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TRUMP TO INFINITY AND BEYOND HQ - The Great and Positive Place (3 Viewers)

Max Power said:
Do you think they will sue? I don't. 

A lawsuit plays into exactly what Wood wants. 
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I don’t think it’s what Wood wants at all. If he or Powell had real evidence to present in a court of law they would have done so already. It’s all BS and they’re hoping their bluster will make these companies afraid that the publicity of a lawsuit will only hurt them further. I hope the companies go through with it. 

 
GordonGekko said:
https://prospect.org/power/former-biden-chief-of-staff-is-fox-news-top-lobbyist/

https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=82241

Former Biden Chief of Staff is Fox News’ Top Lobbyist

A former key Biden official began lobbying for the rightwing news channel in July, a recent filing shows. by Alex Kotch September 20, 2019

....But Fox also hired another political figure: Danny O’Brien, a former top aide to Democratic former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden. From March 2003 to August 2006, O’Brien was then-Sen. Biden’s chief of staff.....

In October 2018, Fox Corporation named O’Brien as its executive vice president and head of government relations, the company’s chief lobbying position. Over the past few years, Fox News and the Trump White House have enjoyed a well-oiled revolving door, but O’Brien’s hire doesn’t fit that pattern.

According to a lobbying report posted in late July, O’Brien began officially lobbying for Fox News in the second quarter of 2019, his first registered federal lobbying activities, according to Senate records. Along with two others, O’Brien lobbied Congress on various issues including online privacy and data collection, sports betting, advertising, the First Amendment, and “media ownership.”
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Former politicians now using their experience and connections to make money from clients?  

What is the point of this post? 

 
timschochet said:
I don’t think it’s what Wood wants at all. If he or Powell had real evidence to present in a court of law they would have done so already. It’s all BS and they’re hoping their bluster will make these companies afraid that the publicity of a lawsuit will only hurt them further. I hope the companies go through with it. 
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Their lawsuits are being shot down due to standing. Not the evidence presented. 

 
timschochet said:
Max Power said:
Their lawsuits are being shot down due to standing. Not the evidence presented. 
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There hasn’t been any evidence presented. 
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If you mean, the evidence wasn't presented in the cases that were dismissed on standing, then technically yes you're correct.

If you mean there hasn't been any evidence presented in public hearings because the media you consume chooses to ignore it, then yes, other than dead people voting, people voting in wrong states, signatures not matching, poll watchers being barred from observing, voting machine irregularities, adjudicators changing votes, ballot harvesting, there hasn't been any evidence presented.

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
If you mean there hasn't been any evidence presented in public hearings because the media you consume chooses to ignore it, then yes, other than dead people voting, people voting in wrong states, signatures not matching, poll watchers being barred from observing, voting machine irregularities, adjudicators changing votes, ballot harvesting, there hasn't been any evidence presented.
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You would think it would sink in by this point with the number of times all of this has been debunked

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
If you mean, the evidence wasn't presented in the cases that were dismissed on standing, then technically yes you're correct.

If you mean there hasn't been any evidence presented in public hearings because the media you consume chooses to ignore it, then yes, other than dead people voting, people voting in wrong states, signatures not matching, poll watchers being barred from observing, voting machine irregularities, adjudicators changing votes, ballot harvesting, there hasn't been any evidence presented.
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This is just incorrect.  There has been no evidence presented at all, anywhere.  There have been lots of allegations made, but no actual evidence shown, to my knowledge.  I'd be happy to see some, if you have a link to something besides an allegation.  To head off one possible contention, I'm counting affidavits alleging something without proof as "allegations" not as "evidence".

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
If you mean, the evidence wasn't presented in the cases that were dismissed on standing, then technically yes you're correct.

If you mean there hasn't been any evidence presented in public hearings because the media you consume chooses to ignore it, then yes, other than dead people voting, people voting in wrong states, signatures not matching, poll watchers being barred from observing, voting machine irregularities, adjudicators changing votes, ballot harvesting, there hasn't been any evidence presented.
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Public hearings?  Republican run meetings are not really hearings...nor was any actual evidence presented there either.

No major media source should televise that propaganda.

 
sho nuff said:
Public hearings?  Republican run meetings are not really hearings...nor was any actual evidence presented there either.

No major media source should televise that propaganda.
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Agreed. I actually meant to go back and put "public hearings" in quotes. 

But the media should televise it. Some of you guys are angry at the GOP but you should be angry with anyone involved in any voting shenannigans and with the media lying to you.

