video, he may have already launched his campaign. But I want to share something, a bit of news that really speaks to how out of touch he is. Because he's already launching by doing something he should absolutely avoid doing. So as Carl Bode tweets, Now I find this hilarious because there are so many lobbyists in the country who get defensive when you refer to them correctly so as a lobbyist. Howard Dean does the same thing. But it's because we all know that the word lobbyist has a lot of negative connotations associated with it because it is part of the corruption that makes Washington DC so unappealing to normal Americans. But that's what Joe Biden's doing. He's launching his campaign by having a fundraiser with the Comcast lobbyist. Now why is this especially harmful for a Democrat to do this? Because we are currently in the midst of the battle for net neutrality, an important battle that we are fighting like hell for. And he's getting in bed immediately with the enemy. So more details about this. As Donald Shaw of Real Sludge explains, on Thursday after he announces he is running for president, Joe Biden will headline a fundraiser in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hosted by David Cohen. Comcast's senior executive vice president who leads the company's lobbying efforts in Washington DC. According to reports, Cohen's email invite for the event asks for attendees to contribute $2,800 the legal maximum towards Biden's presidential campaign. Comcast, the largest cable company in the world, has been a leading voice in the telecommunication industry's efforts to oppose net neutrality rules, spending millions on lobbying against laws at the federal and state levels that would prohibit internet service providers from giving priority treatment to certain types of traffic such as content produced by ISPs or their corporate partners. The federal government is currently deadlocked on net neutrality. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives recently voted in favor of restoring net neutrality rules, but the Republicans who control the Senate, as well as the Federal Communications Commission, led by former Verizon attorney Ajit Pai, are staunchly opposed to enforcing net neutrality through laws or regulations. The Democrats' next chance to enact net neutrality won't come until at least after the 2020 elections when the balance of power in Congress and the White House may be reshuffled. If Biden were to be elected president, it's not certain that Democrats and net neutrality backers would have support from the White House. Now, it may seem counterintuitive to think that Joe Biden wouldn't deliver us net neutrality after he came from Obama's administration, who secured Title II for us, but you've got to go back and remember what happened back in 2015 and 2014. So when Barack Obama appointed Tom Wheeler as FCC chair, Tom Wheeler came from the industry. He was a Comcast lobbyist who originally was trying to destroy net neutrality. He said, you know, we're not going to allow internet service providers to block and throttle content, but maybe we should allow them to set up fast lanes. So if Netflix, for example, pays Comcast $100 million per year, then they get faster internet speeds. So that's what he was pushing for. And then grassroots activists essentially forced him to reverse course. And then since there was so much pressure put on Obama's administration, he was forced to come out and say, I don't think that we should be doing this fast lanes is essentially a way to destroy net neutrality. And then Tom Wheeler basically had no choice. He had to follow what the sitting president wanted. But Joe Biden, for the most part, I'm not so sure that he would be as open to reversing course as Obama because he's been a long time skeptic of net neutrality. In fact, he has come out against supporting net neutrality bills previously. In 2006, when he was a senator from Delaware serving on the judiciary committee, Biden said that he did not think net neutrality rules were needed. Quote, Biden indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because of violations do happen. Such a public outcry will develop that the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the capital. And there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House, CNET reported. In 2007, Biden declined to cosponsor the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, a bipartisan bill that would have amended the Communications Act of 1934 to include net neutrality protections. Comcast was a top contributor to Biden's Senate campaigns according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Individuals affiliated with the company gave Biden $84,500 from 1989 to 2010. So are you noticing the pattern yet? He took money from the industry, has do many anti-net neutrality individuals in Congress, and then he did their bidding. He said, you know, we don't need net neutrality. The public outcry, it's going to be so overwhelming. These companies aren't going to want to violate the principle of net neutrality, except he showed how ignorant he is because, first and foremost, most of these Internet service providers have monopolies. So if they violate net neutrality, you don't have a choice like Comcast just imposed data caps on my Internet service. What could I do about that? Could I threaten to cancel? No, because they are the only people in my area that actually offer high-speed broadband, at least as fast as the speeds that I need for uploading and downloading content to run a podcast. I had no way to voice my grievance because there's nothing I could do. So there's monopolies, and second of all, we saw how in practice that did not play out. Because there was an overwhelming amount of people who spoke out in 2017, and Ajit Pai still went ahead with the repeal of net neutrality, regardless of us essentially begging him to not do that. Now, to be fair to Biden, this was back in 2006 and 2008, so maybe it's the case that he had a genuine change of heart. However, I'm not going to be charitable here and give him the benefit of the doubt, seeing that he's launching his 2020 campaign by allowing a Comcast lobbyist to hold a fundraiser for him. So, I mean essentially the bare minimum. What's expected of a Democratic Party presidential candidate supporting net neutrality, something that even the most corporate Democrats in the House, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer in the Senate support, we can't be sure that Joe Biden will support that policy. He is so out of touch. I don't even understand why he thinks he should run. I get that he feels emboldened to run because he's pulling ahead of everyone else, but I really think that once people realize how out of touch Joe Biden is once the nostalgia fades away, and once they take off those rose-colored glasses and they realize, you know, those warm and fuzzy feelings I felt about Biden because I associated him with the Obama era, you know, it was bullshit, I think he's going to fail. Like for me, when I go back and I play these old video games that I feel nostalgic about, I realize, wow, these don't really, you know, stand the test of time. The graphics are a little bit too bad for my liking. The gameplay isn't as good as I remembered it. And you kind of see it for what it is, you know, I don't want to go backwards. I want to go forward. That's what I hope voters, you know, realize with Joe Biden, but we'll have to wait and see, but this is an awful sign. One of the easiest positions to take as a Democrat, Joe Biden is presumably not taking.