Does Net Neutrality Mean Much To You?

If more congressional candidates did this, many of the country's problems would vanish

I was listening to NPR yesterday on a long drive and they were interviewing two dullard Beltway operatives, a dumb Dem and an even dumber Republican. The dumb Dem, when asked about Net Neutrality's salience as an issue said no one cared much about it. And the dumber Republican went one further to say no one even knows what it is. These two fools and the idiots they work for may be in for a big surprise. Spectrum seems to already be slowing down website loading and is running frequent TV cable ads hawking speedier service if you pay a monthly fee. Anyone who thinks there's no salience in that as an issue is just so, so clueless.

Lisa Brown, the Democrat running for Congress in eastern Washington state, has a a net neutrality video as her pinned tweet. It's an important issue for her. She told us that her opponent, "4th- ranked Republican leader, Rep. McMorris Rodgers, actually 'applauded' the FCC for taking on the reversal of net neutrality, demonstrating how out of touch she is with the real needs of most Americans, especially the rural parts of eastern Washington. Not only will 'pay to play' internet hurt all consumers in the wallet, it will widen the digital divide, as ISPs compete by investing in big city technology upgrades and marketing, letting the rest of us languish."

John Culberson is one of the only members of Congress left in office who voted against the Martin Luther King holiday. Hopefully this will be his last year in Congress, replaced one of the best successful cancer doctores and researcher Jason Westin. Unlike Culberson, Westin is a proponent of new neutrality. " John Culberson has many flaws, but the gift of gab isn't one. The quote often attributed to Mark Twain may apply to Mr. Culberson: 'Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.' On Net Neutrality, he couldn't stay silent. On March 25, 2017 Culberson held his most recent town hall. It was a raucous affair and one of the questions was about if he'd support Net Neutrality. He tried 4 times to answer, and it was clear he'd never heard of Net Neutrality. But when I reviewed his voting record, he voted AGAINST Net Neutrality on April 15, 2016 (H.R. 2666, 114th Congress). This is an excellent example of why we need new leadership-- to have representatives who actually know what they are voting on."

Senate Democrats seem to understand how much net neutrality resonates and they're trying to force McConnell to allow a vote. Cecilia Kang reported yesterday in the NY Times that even if the Democrats win in the Senate-- and they're close-- the Republican-controlled House is unlikely to go along and Trump would veto it anyway.

Senate Democrats said on Tuesday that all 49 members of their caucus had agreed to sign on to a resolution that would overturn the F.C.C. repeal of net neutrality rules. They are using a tool of the Senate, the Congressional Review Act, which requires a simple majority to overturn a recent order by a federal agency.

The Democrats also have the support of at least one Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine. So that leaves them searching for one more Republican to join their effort to get the necessary 51 votes.

...Many Democrats would like to turn net neutrality into a bigger political issue ahead of the 2018 midterms. The efforts to overturn the F.C.C. order are aimed to raise awareness about an issue that has broad interest, particularly among younger voters, Democratic lawmakers have said. Consumer advocacy groups like Free Press, Demand Progress and Fight for the Future, have been singling out lawmakers who have either supported the F.C.C. order or have not spoken up in favor of restoring rules.

“There will be a political price to pay for those on the wrong side of history. Momentum is on our side,” Mr. Markey has said.

Ryan, of course, will protect the swamp so it will take 218 signatures on a discharge petition to get around him. Mike Doyle (D-PA) introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to reverse the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality protections and immediately got 81 co-sponsors. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) was one. "We can’t stand by," she said, "as the FCC and big corporations steal our right to equal access to the Internet. I am cosponsoring this resolution because we need to reverse the FCC’s shameful repeal of net neutrality protections. The FCC’s decision will allow Internet service providers to favor big businesses over startups, hurting New Hampshire innovators; it needs to be stopped.”

Last month, Shea-Porter sent a letter with the New Hampshire congressional delegation to New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald and Governor Chris Sununu, urging them to take action to protect Granite State consumers and small businesses from the negative impacts of the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality protections. Shea-Porter and 118 colleagues also sent a letter asking FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to delay the scheduled net neutrality vote due to public comment irregularities.

Yesterday New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman led 22 states in a suit against the FCC over its plan to rollback net neutrality, alleging that the FCC decision violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act as well as a number of state and local laws. And it isn't just the blue states. Kentucky joined as well. Attorney General Andy Beshear: "I’m opposing the repeal of net neutrality because of the destructive nature it will have on every Kentuckian from farmers to college students who use free and open internet to thrive and prosper. As a state and as a nation, we cannot turn our backs on the hard working people of this country by letting the federal government walk all over them and take away their level playing field."

Aside from New York and Kentucky, the other states who have joined the suit are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Democrats would love to get Republicans opposing net neutrality on the record.

I reached out to Austin Frerick, a former Obama Treasury Department economist who is biding much of his Iowa congressional campaign on an analysis of corporate power and how it harms ordinary working families and how to rein it in. He told me that "Only 50% of rural Americans have Internet that meets the government standard of adequate serviced compared with 94% in urban area. The repeal of Net Neutrality will exacerbate the issue of unreliable broadband in rural areas. On March 31st last year, David Young received a $5,000 check from Comcast. I support Net Neutrality. He doesn't. This is probably why. Here's just another example of David Young putting corporate America's needs heads of everyday Iowans."

Derrick Crowe, like Frerick, is one of those forward-looking big thinker candidates-- he's running in TX-21 (super-literate and techie Austin/San Antonio)-- who understands very well how crucially important net neutrality is. Today he told us that "Net Neutrality is about stopping another massive corporate attack on our freedom. It's repeal lets huge corporations act as the gatekeepers of information, giving them enormous power to shape political debates and extort funds from subscribers. This is an issue that young voters and people about to be old enough to vote are intensely attuned to, and if our party doesn't vociferously defend true Title II Net Neutrality, we risk alienating an entire generation-- for good reason. We subsidize corporations like Verizon and Comcast to the tune of billions of dollars each year, and this move by them and their political enablers to restrict our freedoms in return is outrageous." You can contribute to their campaigns, and Jared Golden's, by clicking on the thermometer on the right.

Lewiston's Jared Golden is the majority whip of the Maine House of Representatives and is now running for the congressional seat held by Wall Street-oriented Republican Bruce Poliquin. Like Frerick and Crowe, he gets how important this issue is for Mainers-- even if his opponent doesn't. "Once again," he told us, "Bruce Poliquin is the only member of Maine’s delegation that’s failed to protect his constituents. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King and Congresswoman Pingree all support restoring Net Neutrality but Poliquin supported getting rid of it. The network companies have local monopolies in Maine and they are making their own rules while consumers have little or no alternatives to choose from. The FCC is giving these monopolies free rein over consumers and small businesses and Maine’s economy is pretty much driven by small businesses. Not only should it bring back Net Neutrality but Congress should act to break up the monopolies and ensure fair competition instead of allowing these internet providers to operate like 21st Century Barons."

Katie Hill is the committed progressive in a race to replace GOP reactionary Steve Knight in a district that has been trending blue. She told us that "Without net neutrality, news is less available, citizens are less knowledgeable, and marginalized groups are even less powerful. Our discussions and democratic deliberations are weakened when telecom companies and internet service providers get to decide who is allowed to speak, whose speech will be taken seriously, and what issues are considered debatable. The free and open exchange of information is one of our last defenses against the political influence of big businesses and special interests; the fight to #SaveNetNeutrality is not one that we can afford to lose."

