ajit pai fcc

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see FCC</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">net neutrality</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">primary 819 on XO</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sinclair merger would threaten fox?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AN 1220</font></div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 25px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/fcc/" aria-label="'Worse than Ajit Pai': Senate confirms Trump's unqualified FCC nominee" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25px;">Worse than Ajit Pai': Senate confirms Trump's unqualified FCC nominee</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/brett_wilkins" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Brett Wilkins</a> <a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Common Dreams</a></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2649437319" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; display: -webkit-box; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 23px; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description" style=""><p style="">The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Nathan Simington, President Donald Trump's parting nominee to the Federal Communications Commission, despite serious questions regarding his lack of qualification for the cruciaL...</p></div></div></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b></b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p><span style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the things that the FCC and FTC have not done effectively over the last few decades</font></span></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">is hold telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon accountable for their tax-subsidized infrastructure obligations. In fact, the FCC under Trump's choice and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, have done everything possible to protect big telecommunications from being held responsible for their fraudulent behaviors. The Republican-run FCC has done all of this in the name of deregulation and the promise that the invisible hand of the market will provide. Unsurprisingly, so far deregulating the system, giving out massive tax breaks to big telecoms and destroying net neutrality consumer protections have led to the opposite effect.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Thursday, Mississippi <b>Public Service Commission (PSC)</b> officials sent a letter to the FCC calling on the corrupt body to investigate AT&T's claims of "providing internet service to 133,000 locations in Mississippi using federal aid from the Connect America Fund."</span> How much federal-aid money did AT&T get their hands on? According to Arstechnica, the<b> telecommunications company has pulled in a sweet $283,000,000 "from the Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund to expand its network in Mississippi," since 2015. Ah, that sweet corporate welfare!</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">According to the PSC's letter, their investigation has turned up nothing but examples of AT&T falsely claiming to have created new broadband service in places they have not, for people that are not receiving broadband access. More specifically, saying you have provided internet access to 133,000 "locations" is incredibly vague when the point is to provide human beings with good service. Considering that AT&T has a history of taking taxpayer money to provide broadband and wireless services, only to not do that, and also make false claims of having done that, the news out of Mississippi isn't particularly surprising.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The PSC has been pushing the telecom giant for more information regarding their service providing in Mississippi since subpoenaing them in September, demanding "production of documents showing the number of actual subscribers to AT&T's fixed wireless service within the 133,000 locations where the company claims to have provided service, the number of complaints filed with the company by customers who have taken service and the number of Mississippians who applied for fixed wireless service based on AT&T's assertion that it was available and were later determined not to be in an area covered."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>In 2015, AT&T made a deal with the U.S. government where they would get almost half a billion a year to bring very meager broadband 10MB service to rural areas. That money has been pulled from the Connect America Fund.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>AT&T will get the money over six years with an option for a seventh, potentially bringing the total to about $3 billion,</b> according to Multichannel News. AT&T and other carriers getting Connect America funding have to deploy Internet service to 40 percent of funded locations by the end of 2017, 60 percent by the end of 2018, 80 percent by the end of 2019, and to 100 percent of locations by the end of 2020, the article said.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For a very long time now AT&T has argued—somehow very successfully—that letting localities or individuals build out their own broadband networks stops the telelcom from taking our tax money. Seriously, they have argued that. AT&T has also argued that when they say one thing but do another thing, like not provide broadband service while taking federal money by saying they've provided that infrastructure, they haven't lied or mislead anyone because reporters have investigated them and exposed them. Seriously, they really have argued that.</font></p><p /><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The FCC has taken out its own teeth but ending net neutrality protections. Ajit Pai has argued that the FCC cannot regulate the industry that it was created to regulate. This, of course, means that without a new president and a new FCC, any chance of getting telecommunications companies to do what they're supposed to do for the general public is unlikely.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">---</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">320 bb</font></p><h2 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Raleway; margin: 0.1em 0px 0.25em; line-height: 1; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://boingboing.net/2020/01/28/capex-is-for-little-ppl.html" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Ajit Pai promised that killing net neutrality would spur network investment, but instead Comcast cut spending by 10.5%</a></h2><p>
</p><div class="entry-content" style="font-size: 16px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: " libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em;">When Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used fraud and skullduggery to <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/10/07/california-exports-neutrality.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(17, 51, 170);">kill net neutrality</a>, he promised that clearing away the allegedly burdensome regulation of delivering the data your customers request would finally spur investment in America's worst-of-bread, ancient network infrastructure. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2020/01/28/capex-is-for-little-ppl.html" class="read-more" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(17, 51, 170);">Read the rest</a></p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/leaked-draft-of-trump-executive-order-to-censor-the-internet-denounced-as-unconstitutional-edict/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/leaked-draft-of-trump-executive-order-to-censor-the-internet-denounced-as-unconstitutional-edict/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div><b>Leaked draft of Trump executive order to ‘censor the internet’ denounced as unconstitutional edict</b></div><div>
</div><div>Written by Jon Queally / Common Dreams<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>August 11, 2019</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Civil liberties groups are warning of a major threat to online freedoms and First Amendment rights if a leaked draft of a Trump administration edict—dubbed by critics as a “Censor the Internet” executive order that would give powerful federal agencies far-reaching powers to pick and choose which kind of Internet material is and is not acceptable—is allowed to go into effect.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to CNN, which obtained a copy of the draft, the new rule “calls for the <b>FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms</b>. Although still in its early stages and subject to change,<b> the Trump administration’s draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when it investigates or files lawsuits against misbehaving companies.”</b></span></div><div> </div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While Politico was the first to report how the draft was being circulated by the White House, CNN notes that if put into effect, “the order would reflect a significant escalation by President Trump in his frequent attacks against social media companies over an alleged but unproven systemic bias against conservatives by technology platforms. And it could lead to a significant reinterpretation of a law that, its authors have insisted, was meant to give tech companies broad freedom to handle content as they see fit.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Following reporting on the leaked draft, free speech and online advocacy groups raised alarm about the troubling and far-reaching implications of the Trump plan if it was put into effect by executive decree.</div><div>
</div><div>The ¦¦¦¦¦¦ White House just ¦¦¦¦¦¦ leaked a draft executive order ¦¦¦¦¦¦ that would ¦¦¦¦¦¦ give the government the power ¦¦¦¦¦¦ to censor the Internet. ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ We have to stop it before it’s ¦¦¦¦¦¦. https://t.co/mQCoL86ifA</div><div>
