Politico

If you thought House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) would drop his push for Federal Communications Commission process reforms once the GOP was in control at the agency, think again. Chairman Walden, who’s seeking the full House Commerce gavel in 2017, has been a big proponent of legislation to modernize FCC procedures. He helped steward bipartisan legislation that would’ve required the agency to study the idea of releasing texts of commission proposals before they are voted on. “My argument has been, I don’t care who’s heading up the commission, there's a flawed public policy process there,” said Chairman Walden. “So I hope with a new President and a new FCC, we can find common ground on process reform, because I think we can build out a much better FCC going forward that will serve the public interest better for the constituencies engaged.”

Liberals are still scoffing at a GOP draft bill to implement network neutrality rules, even though it might be their best chance to maintain prohibitions against broadband providers blocking or slowing down internet traffic. … The stakes are high: If President-elect Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission repeals the agency’s rules, congressional Democrats may have to make a deal on net neutrality or risk losing the internet protections altogether. But any post-election reckoning with Republicans’ new grip on Washington so far has not softened their line on the Republican legislative offering. While Democrats say they’re open to the idea of legislating on net neutrality, several were not enthused about the idea. Instead, they focused on ways to delay or hamstring a potential repeal of the FCC’s Open Internet Order. Many are even hoping the issue is so far down on Trump’s priority list that he wouldn’t actually undo it, especially if he feels it would upset the populist voters who elected him. “If you said net neutrality to him right now, he wouldn't know what you were talking about,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA).

A handful of House Commerce Committee legislators have had their names tossed around for posts in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, meaning the panel’s Republican roster could look markedly different in 2017. Already, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has been nominated to be CIA Director. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a member of the transition team, has also been floated for a Cabinet gig, and Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) has expressed interest in heading the Department of Veterans Affairs. Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is advising President-elect Trump on energy policy, and if Energy secretary does not go to Trump pal and Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm, CEO of energy firm Continental Resources, Rep Cramer could be next in line. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) is also on the transition team, and one never knows at this stage in the administration buildout what could happen. The potential for moves hasn’t gone unnoticed in Hill offices — especially for members who might have a shot to move up in seniority or grab a subcommittee gavel if other lawmakers depart. The new panel’s roster for the next Congress, which is also contingent on how many spots each party gets based on the size of the GOP’s House majority, will likely come out sometime in the next few weeks. After the 2014 election, the panel got six new Republicans; they were named in late November.

An impassioned debate is raging among the hundreds of software engineers, designers, and other technologists who left Democratic-leaning Silicon Valley and other tech enclaves to work for President Barack Obama: Do they want to stay in a Washington run by President Donald Trump?

They describe having one hand on the keyboard and the other on the doorknob as they decide what’s next, Nancy reports. While some high-ranking tech staffers in the federal ranks have already said they’re not going anywhere, others are concerned that staying could put them in a tough spot, especially if they’re asked to work on a project at odds with their values. "The arguments are really clear," says Anil Dash, a New York City entrepreneur whose commentary is widely followed in the tech industry. "The one side is, you came to serve and there's still a need. The other is: ‘Do we legitimize this Administration?’”

Former Rep Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) is emerging as a possible contender for transportation secretary, or another Cabinet post, in President-elect Donald Trump’s budding administration. The telegenic Ford — who served five terms in Congress representing Tennessee and is the son of a long-serving Democratic congressman from Memphis — has worked as a managing director at Morgan Stanley since 2011, and is a regular news analyst on MSNBC.

[Commentary] Since the election, our fussing over “fake news” has ballooned into a full-blown moral panic. A moral panic is the term sociologists give what the rest of us call a mass freak-out, and they are often typified by media-boosted scare campaigns that identify the “social deviants” (drug users, prostitutes, juvenile delinquents, gamblers, criminals, etc.) who are violating the norms practiced by regular people. Unchecked moral panics tend to do more damage than the deviants themselves if authorities and leaders—“moral entrepreneurs,” to use the lingo—overreact to whatever harm those deviants might be causing.

Once established to crush fake news, the Facebook mechanism could be repurposed to crush other types of information that might cause moral panic. This cure for fake news is worse than the disease.

President-elect Donald Trump continued his media grievances tour on Nov 22, visiting The New York Times for both an off-the-record chat with its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and an on-the-record conversation with reporters and columnists. The meeting was the latest example of President-elect Trump trying to reconnect with a media outlet that he has mostly left out in the cold since becoming president-elect, and which he made a major target during his presidential campaign.