Worse Than Fox! Trump’s FCC Revives Outmoded Rule To Let Sinclair Become The Fox Of Local TV News

-by Jack Hannold

While the FCC’s plan to drop net neutrality rules has garnered most of the attention that agency has received during the Trump Administration, another recent rule change, one seemingly tailored to help a media company even more radically rightwing than Fox, is getting less scrutiny.

The video above recounts how Sinclair Broadcast Group has been abusing its ownership of TV stations to promote conservatism in general, and the Republican Party in particular, for years. Sinclair’s “News Central” at its corporate headquarters in Maryland produces “must carry” programming for its stations, mostly pieces to be inserted in the station’s local newscasts. In December, the Washington Post analyzed Sinclair's pattern of pro-Trump propaganda.

Unlike Fox, Sinclair does not own a network. But like Fox, Sinclair owns TV stations-- and it owns, or controls, more stations than Fox.

Sinclair currently operates 173 TV stations, including both those it owns directly and those it controls through “Local Market Agreements,” or LMA’s-- contracts that allow one company to operate a station licensed to another company in return for a payment to the licensee. Some licensees are shell corporations controlled by Sinclair.

And now Sinclair has announced plans to buy Tribune Broadcasting. If regulators approve the deal, Sinclair will control the programming of an additional 42 stations-- some of them in major markets Sinclair has never been able to buy a station-- making Sinclair the largest single TV broadcaster in the US. Sinclair would then be able to reach over 70 percent of the US population, despite a rule limiting the combined reach of any single company’s stations to 39 percent.

Kushner-in-Law has openly bragged about cutting a deal with Sinclair, and this year that deal has paid off handsomely for Sinclair.  In April, the FCC voted to re-instate the “UHF discount” rule, a rule that was finally eliminated only last year.  Under that rule, the FCC counts only half the population reached by UHF stations when calculating the combined reach of all the stations owned by a licensee. For example, in the Los Angeles media market, which covers about 4.8 percent of the US population, a UHF station counts as reaching only 2.4 percent.

And that’s even worse than it sounds because, in the era of digital over-the-air TV, three out of four stations, commercial and non-commercial alike, are on the UHF band-- including many that identify over the air as VHF stations. Both WCBS-TV in New York and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles used to transmit their analog signals on channel 2, and both still identify themselves as channel 2, using channel 2 as their “virtual channel” (see link)-- though they now transmit their digital over-the-air signals on channels 33 and 43 respectively.

The use of VHF virtual channels with UHF transmitters is the rule these days. 53 of the 173 stations Sinclair already operates have VHF virtual channels, but only 27 actually operate in the VHF band. And of the 42 stations Tribune controls, 20 use VHF virtual channels, but only four transmit on VHF channels. The FCC will consider the 146 Sinclair stations and the 38 Tribune stations that operate in the UHF band (regardless of their virtual channels) as UHF stations for purposes of the UHF discount rule, counting only half those stations’ potential audiences when calculating the combined reach of all those stations. That should easily bring the total down to somewhere near 40 percent of the US population. And Ajit Pai, the former Verizon lobbyist Trump made his FCC chair, also plans to raise the limit from 39 to 45 percent, just to be safe.

That’s quite a reward for Sinclair’s support of Trump during the campaign!

The UHF discount should never have been revived. It was an indefensible anachronism long before the FCC eliminated it last year; in fact, it was obsolete even before it was first adopted in 1985. Consider the history of UHF.

When the UHF band was opened to TV in 1952, dozens of new UHF stations began operating. But few manufacturers equipped TV sets with UHF tuners, external UHF converter boxes were expensive and hard to find, and the quality of those UHF circuits was generally poor. And without a separate antenna designed for UHF, the results were usually disappointing. Viewers lost interest, and so did advertisers. Most of the UHF stations founded in the 1950s went broke within two years.

During the Fifties, some engineering improvements in UHF circuitry were made. But with few UHF stations on the air, few manufacturers were interested in using them.

Then the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 authorized the FCC to require that all TV sets shipped in interstate commerce be equipped to receive both VHF and UHF television. The FCC promptly adopted a regulation requiring not only all-channel receivers, but also setting a relatively high standard for the quality of the UHF circuits in order to make reception on both bands virtually equal. That regulation became effective in 1964.

Color TV also came of age in 1964, and leading manufacturers built the UHF tuners in color sets to even higher standards than those required by the FCC. New UHF stations struggled for the first few years, but by 1970 many independent UHF’s in mixed markets like Philadelphia were beginning to catch up with the long- established independent VHF’s in all-VHF markets like New York and L.A.

Then in the late Seventies, with the growth of cable TV, the last marginal disadvantages of UHF vanished, at least for cable subscribers.

So there was no justification for establishing the UHF discount in 1985, and there’s certainly no excuse for restoring it in 2017. The only reason it’s been brought back is to give the corrupt Trump Administration a way to reward a corporate lackey.

Local TV news-- with its sensationalized crime reporting, coverage of every fire and accident its crews can reach and mindless puff pieces planted by public relations professionals, is often a blight on journalism. But it’s still important, if only because 57 percent of Americans list it as their primary source of news.

And that’s why the reinstatement of an indefensible FCC rule-- for the sole purpose of allowing a rightwing outfit like Sinclair to insert their pro-GOP propaganda into the newscasts of more stations-- is alarming.


UPDATE: The Merger Lifts Sinclair from No. 4 to No.1 in Billings

Just how much will the Sinclair buyout of Tribune increase concentration? And what does that mean for profitability? Today’s edition of the online radio newsletter Tom Taylor Now explains that.

Sinclair will lead TV’s top groups by spot revenue-- though it’s still smaller than radio’s iHeartMedia

Just something to keep in mind when you scope out the latest “Top 30 Group Owners” in the TV field from TVNewsCheck-- radio’s largest group produces more revenue than any of them, even assuming Sinclair is able to scoop up Tribune. We’re used to iHeartMedia’s claims of having “the largest reach of any radio or television outlet in America” when it comes to listening/viewership. But there’s also the revenue angle. The radio/digital part of iHeart did $3.4 billion in revenue for 2016, up 3.6%% for the year. (That’s excluding its various outdoor divisions.) A merged Sinclair/Tribune would be $2.9 billion, and that’s enough to make it America’s top-billing TV station group. But it’s half a billion dollars smaller than iHeart Media. True, this NOW comparison is apples-to-tangerines or maybe grapefruit, since the TVNewsCheck chart is ranked by spot revenue, and iHeartMedia’s reporting total revenue, which would include digital and off-air. TV stations also benefit greatly from “re-trans” – retransmission fees paid by satellite and cable. While radio derives a much greater percentage of total revenue from spot sales. But it’s at least a rough guide to their relative size. With the caveat, let’s have some more fun.