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
Agreed. I actually meant to go back and put "public hearings" in quotes. 

But the media should televise it. Some of you guys are angry at the GOP but you should be angry with anyone involved in any voting shenannigans and with the media lying to you.
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The media aren’t the ones lying to us about the election.  Trump and members of the GOP are.

And why should the media televise these “hearings”. They have been a crapshow and complete propaganda with little truth actually presented.

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
Because we all want fair elections?
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Yes...well some of us do and realize we just had a fair election.

These “hearings” have zero to do with wanting a fair election.  They, quite clearly, seem to be about casting doubt on a fair election because one man did not like the outcome and can’t accept defeat.

These “hearings” are about creating even more division and negative discourse more than any desire for fair elections.

 
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NorvilleBarnes said:
If you mean, the evidence wasn't presented in the cases that were dismissed on standing, then technically yes you're correct.

If you mean there hasn't been any evidence presented in public hearings because the media you consume chooses to ignore it, then yes, other than dead people voting, people voting in wrong states, signatures not matching, poll watchers being barred from observing, voting machine irregularities, adjudicators changing votes, ballot harvesting, there hasn't been any evidence presented.
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Why do you think team Trump keeps losing in court?

 
The General said:
Why do you think team Trump keeps losing in court?
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What's current record? 1-51 or something like that? I don't think it's 51 different reasons - but I don't think they'll been on merit either. Are you saying none have been dismissed on standing or other technicalities? Are you in the "no evidence" camp, or the "no widespread evidence significant enough to change the outcome of the election" camp?

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
Agreed. I actually meant to go back and put "public hearings" in quotes. 

But the media should televise it. Some of you guys are angry at the GOP but you should be angry with anyone involved in any voting shenannigans and with the media lying to you.
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I am angry with voting shenanigans.  Pissed.  Trump told us he was going to cry foul months before the election, well before dominion allegedly changed anything, well before any votes were manipulated, or signatures matched, or boxes brought in.  He told us he was going to be a whiny tool well before November 3.

And then when it happens, his media ecosystem echoes and amplify baseless claims and his followers blindly repeat it.  

This malfeasance has forever damaged our trust in elections and therefore our trust in representative democracy.  This is exactly how nations crumble - one brick at a time.

Spit the hook.  You are being played.

 
NorvilleBarnes said:
What's current record? 1-51 or something like that? I don't think it's 51 different reasons - but I don't think they'll been on merit either. Are you saying none have been dismissed on standing or other technicalities? Are you in the "no evidence" camp, or the "no widespread evidence significant enough to change the outcome of the election" camp?
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The current record is Washington Generals type stuff. Hard to track all the official L’s in court.

I’m in the this is delusional, sore loser, bizzaro inadequacies of Don’ fragile psyche playing out in front of us / last money grab camp.

You think these keep getting tossed because of technicalities?

 
Max Power said:
Do you think they will sue? I don't. 

A lawsuit plays into exactly what Wood wants. 
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Newsmax just aired this note to "clarify" its coverage of Smartmatic and Dominion

Wood and Powell are skating on thin ice - given that both FoxNews and NewsMax have both walked back the unsubstantiated (and some blatantly false) claims against the companies.  They are full of bluster - but like everything else they have touched in this election - they would lose in court.

 
Rich Conway said:
This is just incorrect.  There has been no evidence presented at all, anywhere.  There have been lots of allegations made, but no actual evidence shown, to my knowledge.  I'd be happy to see some, if you have a link to something besides an allegation.  To head off one possible contention, I'm counting affidavits alleging something without proof as "allegations" not as "evidence".
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There have been affidavits filed in some of the cases. I don't think the affidavits by purported experts technically count as evidence if they are rejected from consideration under Daubert. But I think there have been some from percipient witnesses -- the ones not excluded as hearsay -- that might technically count as evidence (though entirely unpersuasive evidence, about as convincing as Trump's twitter feed).

 
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timschochet said:
Max Power said:
A lawsuit plays into exactly what Wood wants. 
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I don’t think it’s what Wood wants at all.
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Everyone likes getting sued, Tim.

Unless I have that backwards somehow.

Honestly, the voting-machine companies would have to clear some high hurdles to recover damages against Wood. They'd probably* have to prove not that he was honestly mistaken or just kind of careless, but that he was intentionally lying, or at least that he was so careless that it amounts to the same thing.

That's typically quite difficult to prove even when it's true. It's not like Wood is going to admit that he was lying. If he was lying about the voting machines, he's going to lie about whether he was lying about them as well.

