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House Democrats Tell Ajit Pai: Stop Screwing Over the Public (arstechnica.com)
slack_justyb shares a report from Ars Technica: The House Commerce Committee is "reassuming its traditional role of oversight to ensure the agency is acting in the best interest of the public and consistent with its legislative authority," Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) said in an announcement yesterday. Pallone, Jr. and Doyle wrote a letter to Pai, saying that he has made the FCC too secretive and has repeatedly advanced the interests of corporations over consumers. They wrote: "Not only have you have failed on numerous occasions to provide Democratic members of this committee with responses to their inquiries, you have also repeatedly denied or delayed responding to legitimate information requests from the public about agency operations. These actions have denied the public of a full and fair understanding of how the FCC under your leadership has arrived at public policy decisions that impact Americans every day in communities across the country. Under your leadership, the FCC has failed repeatedly to act in the public interest and placed the interest of corporations over consumers. The FCC should be working to advance the goals of public safety, consumer protection, affordable access, and connectivity across the United States. To that end, it is incumbent upon the Committee's leadership and its members to oversee the activities of the FCC."
On Thursday this week, the Communications Subcommittee will hold a hearing about the impact of Pai's net neutrality repeal on consumers, small businesses, and free speech. Witnesses who have been invited to testify at the hearing include former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, cable industry chief lobbyist Michael Powell (who is also a former FCC chairman), and representatives of Mozilla, Free Press, and Eastern Oregon Telecom.
On Thursday this week, the Communications Subcommittee will hold a hearing about the impact of Pai's net neutrality repeal on consumers, small businesses, and free speech. Witnesses who have been invited to testify at the hearing include former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, cable industry chief lobbyist Michael Powell (who is also a former FCC chairman), and representatives of Mozilla, Free Press, and Eastern Oregon Telecom.
Wait, if that is your "traditional role", where have you been? On vacation? Too busy?
Haven't you noticed? Republicans have been blocking ALL oversight for several years.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I felt the same way. I've been coming here for over a 12+ years and it sure seems that right wing opinions have crept up in the past several years.
It's only recently -- the past 5 or so years -- that a certain cadre of very loud right-wingnut boors have shown up.
I think it goes back further than that. My sense is that it crept up steadily post-9/11, but spiked after Barack Obama was first elected. The target shifted from him to Hillary Clinton (his presumptive successor) over the next 8 years, with "Benghazi", "but her e-mails", and "lock her up" calls from the right-wing chorus. And it spiked yet again during the lead-up to the 2016 POTUS election, I suspect with help from Russian troll-farms.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I'm not sure they're pretending. I've met many in person, including a few fairly intelligent and well educated I really thought would know better. I think a lot of them really are that gullible and/or stupid. Or at least angry and desperate enough to believe anyone who says they'll make things better. Tell them the government is corrupt (which I think we all know), and that you're going to do something about it, you get a lot of people's attention. Then start feeding them increasingly unhinged conspiracy theories, and giving them permission to be ever-larger assholes to... basically anyone whoisn't 100% on board with your agenda... some get turned off, but the ones that stick around, they get more committed to the cause than ever, and increasing lose connection with reality. I've met some who, when confronted with video of Trump's more obviously heinous or stupid statements or actions, simply dismiss them as fakes. And once someone is convinced that the propaganda office is the only source of real news, I really don't know how you can possibly shake their faith.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Honestly I think it's high time we put anonymous coward to rest. The ideal behind it is irrelevant. I can't remember a single time AC was used for legitimate whistle blowing, it's just a plaything for trolls and assholes
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
I didn't leave the left. It left me.
I barely comment here now and I've been here with one username or another since almost the beginning.
I only occasionally bother reading the comments because most threads are so heavily loaded with right wing (hopefully) trolls that I feel like I'm reading Fox News.
The stories are still pretty good, but the conversation is shit.
Combine that with the lack of voting ability and there's really nothing left here to draw you into the comments section.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
You absolutely do vote. I vote almost daily. Voting on Slashdot is based on (and always has been based on) the quality of your posts. That's what makes it work so (relatively) well for unmoderated discussions online.
I don't respond to AC's.