Today is all about … Michael Powell. Who is he? He’s a black guy (despite being kinda light skinned in that picture). What has he done? Let’s ask Wikipedia…
Michael Kevin Powell (born March 23, 1963) is an American former Republican chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and current president of the lobbyist trade group the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA).[1] He was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission by President Bill Clinton on November 3, 1997. President George W. Bush designated him chairman of the commission on January 22, 2001. Powell is the son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife Alma Powell.
The FCC is a pretty important position. And, hey, his dad is Colin Powell (legit didn’t know that). This shit all ties together so well. Alternative theory: there is only one black family in America doing anything. Let’s move on.
Michael Powell was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. He graduated from the College of William and Mary, where he was initiated into Theta Delta Chi, on an ROTC Scholarship. Powell served as an armor officer in the United States Army. He spent the majority of his active service with the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Amberg, Germany, serving as a cavalry platoon leader and troop executive officer. In 1987, Powell was seriously injured during a training mission.[2] He and his unit were traveling in a convoy on the autobahn. Powell was riding in a jeep at the time. Due to heavy rain, the jeep crashed and Powell was ejected from the vehicle. After he hit the pavement, the jeep bounced and crashed down on Powell’s midsection. Half of Powell’s pelvis had snapped off its rear anchor on the lower spine. In the front, it had ripped free of the cartilage connecting it to its other half. His bladder and urethra were torn and several vertebrae were cracked.
What in the holy fuck? Sweet fucking shit on rice. He basically had his dick crushed by a truck.
A defining moment of his tenure as FCC Chairman was the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, in which Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed on live-broadcast television. This high-profile incident increased public attention toward the FCC’s enforcement of indecency rules, which had already stepped up following Bono’s use of an expletive on live TV. Powell himself later said that the controversy was overblown, although he recognized that it would cause concern when he saw it at a Super Bowl party. In an interview with ESPN The Magazine, he stated, “I think we’ve been removed from this long enough for me to tell you that I had to put my best version of outrage on that I could put on. Part of it was surreal, right? Look, I think it was dumb to happen, and they knew the rules and were flirting with them, and my job is to enforce the rules, but, you know, really? This is what we’re gonna do?”
That’s like the best response ever. “I know this is dumb but rules are rules.”
In 2013, Powell was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case
That was nice of him.
