Comcast Ghost-Writes Politician's Letters To Support Time Warner Mega-Merger 181
WheezyJoe writes: As the FCC considers the merger between Comcast/Universal and Time-Warner Cable, which would create the largest cable company in the U.S. and is entering the final stages of federal review, politicians are pressuring the FCC with pro-merger letters actually written by Comcast. According to documents obtained through public records requests, politicians are passing letters nearly word-for-word written by Comcast as their own. "Not only do records show that a Comcast official sent the councilman the exact wording of the letter he would submit to the FCC, but also that finishing touches were put on the letter by a former FCC official named Rosemary Harold, who is now a partner at one of the nation's foremost telecom law firms in Washington, DC. Comcast has enlisted Harold to help persuade her former agency to approve the proposed merger."
Ars Technica had already reported that politicians have closely mimicked Comcast talking points and re-used Comcast's own statements without attribution. The documents revealed today show just how deeply Comcast is involved with certain politicians, and how they were able to get them on board.
Ars Technica had already reported that politicians have closely mimicked Comcast talking points and re-used Comcast's own statements without attribution. The documents revealed today show just how deeply Comcast is involved with certain politicians, and how they were able to get them on board.
Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:5, Insightful)
When companies can "effectively" just "buy laws" (and/or Politicians) corruption knows no bounds for price gouging.
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Publicly funded elections would be awesome (with complex rules ensuring multiple party elections, but that make sure participants to have x numbers of signatures or x percentage of polling). Don't need the Goat Herders of Little Russia North getting too much money for no reason :-)
In other words, only the popular opinions get to be heard and the unpopular ones have no chance at all.
Re:Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to only getting to hear the ones paid for by the elite ruling class?
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As opposed to only getting to hear the ones paid for by the elite ruling class?
You have it 100% backwards. Under the current system if you've got enough money to pay for an ad, you can do that. (With the exception of certain ads that applies to all.) If you can get people together to pay for your ads, you can do that. Citizen's United kept that possible. (CU wasn't a new thing, it reiterated an existing concept called "free speech" even for people who are members of a group.)
Under a public campaign financing system where ads are paid for by the public and money is limited to those w
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In other words, only the popular opinions get to be heard and the unpopular ones have no chance at all.
Yes. And the candidate with the least need for funding is the incumbent. It takes more spending to get into office, than to stay in office. Public funding is a job protection racket for incumbents.
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Having 3 or more candidate elections would ensure more voices are heard,
Yeah, three voices all spouting the same popular opinions. Who said that having multiple copies of the same opinion was a good thing?
(never will every opinion be heard)
There is a significant difference between an unpopular candidate not finding funding for his speech to be heard and the government legislatively taking his ability to speak away. In the former, an unpopular candidate may have sufficient money of his own to pay for his own speech; in the latter he is legally prohibited from spending his own money to speak.
A more textbook ex
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A more textbook example of a violation of the first amendment, and the reason why the first amendment is necessary in the first place, would be hard to find.
If the person has money they still can buy billboard, commercials, etc if they have an opinion, so they still have their freedom of speech right. I don't remember the amendment where the right to spend money on your own election is...
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If the person has money they still can buy billboard, commercials, etc if they have an opinion, so they still have their freedom of speech right.
Not if campaign finance becomes limited to public funding based on polling percentages, as was the desire of the person I first replied to.
I don't remember the amendment where the right to spend money on your own election is...
There is no amendment specifically for campaign spending, and campaign finance laws quite often violate the letter, if not just the intent, of the existing First Amendment. Converting the current "system" into one that is funded by public money alone and the "up north" groups don't get any to spend is a clear violation of the existing constitution.
Re:Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:5, Informative)
We tried that in Canada along with limits on campaign contributions and spending during elections. Worked OK until the Conservatives got in and they canceled the public campaign financing to save tax payers money, neutered Elections Canada so not only they can't hardly investigate anything but can't even talk about it and now the government spends more money on telling us how great the Conservatives are then used to get spent on election financing and the party itself has continuous ads telling us how horrible the other choices are.