Here are TV’s top-billing station groups, with a side-glance at radio – #1 on the TVNewsCheck roll call of TV groups, ranked by estimated 2016 spot revenues, is Sinclair/Tribune at $2.9 billion in spot revenue. (Adding Tribune Media lifts Sinclair from #4 to #1.) The #2-billing TV station group is CBS ($1.725 billion), and Fox is a very close #3 ($1.717 billion). #4 is Comcast/NBC ($1.48 billion) and Nexstar’s #5 at $1.249 billion. Okay, back to the parallel radio universe, for some very rough comparisons. The CBS Radio group reported $1.22 billion for last year, which is more than TV operator ABC-Disney’s $1.19 billion, Hearst’s $853 million and Univision’s $810 million. If you’re wondering how the future Entercom + CBS Radio would stack up, the annual revenue (disregarding possible divestitures) would’ve been about $1.7 billion last year. That’s close to the CBS-TV-owned stations and the Fox station group. See how the TV universe lays out with the TVNewsCheck Top 30 here. Revenue numbers are from BIA/Kelsey. Appraising the new position of Sinclair, its Dr. Mark Fratrik says “This is the first time in a long time-- maybe forever-- that a non [TV network] O&O is #1 in revenue.”

Note that these figures refer only to station spot sales revenues, not income from “re-trans” fees paid by cable and satellite-- and not to the other businesses of those corporations, e.g. networks (Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.), cable channels, or cable systems (Comcast).

And note, too, that Sinclair did not control the Tribune stations in 2016.  TVNewsCheck got some flack in the form of reader comments for misleadingly combining the two companies' earnings  instead of listing them separately (see the link in the second paragraph above).

Do You Think That Someone Who Gives A Candidate A Million Bucks Gets Special Treatment If The Candidate Wins?

PREFACE: The three biggest campaign contributions from individuals-- all to SuperPACs-- were for $15 million (the Wilks brothers), $11 million (Robert Mercer) and $10 million (Tony Neugebauer) dollars and all went to anti-democracy fanatic Ted Cruz. So... Hillary is better than he is.

If you ask most Democrats-- and pollsters often do-- you get the impression that getting dark money out of politics is important, even very important, to them. And yet, Hillary Clinton, who has more in common with the Republicans on campaign finance than she does with Bernie Sanders has managed to stay the #1 choice for most Democrats. Bernie is being clear that he not only opposes dark money in politics but that he won't accept any under any circumstances. It puts his campaign at a financial disadvantage-- you can help him here-- but, some think, at a moral advantage. Hillary, meanwhile, is taking money-- at lot of it-- from really bad players who want a say in how she governs if she's the nominee and goes on to win another idiotic lesser-of-two-evils general election. Some of the big money donors giving to her superPacs include:

• Jeffery Katzenberg- $1 million
• Haim Saban- $2 million
• Herbert Sandler- $1 million
• George Soros- $1 million
• Steven Spielberg- $1 million
• Donald Sussman- $1 million

Yesterday the Sunlight Foundation shined a little light in places that the Clinton campaign prefers stay dark.

We already examined Clinton’s biggest super PAC supporters earlier this week, Priorities USA Action and Ready PAC, plus her official campaign PAC. Now we’re going to dive deeper into the dark money supporting Clinton: the money in groups that don’t have to disclose their donors, and the money that moves from those groups to super PACs that support Clinton.

The groups we’re looking at here are all founded by David Brock, a Clinton enemy-turned-ally who runs a number of liberal super PACs and nonprofits. Some of these groups are directly supporting her; others aren’t, but have donated to the groups that do support her. In addition to the groups we’ve outlined here, Brock is also on the board of Priorities USA, and he’s president of a group called the American Independent Institute, which funds “individual journalism projects, with an emphasis on exposing the nexus of conservative power in Washington.” Just a few weeks ago, Brock bought the progressive news site Blue Nation Review, which will now be headed by Peter Daou, Clinton’s former digital strategist and founder of the Hillary Men project. In 2014, Brock became chairman of the board of the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which is now located at the same offices as all the groups listed below.

All the groups listed below are located in the same offices: 455 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C...

American Bridge 21st Century (super PAC)

Brock established American Bridge 21st Century in 2010. Much of its activity comes in the form of opposition research against Republican candidates-- for example, a recent post on its website attacks Marco Rubio’s record as an instructor at Florida International University. It also sends trackers to follow Republican candidates on the campaign trail, recording “almost every public utterance by prominent Republican politicians, using both DC-based researchers and a national network of professional trackers.” So far this cycle, it has raised $6.2 million and spent $5.2 million. While it has spent on races in the past, it hasn’t directly spent on any races so far this cycle. Most of its major expenses this year have been on staff and fundraising.

Until May 2015, Bridge had several staff dedicated solely to pushing back on attacks against Clinton as part of a project called Correct the Record, but that split off as a separate super PAC. This division of labor-- opposition research at Bridge, pro-Clinton defensive work at Correct the Record-- has been described by Brock himself, discussing his decision to leave Bridge for Correct the Record:

I essentially had to make a decision. Do I want to be involved in supervising and handling the research against the Republican candidates? ... Or do I want to be involved in some combination of defense and offense for Hillary Clinton?

Notable donors this cycle to Bridge include American Bridge 21st Century Foundation (more on that in a minute), which gave $1.2 million; philanthropists George Soros and Steve Silberstein, who gave $1 million and $200,000, respectively. NextGen Climate Action Committee also contributed $250,000. We’ve written extensively about how this 501(c)(4) is funded almost entirely by hedge fund manager and environmentalist Tom Steyer.

American Bridge has paid the executive vice president of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone, $3,000 a month for management consulting since January 2014.

American Bridge 21st Century Foundation (501(c)(4))

American Bridge 21st Century Foundation is another 501(c)(4) organization, also known as a dark money group. It runs Bridge Project, which says it’s “dedicated to opposing the conservative movement’s extreme ideology and exposing its dishonest tactics.” The site has a database, “Conservative Transparency,” that allows users to search for conservative donors, recipients and organizations. Featured donors include the Koch brothers and The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

The hilarious part (if you find dodging transparency hilarious) is that the group has an entire database for uncovering the money behind conservative causes, documenting spending from their 990s, and blogging about conservative donors, but it does not disclose its own donors on that website, or anywhere else. We reached out to American Bridge for comment on this, and will update this post if we receive anything from them.

On that note: The foundation arm of American Bridge 21st Century has donated a lot of money to the Bridge super PAC, which does have to disclose its donors. In the first six months of 2015, the foundation gave $1.2 million to the super PAC. In 2014, they donated $2.5 million. That’s $3.7 million dollars funneled from the foundation to the super PAC in just the last two years-- with donors safe in the knowledge that their names won’t be disclosed to the public.

Correct the Record (super PAC)

Correct the Record was originally part of the American Bridge super PAC, but was spun off in May 2015 to be its own super PAC. It’s headed by Brad Woodhouse, the past president of American Bridge 21st Century and former communications director of the Democratic National Committee. Correct the Record is located in the same offices as Media Matters and American Bridge; as National Journal pointed out, “When long­time Demo­crat­ic op­er­at­ive Brad Wood­house left his job head­ing one su­per PAC to lead an­oth­er, he didn’t even change desks.” Most of Correct the Record’s staff used to work at the super PAC arm of American Bridge, according to FEC filings.

The FEC has stated that it only regulates Internet activity when it is “communication placed on another person’s website for a fee.” So, Correct the Record says it actually can communicate with the campaign because all of its activity is on its own website. (This underscores the so-called "Internet “blind spot” that we pointed out a couple weeks ago.)

In theory, Correct the Record could coordinate with the campaign, then coordinate with the other super PACs. We don’t know if that is true, and even if it was, it’s doubtful the FEC would do anything about it. But Campaign Legal Center’s Paul Ryan has described the group’s activity as “creating new ways to undermine campaign regulation.”

