Quid pro quo over at the FCC and Comcast

It's time to investigate FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, who voted for the Comcast merger with NBC only a few months ago, but is now leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast. This is outrageous. Three words: Quid pro quo. She should headed for prison, not soaking up a big lobbyist salary at the expense of United States citizens. Here's some low-hanging fruit federal investigators. Let's see if they do the right thing, or if they do anything at all.

Continue ReadingQuid pro quo over at the FCC and Comcast

Problems with this website

I'm having some rather pronounced design issues with this site, but only when viewed by Explorer 9 or Chrome. Things look right on Firefox and Safari. I'm aware of these problems and I'm working to fix them. In the meantime, all the material at this site is readable on any browser, though the design is scrambled on Explorer and Chrome. Thanks for your patience.

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Corporatized political ritual presenting itself as “news”

To my dismay, my law office installed a flat screen high definition television in the lunch room a few months ago. You couldn’t design a better device for shutting down spontaneous conversation in the kitchen. I’ve also been dismayed to see the kinds of topics covered by the networks, hour after hour. The major news networks pump out endless headlines about war, terrorism, conflict, freaks, athletes and celebrities. There is also a constant droning on by economics-charlatans. All of it punctuated by commercials attempting to make me believe that I’m a failure because I don’t own something. I’m trying to look at this television invasion as an opportunity to be more knowledgeable about television “news.” When I go in to refill my glass of water in the kitchen or grab a snack, I often take a small camera so that I can capture something bizarre about the “news,” so I can illustrate a post. I’ve rarely been disappointed. There is always something wacky going on, both on the shows and on the commercials. The way they present the “news” is news to me because I don’t watch any live television at home (we do watch movies, but no live TV), so I only know the news by clips I choose to watch on the Internet. Seeing bits of the news streamed in live, day after day, is shocking for many reasons that I’ll be discussing in future posts.

Continue ReadingCorporatized political ritual presenting itself as “news”

Report card of American telecoms: They flunk out

The few remaining American telecoms want American consumers to focus only on options that they want to offer us. But we know how to use our slow American Internet to check out how other developed countries are developing their broadband coverage and speed. At Alternet, David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick have issued a devastating report card to the American telecoms. Here's the bad news:

  • America is now 15th in the world in broadband. While Hong Kong and other countries are rolling out 1 gigabit speed services, America's average is a mere 5 mbps (i.e., 1,000 mbps = 1 gigabit).
  • Americans paid over $340 billion for broadband upgrades that never happened; by 2010, America should have been completely upgraded with fiber optic services to every home.
  • The FCC approved Comcast's acquisition of NBC-Universal, foreshadowing a likely wave of integration of transport or carriage and content.
  • Together, AT&T and Verizon control 80 percent of all wireless services and AT&T is now attempting to close down one of the only remaining competitors, T-Mobile.
What should we do about this? Rosen and Kushnick often many dramatic solutions--including divestiture--if only members of Congress would listen more to good ideas than to wads of cash handed to them by the telecoms.

Continue ReadingReport card of American telecoms: They flunk out

Name one good reason to oppose this campaign spending disclosure proposal

How can any honest person or business oppose a campaign spending disclosure law like this one described by Alternet?

It's a good rule of thumb: If the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- the trade association for large corporations -- is whipped up about something, there's probably good reason for the public to strongly back whatever has sent the Chamber into fits.

Well, the Chamber is apoplectic over a modest Obama administration proposed executive order that would require government contractors to reveal all of their campaign-related spending.

What the Chamber fears is that the new law would would require disclosures regarding "secret contributions that corporations funnel through trade associations and front groups to influence elections," and this would include the Chamber itself.

Continue ReadingName one good reason to oppose this campaign spending disclosure proposal