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This is an absurd hit piece. I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally review each census block to determine if it needed service or not. That happens at t

by ccleve 5y ago

This is an absurd hit piece. I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally review each census block to determine if it needed service or not. That happens at the staff level. Plus, the assertion in the headline that Pai "mismanaged $9 billion fund" is bloviation -- the FCC is simply asking some grant recipients to return a small portion of the money (6%) based on revised maps. Honestly, do we need to politicize everything?

duxup 5y ago
That sounds more like a great method of deflecting any criticism rather than actually talking about what happened. I feel like 'that's political' or similar sentiments have been used lately to just deflect criticism. It seems like it could be used endlessly.
- ccleve 5y ago
  Um, what? I am talking about what happened. It is others who are motivated to criticize Pai not because of what happened in this specific instance, but because of general disagreement with him over other issues (like net neutrality).
  - duxup 5y ago
    It couldn't be that funds were directed to places that they shouldn't go, like the article notes?
trentnix 5y ago
It's Ars.
drzaiusapelord 5y ago
>Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? The FCC is a political organization, so yes, it should be politicized. It often makes decisions due to politics, and in this case the Republican ideals of business being more powerful than the government and monied interests and capital owners being more powerful than democracy and working people. >I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally That's not how leadership works. They can't fail and then say "Oh well I wasn't reviewing every little thing." I'm not sure why you're carrying water for a crony like Pai, but its not convincing in the slightest.
pb7 5y ago
>Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? When you're dealing with a known corrupt individual, it's worth pointing out.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > a known corrupt individual, A known corrupt individual, who was nominated by another known corrupt individual who was then president.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    Ajit Pai was nominated to the FCC by Obama in 2012.
    - WhyNott 5y ago
      I mean, that does not contradict at all what OP is saying. /s
    - hummusandsushi 5y ago
      This is technically true but presents a very misleading version of events. The FCC has 5 seats that are traditionally occupied by partisan representatives. Ajit Pai was appointed by Obama to fill a republican vacancy and Jessica Rocenworcel to occupy a democratic vacancy.[0] Apparently Pai was Mitch McConnell's recommendation. Trump then promotes Ajit Pai to be the chairman of the commission.[1] So yes, Pai was nominated to the FCC by Obama to respect a partisan tradition at the recommendation of Republican members. Trump then promotes Pai, who by that point is a clear Net Neutrality opponent, to the chairman position. [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/190857-obama-nominates-ajit-pai-to-fcc https://thehill.com/policy/technology/190857-obama-nominates... [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-promotes-neutrality-opponent-ajit-pai-lead-fcc-n711116 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-promotes-neutral...
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > The FCC has 5 seats that are traditionally occupied by partisan representatives Its law that they have a limit of 3 per party, the tradition is that they are always of the two major parties, and that the Senate caucus of the party who doesn’t hold the White House has the dominant role in directing the nomination of the members of their party. Since they are also Senate confirmed, and given the existence of the filibuster even when not in divided government, there some strong teeth to that tradition, though conceivably with sufficient support in the Senate a Democratic President could fill vacancies (with 3 Democratic incumbents), with, say, Socialists or Greens rather than Republicans.
yellow24 5y ago
He was head of the FCC. He also politicized his position in making decisions that benefited him and his friends. If he signed the check worth 9 billion I would have hoped he did his research or at least take ownership in where our money went. He is not a victim here.
refurb 5y ago
Yup. This is “new leadership 101”. Buy as much political capital as you can - blame everything on the prior person, even if it hadn’t happened yet. Even better if you can claim your first steps are “fixing” the problems the old guy left you - even if you’re actually just instituting a new policy. You think these people end up running major US govt orgs and aren’t ruthless cunts? You can’t survive in DC without knowing how to throw people under the bus.
dreyfan 5y ago
> Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? That's an interesting take coming from someone as extremely political as yourself. [1][2] [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/clevelandchris/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/clevelandchris/ [2] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=chris+cleveland&contributor_state=IL https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?...
- dominotw 5y ago
  whats the logic here? Everything is political for someone who is politically active?
  - namdnay 5y ago
    I mean theres a difference between being politically active (which we all should be), and being the head of the republican party in chicago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 99_00 5y ago
  But do you have any counter argument to the points they made?
- ccleve 5y ago
  What's your point? That it's an "interesting take"? Or that you just wanted to level a personal attack on me?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- dang 5y ago
  Whoa, this was a serious violation. You can't pull in someone's personal details from elsewhere and use it as ammunition in an argument here. It's extremely poisonous of the ecosystem here, regardless of how wrong or hypocritical someone else is, or you feel they are. Even if we assume you're right about that, the global cost of allowing this kind of thing totally dominates any local benefit in some argument. Please don't do it again. Edit: turns out we actually had to warn you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141886. I know that was years ago, but really, please don't do it again. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22personal%20details%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? Government management of funds is political, by definition. It can't be “politicized”; the weird thing is pretending that it was ever apolitical to start with.
dogleash 5y ago
>This is an absurd hit piece. I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally review each census block to determine if it needed service or not. Of course he didn't do it manually but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Nobody thinks it's his job to manually review census blocks, people think it's his job to ensure the data is in order before the auction happened.