</div><div>— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 11, 2019</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It’s hard to put into words how mind bogglingly absurd this executive order is,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, in a tweet. “<b>In the name of</b>defending free speech it would allow mass government censorship of online content. In practice, it means whichever party is in power can decide what speech is allowed on the internet.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>PEN America, which defends the free expression for writers, journalists, and others, warned that any executive order based on this draft rule would be an unconstitutional “anti-American edict.”</div><div>
</div><div>If this accurately reflects resulting EO, it’s an anti-American edict that would empower FCC & FTC to be viewpoint-based arbiters of online speech. Thankfully, 1st Amendment forbids that. It’s regrettable that this Administration doesn’t seem to know that. https://t.co/uKNqE6UKD4</div><div>
</div><div>— PEN America (@PENamerica) August 9, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>As detailed in an action alert put out by Fight for the Future over the weekend:</div><div>
</div><div>[The] leaked documents show that the Trump administration is drafting an executive order that, if upheld by the courts, could essentially end free speech on the Internet. The draft order would put the FTC and the FCC, headed by its<b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">notoriously corrupt chairman Ajit Pai</span>,</b> in charge of monitoring and policing online speech on social media platforms, online forums, and more.</div><div>
</div><div>It would give these bureaucratic government agencies unprecedented control over how Internet platforms moderate speech by allowing them to revoke the essential protections Congress laid out in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). CDA 230 is the basic law that makes it possible for online platforms to let users post our own content, and to make basic decisions about what types of content they as private entities want to host. Every meme, every social media post, every blog and user-created video on the Internet has been made possible by this crucial free speech protection.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>In practice, this executive order would mean that whichever political party is in power could dictate what speech is allowed on the Internet. If the government doesn’t like the way a private company is moderating content, they can shut their entire website down.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“These leaks about a potential Executive Order from the White House are troubling on many levels, from the order’s potential to violate the First Amendment, to its apparent disregard for the independence of agencies like the FCC and the FTC, to its intent to unilaterally limit Section 230 which promotes moderated online communities free of hate speech and misinformation,” said Chris Lewis, president and CEO of Public Knowledge.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If these reports are a trial balloon from the White House,” Lewis added, “then it’s time to pop it.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>While the Trump administration has tried to argue the new order is a tool to keep web platforms from censoring online speech, Fight for the Future warns “this plan would create terrifying new censorship powers for the government to do just that.”</div><div>
</div><div>While Fight for the Future acknowledged the serious and legitimate concerns about the behavior and outsized power of the major tech giants, it said the draft rule is a simply unacceptable way to address those issues:</div><div>
</div><div>Look, we’re also concerned about the growing power that mega-platforms like Facebook and Twitter have to control online speech.</div><div>
</div><div>But this draft Executive Order would make that situation SO much worse, by opening a pandora’s box of government censorship.https://t.co/mQCoL86ifA</div><div>
</div><div>— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) August 11, 2019</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite loud and continued claims from right-wing forces that platforms like Facebook and Twitter are biased against them, Public Knowledge’s Lewis said the new White House proposal is yet another reason to push back against this unfounded mantra that Trump himself has helped proliferate.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Political bias by digital platforms remains unproven. In fact, an independent study by The Economist points towards search platforms having a bias towards virality and attention, not political ideology,” said Lewis. “This matches reports from books like <b>Tim Wu’s “The Attention Merchants”</b> and others that study social media addiction. It is this sort of algorithmic bias towards virality that foreign adversaries use to sow disinformation and mistrust in our country.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Given how much power the proposed would place in the hands of the FCC and FTC, Lewis said it is crucial for the heads of those agencies—including FCC chair Ajit Pai, a former telecom industry lobbyist and Trump appointee—to come forward and make clear their commitment to First Amendment protections.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It is all the more important to hear from FCC commissioners given Chairman Pai’s strong condemnation of public positions taken by past administrations on net neutrality violating the independence of the FCC,” said Lewis. “If these reports are true, this Executive Order serves as a direct order to the FCC that if left unchallenged, could threaten the independence of these agencies altogether.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>As part of its effort to halt such an executive order in its track, Fight for the Future people urged people—”regardless of your politics”—to oppose the measure.</div><div>
</div><div>“Regardless of how you feel about the president,” the group said, “this is a terrible idea that will have the exact opposite impact of its stated purpose of protecting free speech.”</div><div>
</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><nobr style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</nobr></font></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">t-mobile and sprint approved ~ warren, trump hotel saudis?</font></p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-july-22-2019/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://kpfa.org/episode/the-ralph-nader-radio-hour-july-22-2019/</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thom hartmann</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RR got rid of fairness doctrine;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in 80's deal to let cable corps run thru public right of way was cspan and local public access shows; now 719 FCC looking to make a deal to get rid of; <b>1996 Telecomm act BC, </b> operating in public interest was traditionally interpreted on radio is news at the top on the hour (even on music/entertainment?) TH says his job was to do news, and he would be fired if even seen talking to sales side, firewall; </font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/11/19/totally-inexplicable-silence.html">https://boingboing.net/2018/11/19/totally-inexplicable-silence.html</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When Trump's FCC Chairman Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality (by deliberately ignoring comments from actual humans in favor <a href="https://boingboing.net/2017/10/04/astroturf-by-comcast.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">of comments left by obvious bots</a>), he said that removing regulation from telcos would boost investment, finally ending the US's status as the <a href="https://broadbandnow.com/report/2018-fcc-international-data-insights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">worst broadband nation in the world</a>.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="more-684069" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it's impossible to say whether that is working, because Pai's office has ended the Obama-era practice of letting the American public view the results of its taxpayer-funded speed-tests. The FCC is still paying to have these tests conducted, but it's been two years since they've released the results. What's more, the FCC is stonewalling on Ars Technica's FOIA requests to find out why the reports are not in the public domain yet.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's a real head-scratcher. Surely releasing the telcos that used to employ Pai from any kind of public reponsibility or regulatory oversight must have resulted in a surge of investment and better value for money for the Americans who are paying Pai's wages during his brief holiday from his service as a senior telcoms executive. You'd think that he'd want to trumpet that new from the hilltops, right? I wonder why he won't release that data.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's just so weird.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; border-left: 4px solid rgb(153, 153, 153); padding-left: 1em; margin: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After denying our request for expedited processing, the FCC repeatedly extended its own deadlines for providing documents to us. FCC staff told us they needed more time because they were still "reviewing documents to determine if they are responsive to your request."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FCC, which has an annual budget of $450 million, asked us on October 4 to narrow the scope of our public-records request, telling us that searching for the documents would be "a pretty significant burden and would take a long time to process." We agreed to narrow the request to exclude testing data and to include only emails that relate directly to whether the FCC will release future versions of the Measuring Broadband America report and to whether testing has been discontinued.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response, the FCC's Office of General Counsel told us on October 10 that it would search the chairman's office emails "for records mentioning the Measuring Broadband America report since 2016" and "provide you with any records we locate, consistent with the FoIA statute."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite that, the FCC didn't meet its new, self-imposed deadline of October 25. On that date, an FCC staffer told Ars via email that the FCC was "unable to meet our due date" and that "at this time, we do not know how long this process will take and cannot give you a due date."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We contacted the FCC press office and the FCC official handling our records request again on Monday of last week, but we received no replies.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/ajit-pai-isnt-saying-whether-isps-deliver-the-broadband-speeds-you-pay-for/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Ajit Pai isn’t saying whether ISPs deliver the broadband speeds you pay for</a>[Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica]</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/ajit-pai-slams-sprint-charter-and-centurylink-for-poor-robocall-effort/</div><div>