___
*I say "probably" because I don't think it's 100% clear whether the voting machine companies became limited-purpose public figures by injecting themselves into the election hullabaloo; but if they can be cast as public figures, that makes it hard for them to win.

 
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Sinn Fein said:
Trump's version of Infrastructure Week:

INBOX: @realDonaldTrump has signed an executive order prohibiting new federal buildings from being built in anything other than Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, or Art Deco styles.

(Sadly, this is real, and not an onion article: https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1341061088729845765)
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I hope he’s paying at least as much attention to the hacking scandal. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
Trump's version of Infrastructure Week:

INBOX: @realDonaldTrump has signed an executive order prohibiting new federal buildings from being built in anything other than Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, or Art Deco styles.

(Sadly, this is real, and not an onion article: https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1341061088729845765)
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I love how having the FBI building (which is legitimately one of the ugliest buildings in the world) across from his hotel has led to an all out assault on Brutalist architecture. 

 
tommyGunZ said:
Former politicians now using their experience and connections to make money from clients?  

What is the point of this post? 
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I will repost full context as it appears you did not actually read The General's original post and link -

"13 hours ago, The General said:

She’ll probably fold like Fox

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/20/fox-news-retracts-voting-machine-fraud-claim-smartmatic "

"First broadcast on Fox Business on Friday, on Lou Dobbs Tonight, and repeated over the weekend on shows hosted by Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, the segment was presented as a news interview with election technology expert Eddie Perez....The Fox News interview with Perez was described by a network source as “a fact-checking segment aired in the same format” as original reporting about Smartmatic."

*****

12 hours ago, GordonGekko said:

https://prospect.org/power/former-biden-chief-of-staff-is-fox-news-top-lobbyist/

https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=82241

Former Biden Chief of Staff is Fox News’ Top Lobbyist

A former key Biden official began lobbying for the rightwing news channel in July, a recent filing shows. by Alex Kotch September 20, 2019

....But Fox also hired another political figure: Danny O’Brien, a former top aide to Democratic former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden. From March 2003 to August 2006, O’Brien was then-Sen. Biden’s chief of staff.....

In October 2018, Fox Corporation named O’Brien as its executive vice president and head of government relations, the company’s chief lobbying position. Over the past few years, Fox News and the Trump White House have enjoyed a well-oiled revolving door, but O’Brien’s hire doesn’t fit that pattern.

According to a lobbying report posted in late July, O’Brien began officially lobbying for Fox News in the second quarter of 2019, his first registered federal lobbying activities, according to Senate records. Along with two others, O’Brien lobbied Congress on various issues including online privacy and data collection, sports betting, advertising, the First Amendment, and “media ownership.”

****

Fox 's executive ranks have been compromised by a high level former DNC operative (O'Brien) with deep ties to Biden. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham all signed contracts allowing them final cut/final edit/creative control/determination of content of their shows. Their popularity/fan base rates that, esp Carlson, which is why their segments remain leaning to the right/conservative. Dobbs, Bartiromo and Pirro don't have those kind of contracts. They have to bend the knee for the wishes of the DNC/Obama/Biden loyalists because Danny O'Brien says so.  It's also why Fox has cut away from Trump and Press Secretary McEnany during press conferences.

It's not fact checking, it's not that Powell's claim are totally baseless, it's that Fox, except for those under contract otherwise, has been compromised by the DNC. You can add it to the list of MSM along with CNN, MSNBC, etc, etc that lean hard left. Smartmatic and Dominion can attempt to leverage Fox via pressuring it's advertisers, Sydney Powell is under no such leverage.

Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren openly criticized the safety of DVS during the Georgia primaries. The DNC wants distance from DVS controversy because a changeover in a recent system in up to 30 states that cost about 100 million dollars each will destroy the Democratic leadership in big cities around the US and force brutal losses in down the ticket races, esp in state legislatures. You have small businesses burned and looted while state and city employees are being furloughed and laid off and then you want to lay in a new voting system at massive cost when half the country believes it has to replace the new one that the DNC forced onto everyone?

******

 
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/democrats-2020-elections-state-legislatures/617047/

The Failure That Could Haunt Democrats for a Decade

Joe Biden won the White House, but Republican power in the states isn’t going anywhere.

Russell Berman  November 10, 2020

Compared with Republicans, it took a long time for Democrats to realize just how important down-ballot races can be—from the representatives and senators who write state laws to the district attorneys who decide which crimes to prosecute. It wasn’t until after Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016 that Democratic donors and activists, their party exiled from power in Washington, D.C., turned their attention to the states instead.....

