Upton: No net-neutrality rules for NBC-Comcast

Upton Wants FCC to Expedite Review of Comcast, NBC Merger
In a letter to Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski dated December 10, U.S. Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) inquired into the FCC’s commitment to a fair, fact-driven review of the Comcast-NBC Universal Merger. The merger would call for the transfer of assets to a new Joint Venture for NBC Universal.  The Joint Venture combines NBC and Telemundu as well as 26 NBC television stations and national Cable Networks with Comcast’s regional sports networks and ...

SavetheInternet.com 'Can-You-Hear-Us-Now-a-Thon' Delivers 2 Million Petitions to FCC
Source: freepress.net/press-release SavetheInternet.com ‘Can-You-Hear-Us-Now-a-Thon’ Delivers 2 Million Petitions to FCC FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date: December 13, 2010 Contact: Craig Aaron 202-265-1490 x 25 Jenn Ettinger 202-265-1490 x 35 WASHINGTON -- SavetheInternet.com Coalition allies and Activists kicked off a marathon of petition deliveries at the Federal Communications Commission on Monday morning — with plans to drop off 50,000 signatures every hour until the public comment period cl

Level 3 Feigns Net Neutrality Violation in Contract Dispute
Internet company Level 3 recently claimed that Comcast, in violation of Net Neutrality principles, was attempting to impose a new “toll” against Level 3 to deliver online movies on behalf of its client, Netflix.  This dispute comes at a time when the Federal Communications Commission is currently in process of codifying its ‘net neutrality’ principles into law. After undergoing a competitive bid process, Level 3 was selected to house and distribute the majority of Ne...

Regulators Concerned About What Comcast-NBC Merger Means For The Internet
Here's hoping Waxman manages to plug up the worst Loopholes before this deal gets rammed through, because they're right: the future of the Internet will be greatly affected by this Merger. Is there no merger too large that the Justice Department won't rubberstamp? .Although there has been a lot of talk in media circles about what Comcast's ownership of NBC Universal would mean for viewers' choice of news and entertainment, the two branches of the Federal Government reviewing the merger — ...

Comcast, the biggest cable company in Bay Area and nation, looks to get bigger
WASHINGTON -- Comcast is by far the biggest pay-TV provider in the Bay Area. It controls TV rights to Giants, A's, Sharks and Warriors games. Many of its customers also sign up for high-speed Internet service. And the company, if it has its way, is about to get a whole lot bigger. In a deal valued at $30 billion that was announced a year ago but has received scant attention outside the nation's capital, Comcast is attempting to buy a majority share of NBC Universal. The Merger would give the nat...

Comcast, the biggest cable company in Bay Area and nation, looks to get bigger
WASHINGTON -- Comcast is by far the biggest pay-TV provider in the Bay Area. It controls TV rights to Giants, A's, Sharks and Warriors games. Many of its customers also sign up for high-speed Internet service. And the company, if it has its way, is about to get a whole lot bigger. In a deal valued at $30 billion that was announced a year ago but has received scant attention outside the nation's capital, Comcast is attempting to buy a majority share of NBC Universal. The Merger would give the nat...

Bernie Sanders: Block the Comcast Takeover of NBC Universal, Would Create Anti-Competitive Media Monopoly
Warning that a huge media monopoly would drive up Cable Television prices and stifle the free flow of information, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today urged the Department of Justice to block Comcast's planned takeover of NBC Universal.   The senator's concerns about the Comcast-NBC deal were detailed in a letter that he sent to Christine Varney, the assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust division at the Department of Justice. "Especially in an age of entrenched corporate power...

A look at possible conditions in Comcast, NBC deal
Federal Regulators are considering a number of conditions to ensure that Comcast Corp. cannot use its control over NBC’s vast media empire to stifle the growth of online video. Their key concerns: — The darkest fear of companies in the Internet video market is that Comcast could withhold or ratchet up prices for popular NBC Universal programming, including hit shows such as “30 Rock” and “The Office.” So Regulators may force Comcast to abide by the Federal Com...

FCCs Open Internet proposal heading for defeat?
Conservatives have kept a close eye on Julius Genachowski, chair of the FCC, especially after his first attempt to regulate the Internet by regulatory decree got slapped down by Congress.  Now it looks like the chastened Genachowski has lost the Left, too.  His scaled-down “Open Internet” proposal had no chance of winning support from the conservatives on the FCC board, and his Net Neutrality allies are urging the Democrats on the panel to oppose it as well: Opposition to Federal...

Granholm’s take on her own legacy brushes past the lost opportunities of her tenure
It is perfectly understandable that Gov. Jennifer Granholm would try to put a bright spin on her eight years as Michigan's chief executive. In a detailed paper released Friday, she lobbied for a legacy as the one who kept the state from total economic collapse while moving its economy into the 21st century. Unfortunately, that's not likely to be the way Granholm is remembered, primarily because it is simply not true. She leaves behind a Michigan that is not only far worse off than it was when ...

Financial arms race underway in Washington
Reporting from Washington — When it comes to Money in politics, the new normal is already on vivid display. It could be seen last week in posh restaurants and corporate townhouses on Capitol Hill, where politicians held Fundraisers at a record pace. It was evident at Washington's blue-chip Law Firms, where Campaign Finance lawyers began work setting up new political committees to collect unlimited donations. It was apparent in the halls of Congress, where lawmakers swapped strategies ab...

Video: Seton Motely With The Best Explanation Of Net Neutrality That Ive Seen
G.I. Wood Shop Inc. Mrs. Peel Oh…My Valve! V The K’s Caption This! An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later....