</div><div><b>Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai yesterday criticized Sprint, Charter, CenturyLink, and four other phone providers for not committing to adopt a new system for blocking robocalls.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>Pai issued a press release and sent letters to wireless carriers and other phone providers, saying that certain companies "have not yet established concrete plans to protect their customers" using the new "SHAKEN" and "STIR" robocall-blocking protocols.</div><div>
</div><div>SHAKEN stands for Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs, while STIR stands for Secure Telephone Identity Revisited. The new industry standard isn't expected to completely eliminate robocalls, but it may make a sizable difference and is expected to be implemented by carriers starting in 2019.  </div><div>
</div><div>Under the SHAKEN/STIR framework, calls traveling through interconnected phone networks would be 'signed' as legitimate by originating carriers and validated by other carriers before reaching consumers," Pai's press release explained. "The framework digitally validates the handoff of phone calls passing through the complex web of networks, allowing the phone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is from the person supposedly making it."</div><div>
</div><div>Pai's letters say that seven phone providers apparently do "not yet have concrete plans to implement a robust call authentication framework" and asked those carriers to answer a series of questions by November 19. Those carriers are CenturyLink, Charter, Frontier, Sprint, TDS Telecom, US Cellular, and Vonage.</div><div>
</div><div>Pai's letters yesterday came a month after 35 state attorneys general urged him to act more aggressively on robocall blocking.</div><div>
</div><div>Pai thanked other phone providers for committing to implement SHAKEN/STIR. The carriers that already committed to adopt SHAKEN/STIR are AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Comcast, Bandwidth.com, Cox, and Google, according to Pai's letters. He also asked those providers for more details on their plans.</div><div>
</div><div>FURTHER READING</div><div>Robocallers “evolved” to sidestep new call blocking rules, AGs tell FCC</div><div>Carriers that haven't committed to deploying SHAKEN/STIR received a different letter.</div><div>
</div><div>"Despite these industry-wide efforts, I understand from Commission staff that Charter does not yet have concrete plans to implement a robust call authentication framework," Pai wrote in his letter to Charter. "I hope that is no longer the case."</div><div>
</div><div>Explain yourself</div><div>The letter to Charter was almost identical to those sent to Sprint, CenturyLink, Frontier, TDS Telecom, US Cellular, and Vonage. The letter asked the following questions, requesting detailed responses by November 19:</div><div>
</div><div>What is preventing or inhibiting you from signing calls today?</div><div>What is your timeframe for signing (i.e., authenticating) calls originating on your network?</div><div>What tests have you run on deployment, and what are the results? Please be specific.</div><div>What steps have you taken to work with vendors to deploy a robust call authentication framework?</div><div>How often is Charter an intermediate provider, and do you intend to transmit signed calls from other providers?</div><div>How do you intend to combat and stop originating and terminating illegally spoofed calls on your network?</div><div>The Commission has already authorized voice providers to block certain illegally spoofed calls. If the Commission were to move forward with authorizing voice providers to block all unsigned calls or improperly signed calls, how would you ensure the legitimate calls of your customers are completed properly?</div><div>We contacted the seven carriers about Pai's letters last night. Sprint told Ars that it has "received the letter and will respond to Chairman Pai directly." US Cellular answered similarly, saying it "will be responding to the chairman's letter."</div><div>
</div><div>CenturyLink told Ars that it "understands consumers' concern" about robocalls and "will continue to work with our industry colleagues to identify and address the sources of illegal robocalls." TDS said it is "currently investigating our options for implementing a call authentication framework on a multitude of platforms." Frontier told Ars, "We are reviewing the Chairman’s letter and look forward to continue working collaboratively with the FCC and industry to fight the bad actors placing these bothersome, invasive and deceitful calls."</div><div>
</div><div>Vonage said it "take[s] this matter very seriously" and that it is "working closely with our third-party carrier partners and the FCC to respond to the Chairman’s letter directly."</div><div>
</div><div>We haven't received a response from Charter yet.</div><div>
</div><div>Today, Pai followed up with letters to business voice providers that he said are not participating in "industry efforts to trace scam robocalls that originate on or pass through their networks." Those companies are 382 Communications, Global Voicecom, IP Link Telecom, R Squared Telecom, Talkie Communications, Thinq, TouchTone Communications, and XCast Labs</div><div>
</div><div>Sprint complained about cost</div><div>In previous filings with the FCC, some carriers noted that SHAKEN/STIR won't entirely solve the robocall problem, and they questioned whether the FCC has provided proper authorization to use SHAKEN/STIR.</div><div>
</div><div>Sprint told the FCC in October that "SHAKEN/STIR will be helpful to carriers battling illegal robocalls but is not a complete solution."</div><div>
</div><div>Sprint also complained about the cost of implementing the system. "Sprint is also concerned about the costs of implementing the certificate management requirements of SHAKEN and encourages the Commission and industry to explore more cost-effective alternatives to the central repository process originally contemplated in the development of SHAKEN," Sprint wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>Sprint and others noted that SHAKEN/STIR needs widespread adoption by carriers to be effective. Sprint wrote that "SHAKEN tells us nothing about the content of a call or whether it is legal. It just authenticates origination of the call path and the Caller ID information of individual calls. Without universal adoption of SHAKEN from originating carrier to completing carrier, call authentication will not be passed to the terminating carrier."</div><div>
</div><div>Charter's filing in September said it partners with call-blocking company Nomorobo to offer robocall blocking to customers but suggested it needs further authorization to use SHAKEN/STIR.</div><div>
</div><div>"As the industry finalizes and implements the SHAKEN/STIR framework, the Commission should adopt rules that permit providers to block calls that fail authentication in cases where both the calling and terminating voice providers have implemented the SHAKEN/STIR protocols," Charter wrote. "Given the robust testing of the SHAKEN/STIR framework that is currently underway, the Commission can be assured that such calls are 'highly likely to be illegal.'"</div><div>
</div><div>Though T-Mobile has already committed to using SHAKEN/STIR, it pointed out potential shortcomings in its filing.</div><div>
</div><div>"First, SHAKEN/STIR can only provide a positive affirmation of the source of a given call," T-Mobile told the FCC. "It cannot provide confirmation of the opposite—that is, that a call is definitively 'bad' or fraudulent. This is particularly true where calls are carried by international providers that do not participate in SHAKEN/STIR and send calls to the United States through wholesale partners."</div><div>
</div><div>T-Mobile further noted that the majority of fraudulent calls likely originate from outside the US and that "adoption must go beyond domestic carriers to also include international carriers to have a real effect on the onslaught of fraudulent calls." Finally, T-Mobile noted that SHAKEN/STIR requires IP interconnection. "[T]us, legacy networks will not be able to source or transmit verification data for calls," T-Mobile wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 13 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications owns Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica.</div><div>