Jessica...Post now runs the DLCC and helped the committee raise a record $50 million to spend on legislative races this year. But Election Night 2020 was another disappointment: Democrats whiffed in their bid to flip a single state legislative chamber and lost the majorities they gained in 2018 in New Hampshire. The biggest prize they lost was Texas, where the party needed nine seats to win the state House after making inroads two years ago; Democrats likely failed to gain a single seat.

“It turned out we hit a different electorate than everyone was expecting,” Post told me in an interview last week. Democratic strategists initially pointed to two main factors behind the losses: the surge of turnout among Trump’s base that public and private polling failed to capture, and the pandemic, which might have had a disproportionate impact on down-ballot Democratic campaigns.

Post said the DLCC saw evidence that the races were tightening in the final days and sent money to fortify incumbents in places such as Minnesota, where Democrats thought they had the best chance of flipping the state Senate and securing control of both the legislature and the governorship. But it was not until Post saw the long lines of Election Day voters in Republican areas that she realized the party’s assumptions about turnout were woefully off. “It’s not just Democrats who were turning out,” Post thought. The supersize showing by Trump’s base was particularly damaging in key state legislative races .....

In states such as Texas, Florida, Iowa, and North Carolina, Trump’s surprising strength in the 2020 race made it virtually impossible for down-ballot Democrats to oust Republican incumbents. “There’s no way to flip chambers that Republicans have held for decades if we’re losing by large margins at the top of the ticket,” says Ben Wexler-Waite, a spokesperson for Forward Majority, a Democratic super PAC formed after the 2016 election that spent more than $30 million on state legislative races this year. The Democrats’ underperformance, however, wasn’t limited to states where Trump did well. They fell just short in Minnesota and narrowly lost their majorities in New Hampshire, states that former Vice President Joe Biden carried by seven points.

In no state was the outcome more disappointing for Democrats than Texas, which they had made a presidential battleground for the first time in decades only to see Biden lose by nearly six points. After picking up 12 seats in the state House in 2018, Democrats could not make a dent in the nine more they needed to capture the majority. “We’ll do some soul-searching,” a Texas Democratic strategist told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly assess the party’s performance. “Republicans were definitely better organized than they were in 2018.” The strategist said Democrats might have “overhyped” the party’s chances,....

While the coronavirus pandemic did not stop voters from turning out in record numbers across the country, Democrats believe that it did hamper them in down-ballot races, where in-person campaigning is equally if not more important than TV ads. And just as at the presidential level, Democratic candidates were much more likely than Republicans to curtail their canvassing..... “The candidate that knocks on more doors in a state legislative race is going to outperform the district,” says Daniel Squadron, a former Democratic state senator from New York.... “We’ve never before had a scenario where one party did it and the other party didn’t.”..."

https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_elections,_2020#Chambers_that_flipped_in_the_last_election

https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_battleground_chambers,_2020

The 2020 state legislative elections took place in the context of significant Republican gains in state legislatures between 2010 and 2017 and a swing back towards Democratic control in 2018. Between 2010 and 2017, Democrats lost a net 968 seats across the country's 99 state legislative chambers. ...

Heading into the 2020 elections, Republicans held 21 state government trifectas to Democrats' 15, majority control of 59 state legislative chambers to Democrats' 39, and control of 26 governors' offices to Democrats' 24.

Prior to the 2010 elections, Democrats controlled 60 of the country's 99 state legislative chambers, Republicans controlled 37, and two chambers were not controlled by either party. In the six years that followed, Republicans made significant gains and took control of many of the chambers that were previously held by Democrats. After the 2016 elections, Democrats controlled 31 chambers and Republicans controlled 68.

From 2010 to 2019, there were 63 instances where a state legislative chamber changed partisan control. Of these 63 changes, 42 involved a chamber changing from Democratic to Republican control ....

 
"6 hours ago, tommyGunZ said:

What is the point of this post? "

The point is the constant ORANGE MAN BAD mantra is cheap and lazy.  It's no load, low speed, high drag, weak limp wristed Kung Fu. Some of you seem content at frothing at the teeth every time the Twitter dinner bell rings to tell you to be outraged.

No one wants to point out Donald Trump's impact in furthering the Red strongholds in state legislatures. Trump has a large fervent base that he uses as a "ground game" using face to faces and door to doors. He understands MSM leans left and media suppression negates any ad dollars he spends on TV. Instead he relies on shock/outrage marketing, generating unpaid coverage in bulk as his trolling style is good for ratings but lets him dominate the daily media cycle while basically running the political version of the Wish Bone offense.

