Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast, your source for policy rants and raves and carefully planned humor.

I'm Evan Swarchdriver, your host. On today's show, the Imperial FCC. At an oversight hearing on Wednesday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler refused to commit to step down after the

election of a new president, breaking with a century of tradition for independent regulatory

commissions. What does this mean for the future of the FCC? Joining me to discuss this is

Emperor of Tech Freedom, Baron, thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me as if you had any choice.

Well, yes, if I had a choice, then, yeah.

So, so, Baron, is this really that big of a...

Are you not going to mention our guest, special guest today?

Well, of course, joining us also in the studio is my lovely mother, Billy Swartzstrauber,

who is here to complain to Baron that he doesn't let me talk enough on the podcast.

And also provide a laugh track, as you may be able to hear in the background.

Yes, because, of course, the best way to convince people that were funny is canned laughter.

Yeah, well, my mom's not quite so funny.

So we'll see.

We might have her on the show sometime soon.

Yeah, I hope she doesn't listen to it after that insult.

She's very critical.

So she might have plenty of feedback to offer.

All right.

Well, we're a minute and a half in, and we have yet to do anything substantive.

So let's get to the program. But you know this is how most podcasts work, right? A little banter at the beginning.

Yeah, exactly.

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