</div><div></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8/18</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/sinclair-broadcast-group-tribune-merger-officially-dead">https://www.alternet.org/sinclair-broadcast-group-tribune-merger-officially-dead</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> a victory for free and independent journalism, Tribune Media <a href="https://www.axios.com/tribune-media-sinclair-merged-terminated-c9cdff73-6f13-4dea-83e7-457edafccdd0.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> on Thursday that it is pulling out of its<b> $3.9 billion merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group, putting the final nail in the coffin of a deal</b> that had seemed inevitable when it was first <a href="https://www.tribunemedia.com/sinclair-broadcast-group-to-acquire-tribune-media-company-for-approximately-3-9-billion/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">announced</a>in May of last year.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Axios, Tribune is also filing a lawsuit against Sinclair, alleging breach of contract.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sinclair, a Maryland-based company which is the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-who-is-sinclair-broadcast-group-20180403-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">largest owner of local news stations</a> in the U.S., is notorious for its right-wing, pro-Trump slant, and its unusual system of distributing slanted "must-run" content to its local stations to work into their broadcasts.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reporters at stations owned by Sinclair — which include <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/6/17202824/sinclair-tribune-map" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nearly 200</a> local affiliate news channels across the country branded as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sinclair-broadcast-group-stations-by-state-list-2018-4" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and more</a> — have been forced to run segments that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/business/media/sinclair-broadcast-komo-conservative-media.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">attack Democratic politicians</a>, discredit the FBI's <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/07/11/sinclair-broadcast-group-propaganda/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">investigation of Russia</a>, call other media outlets "<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/the-real-danger-in-sinclair-broadcasts-fake-news-scandal.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">false news</a>", and even run a regular commentary show by a <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/07/10/boris-epshteyn-sinclair-broadcasting-240359" style="text-decoration-line: none;">former Trump adviser</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leaving no doubt in anyone's mind whose tank they are in, Trump himself has endorsed Sinclair, calling it "<a href="https://nypost.com/2018/04/02/trump-praises-sinclair-for-scripted-false-news-promos/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC</a>."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Had the merger with Tribune Media been approved, Sinclair would have completely dominated the local news market. By one estimate, the combined company would have owned stations in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/5/15/15598270/sinclair-broadcast-imminent-conservative-takeover-of-local-tv-news-explained" style="text-decoration-line: none;">nearly 3 out of 4 U.S. households</a>, controlling an enormous amount of the content Americans see on local stations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Approval of the merger was widely considered inevitable because Trump's FCC chairman, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ajit Pai,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">is notoriously anti-regulation and pro-merger</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and had </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/16/the-fcc-just-repealed-decades-old-rules-blocking-broadcast-media-mergers/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">rolled back ownership rules</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for broadcast media companies last year in a manner that seemingly paved the way for the deal.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a surprise move in July, however, Pai said he had "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tribune-media-m-a-sinclair/fcc-raises-concerns-about-sinclair-tribune-deal-shares-skid-idUSKBN1K6216" style="text-decoration-line: none;">serious concerns</a>"</b> and suggested Sinclair was trying to conceal anticompetitive practices in its proposed purchase and divestiture of certain stations. The FCC moved to refer parts of the deal for review by an administrative law judge, effectively leaving it on life support.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the Tribune merger dead for good, Sinclair will look for <a href="https://www.axios.com/tribune-media-sinclair-merged-terminated-c9cdff73-6f13-4dea-83e7-457edafccdd0.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">other ways</a> to acquire new stations. But for now, a potentially catastrophic change to media markets has been scuttled. And those who value the free press can breathe a little more easily.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-alt-right-sympathizer-net-neutrality">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-alt-right-sympathizer-net-neutrality</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to <a href="https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/14/the_fcc_has_officially_voted_to_kill_net_neutrality_now_what.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">repeal an Obama-era regulation to preserve net neutrality</a>, defying Silicon Valley executives and consumer advocacy groups</b>, not to mention the will of the people. A recent University of Maryland survey finds that more than <a href="https://www.publicconsultation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Net_Neutrality_Quaire_121217.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">80 percent of registered voters oppose the FCC</a>'s plans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The move will fundamentally <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/14/technology/fcc-net-neutrality-vote/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">transform the internet as we know it</a>, allowing corporate behemoths like Verizon and Comcast to manipulate loading speeds and charge customers a premium for access to individual websites and apps. Adding insult to democratic injury, circumstantial evidence suggests the man who cast the deciding vote, <b>Ajit Pai, sympathizes with the so-called alt-right.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Back in November, the FCC chairman and Trump appointee <a href="https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/11/29/ajit_pai_s_latest_talking_point_on_net_neutrality_is_a_hit_with_the_alt.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">unveiled his plans</a> to junk the net neutrality rules established in 2015, arguing that websites and social media platforms, rather than internet service providers (ISPs), posed the greatest threat to an open internet. At the time, <b>Pai singled out Twitter for blame.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate," he told the R Street Institute, a libertarian-minded think tank. "And to say the least, the company appears to have a double standard when it comes to suspending or <b>deverifying conservative users’ accounts </b>as opposed to those of liberal users. This conduct is many things, but it isn’t fighting for an open internet."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>It's difficult to know exactly who Pai had in mind, but Slate's April Glaser <a href="https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/11/29/ajit_pai_s_latest_talking_point_on_net_neutrality_is_a_hit_with_the_alt.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">notes</a> that Twitter recently <a href="https://nymag.com/selectall/2017/11/twitter-un-verifying-alt-right-accounts-like-richard-spencer.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">deverified the accounts</a> of several prominent white supremacists, including Laura Loomer and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jason-kessler" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Jason Kessler</a></b>. The former is a YouTube sensation on the alt-right who was recently <a href="https://gizmodo.com/far-right-twitter-personality-laura-loomer-banned-from-1820062169" style="text-decoration-line: none;">banned from Uber and Lyft</a>for her Islamophobic tweets, while the latter was one of the organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. In October, Kessler was indicted on a <a href="https://www.google.com.ar/search?dcr=0&ei=ZwI0Wv2YGMuawgTo44jIBA&q=kessler+felony+perjury+huffpot&oq=kessler+felony+perjury+huffpot&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i21k1j33i160k1l2.3144.4270.0.4465.8.7.0.0.0.0.260.260.2-1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..7.1.259....0.In6CRf1yQlM" style="text-decoration-line: none;">felony perjury charge</a> after falsely accusing a man he'd assaulted of attacking him first. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"What’s weird about Pai’s comments is that while these are all figures on the right, conservatives don’t typically count them among their ranks," Glaser writes. "And while conservatives do sometimes cast themselves as <a href="https://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/08/why_did_a_google_engineer_feel_empowered_to_share_his_sexist_memo.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">ideological victims</a> <a href="https://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/08/how_facebook_s_trending_news_feature_went_from_messy_to_disastrous.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">of Silicon Valley's overreach</a>, there have been no recent deverifications of prominent right-wing figures, 'conservative' or otherwise, <em style="">not</em> known for promoting hate. In other words, according to Pai, the demotion of racists on a social network is a bigger deal than an action that could radically change the architecture of—and who succeeds on—the internet."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weirder still is the <a href="https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/12/14/ajit_pai_s_millenial_oriented_net_neutrality_repeal_video_has_a_pizzagate.