The Senate is deliberately dysfunctional and with the loss of Feingold, even more constipated, except as a rubber stamp. The change in ownership and market laws in media have caused irreparable damage to the Republic, with politicos bought in wholesale lots to feed our Corporate overlords. I’d be very surprised if Franken and Sanders objections make any difference.

Basically this ends up being about monopolistic practices.

So who are the shareholders? What’s the corporate structure?

Unlike CBS or ABC, MSNBC is basically a multimedia conglomerate, and that’s what I believe people need to get their heads around. This is **not** broadcast in the traditional sense – this is broadcast + cable + Internet.

I fully realize that the people making these claims about Comcast taking over argue there is an economic benefit to all of this, but I don’t see it that way.

This means that you are tying telecomm more tightly to media (and they’re nearly merged at this point already).

The Senate is going to treat this as the usual kind of monopolistic move, but it’s not. This crosses media and technologies.

People not only on the left, but also on the right, need to think a lot more clearly about what this really means, economically and technically.

FWIW, it appears on the surface to be yet another monopoly grab in which the people grabbing want a big pot of money and talent and goodies that they have no fookin’ clue how to actually manage.

Great Move by Sanders

This move by Sanders will also start the slow walk or fast walk away from the OBAMA White House by progressives

No one likes a loser!

The White House internal polls have to show, little to no hope of Obama winning in 2012, if he continues his right wing agenda.

Bernie Sanders is the single best argument for human cloning. We need 99 more copies of him.

Too bad Bernie’s a socialist, otherwise this might actually go somewhere.
/teabaggers

This is the time in history when a third party – headed by a nationally known, well-respected progressive – can succeed. The people would flock to a genuine leader. It’s also that special time when dictators thrive.

America has exactly 2 years to make up its mind which it prefers or the resurgent Republicans, with their willfully ignorant bastard child Tea Party, will do it for us.

But, but the press is already too liberal!

Does the Senate have to vote to approve this deal? Time to make the archaic rules work for us for a change. Don’t allow unanimous consent or put a hold on it.

Of course if some Senators move to block the deal, Comcast will just borrow the Republicans’ meat puppet, (Obama), to lean on them.

Such disrespect of President Obama is unnecessary. Your claim is untrue.

When the social safety net is eviscerated, socialists may be looked at in a new light.

Yeah…because Obama has been such a progressive luminary. Please. I think Daily Kos is missing you.

Here’s what I wrote in the background last Friday, shortly after KO was suspended:

The 2012 election was just decided today. (Just like this year’s was decided the Thursday after Election Day 08, when Obama had Reid let Lieberman keep his seniority and committee, guaranteeing the Senate would be the place where Change and Hope went to die on the rocks of Democratic indiscipline.)

Obama will run and lose, wondering where all his legions of supporters went. His control over the DNC apparat, through Kaine, who will remain, will preclude any effective primary against him, from left or right. Palin will crash and burn sometime before the Iowa caucuses. The Rethug establishment has had enough of the Teabaggers. Look for family issues and some sort of financial scandal to lay her low. The Teabaggers will fly apart through their own centrifugal force no longer being counteracted with Koch money in time to preclude any effective organizing for Iowa, SC and NH. They served their purpose and are now expendable.

The next President will be either Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush.

Olbermann’s suspension will shortly be made permanent. TPTB at MSNBC/NBC/Comcast have looked at the election results and noted that all the NN folks lost. They also know that the FCC chair’s dicking around on NN, waiting for the results of the election most likely, will lead to the end of NN and, effectively, of the internet as an effective political force for anyone not a Rethug. I would not be surprised if the DoJ also decided to alllow the Comcast-NBC/Universal merger to proceed, which is most likely the proximate triggering event for this turnover. This would not have happened had NBC/Comcast had to worry about whether that merger would continue.
The utility of Olbermann was in getting the Dem base riled while Bush was president, so as to facilitate a Dem taking power just in time for the shitpile to collapse all around his head. That having happened, the riled Dem base is no longer needed b/c Obama is no longer needed. The riled Dem base no longer being needed, Olbermann is likewise expendable.
Look in short order for Maddow, Schultz and Ratigan to go. Maddow when the DADT issue comes acropper after DoD’s report. Schultz when they decide his ratings are too low, and Ratigan when he pisses off one banker too many.

And we get a couple years of chasing blowjobs and Mena drug planes during Rethug hearings.

This is what happens to Presidents who try to make friends with their enemies instead of making their enemies fear them.

Prove me wrong, future.

I think it is a huge relief. I am terrified of what Comcast is doing.

Maybe it because I have been illegally spyed on so much (and it has been so damaging to my home life), but I am very sensitive to their abuse of their monopoly. I’d like to see them investigated for their part in illegally spying on me and be found not worthy of their cable monopoly.

I think Comcast is over ripe for nationalization.

What does one person need all that money for anyway? I used to have a quote of the owner gloating about how he got congress to get him to collect $100 per family from millions of people for something they thought they were going to get for free.

Imagined if we all just bought our high speed wiring and didn’t have to pay him rent? I think it would be an economic boon to the country to have all that extra money in peoples pockets instead of sending it all to Comcast’s owner.

