Politico

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.

Breitbart News appeared before the Standing Committee of the Senate Press Gallery in order to secure permanent Capitol Hill credentials. Within the rules of admission to the gallery, there is a clause that states the person and organization holding the pass "must not be engaged in any lobbying or paid advocacy, advertising, publicity or promotion work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the U.S. government." In order to prove that they are not engaged in any of the above and are an editorially independent institution, the Standing Committee can ask for information or proof on how the business is structured.

Breitbart has publicly said in the past that they do not discuss their investors. The Mercer family, who backed both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, are known to be major backers of the site. There have been rumors that Trump himself was financially involved, but that’s been denied by both parties. Matt Daly, a reporter for the Associated Press and chairman of the Standing Committee said Breitbart is going through the same routine process as all news outlets that wish to secure credentials. "The decision is in the information gathering phase, more about their operation and how it works," Daly said. "We are interested in what the role is of Mr Bannon going forward and their funding. We have a six rules and standards we apply to everyone and we are trying to be consistent in all of that."

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that he has submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama and will not stay on past the transition to Donald Trump.

Director Clapper offered the news during his opening statement in a rare open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee after the panel's Ranking Member, Rep Adam Schiff (D-CA), said he had heard rumors that the spy chief might stay on into the Trump Administration, That's not going to happen, Director Clapper said. "I submitted my letter of resignation last night, which felt pretty good," he said. "I got 64 days left, and I think I'd have a hard time with my wife anything past that." Director Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who took on the intelligence director role in 2010, had long said he would be done after 2016. He will finish out his term at noon on Jan. 20, his office said afterward.

House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman (and potential full Commerce Committee Chairman) Greg Walden (R-OR) is still on board with enshrining network neutrality principles into law. Back during the dustup over the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet order, Chairman Walden, along with Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), had pushed a bill to mandate no blocking and no throttling of web traffic — without reclassifying broadband providers as common carriers. But it went nowhere.

“There were things we could find common ground on, and should have been able to,” Chairman Walden said. “Blocking, throttling, the abusive things people were concerned about, we should put in statute. I’d be fine with that.” Many Democrats at the time refused to come to the table on legislation, since they had the votes to pass the network neutrality rules at the FCC. But with the Trump win and Republicans set to take over agency — and likely intent on reversing the Open Internet order — Democrats may be more willing to play ball on the Hill.

Gigi Sohn, counselor to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, is leaving the agency for a fellowship with the Open Society Foundations.

As president and CEO of Public Knowledge from 2001 to 2013, Sohn was known as an outspoken critic of the agency and a fierce consumer advocate when Chairman Wheeler tapped her to join his office in November 2013. She pushed for strong network neutrality rules before joining the commission, and was considered a key adviser in the development of the Open Internet Order. In January, she will begin a year-long Leadership in Government Fellowship. She will use multi-platform storytelling techniques to help demonstrate how public policy can improve access to communications networks, new technology, and media for communities too often left behind in the digital age.