[opendtv] How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party | National Review Online

From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 09:19:14 -0400

Let me preface this message by saying that it represents a very conservative
view and is highly political.

But this editorial puts into words the reality that more and more of us are
waking up to: politicians are all actors on the biggest stage in "Reality TV."
The politicians need the media and the media needs the special deals that the
politicians can deliver to help them profit from the oligopolies they are given
in return for parroting the party lines...

I am in the middle of a special interest battle here in Florida, between beer
distributors and craft brewers. The distributors were granted oligopoly status
after prohibition to prevent tied houses - a common practice in other countries
where big breweries own the pubs that serve their products. The distributors
are a reliable source of funding for political campaigns, and have been for
more than 80 years. The pro growth, pro jobs, anti regulatory capture
Republicans that control the Legislature are more than happy to try to crush
one of the fastest growing industries in our state to keep the money flowing...

The same is true for the Comcast/TWC merger. This editorial lays out where the
money and in-kind contribution of the media have been applied to grease the
skids for further consolidation and control of a lucrative franchise.

Please remove any political blinders you may have before reading this. This is
not about political views or tactics, but rather, it is about political power,
money, and the misuse of that power to prevent real marketplace competition.

Regards
Craig

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375116/how-comcast-bought-democratic-party-matthew-continetti

How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party

The communications giant Comcast announced in February that it would buy Time
Warner Cable for $45 billion, creating the largest cable provider in America,
with more than 33 million customers. That is about one third of the U.S. cable-
and satellite-television market. FCC approval is required for the merger to go
into effect. Critics of the deal say it would lessen competition and lead to
even shoddier customer service. They are probably right, as all of us will soon
find out, because there is little chance the merger will be stopped. Comcast,
Time Warner, and their political fixers have spent years preparing for this
moment — by buying off the Democratic party.

Comcast, which employs more than 100 lobbyists, spent almost $19 million last
year on lobbying activities. Its president and CEO, Brian L. Roberts, is a golf
buddy of President Obama’s, and a Democratic donor who has contributed
thousands of dollars not only to the president’s campaigns, but also to the
Democratic party of Pennsylvania, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,
the DNC Services Corporation, and to Steny Hoyer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bob
Casey. Roberts’s executive vice president, David Cohen, is a former aide to
Democratic bigwig Ed Rendell. Cohen skirts lobbying regulations through
loopholes, has raised more than $2 million for Obama since 2007, and in 2011
hosted a DNC fundraiser at which the president called him “friend.” Cohen has
visited the White House 14 times since 2010, including two visits to the Oval
Office. He attended the recent dinner for President Hollande of France.

Cohen plays a major role in the Comcast Foundation, which has disbursed more
than $3 billion since 2001, primarily to “groups that serve African-Americans,
Latinos, and Asians” and other segments of the Democratic coalition. You will
be surprised to learn that many of the groups to whom the Comcast Foundation
has donated now support the proposed merger. Of the $33 million Comcast has
spent on political campaigns since 1989, more than half, or some $18 million,
has gone to Democrats. Barack Obama is No. 1 on the list of the top ten
recipients of Comcast’s largesse. There are four Republicans on the list.
Comcast’s in-kind contributions to the Democratic party are more difficult to
calculate. In a media environment that already tilts leftward, the NBC
networks, which Comcast owns, distinguish themselves as especially pro-Obama.
Comcast has one channel, MSNBC, which is almost entirely devoted to furthering
the president’s agenda and the broader priorities of the American progressive
movement. How do you put a price on the contributions of the invaluable Ed, Al,
Chris, Chris, Rachel, and Lawrence? Where would the Democratic party be today
without The Reid Report? They give so much.

MSNBC shares staff and resources with NBC News, whose chief foreign-affairs
correspondent is a personal friend and tireless advocate of Hillary Clinton’s.
NBC Sports, which during its recent Olympics coverage bent over backwards to
apologize for Russia, has on its payroll the liberal pink-eye victim Bob
Costas, famous for advocating gun control during a sporting event. President
Obama and Michelle Obama are regulars on Jimmy Fallon’s show, and Joe Biden was
the first guest on Seth Myers’s Late Night. Biden is always good for laughs.

The company Comcast wants to absorb shares its partisan leaning. Since 1989,
Time Warner has given $29 million to political campaigns, and more than half of
that money went to Democrats. The top three recipients of contributions from
Time Warner’s employees, their family members, and PACs are Barack Obama,
Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry. President Obama comes first, with more than $1
million. Hillary Clinton comes next, with some $400,000. (Sexism?) Time
Warner’s PAC has given lavishly to the DNC Services Corporation, the DCCC, and
the DSCC.

Time Warner’s CEO, Robert Marcus, has donated $8,500 to Democrats since 2010.
His giving also favors Democrats over Republicans. So far this cycle Time
Warner and its employees have lavished support on Alison Grimes, Cory Booker,
Kay Hagan, Mark Takano, and Henry Waxman. They are all — well, you know what
they are. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who has received donations from
both companies, had to recuse himself from Senate business with the merger when
it was revealed that his brother, Robert, was representing Time Warner. Comcast
and Time Warner are on the list of companies subject to an ongoing Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act Investigation. Will Reid and Schumer return the money
donated by companies under investigation for shady business practices overseas?

The chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is a venture capitalist and former
lobbyist for telecom interests. Obama appointed him in 2013. “Comcast Lobbyist
Cohen Meets His Match in FCC’s Wheeler,” read a recent headline from Reuters,
but the adversarial relationship implied therein seems to me to be vastly
overstated. In fact “match” is a good word to describe the similarities between
these two men. Both are influence brokers that have successfully navigated the
highly complex and highly lucrative maze of telecom politics. Both are Obama
campaign bundlers. Wheeler raised somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 for
Obama’s first presidential race, personally maxing out to the campaign and to
the DNC, and bundled at least $500,000 for the president’s reelection.
Fortunately, we can rest assured that none of this, not Wheeler’s ties to his
industry, nor the specter of regulatory capture, nor the shared political
agenda of regulator and “industry partner,” nor the prospect of future
employment, will affect Wheeler’s decision in any way.

It is something of a political irony that Republicans, who for ideological
reasons are pro-business, have not raised questions about, or objections to,
the conjoining of two Democratic institutions into a media trust. If
Republicans had any sense, they would wage war against Comcast and its
Democratic enablers and turn the merger into a live issue. Needless to say they
have not done so, perhaps in the wrongheaded and futile hope of scraps from the
table of the Comcast cable beast, perhaps in the foolish and selfish notion
that David Cohen may one day add another man to his company of lobbyists.

“I have been struck by the absence of rational, knowledgeable voices in this
space coming out in opposition or even raising serious questions about the
transaction,” Cohen said in a recent C-SPAN interview. I am struck by the same
absence, but I am not surprised by it. At this writing opposition to the merger
seems to be limited to the Writers Guild of America, Washington Post columnist
Catherine Rampell, and Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. This is what happens
when you buy one political party and disarm the other.

Imagine the noises from MSNBC if the merger involved Rupert Murdoch or Glenn
Beck or Sheldon Adelson or the K-O-C-H brothers. Criticism would lead the NBC
Nightly News with Brian Williams, Costas would interrupt a Sunday Night
Football game to decry corporate consolidation, Fallon would crack wise in his
monologue. And who are the opponents of high prices, horrible customer service,
and sub-standard Xfinity packages left with instead? Stuart Smalley.

[opendtv] How Comcast Bought the Democratic Party | National Review Online

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