The New York Times has reported that Brock, who officially left American Bridge for Correct the Record when it was formed, is “focused on paying attention to the activities of Correct the Record and Media Matters, which will play the biggest role in defending Mrs. Clinton throughout the campaign.”

Since it was formed in May, Correct the Record has raised $1.4 million from some of the same donors as American Bridge-- big donors Steve Silberstein, Joan Cooney and Barbara Lee have donated to both. Correct the Record was only active for about a month before its first and only FEC filing, so we’ll know more about their finances in January. (Yes, super PACs go six months without divulging donor information some years.) The Clinton campaign itself is Correct the Record’s single biggest donor, at $275,615.

Correct the Record also has a joint fundraising committee with Priorities USA, called American Priorities, but it’s raised no money and spent only $1,200.

Franklin Forum (PAC)

The Franklin Forum is a nonprofit “communications organization that provides media training and support, including message development and speaker promotion, to strengthen top progressive messengers and messaging.” They also have a PAC, Franklin Forum PAC, which raises money from several of the same donors as American Bridge: Paul Egerman, Barbara Lee and Stephen Silberman have donated to both. The PAC’s single biggest expense was $60,000 given to American Bridge, which supports Clinton, in November 2014, and spent directly on a few races in 2014: Mark Warner, Ami Bera and Shenna Bellows’ campaigns all received contributions from the PAC. Most of their expenses are in-kind contributions to non-federal candidates.

Media Matters (501(c)(3))

Media Matters For America (MMFA) is a media watchdog organization, “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media,” founded by David Brock in 2004. Since 2013, Bradley Beychok has been president of the organization; he was previously Campaign Director at American Bridge. It’s a 501(c)(3), meaning it can’t conduct political activity on behalf of a candidate. This means MMFA can’t explicitly advocate for Clinton’s election, but it can (and does) publish material about Clinton: for example, posts criticizing media coverage of her, or highlighting positive coverage. Long-time Clinton adviser James Carville works for them, and fellow Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal was also reportedly paid $200,000 a year by the organization.

Unlike PACs and campaigns, MMFA doesn’t have to disclose its donors or what it pays most of its staff (only executives and top-paid staff) because it’s a 501(c)(3). Correct the Record and American Bridge both pay rent to Media Matters for their office space.

According to its 2013 IRS 990 form, the most recent one available, David Brock draws an annual salary of $280,060 from Media Matters.

American Democracy Legal Fund (527 organization)

The American Democracy Legal Fund is a 527 organization set up in September 2014 to, according to its website bio, “hold candidates for office accountable for possible ethics and/or legal violations.” The group files legal complaints against Republican candidates for violating election law: For example, they filed a complaint with the FEC in October over Jeb Bush’s super PAC, Right To Rise, claiming “illegal coordination” between the campaign and the super PAC.

The group has only received two contributions: $50,000 from American Bridge, and $25,000 from the National Education Association. It’s worth noting that while they’re alleging illegal coordination between GOP campaigns and super PACs, the group is chaired by Brad Woodhouse, president of Correct the Record, which is (supposedly legally) coordinating with the Clinton campaign.

The Bonner Group (nonprofit fundraising firm)

This one is a little different. The Bonner Group is a fundraising consulting firm that raises money for American Bridge and Ready PAC, which we know from FEC filings, and other groups like Media Matters, which was reported by the New York Times. Bonner solicits donations for these groups, who then pay Bonner a sizable cut-- in the first six months of 2015, American Bridge super PAC paid Bonner $593,007. So we have no idea how much of American Bridge, Media Matters or Ready PAC’s money comes through Bonner Group fundraising, but we do know that Bonner makes a lot of money off it, and that David Brock thinks he’s getting “the best fund-raising product for the lowest cost.” Media Matters’ 2013 990 form reported they paid $1.4 million for fundraising services.

The New York Times report on The Bonner group notes that Brock and Mary Pat Bonner, who runs the Bonner Group, share a house in the Hamptons.

Like we said last time, there’s still a lot we don’t know about these groups’ finances: We won’t have the relevant FEC filings for the second half of 2015 until January. And the 501(c)(4) nonprofits involved in the campaign won’t file 990 forms covering this cycle until likely 2017, well after voters have cast their votes. Even then, we still won’t know who donated to those groups because 501(c)(4)s don’t have to disclose their donors. And while the FEC is gridlocked, any enforcement action is unlikely. All of this leaves voters in the dark about exactly who is spending some pretty big money to support Hillary Clinton.

In a not-unrelated matter, the FCC Transparency Act, has been endorsed by Public Citizen as "a simple and straightforward measure requiring broadcast stations to present their online disclosures of political ad buys in an easily navigated format that is searchable, sortable and downloadable. This has been the law for TV stations since 2012, although the FCC didn't make these online disclosures easily searchable and sortable for the public, helping politicians to cover their corrupt tracks.

Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division's Government Affairs Lobbyist: "In this day and age, there is no excuse for failing to employ the full transparency powers of the Internet, making digital information and data easily searchable by the name of a sponsor or sorted by the amount of an expenditure. Federal and state Internet disclosure programs today widely employ this state-of-the-art standard of making online information machine-readable-- in other words, searchable, sortable and downloadable."

No doubt if Bernie endorses this, which he will, Hillary will follow, right?

FCC Chair Wheeler: I Want to Regulate the Internet As a Utility

by Gaius Publius

In a dramatic statement, issued through Wired magazine, FCC Chairman (and former telecom lobbyist) Tom Wheeler has "fully" endorsed reclassifying the Internet as a common carrier under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. In other words, the Internet, all of it, will be regulated as a "utility," the way your phone service is.

Wheeler's piece opens with a fascinating story in which he tells his own (bad) experience as a fledgling Internet provider dealing with the lock-out policies of cable providers — while Steve Case, the founder of what would become AOL, was successfully selling a similar, but much inferior product using common-carrier–protected phone lines. That part is not just interesting; it makes what follows entirely credible.

Then Wheeler writes this:

Originally, I believed that the FCC could assure internet openness through a determination of “commercial reasonableness” under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. While a recent court decision seemed to draw a roadmap for using this approach, I became concerned that this relatively new concept might, down the road, be interpreted to mean what is reasonable for commercial interests, not consumers.

That is why I am proposing that the FCC use its Title II ["common carrier"] authority to implement and enforce open internet protections.

Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.

All the right words, finally.

Words and Deeds

Still, so far just words. The deeds will have to match them. Two pieces for you. One, this from one of the main advocacy groups, Popular Resistance (my emphasis throughout):

Today [February 4] is the day that the FCC announced the rules for net neutrality that will be voted upon at their next meeting on February 26. Together, our work over the past year is the reason that we achieved reclassification of the Internet as a common carrier under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. We are on the verge of a tremendous people powered victory over the telecom industry. We expect more analysis of the actual language to come soon. But for now, we can celebrate that people power conquered the cable industry and welcome net neutrality back. (Here is a fact sheet from the FCC on the proposed rule.)

We agree with Chairman Wheeler that the interests of the telecoms is not always consistent with the public interest. [Yes, Wheeler actually said that.] We urge the Chairman to not compromise with telecoms and Internet providers as this is the opportunity to follow the wishes of the American people and put in place rules that ensure the Internet is free of discrimination.

We are also pleased to see that proposals in Congress for fake net neutrality are not moving forward. Both political parties would be wise to side with the American people, small businesses, Silicon Valley and other Internet-based businesses rather than the telecom companies. The public wants real Net Neutrality.