Upon arriving, Trump had a 15-minute one on one with Sulzberger in the Churchill Room on the 16th floor of the Times building. A Times spokeswoman said it was “short and cordial” but declined to say anything about the tete-a-tete since it was off the record. “I have great respect for the New York Times. I have tremendous respect,” President-elect Trump said, according to a stream of live tweets from Times reporter Michael Grynbaum. “I think I've been treated very rough." But President-elect Trump said he wanted to turn a new leaf with the paper he so famously tangled with throughout the campaign, frequently calling the newspaper "the lying New York Times" or "the failing New York Times," and at one point even threatening to sue it.

President-elect Donald Trump tweeted his critique of the newest “Saturday Night Live” sketch about him, calling out the show for being "biased" — and for not dedicating enough time to skewering both sides (presumably) of the political spectrum. “I watched parts of @nbcsnl Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show — nothing funny at all,” he wrote, adding, “Equal time for us?"

If that sentiment sounds familiar, it’s because the idea of requiring television programs to provide “equal time” for opposing political viewpoints was a key tenet of the Fairness Doctrine, an extinct Federal Communications Commission policy introduced in 1949. It held that television and radio stations with FCC-issued licenses needed to air both perspectives when shows addressed controversial issues like politics. The Fairness Doctrine was discontinued in 1987 and its language was officially erased from the books in 2011. The push against resurrecting the policy has come from both sides of the aisle, with former FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski arguing that it could “chill” free speech and Republicans expressing concerns that such regulations would put an end to programs like right-wing talk radio. The FCC continues to have an Equal Time rule, which ensures that a competing political candidate can get even exposure on a radio or television program if they want it. As Alec Baldwin pointed out in a response to Trump’s tweet, that rule does not apply to elected officials.

It was supposed to be a big, beautiful infrastructure bill. But President-elect Donald Trump’s pitch for a $1 trillion upgrade of the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports is already running into potholes as it meets reality in Washington.

The overwhelming sticking point, as always, is how to pay for it. Trump's advisers are so far floating the same kinds of financing schemes that Congress has batted around for years with little success, including proposals to lure private investors or reap a revenue windfall through an overhaul of the tax code. Key lawmakers say they’re in the dark on how Trump’s plan would work — with some conservatives simply hoping that his call for massive tax breaks will provide an economic jolt that makes the hard spending decisions easier. Democrats, meanwhile, are split on whether to cooperate with President-elect Trump on his plan. Even congressional Republicans who have long championed spending on transportation projects say they don’t yet know the details of Trump’s 10-year proposal, which the president-elect has vowed will “put millions of our people to work” while making US infrastructure “second to none.” It is unclear to infrastructure finance experts whether his plan would involve much, or even any, additional federal spending on top of the five-year, $305 billion transportation bill that Congress approved in 2015.

Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel is facing new obstacles to win re-confirmation in the Senate for another term, and the clock is also working against her.

Commissioner Rosenworcel’s already fraught path to confirmation was dealt a potential death blow when Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) put a hold on her nomination, citing inaction on several recent FCC proposals. The holds further complicate the calculus for Commissioner Rosenworcel. Unless lawmakers reconfirm her, she must leave the FCC when this Congress adjourns. Republicans have also had longstanding holds on Rosenworcel’s nomination, sparking previous retaliation from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who’s been standing in the way of technology and telecommunications bills coming out of the Senate Commerce Committee. Now that some Democrats are also holding up Commissioner Rosenworcel, the Commerce Committee’s leadership is calling on Sen Reid, who is retiring, to let its legislation through. “Bipartisan technology legislation passed by the Commerce Committee should not face further delay from the Senate Minority Leader over a nominee Senate Democrats are now blocking,” said committee spokesman Frederick Hill. Among the bills Hill flagged that are in need of passage are the MOBILE NOW Act and The FCC Reauthorization Act, both of which are on Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune’s (R-SD) priority list.

Public Knowledge President Gene Kimmelman questioned whether Commissioner Rosenworcel is the right choice for Democrats, but Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said he disagreed with the holds on her nomination. “Free Press does not support the strategy, nor do we believe the claims underlying it. We did not ask any senators to take this step,” said Wood.