Republicans: No compromise possible on net neutrality

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has no intention of finding any compromise on network neutrality.

If he can't override the new rules, he will work to defund their enforcement. And if that doesn't work, he will continue railing against a "government takeover of the Internet" in speeches until something gets done. Speaker Boehner gave his first speech outside of Washington DC as Speaker of the House, appearing at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville Tennessee. The speech moved quickly from a discussion of that morning's sermon text (“No man can serve two masters”) to a discussion of God's love of humility to an assertion that America was founded on said humility and that this in turn led to the freedoms that Americans enjoy. Those freedoms are now “under attack by power structure in Washington populated with regulators who have never set foot inside a radio station or television studio." That's right -- network neutrality is Boehner's top bogeyman, reminding us just how seriously Republicans take the issue.

Speaker Boehner also told the NRB that some members of Congress and "the federal bureaucracy" are still trying to reinstate "and even expand" the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine is the FCC policy -- abandoned in 1987 as unconstitutional -- that required broadcasters to seek out opposing viewpoints on issues of national importance. Speaker Boehner said that he expects the House to act on legislation that would make sure it was not revived.