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">video</a> Pai released Wednesday in conjunction with the Daily Caller assuring millennials that they can still "gram their food" and "post photos of cute animals" if net neutrality is scrapped. (In May, he made a separate <a href="https://gizmodo.com/fcc-chairman-is-laughing-at-americans-who-dont-want-to-1795193063" style="text-decoration-line: none;">appeal</a>to America's youth by reading aloud the meanest tweets about his proposals, a nod to the popular segment on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!") When he's not wielding a fidget spinner and assuring viewers they can still binge-watch "Game of Thrones," <b>he can be seen doing the Harlem Shake next to a woman named Martina Markota, a far-right conspiracy theorist </b>who has <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/janelytvynenko/fcc-chairman-video" style="text-decoration-line: none;">speculated</a> that Hillary Clinton's former campaign chair ran a child sex ring out of the basement of a Washington pizzeria.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before joining the Daily Caller, Markota appeared in a video for the Proud Boys, a self-described "Western Chauvinist" men's club with ties to the alt-right, where she claimed that the (thoroughly debunked) Pizzagate was real. “This is not something I’m making up because I’m trying to...put in my fantasy version of what’s going on and interject it into these email scandals," she says at one point. "This is independent of the campaign. I know what cheese pizza is."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pai, the son of Indian immigrants, has been a subject of <a href="https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/11/27/racist_threatening_attacks_on_fcc_chair_ajit_pai_won_t_save_net_neutrality.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">racist attacks</a> himself in recent months, some of them bearing the hallmarks of the alt-right. "We all have the power to murder Ajit Pai and his family," an FCC commenter wrote in May. "Jk jk." No one stands to <a href="https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/941382780340113410" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lose more</a> from the repeal of net neutrality rules than the patrons of websites like 4chan and Reddit, which internet service providers will soon be able to slow to a crawl, so it's difficult to imagine white nationalists embracing Pai as an ally, and vice versa.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And yet. After the FCC chairman pleaded his case that social media networks were suppressing free speech, he earned the effusive praise of far-right radio host Matt Forney and Andrew Torba of Gab, a platform where users "<a href="https://slate.com/technology/2017/08/the-alt-right-wants-to-build-its-own-internet.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">are generally free to be as racist or anti-Semitic</a> as they’d like without fear of being reprimanded or censored," <a href="https://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/11/29/ajit_pai_s_latest_talking_point_on_net_neutrality_is_a_hit_with_the_alt.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">according to Slate</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's possible, even probable, that Pai was unaware of Martina Markota's history before he recorded his latest video for the Daily Caller. But the fact remains that Jason Kessler <a href="https://newrepublic.com/minutes/142984/daily-caller-just-fine-publishing-white-supremacists" style="text-decoration-line: none;">got his start</a> as a contributor for the right-wing publication, and Pai had no reservations about lending it his imprimatur. With a White House that has excused and enabled white nationalists at every turn, no one in the Trump administration has earned the benefit of the doubt.</font></p><div><p style="widows: 1; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">=</strong></font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1512324086599_371469" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 1em 0em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At least 28 Senators are calling for the vote to be delayed after reports revealed that over 80 percent of the 22 million public comments sent into the FCC about this issue were fake comments sent by <em style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">bots</em></b>, almost entirely in favor of killing net neutrality. But the vote needs to be stopped entirely, and our representatives must do everything in their power to stop it.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1512324086599_371462" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 1em 0em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Polling has shown that a clear majority of Americans support net neutrality, and upon further review, it now looks like 95 percent of <em style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">legitimate</em> comments submitted to the FCC <em style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">supported</em> keeping net neutrality.</font></p><p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1512324086599_371463" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; margin: 1em 0em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite an ongoing investigation into the fake comments, Trump’s FCC chair, Ajit Pai, <em style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">still</em> plans to hold the vote this Thursday. <span style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-weight: 700;">It’s another example of this administration ignoring the will of the People and rushing full steam ahead to enact their corrupt, right-wing, corporate agenda while under a cloud of suspicion about the dirty tactics used by its supporters.</span></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jon oliver</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">title 1,  verizon sued fcc, reclass title II</font></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=92vuuZt7wak"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=92vuuZt7wak</font></a></p><p><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/7-things-you-need-know-about-ajit-pais-cheerful-fanatic-who-wants-privatize-internet">https://www.alternet.org/7-things-you-need-know-about-ajit-pais-cheerful-fanatic-who-wants-privatize-internet</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b> Pai is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the government agency that regulates radio and television airwaves, cable TV, and internet. In other words, he has immense power.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Trump appointed Pai to serve as chairman in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-net-neutrality-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-2017-1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">January</a> and Pai has quickly moved to advance the interests of big broadcasting companies and internet service providers at the expense of the public. Next month, the five-member FCC will <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16680290/fcc-end-net-neutrality-vote-announced" style="text-decoration-line: none;">vote on Pai’s proposal</a> to roll back FCC rules limiting cable and internet service providers from charging more for their services.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2017/11/21/attention-trump-fans-critics-if-you-value-freedom-online-the-fcc-needs-to-know-now/#64e7c7d42845" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump supporters</a> should be appalled, says the reliably conservative Forbes magazine.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the protocols of the World Wide Web, is blunt: “The FCC <a href="https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/editorial/tim-berners-lee-wants-help-protecting-net-neutrality-ajit-pais-fcc/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">under Ajit Pai</a> has consistently chosen to sell out Americans for the profit of corporations."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So who is this guy?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. He’s from Kansas.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To Tom Frank’s plaintive query, "<a href="https://www.tcfrank.com/books/whats-the-matter-with-kansas/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">What’s the matter with Kansas</a>?" one can only respond, Ajit Pai is the matter with Kansas. He grew up in Parsons, a small town near the Oklahoma border, where his parents were doctors.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like his fellow Kansas conservatives Kris Kobach and Sam Brownback, Pai is a bland and intelligent fanatic. Unlike Kobach, he does not seem to be animated by xenophobia, just an odd passion for doing the bidding of a handful of internet service providers.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> 2. He cultivates a humorous persona.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pai likes to quote “The Big Lebowski” in his Twitter feed. He produces an oversize coffee mug at opportune moments in search of laughs.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Oliver’s verdict on the wit of a self-regarding toady: not bloody funny.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">3. Pai used to work for Verizon.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pai left his Department of Justice post in February 2001 to serve as Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc., where he handled competition matters, regulatory issues, and counseling of business units on <b>broadband initiatives</b>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Pai left Verizon in April 2003….It was a short stint, according to </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">Wikipedia:</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the Verizon experience proved formative. Fifteen years later, Pai’s proposal to dismantle the FCC’s net neutrality rules is exactly what Verizon wants today: the right to charge you more for internet access.