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Internet Activists Urge Congress to Fire Trump's FCC Chief Ajit Pai (vice.com)
Open internet advocates and Democratic lawmakers are mounting a last-ditch effort to remove Federal Communications Commission chief Ajit Pai over his anti-net neutrality stance, just days before Pai is set to be approved by the Senate for a new term. From a report: Since being elevated by President Trump to lead the FCC in January, Pai has become the bete noire of open internet advocates for a variety of anti-consumer actions, but none more so than his crusade to kill federal rules protecting net neutrality, the principle that all internet content should be equally accessible to consumers. [...] During a blistering floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, portrayed Pai, a Republican former Verizon lawyer, as an industry stooge who has worked relentlessly to deliver gift after gift to the nation's largest broadband companies. "Mr. Pai has a long track record of putting big cable before consumers, big corporations above small businesses, and pay-to-play over the free and open internet," Wyden wrote in a blog post accompanying his speech. Free Press, a DC-based public interest group, has also launched a campaign to pressure the Senate to "fire Pai," citing his proposal to kill the FCC's net neutrality policy and other anti-consumer actions. But if reconfirmed, Pai is expected to try to ram through his plan to torpedo the FCC's net neutrality rules before the end of the year. "Rehiring Pai to head the agency that oversees US communications policies would be a boon for the phone and cable companies he eagerly serves," Tim Karr, Free Press Senior Director of Strategy, wrote in a blog post.
Is for the drawing and quartering.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
For those who haven't seen it before, the phrase "bete noire" is from the French language. "Noire" means "black", as in the color. "Bete" means "penis". In French, adjectives follow the noun they refer to. So the phrase "bete noire" literally means "black penis".
The English equivalent of this phrase is "black sheep".
Now before any BLM types get all up in arms over the use of the word "black" in these sayings, please keep in mind that these are ancient sayings that predate most British and French interaction with Africans or people with darker skin. "Black" in those contexts referred to the darkness of night, and not to anyone's skin color. In a time before electric lighting, and where candles and fire were the main source of light after dark, the blackness of night was tied to feelings of uncertainty and fear.
Thus the word "black", or "noire" in French, came to be associated with negativity. That's why outcasts were called "bete noire" in French, or "black sheep" in English. It's also why the bubonic plague was known as the "black death".
I see a lot of people whining about the FCC's stance turning around and gloating about corporate freedom everytime Apple/Google/Twitter/Facebook/Cloudflare takes down or censors another White nationalist app or alt-right website.
Ajit Pai is Trump's sort of guy -- advancing the desires of big business over what's good for the average joe.
but I doubt it's going to happen for two reasons. First is that the FCC isn't one of those headlining institutions that the GOP cares about. In fact, they'd rather it all just go away right now because they can't be bothered to govern let alone care about governing. So as long as Pai isn't causing it to rain on their parade, they couldn't care less. And second, I'm pretty certain if it came down to a close vote there would be more than enough lobbying action on his behalf to see him through. There's a lot of moneyed interests that want to keep him that post.
Not to mention that if does deliver on this agenda there's probably a pretty cushy job waiting for him with whichever telecom or cable operator he chooses when it's all over.
Agreed. But instead he keeps fire those loyal to him. It's getting harder to be understanding about that
Well, at least there's no bias or point of view apparent in the cited "report" nor the summary.
I guess this is still /., editorials (!news) for nerds...
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
All these rich fuks are on the SAME TEAM. They just ACT like they aren't... Its called political theater. And its DESIGNED to keep us bickering. Rather than rising up and ousting the traitors and thieves that line our politics on BOTH sides of the so-called "Fence" Hillary = Bad, Trump = Bad, Ajit Pai = Bad, Government in the modern age = BAD! Its time to Re-establish the Constitution, and remove hundreds of thousands of bad/useless/unconstitutional laws from our books, and burn the Federal Reserve to the Ground. Banning the institution from America PERMANENTLY. Credit Card Companies should be Fined 90% of their worth, and then forced to utilize ONLY the percentage rates the American people AGREE to. Then, and ONLY then, can we build a nation for ALL persons, Equally.
So "liberals" cannot be also activists now ?
Fucking trumpist moron.
Ajit Pai is by far the most intellectually dishonest person of this administration. He should be beaten to death with his peanut butter cup coffee mug as punishment.
Senator Coons (D-DE): Call (202) 224-5042
Senator Donnelly (D-IN): Call (202) 224-4814
Senator Tester (D-MT): Call (202) 224-2644
Senator Manchin (D-WV): Call (202) 224-3954
Senator McCaskill (D-MO): Call 202-224-6154
These are key swing votes that need to hear from you today!
Y'all be raycisssssssssssssssss!
but I doubt it's going to happen for two reasons. First is that the FCC isn't one of those headlining institutions that the GOP cares about. In fact, they'd rather it all just go away right now
You can say all of that about Puerto Rico too, but neither the Internet nor Puerto Rico are "going away right now"
I don't think it would be POSSIBLE to make a more flimsy argument than you just did
Well you certainly invoked a broad interpretation of "they'd rather it all just go away right now". Let's make the set of things represented by "all" to include Anonymous Coward trolls on slashdot because you know, you can do that apparently.
We'll make great pets
Unlike football players or other private employees, government employees can not be fired for their political convictions. Because 1st Amendment...
The self-appointed "Internet Activists" can suck my tail...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The Democratic opposition to Ajit Pai's re-confirmation was launched today by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who accused the Federal Communications Commission chairman of abandoning the public interest. Cantwell criticized Pai's in-progress attempt to eliminate net neutrality rules and said he has taken other actions that hurt Americans.