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We tried that in Canada along with limits on campaign contributions and spending during elections. Worked OK until the Conservatives got in and they canceled the public campaign financing to save tax payers money...
Well if the Conservatives 'got in'(was there a miscount?), it can only mean the rules didn't work too well.
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Multiple parties allow the tyranny of the minority. Last election with more cheating then ever they managed to get 38% of the people who managed to vote with many ridings very close.
At one point we had 6 parties in Parliament, now 4 including the Greens one seat and the couple that the Bloc has with the right having merged their two parties. While for a few governments we had minorities, meaning one party didn't have an effective dictatorship (party discipline is very powerful in Westminster type parliament
Re: Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:2)
Wow. So the point of the initial election reforms in Canada was to block out the Conservatives, and having failed in their attempt to silence their opponents, the new Minority party (liberals? I don't follow Canadian politics.) is upset that they now find themselves being suppressed.
There are a couple ways to respond:
"You started it"
"Turnaround is fair play"
"What's good for the goose is good for the ga
Re:Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's indeed disgusting. We are largely a plutocracy and few citizens seem to give a fudge. We chastise China, Cuba, N. Korea etc. for not having democracies, but neither do we, making us hypocrites.
(I know, technically we were a "republic", not a "democracy", but they functioned as mostly the same thing for most of our history.)
Re:Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, perhaps. Effectively, no. Contrast our typical ballot:
[__] Bribed Politician A.
[__] Bribed Politician B.
[__] No-name who has no chance of winning such that you are throwing away your vote.
with a typical dictatorship ballot for representatives:
[__] Dictator-selected Candidate A.
[__] Dictator-selected Candidate B.
[__] Dictator-selected Candidate C.
This difference is relatively minor. The plutocrats are pretty much fulfilling the same role as the dictator(s).
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NO! You throw away your vote when you vote for the bribed politician. And you bury it deep when you reelect him/her over and over. The chance of winning is strictly dependent on your vote, not the money, not anything else. When you vote for the bribed politician, it is YOU who is selling your vote to the highest bidder.
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I do not care what other people do. I will not vote for a republican or democrat. Godwin time: I wouldn't vote for Mussolini just to keep Hitler out of office just because he may have killed fewer people and offers a better dental plan.
As for third partiers taking bribes, so what? Vote them out when they do. Repeat until you get a good one. Whatever happens, good or bad, it is the voters who must be held responsible. In a way they kind of are, in that they also suffer the effects, but what they vote for is
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That is the crux of the issue. You can spend 1 trillion dollars on a campaign and that doesn't mean I'll vote for that candidate.
The real problem is that it *does* work for larger blocs of voters. But the money is only the means of taking advantage of that flaw, not actually a corruption of democracy or free speech.
Citizens United has zero impact on who I will vote for. In fact, it has zero impact on anyone who has a well formed political position that they have researched. However, we know that money m
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Sadly that's an accurate summary of the problem caused by First-Past-the-Post voting.
One solution is run-off voting or the Alternative vote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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One solution is run-off voting
That is the way it works in Louisiana. It is generally considered to be the most corrupt and worst governed state in America.
Plenty of other countries also use run-off voting. There is no evidence that it leads to either better government, or a more satisfied electorate.
http://xkcd.com/661/ [xkcd.com]
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You can't really say this isn't democracy, when the democracy is actually functioning more or less as designed.
Granted, there are different forms of democracy, but good luck finding one where someone isn't in power who doesn't represent the people exactly.
Democracy is useful only for legitimacy of government, not for coming up with right answers. If you want a *better* government, democracy may be some small part of it, but there is nothing about true democracy that prevents it from supporting an elected o
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In a democracy, the people vote on laws, budgets, wars and everything else. In a republic, the people elect representatives who vote on laws, budgets, wars, and everything else. That's what people generally understand, and how they use the terms.
Not really, because there are very few examples of direct democracy, especially in our contemporary world. Nobody but pedants and classical historians think of the population voting on everything when they think of democracy. Both in definition and in popular conception, "democracy" just means that the people have some say in the governing. Republic is a subset of democracy.
