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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.
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".
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.