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How Comcast Bankrolls Organizations That Support TWC Merger
An anonymous reader writes: When Comcast announced it was pursuing a takeover of Time Warner Cable, many activists and internet users immediately submitted objections to the deal. Support came more slowly, but steadily, from organizations like the International Center for Law and Economics, and from politicians like Governor Phil Bryant (R-MS). Now, a NY Times report reveals that much of this support for the merger came in exchange for money from Comcast. Fortunately, even after spreading money around so liberally, Comcast is still struggling to find a coherent, believable message for regulators, and the deal is far from assured.
From the article: "Letters detailing the benefits of the Comcast deal were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission by staff members from Americans for Tax Reform, the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Free State Foundation and the Center for Individual Freedom, as well as by a professor at a technology program at the University of Pennsylvania, all of which received support from Comcast or its trade association, tax documents and other disclosures reviewed by The New York Times show. A similar pattern is evident with charities like the Urban League and more than 80 other community groups that supported the media company and that also accepted collectively millions of dollars in donations from the Comcast Foundation over the last five years, documents reviewed by The Times show."
From the article: "Letters detailing the benefits of the Comcast deal were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission by staff members from Americans for Tax Reform, the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Free State Foundation and the Center for Individual Freedom, as well as by a professor at a technology program at the University of Pennsylvania, all of which received support from Comcast or its trade association, tax documents and other disclosures reviewed by The New York Times show. A similar pattern is evident with charities like the Urban League and more than 80 other community groups that supported the media company and that also accepted collectively millions of dollars in donations from the Comcast Foundation over the last five years, documents reviewed by The Times show."
Yes, but the problem is what they are doing should be illegal.
Politics and business should be kept separate, just as church and state are. Most of the problems in politics today are because someone is being bankrolled by a company that doesn't have the people's interests at heart. This conflict of interest is what will lead to America's demise.
What Comcast is doing should be considered fraudulent, but legally speaking, it isn't
And it is an example of how useless the government of the United States has become --- a government is supposed to be an enforcement body to ensure the stability of a society and the application of justice to smooth out the wrinkles that have formed in the fabric of the society
But the US government has failed miserably - the cabal factions within turning the entire organization rogue, creating a power vacuum in which private corporations such as Comcast also is more than happy to take advantage of
Under a proper running government Comcast will never be allowed to do what it does, but the fact is, the government of the United States of America is no longer a functional entity
Investigate any elected officials Comcast has paid to gather support and prosecute any who have accepted bribes.
Hang on, we're talking about USA, home of the corrupt politician. Forgot I said anything.
I don't know if this is supposed to be shocking because it's new behavior, but it's not (new behavior). I saw the very same selfish gimme-my-cut-of-the-bigger-pie behavior from nonprofit community groups in particular when the California Public Utilities Commission held public hearings to gather input about the proposed merger of AT&T and SBC (formerly Pacific Telesis Group, formerly Pacific Bell, formerly AT&T, ad nauseum).
There were representatives from quite a few local community nonprofit groups from all over California in attendance. They were there almost universally for one reason: to promote the merger and thus guarantee their cut of what they deemed to be a bigger pie if the merger were approved. California state law requires that utilities set aside a percentage of their profits to return to the local communities they rape errrr support. This is done in part via the aforementioned nonprofits, who receive a significant share.
They had all analyzed the effect of the merger and concluded that it would result in a more profitable company, which would thus set aside a larger pool of CPUC mandated funds, and thus they'd receive more money than before. They didn't give a damn whether the merger was actually beneficial for the people they supposedly served (it wasn't); they only cared about grabbing more money.
Just think about it good TV + Good internet (just think u-verse with out useing part of it's bandwidth for TV)
Comcast cable TV sucks there internet is fast. But I have OLD ATT DSL (in a u-verse area) I don't want to give up Directv for u-verse lower bit rates and HD streams limit. I can get comcast but there have a very weak HD line up + big mess of a channel map.
You idiot, both sides are taking their cut.
https://www.opensecrets.org/or...
