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Comcast Executives Appear To Share Cozy Relationships With Regulators
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.
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."
I hate Comcast/Time Warner as much as the next guy but... I work in sourcing and this is the exact type of email I would send back to a vendor that is overstepping reasonable G&E (gift and entertainment) bounds. What else should they have said? Just not responded? Jeez.
I suppose I could go into a rant and write a long post lamenting the influence of the wealthy on our government. However, I think I will just shut-up and do something about it instead by going here and doubling my pledge. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
This is blatant corruption. But it's the US, so nobody will give a shit, and the crony capitalism will continue until it ruins the entire country.
I dislike crony capitalism and worse, the insider oligarchy running this country, but blatant corruption would be him accepting the gift, not declining it.
Regulatory Capture results in regulators being captured.
While Slashdot's modus operandi is soak us in hyperbole and half truths while daring us to make fools of ourselves in this case there is not even a morsel of parity between headline and TFA and as such goes too far.
Headline might as well have read.. "Comcast executives appear to have sexual encounters with unicorns" while casually quoting a document which provides no evidence of the same.
Uhm, no fucking shit. Obligatory
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
The circles of power are incestuous! News at 11!
Christ, is this really what passes for news on slashdot these days? "Appears"? Pull the other one!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
"I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists â" and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."
-- Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA
November 10, 2007
http://change.gov/agenda/ethic...
Yes, this is still up on the Internet, even today.
That should simply be illegal. It's good to have meetings with related businesses to express concerns etc., but it should be in a plain government meeting room with no perks: no food, no dancers, no music, etc.
Table-ized A.I.
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!
It's been at that all-time high for several decades now at least. Yes, no one cares much about it or at least not enough people to make it stop.
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.