McConnell moves one step closer to jamming through Trump's anti-First Amendment FCC pick

With the end of the Trump administration fast approaching, Republicans are working to gum up the works of government as rapidly as possible. COVID-19 stimulus help for the tens of millions of Americans in need? No thank you! This nefarious anti-Democracy work revolves mostly around find ways to hamper both the Democratic control of the House and the incoming Biden administration's Executive branch. To do this, Republicans have been working to create checks that must go through the Senate—controlled by Majority Leader and truly ethically bankrupt power monster Mitch McConnell. An example of the kind of machinations the Republican Party is working at include Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin attempting to claw back hundreds of billions of dollars in CARES Act stimulus relief in order to force a Biden administration to go through McConnell in order to use that money to help Americans. It's real dirtbag stuff.

Another move is fast-tracking junior staffer Nathan Simington (pronounced "Simon-ton"), to replace fired FCC Republican Mike O'Reilly. Simington's one claim to fame is being the person craven enough to help draft Trump's Executive order to try and rescind Section 230. This move would unconstitutionally turn the FTC and FCC into the arbiters of free speech on social media platforms. Hypocritical even for a Republican.

If the Republican Party can hold off challenges in the Georgia Senate runoff Jan. 5, they will potentially be able to block any FCC choice President Biden makes for chair after Verizon shill Ajit Pai steps down. However, in order to create a 2-2 Democrat v. Republican gridlock before Biden takes office, the Republican Senate must approve Simington's nomination. On Wednesday, they took one step closer to the goal of sabotaging another government agency, when the Senate Commerce Committee voted to move Simington's nomination forward.

It's important to note here that Simington being the choice is entirely the result of Trump's emotionally volatile incompetence. If he hadn't felt so emotional that his BS lying got called out, the Republican Party wouldn't have to worry about jamming through some guy that was ambitious enough and morally vacant enough to write first year law student Executive orders. To realize how unqualified and radically fascistic Simington's position is on government overreach into First Amendment issues, even Republican Mike O'Reilly, a staunch conservative figure on the FCC and not a friend to the American consumer, warned that the First Amendment was what was at stake with Trump and Republican pressuring to rollback Section 230.

The Republican Party, in any other less toxic iteration, would have just stalled out and not even considered Simington's nomination during this lame duck session, but then conservative and big business think-tankery reminded McConnell and others that they could slow down regulatory progress by speeding through even the most incompetent nominee. I mean, McConnell's been rubber-stamping incompetent ultra right wing judges for the last four years. Any chance at re-installing some consumer protections via net neutrality, with a FCC interesting in doing its job, disappear if McConnell can block any Biden nominee.