I wish there was some independent reference materials you could consult. Can someone help me out here?
Luckily enough, there is!
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Except this does not happen under the Oligarchy we currently have. Obama won because people are/were fed up with the corruption. Obama's whole platform was "hope and change", with lines like "I'm going to hold bankers accountable" and "I will be transparent and honest". As soon as he's voted in he does everything GWB did, or close enough where voters can't really tell the difference. His second term was more of the same rhetoric, and an opponent who was completely dysfunctional (when looking at the ticke
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We chastise China, Cuba, N. Korea etc. for not having democracies, but neither do we
Yes we do. Democracy doesn't mean we get the government we want, just the government we voted for. The people in congress were elected in free and fair elections.
I know, technically we were a "republic", not a "democracy"
I don't know where this idiotic meme, that a "republic is not a democracy" started, but repeating it doesn't make you look intelligent, it makes you look stupid. Please stop doing it.
I think part of the US's political problems is that there is absolutely no mechanism for long-term planning. Places like China (through its ironhanded 1-party system) and Saudi Arabia (through a monarchy) can make long-term plans and stick to them unless the situation changes. 5-year and 10-year programs are a lot more common in non-democracies. The US doesn't have any mechanism for this, so our governing is just reacting to problems and kicking the can down the road. Even if both parties agree to a plan
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Pffft! DC is a giant Pavlov experiment. The behavior you see is highly rewarded. Just stop voting for the crooked politicians who bring back all that pork and the problem will clear up. 95% reelection rates really are an embarrassment, and with out any independents at all. Hardly a good reflection on the people who vote.
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Then write in C: Mickey Mouse.
VOTE! Can you imagine how both parties would freak if a cartoon character beat them at the polls?
Then again, it happened down in SoCal land... "I'll be back!"
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I heard Mickey Mouse is a corporate stooge.
Absolutely not. [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Money *needs* to be removed from Politics ... (Score:4, Informative)
When companies can "effectively" just "buy laws" (and/or Politicians) corruption knows no bounds for price gouging.
Not just companies. The political network overseen by the Koch brothers is getting ready to spend $900 Million [nytimes.com] on the 2016 elections.
Now the Kochs’ network will embark on its largest drive ever to influence legislation and campaigns across the country, leveraging Republican control of Congress and the party’s dominance of state Capitols to push for deregulation, tax cuts and smaller government.
far less than Wall Street, Comcast 4Hilary Clinton (Score:5, Informative)
Not that I'm disagreeing with your point, but it should be noted that the Koch companies are somewhere around #15 on the list of top donors. The top 10 are names like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch who give millions to Hillary Clinton. The cable industry also spends more on Clinton than the Koch brothers spend opposing her.
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http://www.opensecrets.org/pol... [opensecrets.org]
That happens to be the first Google result for "Hillary Clinton donors". I see there are many sources with the same information.
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Here's a good estimate of the Koch PAC spending, http://www.republicreport.org/... [republicreport.org]
however you spin it, Clinton==Time Warner & Wa (Score:2)
You can spin the numbers any way you want. We could go back and forth all day. One thing that's undeniable is that Clinton is financed by Time Warner and Wall Street.
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http://www.opensecrets.org/ind... [opensecrets.org]
-hint... There are way more donations to Republicans by these banks.
and these hedge funds, http://www.opensecrets.org/ind... [opensecrets.org]
-although the hedge funds have way more independent group spending, probably because the hav less shareholders to answer to...
Time Warner does seem to lean Democratic, but those donations are lifetime and I don't see any for Clinton in the recent election cycles.
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When companies can "effectively" just "buy laws" (and/or Politicians) corruption knows no bounds for price gouging.
What laws were bought?
It's hard to get upset over three politicians who wanted to support the merger and asked Comcast for help writing a letter to the FCC. I'm more upset that the politicians are writing letters AT ALL, since that's an open attempt at speaking over the voices of their constituents who are capable of writing their own letters. I.e., a city councilor or mayor who writes a letter on behalf of his city is stealing the speech from all the people who don't agree with his opinion.
yes. 1st amendment, though. Tesla, SpaceX (Score:5, Interesting)
The money in politics is a problem, obviously.
