<story><title>An Open Letter to the FCC</title><url>https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ordinaryperson</author><text>The revocation of the Net Neutrality rules became a foregone conclusion once Donald Trump was elected. The sad reality is there&amp;#x27;s not much we, Eric Schneidermann or anyone else can do about it.&lt;p&gt;There are 5 FCC commissioners but only 3 may be of the same party. Ajit Pai, Brendan Carr and Michael O&amp;#x27;Rielly are locks to vote in favor, so it will pass, 3-2.&lt;p&gt;At this point the best thing people can do is prepare to vote in 2018 and 2020, whether that&amp;#x27;s registering voters or forming groups to get lazy liberals or independents to vote to send better people to Washington.&lt;p&gt;One side aspect that I think hasn&amp;#x27;t been covered: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer and probably plans to parley his government experience into a lucrative gig at one of the big telcos once the Republicans are inevitably thrown out of office, so he stands to personally profit from this decision.&lt;p&gt;As Donald Trump would say, SAD.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>EddieRingle</author><text>&amp;gt; FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer&lt;p&gt;He worked in their legal department for 2-3 years 15 years ago. All of his other time has been spent has a public servant. People need to stop bringing this up, because it only muddies the actual policy debate.</text></comment>
<story><title>An Open Letter to the FCC</title><url>https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ordinaryperson</author><text>The revocation of the Net Neutrality rules became a foregone conclusion once Donald Trump was elected. The sad reality is there&amp;#x27;s not much we, Eric Schneidermann or anyone else can do about it.&lt;p&gt;There are 5 FCC commissioners but only 3 may be of the same party. Ajit Pai, Brendan Carr and Michael O&amp;#x27;Rielly are locks to vote in favor, so it will pass, 3-2.&lt;p&gt;At this point the best thing people can do is prepare to vote in 2018 and 2020, whether that&amp;#x27;s registering voters or forming groups to get lazy liberals or independents to vote to send better people to Washington.&lt;p&gt;One side aspect that I think hasn&amp;#x27;t been covered: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer and probably plans to parley his government experience into a lucrative gig at one of the big telcos once the Republicans are inevitably thrown out of office, so he stands to personally profit from this decision.&lt;p&gt;As Donald Trump would say, SAD.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikestew</author><text>&lt;i&gt;FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer and probably plans to parley his government experience into a lucrative gig at one of the big telcos&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don’t care if he was a professional kitten killer, it has little relevance to actions currently being taken. I say this for two reasons: Pai has spent more time in public service than he did at Verizon, by multiples. And second, who cares what his motivation is? Does that amplify or mitigate the circumstances in some way? No? Then it’s just a distraction from the issue at hand, which is bad enough that we best not derail the conversation worrying about where someone worked twenty years ago.</text></comment>