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. Pai wants to take a 'weedwhacker' to net neutrality.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sometimes, Pai couches his arguments in terms of “innovation” and “investment,” which are largely bogus. The telephone and cable companies are not going to stop investing in internet broadband technology under the current rules. They make good money off the present system. They just want to make more.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other times, Pai speaks of taking a “weedwhacker” to internet regulations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this Personal Democracy Forum <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQgCaFaCwHg&feature=youtu.be&list=PLcvJwS9IjFNZmDSxd37-InpYubosxteci" style="text-decoration-line: none;">video</a>, Timothy Wu explains why this is such a bad idea.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Net neutrality,” of course, is a sleeping pill of a phrase. The subject is technical and can be boring. So it is worth hearing Wu explain key terms like “Title II” and “fast lanes,” without losing the big point. Net neutrality protects the internet we have today, “as an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQgCaFaCwHg&feature=youtu.be&list=PLcvJwS9IjFNZmDSxd37-InpYubosxteci" style="text-decoration-line: none;">experiment in free speech</a>."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ajit Pai wants to end the experiment to help boost the quarterly profits of Verizon and Comcast.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. All of the big tech companies oppose Pai on net neutrality.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last July, the leading companies and websites that grew up with the internet—Google, Apple, Wikipedia, Reddit and the like—came together for a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/day-of-action-internet-protests-google-facebook-reddit/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">day of action</a> to educate users about the danger of the FCC’s plans.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cynthia Hogan, head of public policy for Apple in the United States, laid it all out in a letter <a href="https://t.co/UmujNWoM2I" style="text-decoration-line: none;">sent to the FCC</a>. "Providers of online goods and services need assurance that they will be able to reliably reach their customers without interference from the underlying broadband provider," she wrote.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. The FCC received millions of public comments on net neutrality rules—and Pai ignored virtually all of them.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FCC received <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/16689838/fcc-net-neutrality-comments-were-largely-ignored" style="text-decoration-line: none;">22 million comments</a> on net neturality rules, of which <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/25/over-1-3-million-anti-net-neutrality-fcc-comments-are-fakes/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">1.3 million</a>were probably fake. If you remove the bot-generated comments, 95 to 98 percent of the real living commenters favored keeping the current rules that regulate ISPs like public utilities. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are so used to these systems being manipulated that people just think that’s how the internet works,” Berners-Lee recent told the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/15/tim-berners-lee-world-wide-web-net-neutrality" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Guardian</a>. “We need to think about what it should be like....If they're not serving humanity, they can and should be changed."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Gas is a utility, so is clean water, and connectivity should be too,” Berners-Lee continued. “It’s part of life and shouldn’t have an attitude about what you use it for—just like water.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Pai has transformed net neutrality into a political cause.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The open internet nonprofit <a href="https://www.fightforthefuture.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Fight for the Future</a> is orchestrating nationwide protests ahead of the FCC's expected hearing to vote on removing the rules. Protests are already being planned for December 7 at Verizon locations in New York City, Denver, San Francisco, and Phoenix. Similar public protests will be coordinated in cities and towns across the country by grassroots volunteers using tech-friendly methods like email, texts and social media. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) became the first congressional Republican to publicly break with the FCC chairman. “Senator Collins does not support the FCC‘s decision to abolish net neutrality,” a spokeswoman said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let Verizon know your opinion of its former employee and current flunky Ajit Pai, by <a href="https://verizonprotests.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">attending a demonstration</a> near you.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">net neutrality, ~ eric schniderman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="section-lead" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">David Smith was</span> fired up. On the day after Trump’s election, he spoke at a media conference at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan. Trump’s victory, Smith <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/story/13888737/1/tv-companies-stand-to-win-if-trump-removes-media-ownership-limits.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">told the audience</a>, was “a really serious opportunity to seek complete deregulation” of broadcasting. “If Donald Trump is as deregulatory as he suggests he is,” he said, “we’re going to be the first industry in line.”</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the day before Trump’s inauguration, Smith, Armstrong Williams, and Sinclair’s new CEO, Chris Ripley, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/06/trump-fcc-sinclair-broadcast-expansion-241337" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">had a meeting</a> in Washington with<b> FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. In his five years on the commission, the 44-year-old Pai, an ex-Verizon lawyer and staffer to former Sen. Jeff Sessions,</b> developed a reputation as a sharp and well-spoken advocate for the industry, fighting Wheeler’s steps to limit concentration.</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">When Trump took office, he elevated Pai to serve as chairman. </b>Since then the commission has made one move after another that has benefited Sinclair. Two weeks into the administration, the FCC tossed out what remained of Wheeler’s policy clamping down on sidecar agreements. Then, in April, the FCC voted to bring back the ultra high frequency discount, setting the groundwork for Sinclair’s purchase of Tribune Media’s 42 stations. Without the discount, the combined company is estimated to reach 72 percent of households—far above the 39 percent limit. Sinclair officials note that the new FCC changes benefit many companies, not just Sinclair. At an industry luncheon, Ripley praised the chairman’s work to cut regulation: “Thankfully, we’ve got Chairman Pai.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”Pai was no stranger to Sinclair. </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/politics/how-a-conservative-tv-giant-is-ridding-itself-of-regulation.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">Just two months before</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, he had spoken at the company’s annual meeting for general managers at the Four Seasons in Baltimore, taking a short private meeting with Smith afterward. (What he told the managers is unclear: Sinclair declined to comment for this article, and Pai’s office said it couldn’t locate any remarks or notes for the event in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.) </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the January meeting, Smith, Williams, and Ripley argued that the sidecar agreements utilized by Sinclair were vital to the industry, and to a minority broadcaster like Williams. (In March, after opening with a brief disclaimer that he owned TV stations regulated by the FCC, Williams hosted Pai for a <a href="http://wjla.com/news/videos/the-right-side-with-armstrong-williams-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-profile" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url(">friendly interview</a> on his show <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Right Side,</em> which airs on Sinclair stations.)</span></font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" bitstream="Bitstream" vera="Vera" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">major decision by the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday eliminated a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. This comes as the </span><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FCC</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">announced plans Wednesday to abolish long-standing media ownership rules. Opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. We speak with Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, whose story in their new issue is titled “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”</span></font></p><p><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">major decision by the Federal Communications Commission that eliminates a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The regulation is known as the “main studio rule,” and it </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">requires broadcasters to have a physical studio near where they have a license to transmit.