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FCC Chairman Says His Agency Won't Review AT&T's Time Warner Purchase (engadget.com)
Today, FCC commissioner Ajit Pai confirmed that his agency would not review AT&T's Time Warner purchase, clearing the way for the Justice Department to likely approve the deal. Engadget reports: Last month, AT&T revealed how it might structure its deal to acquire Time Warner without having to go through FCC review. The communications giant noted that it "anticipated that Time Warner will not need to transfer any of its FCC licenses ... after the closing of the transaction." That means that the FCC wouldn't need to review the transaction. "That is the regulatory hook for FCC review," Pai said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "My understanding is that the deal won't be presented to the commission." The WSJ notes that this would leave the Justice Department as the only governmental agency reviewing the potential deal. Time Warner has said that it has "dozens" of FCC licenses, but the company believes those won't need to be transferred to AT&T as part of the merger, thus keeping the FCC out of the deal. The report notes that the deal still might not go through even if the FCC won't review the transaction. There's a lot of opposition to it from consumer advocacy groups, and President Donald Trump has said he opposes the deal.
Serfdom is the natural state of the 99%. The "middle class" of the 40s to the 90s was an aberration. Think of this as a "return to normalcy".
The FCC is not the right agency to review mergers for anticompetitive issues. FCC is about tech, not competition.
The relevant agency is the F *T* C (Federal Trade Commission).
Now maybe they need some legislation to give them a budget bump and/or a juristictional tweak/clarification if they're to (once again) take on the telecom giants over antitrust issues. But if so it's high time that was done.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
when the whole system is owned by R's, this is what you get.
we all knew this. but the rednecks just didn't care.
STIGGINIT!
(sigh....)
what a long fucking 4 years this is gonna be. damn!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Trump? A constitutionalist? Are you mad? That consideration has never crossed his mind, which isn't saying much since most considerations haven't. And he never met a deal he couldn't find a way to pervert to shining his halo.