Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski has a bit of reputation for not liking conflict – and avoiding it whenever possible.

An excellent way of attempting to do this is to say whatever it is each person with whom you engage wishes to hear – even if consecutive conversations require diametrically opposite assertions.

The people with whom you speak all walk away happy, each thinking you’re a swell guy.  And you can continue doing exactly what it is you want to do.

Like, say, shoving through in unauthorized fashion overly oppressive Network Neutrality regulations.

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As we have previously discussed, President Barack Obama does – and will be doing – this sort of double dealing all the time.  (He’ll also repeatedly do it with his oath of office – as again demonstrated by his abdicating his responsibility to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.)

Let us now take a look at Chairman Genachowski’s recent public statements on the subject of Net Neutrality.

Starting with what should have been the end of this entire FCC power grab fiasco.  In the October 3^rd Washington Post, Genachowski said:

“…(W)e have a Communications Act that wasn’t written for broadband.”

Game over, one would think.  The FCC can’t regulate anything unless and until Congress writes a law that says “Hey FCC – regulate this.”  And here we have the Chairman of the FCC admitting that Congress has never done this on broadband.

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The news to be culled from this latest Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attempt to usurp Internet regulatory authority and impose Network Neutrality is – there really is no news.  At least in the broadest – and most important – sense.

What was true before FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Tuesday midnight run to grab power over the Web remains true today – the FCC does not have the authority to do what they have just announced they will do on December 21^st.

Unless and until the Congress enacts law making it so, the FCC doesn’t have the authority to do anything.  December’s vote to commandeer control of the Internet is no more legitimate than – and just as capricious as – if they were to vote themselves masters of all the nation’s pizza joints.

The FCC – no government agency – can just decide they want to regulate an industry – and then vote themselves power over it.  That’s not constitutional, representative, limited government – that’s Hugo Chavez-style expropriative despotism.

And it’s not as if The Chairman has been suffering from a dearth of people pointing out his lack of authority.  We have repeatedly pointed it out.  And it hasn’t just been us.

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Just this past Friday, we warned you that a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) December Internet power grab was probably coming.

Well, we now know that it is – and it may be even worse than we thought.

Details have been sketchy, and successive reports often contradictory, but what follows is what seems to be looming over us in December.  (We will know for sure on Wednesday, November 24 – if the FCC maintains its current December 15 meeting date.)

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be preparing to dramatically increase the FCC’s regulatory role over the Internet (in TWO ways; more on that later).

He is doing so without the necessary Congressional authority – which he himself acknowledges he doesn’t have.  And he is doing so by torturing and twisting the regulatory language he is drafting – so as to keep this extraordinary dictatorial seizure within the current Title I confines.

The latter is for The Chairman merely an optical effort.  If he can feign the appearance of remaining within Title I, he avoids Reclassification to Title II – against which many of us have long been rightly fighting.  He will then portray his fealty to Title I as testament to the alleged “moderation” of his (un)modest proposal.

This will be a totally bogus assertion, but he will make it – and the media will inparrot-esque fashion repeat it.  The Chairman should bring crackers to the press conference.

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At this point, it is understandable that the reaction of the Tea Party Movement – and most Americans  - to ANY legislation coming out of THIS Congress would be not just “No,” but “Heck No” (pardon my French.)

But despite the reams of alleged “reporting” you’ve seen, the Tea Party Movement has for the most part NOT weighed in on Internet legislation – neither the ever-so-brief offer of Congressman Henry Waxman’s bill specifically nor any possible law generally.

Not that the media know anything about this.  In order to find out what the less government, pro-freedom Tea Partiers are thinking on Internet legislation, the Jurassic Press are asking and quoting – Media Marxists:

Tea party support for such an effort would be a reversal from the role the movement played in lawmakers’ attempt to advance a measure last month.

Indeed, “the tea party made it possible for Republicans to opt out of supporting Waxman’s bill with no political ramifications and appear as champions to their base,” said Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation.

“I can see why the Republicans would have been resistant to signing on this in a tea-party-infused environment,” said Matt Wood, associate director for the Media Access Project.

Because these people are in constant contact with the Tea Party movers and shakers, and are thusly well equipped to speak for them on matters of Web legislative policy.

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Former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Glen Robinson wrote yesterday about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed “Third Way” solution to Commission Internet regulation – whereby the FCC unilaterally rips the Internet out of its current lightly regulated framework and places it under the antiquated and oppressive Title II telephone regulatory regime.

Mr. Robinson deems this to be not the “moderate” solution the Chairman – and pro-Net Neutrality zealots – purport it to be.  Of course, he is exactly right.

The Hill’s Sara Jerome gets the goods:

“If this new middle way seems moderate, that appearance is an illusion,” writes Glen Robinson, a member of the board of academic advisers at the free-market think tank the Free State Foundation. Robinson served as a commissioner in the ’70s.

Under the “third way” plan, the FCC would seek more power to police broadband service providers and enforce net-neutrality rules. To do that, it would place broadband services under telephone regulations.

But Genachowski promises that the FCC would not hold onto the complete set of rules that govern telephone services. In an effort at moderation, he says the FCC would give up the power to enforce the strictest telephone provisions through a process titled “forbearance.”

Please forgive us if we do not trust a federal agency to forever restrain itself as to what it takes under its authoritative auspices.

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Just how far is the Obama administration willing to go to reward big donors?  In the wake of yesterday’s explosive report regarding “scores of top Democratic donors” being rewarded with “VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings,” it’s a question that’s on the minds of many politically-engaged Americans, and one likely to grab yet more attention, thanks to this article in today’s USA Today.  It notes that: 

“More than 40% of President Obama’s top-level fundraisers have secured posts in his administration, from key executive branch jobs to diplomatic postings in countries such as France, Spain and the Bahamas, a USA TODAY analysis finds.”

 USA Today goes on to report that one top-level fundraiser apparently awarded with a plum job is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski. 

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