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This comes as the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> also announced plans, at a hearing Wednesday, to abolish long-standing media-ownership rules, including limits on how many stations or newspapers one company can own in a single market. <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> Chairman Ajit Pai testified Wednesday during a congressional hearing.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AJIT</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PAI</span>:</strong> If you believe, as I do, that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business. And that is why, this afternoon, I shared with my fellow commissioners an order that will reform our media ownership rules and help pull the government, once and for all, out of the newsroom. We will vote on this order at our November 16th meeting.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The marketplace today is nothing like it was in 1975. Newspapers are shutting down. Many radio and TV stations are struggling, especially in smaller and rural markets. Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is even greater than it ever was. And just two internet companies claim 100 percent of recent online advertising growth.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Indeed, their digital ad revenue alone this year will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry. And yet the FCC’s rules still presume that the market is defined entirely by pulp and rabbit ears.</span></font></span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> But opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. Earlier this year, Trump’s <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> appointees revived a regulatory loophole that could allow Sinclair to buy 42 TV stations from Tribune Media Company, on top of the more than 170 stations it already owns. The deal means Sinclair stations would reach about 72 percent—almost three-quarters—of U.S. households.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This comes as former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly has reportedly been negotiating for a position with Sinclair Broadcast Group. O’Reilly secretly settled a sexual harassment claim for $32 million in January, the sixth and by far the largest such settlement during his tenure at Fox, from which he was fired.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Andy Kroll, senior reporter at <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mother Jones</em> magazine, where he’s written extensively about the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span>. His latest <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px;">story</a> in the current issue is headlined “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andy, welcome back to <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy Now!</em> You know, a lot of the meme going around is that Trump just can’t get anything done, but it sure doesn’t look that way at the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> this week. Can you talk about what’s happened?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Well, at the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> this week, as you described, the commission voted along party lines—three Republicans voting in favor, two voting in opposition—to eliminate the main studio rule, this rule from about 80 years ago saying that a local TV or radio station needs to have its studio, its primary studio, in or near the community it serves</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And that served a number of purposes, not only for the community to be able to interact with that station, but also tethering that station to the community in which it’s reporting the news and delivering some value to the people who watch it. That rule has been eliminated.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And then, as we saw in the clip that you just showed, the chairman of the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span>, Ajit Pai, a Republican, former staffer to Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general,</b> has said that there is a whole bunch more deregulation in the works. This comes in a year, since President Trump’s inauguration in January, in which the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> has consistently knocked down one barrier after another to enabling a massive deal frenzy, a consolidation in the broadcast business, which is exactly what companies like Sinclair want, going forward, so that they can gobble up as many TV stations around the country as they can, and basically dominate the local news business.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NERMEEN</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SHAIKH</span>:</strong> Well, Andy, before we get to Sinclair Broadcasting, I wanted to ask you about the context of this attempt—or, in fact, the overturning of the main studio rule. It’s been in effect, as you said, for several decades. Has any other administration attempted to overturn it?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> No. The rule has been tweaked over time, on several occasions, to, what they say, modernize it. But the substance of the rule, having that studio in the community where the viewers, where the people who depend on that TV or radio station is, that has not changed over time. And the supporters of the rule say there’s a very clear reason for that. Yes, it’s true that with email and with social media you can send a message to your TV station, but the rule also gave that sense of locality. It gave that connection in the newsgathering and in the—you know, just the connection to a community that is so vital to local news. And that has been a bedrock of broadcast television for nearly 80 years and has gone unchallenged under Republican administrations and under Democratic administrations. And now, under President Trump and with Commissioner Pai at the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span>, that rule is ancient history.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NERMEEN</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SHAIKH</span>:</strong> Well, Andy, before—could you explain, because—as a result of overturning this rule, all of these different stations, TV stations and radio stations, can be increasingly consolidated. Now, one of the companies under which these stations have been consolidated is Sinclair Broadcasting. But this media organization, very few people know about. So could you tell us about this broadcasting channel?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</span> Yeah. I like to say that Sinclair Broadcast Group is the most influential media organization that most Americans have never heard of. It owns nearly—owns or operates nearly 200 local TV stations around the country. It has a tremendous influence over the local news business.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And it marries that influence, that size, reaching into 40 percent of households right now, with a unabashed conservative and pro-Trump agenda. You see that in the kind of programming that Sinclair produces and sends out to its local stations. These are called <b>“must-run segments.” </b>They take, you know, basically, a shamelessly pro-Trump message, repeating talking points of the administration’s through its commentators, and putting that into the local news.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And as you mentioned earlier, Sinclair is eyeing a deal to acquire 42 new stations around the country, giving it a reach to almost three-quarters of American households. So this is a massive broadcast company, set to get even bigger. And it has a distinct conservative viewpoint that it is intent and bent on projecting out to the millions of people who watch its television channels.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Explain what you mean when you say “intent and bent on.” Your headline of your piece, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.” What are the edicts being handed down?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Well, Sinclair is a pioneer in what’s known as the “must-run segment.” This is a segment that is produced by Sinclair’s corporate headquarters here in the D.C. area and also in Maryland, that it produces, and then it sends out to its stations around the country—again, almost 200 of them—and says, “You are required to run this 90-second commentary or this two-minute editorial.” That content, that is being distributed out around the country, has a very clear, unequivocal conservative, partisan bent to it and, frankly, a pro-Trump bent to it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">You know, the lead political analyst, if you could call it that, at<b> Sinclair is a man named Boris Epshteyn, former Trump campaign aide and a former Trump White House aide,</b> who left the administration and immediately went into this role at Sinclair. His segments are called “Bottom Line with Boris.” They are distributed, and they are required to run every day at Sinclair stations. And these are basically Trump talking points. And, I mean, you can go on YouTube, you can watch all of his clips in a row. They are 100 percent toeing the Trump line. And if they’re not that, they’re softball interviews with Trump administration officials.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Well, I mean, of course, people might know who Boris Epshteyn is, because during the campaign he was one of his spokespeople, always interviewed on TV. This is one of Boris Epshteyn’s recent commentaries.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BORIS</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">EPSHTEYN</span>:</strong> It is important to note that <b>voter fraud</b> goes beyond stealing or miscounting ballots. Intentionally improper voter registration is absolutely a type of voter fraud. The Commission on Election Integrity has gotten to work. … The extent of voter fraud in our elections has been hotly debated between the left and the right. The president’s commission has been established to come up with a factual, impartial answer to that question. The states should do everything within their power to cooperate with the commission. And that’s the bottom line.