Where's the Maryland Senator stand on this? I'm not running for Senate (my primary policy interests fall on the House Ways and Means Committee--yes that is an insane amount of power), just curious.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
No matter one's net-neutral opinion (however one defines it), keep the government away from regulating the internet. Look where the government regulates something extra-special because of how special said object of the regulating is. Look at drugs. Look at airlines. Look at copyright. Look at spectrum allocation and licensing. Do we want an internet that polices copyright infringement at government level? Tries to shut down the dark-web? Throws peeps in jail because torrents? All government regulation of an industry means is capture of the industry by the politically-connected special interests associated to the industry. For the internet that means the usual suspects - and I don't want a consortium of Facebook and Google and Disney's lobbyists figuring out whats legal for me to do on the internet - no matter the initial motivation to enable them to it.
The so called "activist" are actually just liberals trying to destroy the Trump administration by getting him to turn against more of his people.
Trump is destroying his own administration. He certainly doesn't need any help from us. It seems every other week another one bites the dust.
We're just having fun watching this whole shit-storm go down.
oh look there is at least one active nerve cell
your need to respond to an anonymous troll demonstrates away your tremendous insecurity
you could have ignored me, but no, you took the bait
by doing so, everything you say about me is really true of yourself
thanks for playing!
Go on, itâ(TM)s assholeâ(TM)s like you that got him elected.
TLDR: Sexconker admits he and most Trumpies are scat fetish faggots of no value to America.
so while everyone is busy freaking out about this, realize it's only the very first year of trump, there are likely to be seven more and what a wasteland it's going to be by 2024 - the same people saying he will never be re-elected are the ones who said he'd never get elected in the first place
what I don't get is everyone is busy attacking the one who making exactly the horrible hell they promised and advertised but it was your friends, families and neighbors who are the ones who actually put him in charge despite many, many, many other options
so this holiday season when you are meeting these very people who put him in charge and WILL DO THE SAME FOR THE NEXT, are you just going to be polite and dodge politics or are you going to point out how incredibly messed up this all is with real-world examples and remind them how it affects you and them?
good place to look for more info is https://www.fightforthefuture....
Even if the Congress decides not to reconfirm Ajit Pal, he can continue to serve for up to another 1-1/2 years until another appointee is nominated and confirmed. So what is the likelihood that the President would appoint another nominee that these same people would confirm? During the nomination-confirmation process, Ajt would remain acting Chair of the FCC.
Can we start a new political party, the WTF Party? We just want shit to work. Our Symbol can be the poo emoji.
the problem with FM radio is that previous FCC members mostly under Bush in the early 2000's that let Clear Channel buy up most of the radio stations, resulting in the corporate blandness we have today.
You were probably taught Modern French, not Old French, in high school. We're talking about Old French here, because we're discussing the etymology of the phrase "bete noire".
Since we're looking at the origin of the phrase, and it's an ancient phrase, we need to look to the meaning of the word "bete" in Old French, and not its meaning in Modern French.
There are similar situations involving words derived from Old English where the earlier definition differs from the more common Modern English definition, and often in ways that we wouldn't expect.
For example, the Modern English word "weapon" is derived from an Old English word that meant "penis".
Another example is the Modern English word "tweezers". It's also derived from an old English word that meant "penis".
English is a fascinating language, especially when it comes to how it has borrowed from so many other languages. French is also fascinating, although it doesn't derive as many words from non-Latin sources. Both exhibit many modern words that have very unexpected original meanings.
Many words that are seen as innocent today were originally used to describe very primal things or actions such as the penis, the anus, intercourse, defecation, and so forth.
Since we're looking at the etymology of the phrase, and it's an ancient phrase, we need to consider the meaning of the word in Old French, not Modern French.
The definition you're talking about is that from Modern French. Words do change their meaning over time. But that's irrelevant to our study here, because we are concerned with the original meaning.
This other comment explains exactly how you're wrong.
If anyone has misspoke, it is you. The definition you're talking about isn't even for the correct language! The correct language in this case is Old French, but for whatever reason (ignorance about etymology, I suppose) you're focusing on Modern French.
Wait, . . . uhm . . . are you seriously telling me that Tom Price was the latest one to fucking get canned??
Holy fucking shit!! WOW!! Not even 3 hours after your post, Tom Price bit the motherfucking dust!!
I bow in your presence, oh, fucking MASTER of prediction!!!
CAPTCHA: miracle
P.S. Hey - I didn't vote for him. I'm still with HER.
This is what democrat politicians are especially bad at - foresight.
They want all of these regulatory bureaucracies but never think about when the pendulum swings and the other party is in charge.
Obama and his pen are another great example. How is that legacy working out for him?
You see that chapeau? That tells you that there used to be an "s" there (cf "hôpital"). IOW, "bête" used to be "beste". It's not that "bête" translates to "beast". It's the same damn word.
You obviously know what you're talking about. What are you doing posting on Slashdot?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Wrapping *shit somebody obviously made up* in a quote doesn't suddenly make it true.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Are you happy now? And did your PA coal mine reopen that was closed during Reagonomics time? Redeem yourself and put the "genie" back into the bottle...and then hurl it as far away as you can.
First of all, can we please dispense with the myth that current net "neutrality" rules are actually net neutrality? The current rules are specifically NOT net neutrality, but something quite the opposite. The current net "neutrality" rules expressly permit non-neutrality in both peering and last-mile delivery. That's why, for example, AT&T is allowed to throttle NetFlix to its U-Verse customers while allowing their own U-Verse video streaming services to flow at best rate.
Existing net neutrality rules are anti-competitive, terrible for consumers, and the exact opposite of neutrality.
would be for Trump to replace him with Howard Stern.