Also, I think I should be able to write about why I think this merger is bad and distribute flyers. Copying those flyers costs money. Therefore, in order to make my voice heard, I have to spend money to influence politics. If we're not allowed to spend money on politics, that means I can't print a flyer, I can mention politics on my blog that costs $5/month for hosting. A MAJORITY of Slashdot users think it should be illegal to make a video criticizing the current goons. Citizen's United did so, and most Slashdot users think that should be illegal. Fine for Michael Moore to do it, though.
Many people have said the solution is that COMPANIES shouldn't be allowed to spend money commenting on political issues. So for example Tesla shouldn't be allowed to talk about franchise laws? SpaceX can't make a YouTube video criticising the administration's handling of space contracts? Uber and Lyft spend money on their web sites, so it should be illegal for their sites to mention the taxi cartels' relationship to incumbent politicians?
If you decide that Tesla, Uber, and SpaceX should be allowed to have their voice heard, but it should be illegal for Citizens United to have their voice heard, I guess the rule is "it's illegal to disagree with me"?
It's a hard problem, with no obvious solution.
Makes sense in theory, and is the law. Anti-Obama= (Score:3)
That makes logical sense, and the law reflects that distinction. However, if during the 2014 election season you had encouraged people to vote for the guy speaking out against H1-B fraud, that's almost the same thing as contributing directly to his campaign. Any many places, police and firefighter unions run ads for local candidates saying "candidate X will keep you safe". That's virtually indistinguishable from from handing the money to the campaign to spend on making ads.
Similarly, if in 2012 you talke
Are you making the EFF, ACLU, SCLC illegal? (Score:3)
I'm not 100% clear on what you're suggesting. As I read it, you said one thing, then said the opposite. Maybe you can clear this up for me.
Consider the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who describes themselves thusly:
About EFF
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology developm
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if unicorns flew out of my butt (Score:2)
If unicorns flew out of my butt, well that would hurt. Bad. :)
The fact is people DO disagree, and GROUPS of people disagree. Groups of people do have power, so power does need to be balanced.
In local elections, the police union or firefighters union can often swing an election by just saying "Smith for mayor will keep you safe" - without spending any money. If you DON'T think that your local elected officials should be indebted to the police department, you need a group to send a different message. That
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Those individuals must spend their own personal money and whatever form their message takes they must personally be present or at the very least attach their names to the message, and any donation must also be from their personal accounts and not the organizations.
Pretty trivial workaround: TWC and Comcast would just take the money that they save by not lobbying and pay it to their CxOs. Of course there won't be any express expectation that they use the money for political speech.
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For a minute I thought you were going to disappear in a puff of logic.
I agree with the first part of your statement, but you stopped too soon listing the sick things people want in the system, then demonstrated your own sick bias.
Pride, greed, and prejudice against envy, jealousy, and sloth (perceived). With real need on one side and a sick desire to hoard on the other...
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At this point they're not really buying the laws, they're effectively WRITING them.
They're just buying the congress-critters signature to put at the bottom
Angry, lost my template at this story (Score:5, Funny)
This is blown way out of proportion. Companies are made of citizens who get to persuade officials like anyone else.
I (insert Senator's name here) stake my reputation on it!
circle jerk (Score:5, Informative)
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Companies like Comcast can rest assured that when their politicians are bought they stay bought!
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Companies like Comcast can rest assured that when their politicians are bought they stay bought!
Can they? "Staying bought" assumes some level of integrity, which leads one to a contradiction. It seems to me that if politicians can be bought at all, in all probability they can be bought multiple times.
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No, it doesn't assume loyalty. It works on the fact that Comcast has pays more.
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Argh that came out all mangled. Should be:
No, it doesn't assume integrity. It works on the fact that Comcast pays more.
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Argh that came out all mangled. Should be:
No, it doesn't assume integrity. It works on the fact that Comcast pays more.