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> And that is required by every station to run, Andy Kroll?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> That’s correct. You are—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> This is—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Yes, that’s right.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> This is another clip from a Sinclair station, featuring former Trump adviser <b>Sebastian Gorka.</b> The show was broadcast earlier this month.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SEBASTIAN</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GORKA</span>:</strong> You do not make legislation out of outliers. Our big issue is black African gun crime against black Africans. It is a tragedy. Go to Chicago. Go to the cities run by Democrats for 40 years. Black young men are murdering each other by the bushel.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> “By the bushel.” That’s former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka referring to “black African [gun] crime” on “black [Africans],” saying black men are killing each other “by the bushel.” Andy Kroll?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sebastian Gorka, of course, another alumnus of the Trump White House, who, upon leaving, went immediately to Sinclair </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and is now a talking head at Sinclair. So you see this trend of Trump officials going to Sinclair Broadcast Group and then them being put on the airwaves and either pushing a completely crazy message, that Sebastian Gorka just did, on a segment that was supposed to be about guns in America—</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> I mean, I think “outright racist” is a very—</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Outright racist, yeah.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> —more accurate way to describe it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Yeah, it’s hard to find the words to describe what that was. You have Boris Epshteyn, as well. His segment, that we just listened to, is basically advocacy for the Trump administration in its deeply flawed, inept supposed commission on investigating voter fraud, which, of course, in most cases, doesn’t exist.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, you have this message, and you have stations around the country that, in a lot of cases, just want to do local news. But as they come under the Sinclair umbrella, they are being told by headquarters, “You will run these segments.” In Boris Epshteyn’s case, Sinclair doubled down and tripled the number of times that Boris Epshteyn was required to be run by its stations. And so, this is the progression we’re seeing this year. So we’re only seeing a more pro-Trump message, at the same time that Sinclair is looking to gobble up more stations and consolidate its control.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">NERMEEN</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SHAIKH</span>:</strong> Well, could you talk, Andy, about the <b>founder of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, David Smith?</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Yeah. David Smith is a media mogul with an incredible amount of sway over what goes on on the local airwaves. He’s not well known on the level of, say, a Rupert Murdoch, for instance, even though the two men would, I think, consider themselves contemporaries or competitors.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Smith built a small family company that had three TV stations, starting in the mid-’80s. They were based out of Baltimore. And he—by finding ways around the law and taking advantage of ways that the law was changed—in this case, deregulated—in the past few decades, he has grown Sinclair into this conservative TV behemoth that it is today, and one that stands to get even bigger if the Tribune Media merger goes through.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">David Smith, longtime donor to mostly Republicans, though Democrats, as well, who are in a position to help his company. And today, you know, he throws a party for a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas. He travels in a, you know, elite, rarefied group of Republican supporters. He’s even bragged about dining at the White House with the president. So he is right at the top of a Republican-industry-donor pyramid, if you will. But he has managed to avoid the amount of attention that, say, a Rupert Murdoch or some other international media moguls that we do of have attracted.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> And the merging of Sinclair and Tribune? I mean, these are the smaller local stations that dot the United States, you know, crisscross the United States.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> That’s right. The deal would give, again, 42 television stations from Sinclair—or from Tribune into Sinclair. It would add more of those dots on the map, as you mentioned. Right now,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Sinclair has no presence in Colorado. This would give it a major presence in Colorado. But it would also bring stations in the three largest media markets in the country into the Sinclair company: New York, <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">WPIX</span>; <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KTLA</span> in Los Angeles; and <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">WGN</span>, one of the most famous broadcast companies in America, in Chicago. So this would really seal Sinclair’s position as the sort of dominant broadcast company—and, of course, given that many more tens of millions of people who would be potentially seeing Boris Epshteyn, Sebastian Gorka, potentially Bill O’Reilly.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Now, when we were talking about Sebastian Gorka, just to understand, as he’s talking about black African violence here in the United States, who he is, the whole controversy around him wearing that pin at the inauguration, of the Vitézi Rend, the newspaper <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Forward</em> reporting members of the Vitézi Rend elite order confirmed Gorka took a lifelong oath of loyalty to the Hungarian far-right-wing group, listed by the U.S. State Department as having been under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany during World War II. I mean, just the significance of what is being required by these local stations to run all over the country?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> Yeah. And Gorka is—if you watch that clip, or the roundtable that that clip comes from, which is available on Sinclair’s website, I mean, Sebastian Gorka is more or less given an open mic to say what he thinks about, in this case, quote-unquote, “guns in America.” We see where he took that theme. But he was a foreign policy aide in the Trump White House. He was not a domestic policy expert. He was not someone working on the issue of guns, for all that we know. And yet he is just given this platform, as he has been on several other occasions with Sinclair.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The company seems to have no qualms, given the background that you describe, the fantastic reporting that <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Forward</em> has done on his past. They seem to have no problem giving him that platform, just as they reportedly seem to be considering an arrangement with Bill O’Reilly, someone who, as you mentioned, has settled sexual harassment claims for tens of millions of dollars when he was at Fox News, to the point that Fox fired him</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Well, explain that last part. What do you understand is the state of these negotiations? And have they been stopped by this latest news of his $32 million settlement with a Fox host for sexual harassment?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KROLL</span>:</strong> What I’ve heard and what I’ve seen reported in the past week is that there are negotiations underway between Sinclair and O’Reilly around either—whether it would be bringing him in as a host or a commentator or some kind of arrangement or partnership between O’Reilly having his own—potentially his own program, his own platform, and Sinclair as the megaphone, if you will, projecting that program, projecting O’Reilly out, using its empire of stations. Now, Sinclair has denied that it is talking with O’Reilly, and has repeatedly done that, though the reporting, that doesn’t go for the official comment from Sinclair, would suggest otherwise.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I will say that I, you know, have talked to people in and around Sinclair, and among the rank and file, if you will, there is kind of shock and disgust that—in light of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment settlements and all the allegations at Fox, that Sinclair would be thinking about considering a partnership with him has a lot of people there upset, concerned about their futures, whether they want to work there if Bill O’Reilly joins the company in some capacity.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span> <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong> Well, Andy Kroll, we want to thank you for being with us. We’ll certainly link to your <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/ready-for-trump-tv-inside-sinclair-broadcastings-plot-to-take-over-your-local-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;">piece</a>. Andy Kroll, senior reporter at <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mother Jones</em> magazine, where he has written extensively about the <span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">FCC</span> and Sinclair Broadcasting. His piece published this week, we’ll link to, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div>