We look forward to reviewing the final rule but if it is consistent with the statement issued today, we will do all we can to ensure that the telecom’s influence in Congress does not undo rules that provide for real Net Neutrality and preserve the dynamism of the Internet as a democratized form of communication and vehicle for innovation.

So, notes of relief, notes of caution. Reasons for concern are two. One, that Wheeler will weasel in a way that matters. From his statement linked above:

All of this can be accomplished while encouraging investment in broadband networks. To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks. For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling. Over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition.

Like Popular Resistance, we'll have to see what that means. "Returns" means profit. Still, he's firm and clear on many of the rules he's proposing, like no throttling, blocking, or "fast lanes." See page 2 of the FCC's Fact Sheet (pdf) for that. Page 3 talks about "Forbearance," Title II regulations that won't apply, which is where we could get some take-back.

Industry Reaction

The second note of concern is Congress and its (bought-and-paid) attempt to block this move. As you read above in the Popular Resistance statement, industry shills in Congress (is it really just Republicans?) are working to prevent this reclassification. The latest attempt is a set of bills before the House and Senate introduced by Sen. John Thune and Rep. Fred Upton. The analysis is here. In essence, these bills neuter both the public Internet and the FCC's ability to regulate it.

But according to Politico:

[Sen. John] Thune told MT on Tuesday [February 3] that it’s “unlikely” that the Republican draft net neutrality bill will move forward before the FCC votes on Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal later this month. There "probably" won't be a markup of the bill "any time soon," he said, adding that he’s still trying to get Democrats to support the bill.

Plus, Harry Reid is on the side of the angels on this one. So far, so good on that front. By the way, get ready for more of this from the heavy manipulators of the right-wing thought machine:

There’s a debate raging about how the FCC should regulate the Internet. Some advocates are pushing for “Title II.” That’s code for 1930s-style utility regulation. Title II would put the FCC squarely in the middle of the Internet — right beside the NSA. It saddles the Internet with price controls and other heavy-handed rules from a thankfully long-gone era. The debate over Title II isn’t a debate over net neutrality, which is why many net neutrality proponents actually oppose Title II. Instead, it’s a debate between a vocal minority that wants greater government control over broadband companies, and defenders of a bipartisan consensus around a “Hands Off the Internet” approach. ...

Drivel. Focus-tested. Industry-bought. But that's where they're headed. (About that "bipartisan consensus," I know it exists. I'd love to have the names of any elected Democrat who signs onto this pushback.)

The Ruling Will Apply Very Broadly

What's striking (and certain) about this proposal is how sweeping it is. At least in the main, nothing is being finessed. From the FCC Fact Sheet again:

First, the Chairman’s proposal would reclassify “broadband Internet access service”—that’s the retail broadband service Americans buy from cable, phone, and wireless providers—as a telecommunications service under Title II. We believe that this step addresses any limitations that past classification decisions placed on our ability to adopt strong Open Internet rules, as interpreted by the D.C. Circuit in the Verizon case last year. But just in case, we also make clear that if a court finds that it is necessary to classify the service that broadband providers make available to “edge providers,” it too is a Title II telecommunications service. (To be clear, this is not a “hybrid”— both the service to the end user and to the edge provider are classified under Title II.)

Nice. Not much weasel there. The Verge comments on this as well:

The biggest revelation from the proposal is the decision to lump wireless networks in with wired broadband, something the FCC has avoided doing for years thanks to enormous pressure from Verizon and AT&T. "I propose to fully apply — for the first time ever — those bright-line rules to mobile broadband," Wheeler wrote. "My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone's permission." Including wireless providers in the rules is a hugely important move, since we've seen that the biggest players have been willing and able to abuse internet openness. AT&T once blocked FaceTime for completely arbitrary reasons, and most recently, T-Mobile has disregarded the principles of net neutrality by giving some music companies special exemptions from data caps.

As near as I can tell, it's all one and all lumped together — phone lines, cable, mobile devices and cell phone towers, string cheese, whatever. If it gives you the Internet, it's a common carrier and regulated under Title II, period. Again, so far, so good.

Bottom Line: February 26 Could Be Internet Freedom Day

The time between now and February 26, when the full FCC votes on the rules, will be hugely important. Telecom companies are formidable beasts, giants, with money to spare and to burn. They will not go quietly. The good news is that Obama appears firmly in the good camp (finally!) and other Democrats appear to be holding fire, however much some of them want that good telecom money for themselves. Thune, as you read, is slow-walking his bill, and Reid has not waffled.

Things to watch: The "forbearances" contained in the final language. The vote of the commissioners themselves. The post-decision reaction of the telecoms.

Nevertheless, we're that close. Finally.

[Update: Corrected typo: Steve Case, not Tom Case.]

GP

Cross-posted with permission from Digby's Hullabaloo.

Many people seem more optimistic than I am that President Obama and Chairman Wheeler will preserve Net neutrality

by Ken

President Obama is feeling some love at the moment, finally, over what appears to be a strong stand taken in the statement released yesterdayseeming to commit him to the protection of Net neutrality -- you know, like he promised when he was running for president way back whenever that was. What's more, the president's statement was complemented by a statement, appearing simultaenously, as if by magic, from Obama appointee, chairman of the of-course-independent FCC, sounding as if Chairman Tom might be shifting toward a similar stand, which comes as something of a surprise, since for a while now it has seemed as if he, with his strong ties to the telecom industry, was on the verge of selling out Net neutrality if he can get an offer of a few magic beans, and maybe even if he can't.

And so, on this subject, there's a rush of good feeling in the air. I the president is enjoying being accoladed by people who haven't been wildly accoladeful of late. And it could be that something may come of it. I don't want to rain on his parade, but my feeling is more along the lines of I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it.

But let's not race too far ahead of ourselves. Here's the text of the president's statement:

An open Internet is essential to the American economy, and increasingly to our very way of life. By lowering the cost of launching a new idea, igniting new political movements, and bringing communities closer together, it has been one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known.

“Net neutrality” has been built into the fabric of the Internet since its creation — but it is also a principle that we cannot take for granted. We cannot allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas. That is why today, I am asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to answer the call of almost 4 million public comments, and implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.

When I was a candidate for this office, I made clear my commitment to a free and open Internet, and my commitment remains as strong as ever. Four years ago, the FCC tried to implement rules that would protect net neutrality with little to no impact on the telecommunications companies that make important investments in our economy. After the rules were challenged, the court reviewing the rules agreed with the FCC that net neutrality was essential for preserving an environment that encourages new investment in the network, new online services and content, and everything else that makes up the Internet as we now know it. Unfortunately, the court ultimately struck down the rules — not because it disagreed with the need to protect net neutrality, but because it believed the FCC had taken the wrong legal approach.

The FCC is an independent agency, and ultimately this decision is theirs alone. I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online. The rules I am asking for are simple, common-sense steps that reflect the Internet you and I use every day, and that some ISPs already observe. These bright-line rules include:

• No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player — not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP — gets a fair shot at your business.

• No throttling. Nor should ISPs be able to intentionally slow down some content or speed up others — through a process often called “throttling” — based on the type of service or your ISP’s preferences.

• Increased transparency. The connection between consumers and ISPs — the so-called “last mile” — is not the only place some sites might get special treatment. So, I am also asking the FCC to make full use of the transparency authorities the court recently upheld, and if necessary to apply net neutrality rules to points of interconnection between the ISP and the rest of the Internet.

