Lawmakers Demand Investigation into FCC Chairman Ajit Pai | Hacker News Reader

Lawmakers Demand Investigation into FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

arstechnica.com

130 pointsjoeyespo17 comments

I really hope that something comes from this. However, we've been burned SO many times before...

I find it odd the amount of points this has in a few hours but this is not in the front page?

If anything happens I hope the result is to encourage more competition in everything under the purview of the FCC.

Ajit Pai is a spineless shill for the cable industry. I'm glad he's being investigated. He doesn't care what the public thinks and just pushes the industry agenda over and over again.

You could pretty much say that about every appointee in this administration.

Damn right.

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>We contacted Chairman Pai's office today, and a spokesperson provided this response:

>Unfortunately, this request appears to be part of many Democrats' attempt to target one particular company because of its perceived political views...

Politics as usual, then. The stated reason for doing something is usually not the actual reason. I'm glad to see someone is standing up to this industry crony nonetheless, doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still doing the right thing.

The fact that the office of the “crony” in question says the investigation has a particular motive is very far from dispositive evidence that that is the motivation.

Quite true, but given the current state of politics, it would surprise me more to know that the lawmakers were acting entirely in the interests of their constituents, rather than another volley in some pointless ego vendetta. It's not as if there are any negative consequences for the latter.

current state... seems to me that this has been normal for a very long time.

I'm not sure why you would trust any statements from Pai's office given their history of partisanship and misinformation.

I'm pretty cynical about all politician's motivations, but this statement doesn't hold up. If the FCC really is cheating to benefit one political party or company, then it would be impossible to accuse them of cheating without implicitly targeting that party or company. (Edit: In other words, their statement gives no information that helps distinguish whether the FCC is cheating or whether they are just being unfairly targeted by Democrats. It only points fingers.)

The statement is focusing the issue on politics in order to distract attention from the actual issue. Then at the end of the statement, it accuses their opponents of doing the same thing. Very scummy.

Meh. This is the same administration which politicized the NFL, and continues to politicize climate science and basic reality itself. Anything you say or do that comes remotely close to holding them accountable will be decried as a political attack. Any evidence of corruption is fake news.

I'm not buying it. Pai is as slimy as they come, and everyone knows it. We are going to figure out who was responsible for stuffing the FCC public comment forum with dead people's comments no matter how much Pai screams about it. We are going to find where this blatantly corrupt man's kickbacks are coming from. That isn't politics. That's justice.

Let's say we uncover those things. This administration has proven that if their party controls the government, nothing bad happens regardless of how foul the play. What other options exist to circumvent that issue?

Methinks the NFL politicized itself, without realizing what potential consequences their actions would bring about.

I'm pretty sure the parent is referring to the POTUS stepping in and demanding certain behavior of both the players and owners. You'd think he had bigger problems to demand his rather limited attention.

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