Seems to me that this only works if Comcast pays something now with the promise of more after the vote. -- which may be the case.
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They can also promise a nice, cushy lobbyist position after the Congressman retires from public office. So you act like a good little politician and parrot just what your corporate masters tell you to say so that when you decide to step down you will be paid a good wage to sit around doing nothing with the occasional passing corporate "requests" on to your old colleagues.
There should be a law (Score:2)
Re:There should be a law (Score:5, Insightful)
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The emblems would be sooooo small because there are so many you wouldn't be able to read them :-)
Only the top ten or so even get space.
Here's another way to handle it. Whenever they appear on television, block out x% of their face and words based on their campaign contributions. Whoever gets least comes through at 100%, whoever gets most is just a wall of ads, and everyone else falls somewhere in-between
Us Too? (Score:3, Funny)
Where's the forum letter I can sign and send to the FCC against the merger as well as one to my state reps (OH) telling them not to do this shit? If someone does the work of making good arguments against them I'll add my name to it, but I'm not motivated enough to write a well researched letter on my own and figure out where to send it.
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John Oliver makes this kinda shit. In fact, they crashed the site after he called them out for "cable company fuckery"
Read about it here: http://www.theguardian.com/tec... [theguardian.com]
In addition, watch the whole segment here, it's wonderful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'm Senator Rob Lowe (Score:5, Funny)
On behalf of the rest of the world... (Score:2, Insightful)
...get your fucking shit together...create a new political party that actually represents the people...use social media to spread the word and fucking challenge both your shitty corporate owned parties.
What the FUCK are you waiting for???
Re:On behalf of the rest of the world... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have a simple legitimate solution to the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
If every household in America bought $150 in Comcast stock each month instead of paying their cable bill it would take ~3 years to buy them out. If everyone canceled their account and bought stock it would take less time. Kickstarter's limit is too small for this idea btw. Then we vote out the current board and replace them with Lessig, Nader et al. and BAM gigabit bidirectional IPV6 with al a carte channels.
Too communist for you? Go fuck your self.
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If every household in America bought $150 in Comcast stock each month instead of paying their cable bill it would take ~3 years to buy them out. If everyone canceled their account and bought stock it would take less time.
Only because the stock price would plummet and the company would be worth only the value of the plant. At that point Time-Warner buys it from bankruptcy for a pittance and the merger happens anyway.
What significant difference is there between nobody paying their cable bill and everyone cancelling service? A couple of months into the former and service would be cancelled automatically AND the company would have a large amount of write-off for the bad debts.
Then we vote out the current board and replace them with Lessig, Nader et al. and BAM gigabit bidirectional IPV6 with al a carte channels.
What color is the sky on your world, Cliff? Why n
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Time Warner wouldn't be able to buy them if we did the same thing to them.
That was a typo. I meant pay your bill and buy stock.
The infrastructure is paid for by retained earnings and not paid out to executive compensation and dividends. Also the existing infrastructure in many places has been totally deprecated. we have had cable since 1984 at my house. They have paid for their capital costs MANY times over. If google can provide gigabit fiber from scratch a a lower price than cable even with content and ad
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That was a typo. I meant pay your bill and buy stock.
"Instead of" is a typo for what? And then you said more stock could be bought if everyone cancelled their service!
Also the existing infrastructure in many places has been totally deprecated.
I'm sure it has, and I'm sure it has been fully depreciated too. But if the company has no money because nobody is paying their bills or everyone has cancelled service (the second option you gave) then what money will they use to upgrade?
If google can provide gigabit fiber from scratch a a lower price than cable even with content and ad revenue then Comcast could too.
The reasons that Google can do it at a lower price are two-fold. First, they don't have existing plant to maintain while they're over-building the existing
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The assets of the company do not vanish instantly as the stock price drops.Once we have 51% of the vote we can vote in a new consumer friendly board of directors to fire the current executives. Comcast is one of the worst run companies in America. It has the worst customer service and only maintains it function by being a monopoly. I have a friend who works with technology provider and Comcast has blown 3 deals with them strictly out of incompetence and laziness.
