Obamanet Shows Its Fangs. The FCC levies a $100 million retroactive fine, and the political favor-seeking is under way.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

‘No, no, no, no!” Tom Wheeler shouted at the moderator. The Federal Communications Commission chairman was speaking at an Internet industry conference in March, soon after the FCC voted to regulate the Internet. His bureaucrats, he insisted, would never set rates, rule on tariffs or otherwise treat the Internet like an old-fashioned utility.

Make that “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

The regulations went into effect earlier this month, and the Washington Post last week got word about the first federal complaint to be filed. A company that streams live video wants regulators to set the price it pays to transport its content—at zero.

The complainant is Commercial Network Services, whose video streams travel smoothly over networks thanks to the multibillion-dollar industry that provides the connections through content-delivery networks and peering and transit services. These “fast lanes” make the Internet possible by ensuring bandwidth-hogging uses such as video don’t slow everything else down. Netflix and YouTube, which at peak times use most of the Internet’s bandwidth, even built their own proprietary fast lanes. The FCC now claims authority over the entire system, and Mr. Wheeler’s assurances to the contrary were known to be false when he made them.

Among Mr. Wheeler’s whoppers: He claimed in Wired magazine: “There will be no rate regulation.” The FCC’s fact sheet on the new regulations repeated the claim, adding that “broadband providers shall not be subject” to rate regulation and that the new rules don’t include “utility-style rate regulation.”

No word yet on when the EPA will regulate on who you can marry.