Comcast to Combine Internet, Television
(Wall Street Journal) - Comcast Corp. is testing out a new service that knits together television and the Internet, revamping its offering as rivals threaten to undermine its business, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The Philadelphia-based cable giant is running a small test of the system in Augusta, Ga., according to people familiar with the matter, who said the company could begin making it available to customers in 2011. Under the test, which is known to participants as "Spectrum" an...

Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread
I apologize for the abomination of having to wake up to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, but I selected this video to make a point. There's been a lot of wailing and gnashing in the progressive community this week. Not without justification, mind you, but I think it would do all of us good to step back and take a look at the real big picture. For as much as we feel frustrated or betrayed or doomed, the fact remains that we have it so lucky in this country. We really do. My kids' school adopts fam...

The Momentous "J'Accuse" Moment of Bernie Sanders: A Holiday Gift of Truth
The spirit of Emile Zola's "J'Accuse" was reborn on December 10 inside of a determined Bernie Sanders, who held viewers across the nation spellbound with an eight-and-a-half-hour temporary "Filibuster" of the Senate. This was an indictment unlike any we have heard, an exercise in threading together the patches of truth about our economic system and how Washington, DC enabled the biggest institutionalized financial scam and defrauding of a population in history. BuzzFlash has known Bernie for yea...

Paterson Says Deficit Cutting Did Him In
David Paterson appeared on "Imus in the Morning" today and he was asked by the host why everyone from President Obama to Kirsten Gillibrand seemed to want to "throw you Under the Bus" in the middle of his term. Said the Governor: Imus, I cut 42 billion dollars of Deficit in three years in my time as governor. It is three times the amount that anything has been reduced even proportionately in the history of the state. You are not going to make many friends doing that and I realized even as I wa...

Gov. Paterson: I had no idea Eliot Spitzer liked hookers
ALBANY - Lame-duck Gov. Paterson continued his exit tour Tuesday by praising the man he replaced, hooker-happy Eliot Spitzer. "I thought, and still do think, he was a remarkable talent who normally would probably be in another profession making a whole lot of money or being incredibly successful who at a certain point had chosen government," Paterson said during an appearance on the Don Imus Radio Show. Paterson, who was Spitzer's Running Mate, said he found it "unique that New York State had ...

Privatizing Roads
A major shortcoming of the Deficit reduction plan concocted by the president’s Fiscal Commission is that it assumed that the Federal Government should continue doing everything it currently does. For example, the plan proposed a 15 cent per gallon increase in the federal Gasoline tax to fund infrastructure projects. But why not allow the Private Sector to play a greater role in financing and maintaining infrastructure like roads? In the video, Bruce Benson explains that America has a stron...

Obama Using Regulatory Power to Force Card Check
Congress has failed to pass Big Labor's long sought after card check bill, the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The reason Congress has not passed this destructive law is because the voters have repeatedly spoken by urging their representatives and senators to stand against it. The voice of the American People, though, does not interest President Barack Obama because he is gearing up to use his power to control America's regulatory regime to force card check on the people anyway....

Will the Tea Party now have to fight the Republican Party locally?
The newly-Republican-controlled Congress and State Legislature will have the same economy as now.    In about two weeks, the Republicans take control of the House and break the Democrat Party's solid control of the Senate in Congress, and they will control both the state House and state Senate for the first time in decades if not a lifetime.  Yet it is likely that they will find their biggest fight will be with the people who got them elected - the Tea Party - both here in North C...

Justice Breyer: Very important to attend State of the Union address
Stumble This! At least one Supreme Court Justice will be attending next year's State of the Union address. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested Sunday that other justices shouldn't let President Barack Obama's criticism of the court keep them away from the annual Speech. The remarks appeared to be a rebuttal to his colleague, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who has said he won't attend President Obama's next State of the Union address. "My job, Chris, is to write opinions," Breyer told Fox News...

Justice Breyer: 'Very important' to attend State of the Union address
At least one Supreme Court Justice will be attending next year's State of the Union address. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested Sunday that other justices shouldn't let President Barack Obama's criticism of the court keep them away from the annual Speech. "My job, Chris, is to write opinions," Breyer told Fox News' Chris Wallace in a rare interview. "The job of 307 million Americans is to criticize those opinions. What they say is up to them. The words I write are carrying out my job under the law...

Contact Your Representitives RIGHT NOW on the Tax Breaks for the Wealthiest 1%
What this was really mainly about (in the author's opinion), was not just the blatantly corrupt Tax Breaks for the wealthiest 1% of America. It is about the wrong path this country has taken for the last several decades. It was about the destruction of our Manufacturing sector, the great and alarmingly growing changes in the Distribution of Wealth, about the growth of Poverty in America. It is about the total ignoring of our crumbling infrastructure, of the "mysteriously disappearing" green en...

Obama: I Dont Think Theres a Sense That Ive Been Successful (Video)
Maybe it’s because he’s the worst jobs president since the Great Depression, maybe it’s his record spending, the failed stimulus, the record tripling of the Deficits? Take your pick. “No, I don’t think there’s a sense that I’be been successful. I think people feel that Washington still is dysfunctional,” President Obama told Colorado’s 9NEWS. “I think people still feel that overall Washington is about a lot of politics and special int...

Heckuva Job, OIRA
Remember the massive 500 million egg recall back in August? At least 2,000 people reported illness from the eggs; countless others may have mistakenly blamed their misery on some other source of Food Poisoning. We are now beginning to understand how regulatory pathologies beyond the usual capture story allowed this entirely preventable outbreak of Salmonella. Lyndsey Layton’s article on salmonella-tainted eggs offers an excellent case study of the toxic consequences of deregulatory ideolog...