1st question. You don't upgrade during the tr
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The assets of the company do not vanish instantly as the stock price drops.
The value of the company drops as the stock price drops, and the stock price drops as soon as it becomes obvious that customers are all cancelling their service.
Once we have 51% of the vote we can vote in a new consumer friendly board of directors to fire the current executives.
And as you're getting all the little people to buy this 51% over a three year period, large companies who would love to take over the areas served by Comcast are buying stock at the same bargain-basement rates you are. They can afford it. The people you want to buy stock are having to cancel service so they have enough money to buy stock. You'll
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If every household in America bought $150 in Comcast stock each month instead of paying their cable bill it would take ~3 years to buy them out.
That only works assuming that every single share of Comcast stock is available to purchase. That is not necessarily true. Do you even know how the stock market works?
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If everyone stops paying their bill, the stockholders will be eager to sell.
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I have been investing since I was 12. I called the last two major collapses to within 3 months. the 2000's bubble by asking why Rambus was able to lock intel into a exclusive deal and the housing collapse by looking at the number of people getting an associates degree in real estate (learned that by reading that that was an indicator for the tech bubble) "When economic profit is available more people will enter the market and drive the profit to zero." As to your direct criticism why would any institutiona
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Rent seeking behavior; it is cheaper to buy a congressman than to build a better business.
Any particular party? (Score:2)
Just curious, are the politicians predominantly from one party?
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Time Warner largest H Clinton donor behind Wall St (Score:3)
Time Warner is the largest contributor to Hilary Clinton other than Wall Street firms, which make up her top six.
Cablevision is #10 on the list of top Clinton owners^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H contributors.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pol... [opensecrets.org]
One-sided PR (Score:3)
I see their pro-merger ads on TV and the web. Why are there no anti-merger ads? The public is only hearing one side.
It would be nice to crowd-fund some ads that describe how we need more competition and more competitors rather than huge bribe-heavy oligopolies. I'd donate $10 or so to such.
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It's easy. Comcast is a multi-billion dollar company. They can pay for the public to hear only one side.
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Why doesn't NetFlix or smaller competitors chime in for the opposition?
They have [theverge.com].
They come that cheap? (Score:3)
Of course everything is fucked, etc....but does anyone else find it surprising how cheaply these guys will bend over?
10 grand to whore yourself?
Seems almost like you could troll for fun at those prices: "Hey, whore, here's the money. Now sign this petition to outlaw ostriches."
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does anyone else find it surprising how cheaply these guys will bend over?
No. The petty cost of trading influence is well known. William Greider detailed this phenomena 23 years ago in "Who Will Tell the People." A nice fur coat or use of a private plane is often sufficient.
Seems almost like you could troll for fun at those prices
That won't work. They don't simply spin about on a whim. The sellouts are predisposed to the buyers for many reasons and the tokens you're dwelling on are really just obligatory offerings and partly symbolic; tossing a liberal some exclusive theater tickets usually won't buy a pro-gun vote.
Re:They come that cheap? (Score:4, Interesting)
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But the 10 000 isn't for a specific purpose, and probably there will be no conclusive proof of corruption.
It's simply that people who agree with the donors are the ones who receive money, and only people receiving money have any realistic chance to participate.
In fact, almost all politicians are some combination of sincerely convinced of what they claim, too ignorant to understand what they claim, or simply mentally ill.
Which means a tiny bit more money isn't going to change their mind.
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Just like other organizations do? (Score:2)
Form letters have been a part of every advocacy campaign. This is news?
You say tomato ... (Score:2)
The documents revealed today show just how deeply Comcast is involved with certain politicians, and how they were able to get them on board.
"on board" ... "in bed" - whatever. Wear a condom Congress-critters and feel lucky. Most of "we the people" have to wear two when taking it from - I mean "dealing with" - Comcast.
To paraphrase James Carville (Score:2)
"Drag a hundred-dollar bill through Congress, you never know what you'll find."
(Original here [wikiquote.org])
The system is corrupt ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like it or not, the corporations have more or less rigged the game.
