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Comcast Executives Appear To Share Cozy Relationships With Regulators

Posted by timothy on from the how-totally-amazing dept.

v3rgEz (125380) writes A month before Comcast's announcement of a $45B takeover of rival Time-Warner, Comcast's top lobbyist invited the US government's top antitrust regulators to share the company's VIP box at the Sochi Olympics. A Freedom of Information Act request from Muckrock reveals that the regulators reluctantly declined, saying "it sounds like so much fun" but the pesky "rules folks" would frown on it, instead suggesting a more private dinner later.

5 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Not a VIP box at the Olympics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They invited them to a party Comcast was throwing at the Newseum in D.C., which is a far cry from "the company's VIP box at the Sochi Olympics."

    1. Re:Not a VIP box at the Olympics by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wish I had mod points, since AC has it right. If you check the document attached with the article, page 26 has the actual invitation itself, and it clearly says the event is in D.C., rather than in Sochi, and there's no mention at all of a VIP box or anything of the sort. This story went from "Comcast cordially invited them to an opening ceremony event at the Newseum" in the actual invitation to "Comcast invited them to an event for the Sochi opening ceremony" in the article to "Comcast invited them to a VIP box at Sochi" in the \. summary.

      It's a non-story. Just regular schmoozing. Though the fact that regular schmoozing is a non-story might be a story in and of itself...

  2. Public Choice Theory by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    Regulatory Capture results in regulators being captured.

  3. Re:That's nothing by ShaunC · · Score: 3, Informative

    And that's hardly anything new, either. Andrea Mitchell of NBC married Alan Greenspan in 1997; he was Chairman of the Fed at the time, and continued in that role until 2006. Nice little bit of "extraordinary access" NBC had there during Clinton's and W's presidencies.

    --
    Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
  4. Ya' think? by medusa-v2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    In my former hometown of Philly, there's a saying "you can vote for whatever you want, but you can't against Comcast." For all practical purposes they have a monopoly on wired Internet access in the city.