Let me guess, you believe the Democrats are "for the little guy"?
You're as stupid as the guy you replied to.
https://www.opensecrets.org/or...
What the government should be doing is providing the infrastructure that enables competition. Ensuring fair and equal access to the commons is what governments are for. What we get here in the US monopoly enforcement.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Bribery and coercion are better legal avenues, but of course the DoJ was bought and paid for decades ago so that won't happen. IANAL but I know there is legal precedent for strong arm tactics like this. Comcast is not the first company to think "Hey, if I use a middle man they will never know it was us!"
Yeah, you say it perfectly in your third paragraph. The US Government has failed miserably - at just about everything except for protecting the extremely wealthy and ensuring that that class keeps getting more wealth. Outside of that, I can't think of a single success story. VA, IRS, GAO, FDA, CIA, FBI, ATF, DEA, DoJ, DoE, FCC, FDA, Department of the Navy, Secret Service, etc.. etc.. have all caught in corruption and scandals within the last 2 years. Some are just openly corrupt and don't give a fuck. Why should they care to hide it, the populace won't do anything because some celebrity news just hit the broadcast channels and *ooh look a shiny**.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
in all of this is that it is not actually a "Comcast" or other juristic entity but the people lining up behind a certain idea and then marching in lock-step.
So - are they all hypnotized or is it some hard-wired crowd behavior?
Nobody will get into a "power" position without conforming to some standard behavior present in a particular group.
I guess, a lot of it is fear-driven, by being afraid loosing a familiar surrounding or whatever one identifies as being advantageous.
The other thing is the spectators around simlpifying the issue, projecting their disgust and hatred on some neural association - Comcast/Time-Warner merger is "bad". On one side, but nobody would pursue something like that without seeing a benefit.
Who is the driving part behing this? The individuals pushing this forward, who are they - what kind of persons? Sickos to do something like that or swimming on top of the cream, wanting to stay there with their companion-floaters sucking everyone below them and getting high on it?
I think, identifying the individual pushers, publishing their names, bio and what else they do to make the crap transparent would help better.
Somewhere in their hypnosis, there must be a part living where it knows all this is not so great..
"but... but...
2 Gbps for everyone."
... I say "bribes". You have to admit that much of what is, today, considered "support" or a "donation" is really a thinly-disguised bribe.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The biggest problem is that some congressmen have Comcast at home. There's no escaping that lovely firsthand experience.
(yes I know Comcast offered elite, custom US support plans and free internet to some congressmen)
"the populace won't do anything because some celebrity news just hit the broadcast channels and *ooh look a shiny**." That's close but not really accurate, it just sounds like you feel superior to everyone else. The real problem is in this age of 24 hour news channels I still get more news from my local 6pm News then I do from 24 hours of Fox, CNN, MSNBC, They all harp on the same story non stop never touching one the myriad of other stuff happening in the worlds. We have no journalists willing to hold peoples feet to the fire. It's like the Press, the Politicians and their Corporate masters are all sitting around in some weird mutual reach around. It's not that we don;t want the News, it's that we are never even offered it.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
That they will do what is in their best interests is predictable and reasonable. What they are able to do and how they do it on the other hand are worth examining.
To take an extreme (at least in the US) example, picture a company simply having its rivals killed or kidnaps the children of officials with power over their merger. Both of these are things that would be in their best interests, but we generally do not want companies to be able to take those kinds of steps without consequences that make it against their best interests.
Finding interest in Politics/History/Philosophy does not make anyone "better" than someone else, nice accusation from ignorance. It does however indicate that I have a wealth of knowledge on those subjects, and perhaps that makes you feel inferior.
No, "News" is not the problem. The problem is that bread and circuses have been known to prevent revolts, even when they are needed to correct entrenched corruption. History is pretty clear on this point, perhaps you can study up on Roman history if you feel inferior somehow. The majority of people don't have, nor do they want, interest in Politics. You can go back further in history to Athens for historical references.
I also gave the reference for you to study the depth and breadth of corruption in the US Government.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.