• No paid prioritization. Simply put: No service should be stuck in a “slow lane” because it does not pay a fee. That kind of gatekeeping would undermine the level playing field essential to the Internet’s growth. So, as I have before, I am asking for an explicit ban on paid prioritization and any other restriction that has a similar effect.

If carefully designed, these rules should not create any undue burden for ISPs, and can have clear, monitored exceptions for reasonable network management and for specialized services such as dedicated, mission-critical networks serving a hospital. But combined, these rules mean everything for preserving the Internet’s openness.

The rules also have to reflect the way people use the Internet today, which increasingly means on a mobile device. I believe the FCC should make these rules fully applicable to mobile broadband as well, while recognizing the special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.

To be current, these rules must also build on the lessons of the past. For almost a century, our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access in and out of your home or business. That is why a phone call from a customer of one phone company can reliably reach a customer of a different one, and why you will not be penalized solely for calling someone who is using another provider. It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data.

So the time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone — not just one or two companies.

Investment in wired and wireless networks has supported jobs and made America the center of a vibrant ecosystem of digital devices, apps, and platforms that fuel growth and expand opportunity. Importantly, network investment remained strong under the previous net neutrality regime, before it was struck down by the court; in fact, the court agreed that protecting net neutrality helps foster more investment and innovation. If the FCC appropriately forbears from the Title II regulations that are not needed to implement the principles above — principles that most ISPs have followed for years — it will help ensure new rules are consistent with incentives for further investment in the infrastructure of the Internet.

The Internet has been one of the greatest gifts our economy — and our society — has ever known. The FCC was chartered to promote competition, innovation, and investment in our networks. In service of that mission, there is no higher calling than protecting an open, accessible, and free Internet. I thank the Commissioners for having served this cause with distinction and integrity, and I respectfully ask them to adopt the policies I have outlined here, to preserve this technology’s promise for today, and future generations to come.

IT ALL SOUNDS VERY PRETTY, BUT --

As is often pointed out, there is pretty much no constituency for Net neutrality except from people like us. Not because it isn't important to most Americans; they just don't know it is, and nobody has yet figured out how to make them get it. So to them it sounds like some arcane technical issue, not a guarantee that access to the Internet is going to remain available to all on an equal basis rather than being doled out by the telecom companies according to who's willing to pay most.

To make matters worse, the other side has -- yet again -- done a boffo job of messaging the telecom

So naturally, no sooner had the president's and the chairman's statements seen the light of day than the stooges of the oligarchs were screeching and braying about this dastardly attempt to impose government will on the Internet, with the dread specter of (gasp) regulation. Do I have to add that the Right has already won the verbal battle on "regulation" by roughly 100 percent with all precincts reporting? Never mind that regulation is one of the crucial factors that has made the American economy function without spinning out of control, and made so much of everything around us available on a basis vastly more equitable than if it had been left to the unchecked "free market."

With regard to public utilities, in particular, the operative principle of the "free market," unchecked greed and selfishness, would have led the Greediest and Most Selfish to pluck off the highest-paying fruit and say a haughty "eff you" to all the rest of us. And I'm guessing most Americans think that the Internet functions more or less as a public utility, which it sort of did until the recent rash of court decisions saying that the government can't treat it as such unless . . . well, unless it officially declares that that's what it is.

Still, the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans with regard to "regulation" is a wipeout. If it's "regulation," overwhelming numbers of Americans are against it. And now it turns out that what the president is proposing is worse than regulation, as if anything could be worse than regulation. Why, it is -- brays the loudest and most malign jackass of them all, Sen. Rafael "Ted frrom Alberta" Cruz, is "Obamacare for the Internet." Har-har-har. "The Internet should not operate at the speed of government." Har-har-har.

Great, so now all the trillions of lies and obfuscations that the demons of the Right have fobbed off on the American public have created an entirely new category of opprobrium. The response to the Mad Albertan's jackassery has been an eruption of "Obamacare for [fill in the blank]" witticisms, from people whose brains have the functional capacity of cotton candy.

Plus, in case anyone hadn't noticed, the braying jackasses fronting for the oligarchs are now in charge of both houses of Congress. And in case anyone had forgotten, the opposition to "Obamacare for the Internet" has the financial weight of all those telecom giants at its back. Those fellas are probably feeling hurt, figuring that in exchange for giving the government all the data it's asking for, they're owed one -- like this itty-bitty gazillion-dollar payday.

While the Net neutrality side has made no progress in making Americans understand why the it should matter to them, the other side seems to be making excellent progress in making people believe that Net neutrality stands brutishly in the path of untold miracles of innovation and future Internettish heaven. Sure, it's that chokehold of government innovation that has caused our telecom giants to eschew raising outraccess speeds to levels faster than their present fraction of most of the rest of the developed world's, and at rates many multiples of those paid by those people with the faster service.

I suppose it's possible that the president will for once go the distance for his announced position, with a view to keeping close track of the people who stand in the way of open access to the Internet, with a view to holding them accountable. There are only two problems with this hypothesis:

(1) This is Barack Obama we're talking about. His standard negotiating tactic is to bend over and challenge his opposites to see how far up they can shove it.

(2) Um, where is this constituency for Net neutrality to whom the dastards are going to be ratted out?

#

Comcast's CEO must just be kidding when he calls swallowing up Time Warner Cable "pro-consumer, pro-competitive, and strongly in the public interest"

by Ken

My first thought on hearing of Comcast's acquisition Time Warner Cable (which as far as I can tell is a more accurate description than a "merger" of the country's no. 1 and no. 2 cable-TV companies) was: They're not gonna let that happen, are they? By "they," I guess I meant the FCC, the FTC, the Justice Department's Anti-Trust Division -- whoever would have to sign off on a corporate conglomeration that would turn two pretty powerful players in the cable industry into one behemoth. It's just not possible, is it?

My second thought was: Well, they spent a lot of time and billable lawyer hours negotiating the deal, so they must think they can somehow slip it past the regulators?

And my third thought was: Uh-oh. You see, I'm a TWC of NY/NJ customer. (And for that matter, Howie on the opposite coast is also a TWC customer.) Next to my rent, my TWC bill is my biggest monthly bill -- and I haven't figured any way of lowering it, even as TWC keeps managing to find ways for that bill to keep movin' on up. From everything I know about Comcast, I ain't seen nothin' yet. Since cable companies aren't subject to any price limitation, TWC is already charging about as much as it thinks it can get, but I can't help feeling that Comcast's approach to billing, and to customer service as well, is going to make me look back on TWC as a veritable philanthropic enterprise.

The last time I tried to make a dent in my monthly outflow for cable TV and Internet access, some years back, I yielded to the siren song of the "triple-play" package, turning my phone service over to TWC as well. I had all kinds of numbers thrown at me, telling me how much I would save. When the billing dust settled, I counted myself lucky that at least I wasn't paying any more than I had been for cable, Internet, and phone service.

Of course there was the small matter of the phone that no longer rings. I discovered that even while the installer was still on the premises, but he insisted that nothing he did could have caused that, which ended the discussion, even though that phone had been ringing normally before my service "upgrade." And oh yes, the router I was provided during that installation to handle all the services -- a couple of years ago we got a notice that as of such-and-such date it would become a rental item, with a nice little chunk of $$ to be added to my monthly bill. Add in the cost of the router, and my guess is that I am now paying more for the "package" that I'd be paying for the separate services.

