back to article FCC big cheese given Congressional roasting in reconfirmation bid

For a man who repeatedly criticized his predecessor at the Federal Communications Commission for dragging the US watchdog in a bi-partisan direction, in his eight months as FCC chairman Ajit Pai has done more than anyone to infect it with Washington politics. That unpleasant reality was drawn out in a Congressional hearing on …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Typo - Wyden is from Oregon, not Ohio

    Ohio would never elect Ron Wyden.

    1. tom dial Silver badge

      Re: Typo - Wyden is from Oregon, not Ohio

      "Ohio would never elect Ron Wyden." I wonder why anyone would say that, since they elected Sherrod Brown to the Senate a couple of times, and various congressional districts elected Dennis Kucinich (8 times) and James Traficant (9 times). I could go on, but Ohio has not been especially unkind to outliers at election time.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phantom goal posts seen flying through congress at high speed, more at 11

  3. Fill
    FAIL

    Pai is an id!ot

    This is the guy (Pai) who just made an arm-waving plea to Apple to 'activate' FM radios in their iPhones. Apple's response? What FM radios? Check out FCC fillings with you, you id!ot, there are no FM radios in our iPhones to activate!

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Pai is an id!ot

      @Fill

      +1 at least on this one. I laughed out loud when I read about his "demand' to apple.

      His name is incredibly close to idjit... His picture makes me think of a slimy used car salesman

    2. tom dial Silver badge

      Re: Pai is an id!ot

      I wonder if iPhones do not have software defined radios and, if so, if they are not at least as capable on the receiver side as the one in a large number of ~$20 USB dongles that cover the range from around 30 - 1700 MHz, including the FM broadcast band.

  4. Mark 85

    He thinks he's playing the "smart game" by sucking up to the industry because we all assume he wants a kushie job/position after he's put in his time at the FCC. Yet, industry (no matter what they make or do) isn't loyal. At the rate Pai is going, he'll be a bigger liability then an asset to any company at this rate.

    1. td97402

      Didn’t You Know?

      Ajit Pai started out as lawyer at Verizon. He’s serving his masters well. Come 2021 he’ll be out of the FCC and back to work, in one way or another, for one of the comms companies.

  5. Tubz Silver badge

    Chairman Pai and his little book of rules and regulations written by AT&T, Verizon and friends, to control this paid for patsy !

  6. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Putting big cable before consumers,

    If the consumers want their own head of the FCC they can pay for one, like the cable companies had to

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He looks like a complete tool. And it turned out he is... like it always does.

  8. Jamie Jones Silver badge
    Headmaster

    I hate to be the one to say it..... ;-)

    'Not to forget the ludicrous effort to append the hate-word "Obama" to everything, which resulted in Pai referring to a long-standing program to provide the country's poorest with access to telecommunications as "Obamaphone."'

    That would make it PhoneObama.

    HTH :-)

  9. maccy
    Meh

    bipartisanship

    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  10. Jtom

    Pai's predecessor injected Democratic politics into the FCC actions in a huge fashion. Pai's effort to undo those politics, though, is criticized as political. Standard hypocrisy from those no longer having political power.

    As far as the obamaphone: yes the program was started long before obama, to help those in rural area poorly served obtain telecommunications (and originally, electricity). The program wasn't set up to serve the poor, but to bring costs down to reasonable levels in areas where demand was insufficient to make service profitable at affordable rates. But like several other programs, it was corrupted by the Obama administration to be another welfare program for the poor. As a result, many inner city dwellers, where prices were competitive and service abundantly available, were allowed to obtain multiple cellphones for little or nothing. That is what is referred to as obamaphones. But don't let reality get in the way of fake outrage.

    1. hellwig

      I think you missed the point. Referring to anything as "Obama...." will instantly polarize people. Pai could label anything he disagrees with as "Obama...." and instantly get support for his decisions.

      ObamaTelcoRegulations

      ObamaNetNeutrality

      Obama700MHzSpectrumAuctions

      See, doesn't matter what his argument is or the validity of the argument, he's got automatic support against these ideas just by slapping Obama on them.

      It's like bringing every argument to some sort of Nazi/Hitler comparison. You can't argue past that because there's no longer any rational discourse to be had. You either support or hate Nazis. In America, you either support or hate Obama, end of discussion.

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