EDITORIAL: Views from the nation's press

Oct. 1—The East Bay Times on how at long last, FCC is restoring net neutrality protections:

At long last, the 32-month circus featuring Congress and the Federal Communication Commission is over.

The swearing in Monday of Anna Gomez as the fifth FCC commissioner breaks the agency's 2-2 deadlock on issues, allowing chair Jessica Rosenworcel to take steps to restore net neutrality rules that were rescinded under then-President Donald Trump.

Rosenworcel on Tuesday announced that she will move to reverse the rules that bar internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, recreating an open internet that is essential for innovation and economic growth and fostering the next generation of tech entrepreneurs. It's a concept backed by tech pioneers such as Tim Berners-Lee and Vincent Cerf since the beginning days of the internet. They believed that the future of innovation, freedom of speech and democracy in America depends on strong, enforceable net neutrality rules.

The American people agree. Polls show that net neutrality is supported by 75% of the population. That includes President Biden, who made restoring net neutrality a key element of his campaign.

Biden nominated Gigi Sohn to replace Commissioner Ajit Pai, who resigned the day Trump left office. But Senate Republicans blocked Sohn's confirmation for more than two years, claiming that her "radical" views disqualified her. Sohn's so-called radical views consisted of her calling Fox News "state-run propaganda" during the Trump administration and her service as an Electronic Frontier Foundation board member, which defends digital privacy, free speech and innovation. Senate Republicans' real problem with Sohn was her position as a top aide to former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler, who was rightly credited with installing the toughest net neutrality laws in U.S. history.

Biden withdrew Sohn's nomination in May and then nominated Gomez, a telecommunications attorney who had worked for the FCC in several positions for 12 years. She had also been a vice president for federal and state government affairs for Sprint Nextel.

The current FCC rules allow broadband providers such as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Comcast a free rein that allows them to rake in billions while serving as kingmakers. They have the power to pick winners and losers online by charging content providers and users higher rates for faster service. Pai argued that would allow the broadband powers to hire more people, invest in network improvements, making for a "better, cheaper" internet. That didn't happen. If it had, Biden wouldn't have had to announce on June 26 a plan to invest more than $40 billion to deliver high-speed internet in places where there's either no service or service is too slow.

Pai's rescinding of net neutrality laws left a checkerboard of rules and regulations by various states across the nation.

Rosenworcel reportedly wants the FCC to vote in October on new net neutrality laws. Creating a level playing field for the tech industry's newest wave of entrepreneurs can't happen too soon.

------

The San Diego Union-Tribune on what AMLO's White House visit with Joe Biden may herald:

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's relationship with the U.S. and its presidents may seem surprising to those unfamiliar with the confident populist from the rural Mexican state of Tabasco who won his nation's top office on his third try in 2018. Mexico's larger neighbor to the north never seems to faze the politician known universally by his constituents by his initials, AMLO.

When Donald Trump was president, López Obrador didn't hesitate to call his rhetoric "racist" and to describe his immigration agenda as "irresponsible." Yet AMLO and Trump had a relationship that an analysis in The Washington Post once described as "weirdly great," and their administrations worked together harmoniously on the renegotiation of the North American trade deal and — to the surprise of many — on Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy, which forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their paperwork was processed. At the White House's urging, in 2019, Mexico also cracked down on immigrants who were crossing its southern border with the presumed intent of eventually entering the United States. In October 2020 — with Trump locked in a tight re-election fight with Democratic nominee Joe Biden — López Obrador left Mexico for the first time since taking office to visit the White House, where he praised Trump for his leadership on trade issues.

This may inspire easy cynicism about AMLO sucking up to the nation that is by far Mexico's largest trading partner. But his relationship with Trump's successor undercuts this view. This summer, he directly snubbed Biden by refusing to attend a Summit of the Americas meeting in Los Angeles meant to show U.S. leadership, blasting him for not inviting Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. And last month, even as he visited the White House in a meeting meant to showcase strong U.S.-Mexico relations, AMLO used his joint appearance with Biden to rib him about how much higher gas prices were in the U.S. than in Mexico. To his credit, Biden took this in stride. Optics, of course, aren't as important as what Washington and Mexico City can accomplish together. Two weeks ago, the White House announced that Mexico would invest $1.5 billion in high-tech security infrastructure along the border, triumphantly contrasting this with Trump's unfulfilled promise to make Mexico pay for a border wall. Biden and López Obrador also issued a joint statement vowing to "disrupt the flow of fentanyl into our countries."

On other issues, however, differences remain entrenched. The U.S. hoped that Mexico might warm to its anti-human smuggling initiative after the deaths last month of 53 migrants trapped in an abandoned truck in San Antonio. During his joint appearance with AMLO, Biden said, "We need every country in the region to join us." But despite White House claims otherwise, Mexico appears noncommittal. It has also ignored nudging from the U.S. to take more direct efforts to prevent recent surges of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

For his part, AMLO has been unable to persuade Biden to embrace his call for the sharp expansion of temporary U.S. work visas for Mexicans and Central Americans. And he loathes U.S. criticism of the lack of labor rights in his country, its high crime and the killings of 12 journalists this year.

Ultimately, both Biden and AMLO realize the importance of a strong relationship on trade. Any hope that this will help lead to a more constructive and coordinated approach to immigration and border security may be hard to realize because of U.S. domestic politics. But the more the nations realize they need each other, the stronger their ties will become, culturally and politically, and the more likely those ties are to extend to their successors.