Still, I have to say, all in all I'm not displeased with the actual service provided by TWC. I get a pretty darned fine TV picture, and having after more or less overlappingly swapped out all my old cable boxes and upgraded two of my three TVs to HD, they're all working fine. A couple of those boxes at least should probably have been replaced years ago, but I've always been afraid to ask the Customer Service people for anything, since somehow it always seems to wind up costing me money. In fairness, though, TWC has insisted since the introduction of HD that customers wouldn't pay any more for it than for previous service, and they've made good on that promise both in my switching out of boxes and in my billing. I even now have a box on my remaining CRT TV that will provide HD service if and when I upgrade that TV.

What people in other parts of the country often don't realize is that in much of NYC, especially Manhattan, cable TV isn't a luxury, it's a necessity if we want to have a watchable TV picture. And for most of the city, our only choice is none other than TWC -- or whatever the new entity is going to be.

And The New Yorker's John Cassidy says (in a newyorker.com post, "We Need Real Competition, Not a Cable-Internet Monopoly," that "by far the most important" reasons why we Americans pay so much more than people pretty much anywhere else for those "triple-play" services -- and he provides some eye-popping numbers -- are "compettion and competition policy."

In countries like the U.K., regulators forced incumbent cable and telephone operators to lease their networks to competitors at cost, which enabled new providers to enter the market and brought down prices dramatically. The incumbents -- the local versions of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and AT&T -- didn't like this policy at all, but the regulators held firm and forced them to accept genuine competition. "The prices were too high," one of the regulators explained to the media writer Rick Karr. "There were huge barriers to entry."

That quote accurately describes the situation in the United States today, where vigorous competition is almost non-existent. In some big cities, broadband consumers have a choice between a cable operator, such as Comcast, and a telephone provider, such as Verizon. But that's practically no choice at all. Although the cable and telephone companies spend huge sums of money on advertising trying to lure each others customers, they rarely compete on price. To use the economic jargon, they act as a cozy "duopoly," keeping prices well above their costs. Many people, myself included, don't even have two options to choose from. On my block in Brooklyn, Verizon's high-speed FiOS service isn't available yet, so I'm stuck with Time Warner. (And, no, they don't rush out to repair the frequent outages.)

And, says John, "This sorry situation isn't an accident."

It's the predictable outcome of Congress bowing to the monopolists, or quasi-monopolists, and allowing them to squelch potential competitors. "Americans pay so much because they don't have a choice," Susan Crawford, a former adviser to President Obama on science and innovation, and the author of a recent book, "Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age," told the BBC. "We deregulated high-speed internet access ten years ago and since then we've seen enormous consolidation and monopolies… Left to their own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight."

And Comcast, he argues, "is one of the big consolidators and overchargers." He provides some cases in point, and says, "No wonder Comcast's stock price has quintupled since 2009. (Time Warner Cable's stock has gone up even more.)"

John begins his piece by talking about Comcast.

Comcast Corporation is America's biggest cable company, its biggest internet-service provider, and its third-biggest home-telephone provider. As the owner of NBCUniversal, it's also one of the largest producers of programming for film, cable, and television; on NBC's networks, it is currently showing the Olympics. It's not just big by American standards. It's the largest media company in the world. In 2013, it took in $64.67 billion, generating $13.6 billion in operating income and $7.1 billion in net profits.

"Now," he says, "this behemoth wants to get even bigger," and he gives Comcast CEO Brian Roberts "some marks for chutzpah. In announcing the TWC deal, John says, Roberts "brushed aside concerns that the regulators and anti-trust authorities might veto the deal, describing it as 'pro-consumer, pro-competitive, and strongly in the public interest.' "

"Pro-competitive" is obvious nonsense, and since one clear intent is to put all of both companies' customers at their mercy, "pro-consumer" seems even more nonsensical. And "strongly in the public interest"? Yeah, sure.

"What we need," says John Cassidy, "is a new competition policy that puts the interests of consumers first, seeks to replicate what other countries have done, and treats with extreme skepticism the arguments of monopoly incumbents such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable."

"But will we get it?" he asks, and points out that the new FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, "is a former lobbyist for two sets of vested interests: the cell-phone operators and, you guessed it, the cable companies."

Wheeler took office in November, after seeing his nomination to head the F.C.C. criticized in many quarters, including this one. He has pledged to do all he can to defend the public interest. He's said that his motto will be "competition, competition, competition." If Wheeler means what he says, this is a good opportunity for him to demonstrate it. He could start by tossing out the merger as another self-serving scheme and announcing that he's flying to London to find out how the British managed to introduce some real competition. That would give Brian Roberts and his fellow cable guys something to think about.

#

"Ted Cruz resembles the Bill Murray of a quarter-century ago, when he played fishy, mock-sincere fakers" (David Denby)

Plus: Worst spam of the day



"When Ted Cruz lies, he appears to be praying. His lips narrow, almost disappearing into his face, and his eyebrows shift abruptly, rising like a drawbridge on his forehead into matching acute angles. He attains an appearance of supplication, an earnest desire that men and women need to listen, as God surely listens."

-- the opening of David Denby's newyorker.com
blogpost today, "Ted Cruz: The Mask of Sincerity"

by Ken

I keep wanting to get to "Big Dick" Cheney's apparently unexplodable heart, but stuff keeps coming up. Yesterday it was breaking news about the Rampant Rabbi vibrator. Today it's a different kind of fake sex toy: Texas Sen. Ted "Jeez, I Suck" Cruz. Specifically, there's New Yorker film critic David Denby's "Daily Comment" blogpost "Ted Cruz: The Mask of Sincerity."

It's hard for me to keep my cool when thinking about Senator Ted. Like there was the news this morning: Cruz lifts hold on FCC nomination. This is supposed to be good news, I guess, but it just reminds me that a useless pile of puke like this so-called senator can actually place a h old on a nommination as if he were, you know, a regular U.S. senator.

You'll recall that Senator Ted's beef with the FCC chair nominee, Tom Wheeler, was that he might take steps toward requiring disclosure of the identity of sponsors of political ads -- thereby violating a bogus right to privacy that not even this institutionally democracy-hating Supreme Court believes exists in the Constitution.

In a statement, Cruz said Wheeler told him that the nominee "heard the unambiguous message" that pursing the political disclosure efforts would "imperil the Commission's vital statutory responsibilities."

"He explicitly stated that doing so was 'not a priority,' " Cruz said about Wheeler, a telecom industry veteran. "Based on those representations, I have lifted my hold on his nomination, and I look forward to working with him on the FCC to expand jobs and economic growth."

From which we may conclude that Senator Ted:

• was (and presumably still is) threatening to interfere with the FCC in exercising its "vital statutory responsibilities," and --

• has no idea what those statutory responsibilities are (hint: they do not include expanding jobs and economic growth").

It's true that there are growing numbers of people on the Right who are anywhere from upset to mortified by the clown-of-doom antics of Senator Ted. Just today bona fide conservative Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, writing about the national threat to GOP prospects posed by office-seeking pond scum like Virginia Attorney General "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli ("Virginia is GOP wake-up call"), pointed to the source of a good part of the blame for the party's current national poll disaster.

Republicans can thank their tea party constituents in the House of Representatives and the singular Ted Cruz in the Senate — the latter’s Texas ovation and Iowa stampede notwithstanding. These were the actors who forced the shutdown and who, should Republicans begin losing gubernatorial and congressional races, would be the major reason. Disgust trickles down, over and out.