There is no chance in hell we get what we want, because the politicians have all quite literally been bought and paid for, and are little more than corporate shills.
This is precisely why all of those people who bray about deregulation and the free market are either deluded, or in on the scam -- because these systems will always become horribly corrupt, and be sold to the highest bidder. And it's a lie to believe that system is self correcting -- because the system is rigged.
American politics (and, indeed, much of the world) is a cesspool of cronyism, and rich assholes cutting through the laws which prevent other rich assholes from raping the system.
Corporate lawyers and lobbyists have far more clout than "the people".
Welcome to the dystopian future where the corporations and the surveillance state work hand in hand, but the state is on the corporate payroll -- at least, the ones who hold any real power.
This is the reason why the bankers who ripped us all off in the housing meltdown never saw any charges -- because they all advise the fucking presidents on economic policy.
It really is time to eat the rich, because they're not in the least concerned about us in this equation.
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In many cases, the free market approach works in theory, but not in practice because theory little things like buying influence, gobbling up companies to make local monopolies, dividing territory to make local monopolies, etc don't exist. The folks who keep saying "the market will fix everything" look at the theory and ignore that the theory also includes a public with access to en
Re:The system is corrupt ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would love for the free market approach to work if it weren't a lie. Really, I would. Sadly, everybody always has taken the free market, bent it over, and have always been doing some unspeakable things to it.
Just like always.
All of those nice simplifying assumptions about people being honest, playing by the rules, not willing to swindle to get ahead, not willing to collude to cheat everybody else, and not outright paying bribes ...
See, all of that stuff is precisely why, exactly like communism , any economic theory which assumes the honesty of humans to adhere to your perfect system and achieve perfect outcomes ... is a complete fucking lie.
The assumptions of laissez-faire Capitalism are impossible to have hold true. So everything ascribed to what 'the market' should accomplish is a fairy tale, because humans don't play according to your ideology.
There is no free market. Never has been. Never will be.
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Free market does not require people to play by the rules or anything like that because there cannot be government rules.
Even most conservatives don't believe that free markets can work unless there is government restraint on monopolies, which tend to form in any free market due to economies of scale. Ironic that I have to point this out in the middle of a discussion about a cable company merger.
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I won't argue that governments created the cable monopolies, but network effects tend to create many others. What government action prevented anybody from buying an alternative OS pre-installed on their home PC without paying a fee to Microsoft in the process?
If you want to believe that monopolies are harmless you can do so. It really doesn't matter - corruption like the one in this article will ensure we never get rid of the government-sponsored monopolies let alone get rid of the ones I'd want to see go
Simpsons (Score:3)
Smithers: [over intercom] Principal Skinner, this is your secretary. There is one last student here to see you.
Skinner: That's odd. I don't have a secretary...or an intercom. But send him in.
[Burns enters dressed like Jimbo]
Burns: Ahoy, there, Dean. I understand you're taking suggestions from students, eh?
[sits on desk; groans as his knee bends painfully]
Well, me and my fourth form chums think it would be quite corking if you'd sign over your oil well to the local energy concern.
Skinner: [clears throat] Mr. Burns?
Burns: Buh!
Skinner: It was naive of you to think I would mistake this town's most prominent 104-year-old man for one of my elementary school students.
Lazy politicians... (Score:3)
Why is Comcast cast as the villan? This is SOP for any major letter writing campaign I've ever heard of - outside group offers supporters 'sample' letters to send to those making the decision, supporters simply copy-and-paste the 'sample' letter, and everyone pretends it means something.
The anger should directed at the compliant and lazy politicians that never learned how to copy someone else's work and avoid detection.
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Why is Comcast cast as the villan?
Typecasting. They play the villain role so frequently, it's impossible to see them any other way.
wolf PAC (Score:2)
Get money out of Politics! wolf-PAC.com
help us support a constitutional amendment, via an article V convention that routes AROUND Congress. Money is not speach. Corporations are not people. Our democracy should not be for sale, yet it IS.
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They eat the children.
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Yeah, you should get Anonymous [slashdot.org] to do this for you.