by ccleve 5y ago

duxup 5y ago

That sounds more like a great method of deflecting any criticism rather than actually talking about what happened. I feel like 'that's political' or similar sentiments have been used lately to just deflect criticism. It seems like it could be used endlessly.

ccleve 5y ago
Um, what? I am talking about what happened. It is others who are motivated to criticize Pai not because of what happened in this specific instance, but because of general disagreement with him over other issues (like net neutrality).
- duxup 5y ago
  It couldn't be that funds were directed to places that they shouldn't go, like the article notes?

trentnix 5y ago

It's Ars.

drzaiusapelord 5y ago

>Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? The FCC is a political organization, so yes, it should be politicized. It often makes decisions due to politics, and in this case the Republican ideals of business being more powerful than the government and monied interests and capital owners being more powerful than democracy and working people. >I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally That's not how leadership works. They can't fail and then say "Oh well I wasn't reviewing every little thing." I'm not sure why you're carrying water for a crony like Pai, but its not convincing in the slightest.

pb7 5y ago

>Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? When you're dealing with a known corrupt individual, it's worth pointing out.

rbanffy 5y ago
> a known corrupt individual, A known corrupt individual, who was nominated by another known corrupt individual who was then president.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Ajit Pai was nominated to the FCC by Obama in 2012.
  - WhyNott 5y ago
    I mean, that does not contradict at all what OP is saying. /s
  - hummusandsushi 5y ago
    This is technically true but presents a very misleading version of events. The FCC has 5 seats that are traditionally occupied by partisan representatives. Ajit Pai was appointed by Obama to fill a republican vacancy and Jessica Rocenworcel to occupy a democratic vacancy.[0] Apparently Pai was Mitch McConnell's recommendation. Trump then promotes Ajit Pai to be the chairman of the commission.[1] So yes, Pai was nominated to the FCC by Obama to respect a partisan tradition at the recommendation of Republican members. Trump then promotes Pai, who by that point is a clear Net Neutrality opponent, to the chairman position. [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/190857-obama-nominates-ajit-pai-to-fcc https://thehill.com/policy/technology/190857-obama-nominates... [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-promotes-neutrality-opponent-ajit-pai-lead-fcc-n711116 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-promotes-neutral...
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The FCC has 5 seats that are traditionally occupied by partisan representatives Its law that they have a limit of 3 per party, the tradition is that they are always of the two major parties, and that the Senate caucus of the party who doesn’t hold the White House has the dominant role in directing the nomination of the members of their party. Since they are also Senate confirmed, and given the existence of the filibuster even when not in divided government, there some strong teeth to that tradition, though conceivably with sufficient support in the Senate a Democratic President could fill vacancies (with 3 Democratic incumbents), with, say, Socialists or Greens rather than Republicans.

yellow24 5y ago

He was head of the FCC. He also politicized his position in making decisions that benefited him and his friends. If he signed the check worth 9 billion I would have hoped he did his research or at least take ownership in where our money went. He is not a victim here.

refurb 5y ago

Yup. This is “new leadership 101”. Buy as much political capital as you can - blame everything on the prior person, even if it hadn’t happened yet. Even better if you can claim your first steps are “fixing” the problems the old guy left you - even if you’re actually just instituting a new policy. You think these people end up running major US govt orgs and aren’t ruthless cunts? You can’t survive in DC without knowing how to throw people under the bus.

dreyfan 5y ago

> Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? That's an interesting take coming from someone as extremely political as yourself. [1][2] [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/clevelandchris/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/clevelandchris/ [2] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=chris+cleveland&contributor_state=IL https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?...

dominotw 5y ago
whats the logic here? Everything is political for someone who is politically active?
- namdnay 5y ago
  I mean theres a difference between being politically active (which we all should be), and being the head of the republican party in chicago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
99_00 5y ago
But do you have any counter argument to the points they made?
ccleve 5y ago
What's your point? That it's an "interesting take"? Or that you just wanted to level a personal attack on me?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dang 5y ago
Whoa, this was a serious violation. You can't pull in someone's personal details from elsewhere and use it as ammunition in an argument here. It's extremely poisonous of the ecosystem here, regardless of how wrong or hypocritical someone else is, or you feel they are. Even if we assume you're right about that, the global cost of allowing this kind of thing totally dominates any local benefit in some argument. Please don't do it again. Edit: turns out we actually had to warn you about this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12141886. I know that was years ago, but really, please don't do it again. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22personal%20details%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Honestly, do we need to politicize everything? Government management of funds is political, by definition. It can't be “politicized”; the weird thing is pretending that it was ever apolitical to start with.

dogleash 5y ago

>This is an absurd hit piece. I promise you that Ajit Pai did not personally review each census block to determine if it needed service or not. Of course he didn't do it manually but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Nobody thinks it's his job to manually review census blocks, people think it's his job to ensure the data is in order before the auction happened.