Such disrespect of President Obama is unnecessary.

Sincerely,
Obama’s Mama

LMAO! Right? I’ll respect the man when he’s earned it. I can’t believe that I spent the first year of his presidency defending him.

Thing is, even if Bernie can’t stop the merger, he reframes the whole Olbermann thing from “KO was a bad boy” to “Is MSNBC — which is not even close to being run by or for liberals — using a cockeyed pretext to silence a liberal critic of the GOP Congress before that Congress has a chance to be offended by it and quash the merger?”

This is particularly interesting when we find out that Joe Scarborough had made at least $5,000 more in political donations that nobody apparently knew about (or cared about). Hours after that made the blogs, suddenly KO’s suspension was lifted.

I think the 300,000 plus signatures OVER A WEEKEND, might have moved the shareholders to take Griffin an shake him a bit.

Maybe it will work if I try radically changing the subject while subliminally, ever so gently, I allow the key phrase to seep into the reader’s subconsc…

AMERICANS, STOP TORTURING PEOPLE!!!!

Kudos to mods: I love posting here. There were at least a half dozen words or phrases I used in 6 that would have banished my post to the bit bucket of history on TheWell-MeaningNannyState.com, the well-known “progressive” site. This one would have no chance.

AMERICANS, STOP TORTURING PEOPLE!!!!

To elucidate, here’s a quote and comment that might never appear on TWMNS, re our nation’s plight:

“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot” – Joni Mitchell

Then they tortured all of the little animals they trapped from the former paradise, which pleased them greatly. For they discovered they were all tasty, each and every one! Yum! Yum! Yum!

AMERICANS, STOP TORTURING PEOPLE!!!!

See?

No, you missed it. I directly quoted a musician! It’s here, but not there! Even if I quote my own songs, they disappear! And then there’s the bad, bad words. Words are bad. Like “bastard” and “child.” Bad, bad words. But bad words are OK! The thoughts of musicians, not so much.

Ah. Freedom! Take a deep breath! Free air even seems to smell better than the alternative!

Now, where did I misplace that subliminal part?

AMERICANS, STOP TORTURING PEOPLE!!!!

(Remembering Howard Dean) YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! That was pretty subtle! Did it work?

I do n ot fully grasp what you are saying. I hope you will do a full blown diary (or 3) in this topic. I would really like to understand this, b/c from the limited amount i’ve grasped tothis point,

I think you may be on to something huge.

And it needs to be explained so that regular folks and COngress critters can understand.

I hope you will expound on your comment

Ah, but a) you’re preaching to the converted, and b) the subconscious is a two-year-old: It doesn’t get words like “no” and “don’t” and “stop”.

If you say something like “Stop torturing people”, the subconscious hears it as “Torturing people”, which reinforces what you don’t want reinforced.

Say instead “Treat other people like how you’d want to be treated”. Applicable to a wide variety of situations.

Nah. Just an OT rant.

Comcast gets MSNBC. This was all set in concrete by the fine folks who own us.

Either start a viable 3rd party or watch from the sidelines as these two finish picking the bones of the carcass that was the Constitution.

It’s “broached”.

“Brooched” sounds like a conflation of “broached” and “bruited”.

Awesome

That’s the rub with the subliminal. The very message it needs to hear is the one the conscious mind rejects. How can it ever accept positive reinforcement after our Governator in California reinforced the “Girly Men” narrative? That which is positive is the new negative, in a skirt.

Precisely how many years of positive subliminal messaging might it take to reboot Cheney? The mind boggles.

GASP! That sounds like GIRLY THOUGHTS!! My subconscious must submerge! Dive! Dive!

I looked that up, too. According to the redoubtable wikipedia, it’s OK.

A brooch (pronounced /ˈbroʊtʃ/); also known in ancient times as a fibula; sometimes spelled broach, a homophone meaning both to open a cask and begin a new discussion, is a decorative jewelry item designed to be attached to garments.

Homophone aside, it’s beginning a new discussion.

English may still be alive, but we’re working on it.

… if you misspell.

So, is anyone working on the “Edit” feature that seemingly quit working a few weeks back? Is it just a Linux bug, or (since I almost always use Opera here) an Opera bug? It was very helpful to those of us who hit “Submit Comment” rather than review it, in part because reviewing the post leaves the post without pagination after the review (yes, it posts correctly, but it’s difficult to read after that to make further corrections).

I encourage staff to grab a Linux box with Opera and try it.

…or just a reflexive tendency within MSNBC to follow the political winds.

Mr. Dayen, how do you figure this is a possible reason when the network just launched “a two-year, multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, embracing its politically progressive identity with the new tagline “Lean Forward?””

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39507182/ns/business-media_biz/

Comcast: the new media Walmart.
Nobody’s is paying any attention to Comcasts’ bid for the internet either. but OH!, how everyone will holler AFTER THE FACT…..when it’s too late.

This move by Sanders will also start the slow walk or fast walk away from the OBAMA White House by progressives

This is what I’m hoping for.

And hey, we can walk “towards” a REAL Socialist.

Thank you, I appreciate the comment.
I’ll see what I can do in the next few days, and how much time I can scramble.