Life of Pai

President Trump named Ajit Pai chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. By my lights it ranks as one of Trump’s great appointments. Having served as a commissioner during the Obama administration, Pai had a front row seat to see the FCC’s assertion of control over the Internet under the guise of “net neutrality.”

As a conservative Republican of libertarian stripe, Pai forcefully opposed the FCC takeover. See Tim Heffernan’s 2015 National Review article “Ajit Pai’s fight for Internet freedom.” My daughter Eliana had more background on Pai’s struggle at the FCC in the 2014 NRO column “Ajit Pai’s next move” (quotable quote: “It’s hard to think of any regulated utility in our economy that’s cutting edge”).

Now Pai seeks to mitigate the damage done under the Obama administration by rolling back the FCC net neutrality rules. On April 27 the commission issued a notice of proposed rulemaking under the name of Restoring Internet Freedom. The Washington Post’s Brian Fung covered the story here.

Yesterday the commissioners voted 2-1 to proceed with the great undoing. NPR has posted a good account that notes the work in process here.

The proposed rollback has of course generated a furious response, much of it phony. The Daily Caller reports “More than 300,000 ‘pro-net neutrality’ comments on FCC’s public forum likely fakes.”

And that’s not all! Leftist critics have been out in force on Twitter abusing Pai personally and in gross racial terms. In the video below, Pai reads a few of the tweets and responds. To borrow a phrase, I’m with him.

To get the concluding joke with the oversize mug, see Benny Johnson’s IJR article featuring the video.

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