Welcome back to the swamp. The majority of Americans did not want Trump’s FCC, under former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, to roll back net neutrality protections. The democratically elected House of Representatives has introduced the Save the Internet Act, which would simply restore the Obama-era protections that most Americans preferred. The bill was not anywhere near as progressive as some would have liked, but it did allow the Republican Party to once again expose itself for the collection of corrupt swamp creatures that it is. On Tuesday, Sen. Mitch McConnell told reporters that the bill, expected to pass easily through the House on Wednesday, would be “dead on arrival in the Senate.”
McConnell has always relied on the kindness of super PAC money and has always received some of the highest levels of campaign contributions from telecom industry giants like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. McConnell also sold what little sliver of integrity he may have still had long ago. Robert Reich gave a succinct analysis of the news.
Make no mistake: This is a signal from McConnell to his big-money overlords. The Trump administration had already announced its intention of vetoing such a law if it were to somehow get to a vote in the Senate and pass. Using what can be called bad math at best, the administration argued that repealing net neutrality protections has led to better infrastructure investments and access in the telecom industry. It never has, and it never will.