Comcast PAC Gave Money To Every Senator Examining Time Warner Cable Merger 133
An anonymous reader writes in with news about money and politics that is sure to shock no one."It's no surprise that Comcast donates money to members of Congress. Political connections come in handy for a company seeking government approval of mergers, like Comcast's 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal and its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC). But just how many politicians have accepted money from Comcast's political arm? In the case of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held the first congressional hearing on the Comcast/TWC merger yesterday, the answer is all of them."
Dumb and Dumber (Score:4, Informative)
San Diego developers already use cable service as a criteria when house-hunting. You want to be in a Cox area! Unfortunately, most of the jobs are in Time Warner areas. Now the service will go from bad to worse...
-- a lucky South-of-Interstate-8 developer...
Re:This is how America ceases to be great (Score:3, Informative)
and that there are a lot of people that have no voice at all.
The reason those people have "no voice at all" is because ... they don't have the money to pay for it. That really does make the point that money is required for the full exercise of free speech. The days of standing on a soapbox on a street corner and reaching a significant number of people with one's speech are long gone.
Money should not be equivalent to free speech. Never.
Then it is a good thing that money isn't equivalent to free speech. Money is, however, as your own statements show, a requirement for full exercise of same. And by extension, telling people they cannot spend their money to pay for speech is equivalent to creating an even larger group of people who have no voice.
I realize that silencing opinions that one does not favor is a common goal these days, but removing the ability to exercise the right of free speech from more people isn't the solution.
As for your problem with that corporations are made up of people who still have rights, well, that's a topic for another day.
Re:If this is not a bribery then I don't know what (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, because Comcast is already doing so well in the court of public opinion. They are #1 in fact!
http://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-wins-worst-company-in-america/
Re:This is how America ceases to be great (Score:2, Informative)
Anon because I modded you as above.
Paying the bill: there are other ways. If you say that the wealthy and corporations will not participate in equal election funding, then answer why they wont. I strongly believe it is because they will not have the influence that their moneys currently give them. Which is corruption and bribery in my mind. And this money silences many many many more than no money ever would.
Requirement to have money to have speech: see above, and why does it *have* to be that way?
Bribery and graft: Those laws are not really working and the wealthy are working hard to dilute them further, ( Citizens United, the recent ruling on overall contribution limits ). And again, you are silencing way more people in treating money as speed than if you dont.
For someone who is so adamant that silencing people is bad you seem very in favor of policies that do exactly that. Do you think it is OK for the wealthy to have a disproportionate voice?