Yet the slug continues to command widespread admiration (unlike that pathetic slug Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who is apparently fighting for his political life), not to mention fear. The fear part, at least, is understandable. As David Denby writes:

His strategy is universal aggression, aimed at everyone. Well, not quite everyone -- lately, his popularity with the Tea Party cohort has increased. And at a recent rally at the convention of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, he was greeted with heated adoration. But normally Cruz resembles one of those war chariots with blades flashing from the wheels; he tries to cut up everything in his path. When things go wrong, he only sharpens the blades. From the Senate, he urged House Republicans into a government shutdown and a sustained threat not to extend the debt ceiling. When the President held firm and the Republican leadership backed down, the fallout included collapsing poll numbers for the Republican Party and the possibility, mentioned by nonpartisan political analysts, that the Democrats could pick up a serious number of seats in the House in 2014.

But, rather than acknowledge any responsibility, Cruz told Dana Bash, from CNN, that "the single most damaging thing that has happened to Republicans for 2014 is all of the Senate Republicans coming out attacking the House Republicans, attacking those pushing the effort to defund Obamacare, and lining themselves up opposite the American people." He has repeated this charge -- the betrayal, the stab in the back -- in many forms. He has been wronged, his cohort has been wronged, the American people have been wronged, traduced by weaklings and cowards in the ranks. In Cruz's rhetoric, the American people are always being wronged.

You may well ask why you would want to read a film critic -- and a not-very-good one at that -- on Ted Cruz. Well, you should read David Denby. (It may or may prove relevant that Frank Rich was, after all, a terrible theater critic.)

For one thing, in the matter of faking sincerity, and a pol's "performance" generally, it turns out to be useful to have all those decades of experience describing and actorly evaluating performances. For example, let's continue the thought from David Denby's opening paragraph, picking up just where I left off in the quote at the top of this post.

Cruz has large ears; a straight nose with a fleshy tip, which shines in camera lights when he talks to reporters; straight black hair slicked back from his forehead like flattened licorice; thin lips; a long jaw with another knob of flesh at the base, also shiny in the lights. If, as Orwell said, everyone has the face he deserves at fifty, Cruz, who is only forty-two, has got a serious head start. For months, I sensed vaguely that he reminded me of someone but I couldn't place who it was. Revelation has arrived: Ted Cruz resembles the Bill Murray of a quarter-century ago, when he played fishy, mock-sincere fakers. No one looked more untrustworthy than Bill Murray. The difference between the two men is that the actor was a satirist.

Now is that an image, or what? Bill Murray doing his "fishy, mock-sincere fakers"? No one looked more untrustworthy than Bill Murray. The difference between the two men is that the actor was a satirist.

Again, perhaps only a film critic would find Senator Ted wanting in quite this way -- that he's no Ollie North or Ronald Reagan:

Cruz is not as iconographically satisfying as other American demagogues -- Oliver North, say, whose square-jawed, unblinking evocation of James Stewart, John Wayne, and other Hollywood actors conveyed resolution. Or Ronald Reagan -- Cruz's reedy, unresonant voice lacks the husky timbre of Reagan's emotion-clouded instrument, with its mixture of truculence and maudlin appeal.

And yet, Denby says,

Cruz is amazingly sure-footed verbally. When confronted with a hostile question, he has his answer prepared well before the questioner stops talking. There are no unguarded moments, no slips or inadvertent admissions. He speaks swiftly, in the tones of sweet, sincere reason. How could anyone possibly disagree with him?

Noting Senator Ted's Baptist father, Denby cites the "evangelical cast to his language,"

but he's an evangelical without consciousness of his own sins or vulnerability. He is conscious only of other people's sins, which are boundless, and a threat to the republic; and of other people's vulnerabilities and wounds, which he salts.

And if other people "have a shortage of vulnerabilities, he might make some up," as Denby says he did with Chuck Hagel during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearings to be secretary of defense.

Later Denby returns to Senator Ted's performance during the Hagel confirmation hearings. At the time, says Denby, "some senators suggested that his insinuating manner -- the bullying slurs, the implication of treason -- reminded them of Joseph McCarthy," and "since then, comparing him to McCarthy has become commonplace."

Denby notes the dramatic differences between McCarthy and Senator Ted in physical appearance and vocal delivery, without pointing out the obvious: that McCarthy was a demagogue for the '50s, but today's media world is something else again. Who would pay any attention today to someone who looked and sounded like Joe McCarthy?

Denby has already pointed out Cruz's vocal fluency -- fluency, I would add, that holds as long as no one actually pays attention to the sub-cretinous nonsense he's spewing, which would earn him a one-way ticket to the booby hatch. Really, it's hard to believe than any public figure could be that stupid and globally misinformed, or perhaps just that dishonest.

But when it comes to the tactics Senator Ted uses to inflame and command his public, the ghost of Joe McCarthy rises over Senator Ted's bog.

like McCarthy, he evokes a menace that is destroying the nation: Obamacare, which is killing jobs, obliterating businesses, demoralizing everyone. Obamacare is his Communism, a conspiracy that is the main impediment to economic growth. It is a malaise that is particularly hurting "single moms, Hispanics, African-Americans" -- a brazen touch on Cruz's part, since it is exactly those three groups whose interests Republican policies tend to ignore. It takes a certain ingenuity to suggest that an attempt to insure the powerless is rendering them powerless. One of Cruz's tricks is to turn his enemies' words back on them so that they stand accused in their own language. Meanwhile, he remains, at least rhetorically, invulnerable behind a mask of sincerity.

Cruz voted no on the bipartisan immigration bill, no on the farm bill, no on the continuing resolution; he voted against the confirmations of John Brennan, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, and Jack Lew. He makes extreme demands, then accuses the other side of being unwilling to compromise, then calls his own party members cowards, and so on. The refusal to extend the debt limit endangered the American government and economy. What does Cruz want? What is he up to? The naïve may believe that all of these obstructionist moves are part of a principled opposition to Obama, the President who, in the past, inspired greater and greater outrage in Republicans in proportion to how conciliatory and mild he became. But Cruz seeks more than the humbling of the President. There are plenty of other Republicans around eager to accomplish that.

He seeks the Presidency, of course. And he appears to be doing it by sowing as much confusion and disorder as possible -- playing the joker in a seemingly nihilistic charade whose actual intent is a rational grab for power.

About this I'm not so sure. Oh, I'm sure that it's occurred to Senator Ted that, the way events have transpired, he has an honest-to-good shot at the Republican presidential nomination. But I'm not sure that's what got him into his weird political crusade. After all, it wasn't what motivated Joe McCarthy. I think that was more that he wanted to somehow feel, you know, important, like as if he was somebody, despite the abundant evidence that he was born and bred to be one of Nature's Nobodies.

I think Senator Ted actually has some sense of mission. Oh, not the one he prattles on about, because, as Denby points out, he has no compunction whatever about lying his stinking guts out. But you look at his even more demented father, and you get the feeling that there's something go on there. Yes, dementia, but of a kind that they know can be made to resonate with truly clueless people.

I guess by the old Roman Hruska standard, whereby mediocre people were entitled to mediocre representation all the way up to the Supreme Court, clueless people are entitled to clueless representation. And Senator Ted is just the man to provide it.


WORST SPAM OF THE DAY



Aw, c'mon, guys. "Your needs to verify"? Your needs to at least makes an effort.

#

For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."