Constantly attacking Dominion and Smartmatic destabilizes the entire DNC chain of command structure. Embattled Democratic Mayors and Governors will be too worried about their own political survival to fund raise for anyone else. ( Gavin Newsom was so embattled, he couldn't stop several of the HOR seats in his state from flipping Red, this was even after his lockdowns essentially curtailed their ability to campaign against his Blue incumbents)  You can't spend another 100 million for a new voting system after you just spent 100 million for the outgoing one a mere 18 months ago because half the country doesn't trust it while in the middle of a pandemic fueled economic wasteland. You need money to win elections and any disparity in money becomes more critical the further down the ticket you go.

Donald Trump might be a 4th rate failed reality TV star and a stone cold narcissist, but he's not stupid. Proving Dominion is corrupt, even if they are truly deeply corrupt, is close to impossible at this point. But that's not the actual strategy. The strategy is to ensure his local level base, which is the only way to compete when MSM/Hollywood/Big Tech/Social Media/Big Education are all lined up against you, by crippling the DNC down the ticket. It's cheap political tribalism and weak sauce "What is the point of this post?" trolling that tries to shoehorn Trump's actual impact into some kind of monolithic cult. And that's just not true. It's a full fledged ground assault based on sheer will and attrition that weaponizes Trump's loyalists. Of course the MSM and DNC are outraged. The Clinton/Biden camps were literally money printing machines and still got punched in the mouth. The irony of it all is this is a forum based on football fans, but so many are so lefty woke'd out that they can't see how basic grit and grind and fighting for one yard at a time can actually win a game.

But why discuss the actual complexities of logistical political strategy? Since it's just more ORANGE MAN BAD. Go on, some of you, keep screaming ORANGE MAN BAD while gripping your Airsoft guns just a little bit tighter. Because that surely explains everything since Twitter told you so.

 
GordonGekko said:
I will repost full context as it appears you did not actually read The General's original post and link -

"13 hours ago, The General said:

She’ll probably fold like Fox

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/20/fox-news-retracts-voting-machine-fraud-claim-smartmatic "

"First broadcast on Fox Business on Friday, on Lou Dobbs Tonight, and repeated over the weekend on shows hosted by Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, the segment was presented as a news interview with election technology expert Eddie Perez....The Fox News interview with Perez was described by a network source as “a fact-checking segment aired in the same format” as original reporting about Smartmatic."

*****

12 hours ago, GordonGekko said:

https://prospect.org/power/former-biden-chief-of-staff-is-fox-news-top-lobbyist/

https://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=82241

Former Biden Chief of Staff is Fox News’ Top Lobbyist

A former key Biden official began lobbying for the rightwing news channel in July, a recent filing shows. by Alex Kotch September 20, 2019

....But Fox also hired another political figure: Danny O’Brien, a former top aide to Democratic former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden. From March 2003 to August 2006, O’Brien was then-Sen. Biden’s chief of staff.....

In October 2018, Fox Corporation named O’Brien as its executive vice president and head of government relations, the company’s chief lobbying position. Over the past few years, Fox News and the Trump White House have enjoyed a well-oiled revolving door, but O’Brien’s hire doesn’t fit that pattern.

According to a lobbying report posted in late July, O’Brien began officially lobbying for Fox News in the second quarter of 2019, his first registered federal lobbying activities, according to Senate records. Along with two others, O’Brien lobbied Congress on various issues including online privacy and data collection, sports betting, advertising, the First Amendment, and “media ownership.”

****

Fox 's executive ranks have been compromised by a high level former DNC operative (O'Brien) with deep ties to Biden. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham all signed contracts allowing them final cut/final edit/creative control/determination of content of their shows. Their popularity/fan base rates that, esp Carlson, which is why their segments remain leaning to the right/conservative. Dobbs, Bartiromo and Pirro don't have those kind of contracts. They have to bend the knee for the wishes of the DNC/Obama/Biden loyalists because Danny O'Brien says so.  It's also why Fox has cut away from Trump and Press Secretary McEnany during press conferences.

It's not fact checking, it's not that Powell's claim are totally baseless, it's that Fox, except for those under contract otherwise, has been compromised by the DNC. You can add it to the list of MSM along with CNN, MSNBC, etc, etc that lean hard left. Smartmatic and Dominion can attempt to leverage Fox via pressuring it's advertisers, Sydney Powell is under no such leverage.

Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren openly criticized the safety of DVS during the Georgia primaries. The DNC wants distance from DVS controversy because a changeover in a recent system in up to 30 states that cost about 100 million dollars each will destroy the Democratic leadership in big cities around the US and force brutal losses in down the ticket races, esp in state legislatures. You have small businesses burned and looted while state and city employees are being furloughed and laid off and then you want to lay in a new voting system at massive cost when half the country believes it has to replace the new one that the DNC forced onto everyone?

******
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This is absurd.  The EVP of Governmental Affairsfor Fox News doesn’t have editorial control over Dobbs, Porto, or Bartiromo.  He’s a lobbyist who spends his time educating/advocating legislators for outcomes that benefit Fox News.  

To clarify, you’re suggesting that Dobbs, Puerto, and Bartiromo are now under the control of leftists?  That’s equally absurd. 

 
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tommyGunZ said:
This is absurd.  The EVP of Governmental Affairsfor Fox News doesn’t have editorial control over Dobbs, Porto, or Bartiromo.  He’s a lobbyist who spends his time educating/advocating legislators for outcomes that benefit Fox News. 
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https://readsludge.com/2019/04/23/net-neutrality-skeptic-joe-biden-is-attending-a-fundraiser-held-by-comcasts-top-lobbyist/

During Biden’s long career in Democratic establishment politics, he has hitched himself to countless lobbyists and wealthy donors, a pattern that continues today. His campaign and its fundraising operation are closely tied to these interests; for example, Biden’s first campaign fundraising event was hosted by telecom giant Comcast’s top lobbyist. On Thursday, after he announces he is running for president, Joe Biden will headline a fundraiser in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hosted by David Cohen, Comcast’s senior executive vice president who leads the company’s lobbying efforts in Washington D.C.

https://twitter.com/KarlBode/status/1120685922771582976

Karl Bode @KarlBode

So Biden's very first act as a candidate will be to hold a fundraiser hosted by Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen, who calls himself the company's "Chief Diversity Officer" to skirt lobbying rules.

Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen spends the majority of his time trying to influence state and federal regulators (he was the lead salesman of the NBC and Time Warner Cable mergers), Comcast calls him the company's "Chief Diversity Officer." That's because updated 2007 lobbying reporting rules require that if an employee spends more than 20% of their time lobbying in DC, they have to register with the government as a lobbyist, detail their travel with lawmakers, and more fully outline their contributions to politicians and their myriad foundations. As a result, Cohen -- and thousands of other lobbyists -- simply started calling themselves something else.

https://readsludge.com/2019/04/23/net-neutrality-skeptic-joe-biden-is-attending-a-fundraiser-held-by-comcasts-top-lobbyist/

Comcast was a top contributor to Biden’s Senate campaigns, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Individuals affiliated with the company gave Biden $84,500 from 1989-2010.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/24/fox-doesnt-need-to-fear-trumps-wrath-440446

Fox is expected to reap $2.9 billion in revenue this year .... More than half of those Fox revenues come from the affiliate fees that the cable operator pays to carry the channel, which means that if you’re a Democrat and your cable package includes Fox, you’re putting about $1.65 in Rupert’s piggy bank every month (96 cents for CNN and 29 cents for MSNBC).

https://readsludge.com/2020/01/29/msnbcs-owners-shower-biden-with-campaign-cash/

Biden has received 17 large campaign contributions from executives and vice presidents at Comcast, including eight for the legal maximum of $2,800.... In addition, Comcast’s top lobbyist, David Cohen, co-hosted Biden’s kick-off fundraiser in April and he is listed as a bundler for the campaign, meaning that he has collected at least $25,000 in contributions from others for Biden. Here’s the full list of Biden’s 2019 contributions form Comcast executives and vice presidents according to the latest available data from the FEC.  

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/oKjd9/1/

Comcast’s support for Biden is not new. The company’s executives and other employees have given Biden’s campaigns $153,566 since 1989, making it the ex-senator’s seventh largest career contributor, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  From a policy point of view, Comcast’s support of Biden makes sense. Comcast has been a leading force against neutrality rules, spending millions on lobbying against the issue, and, unlike Sanders and Warren, Biden’s record does not suggest that he would be a strong advocate for restoring net neutrality as president. 

In 2006, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden said that he did not think net neutrality rules were needed. ...Comcast is the nation’s largest broadband provider, operating regional monopolies that give consumers no choice but to subscribe to their services or have no home internet service. About 68 million Americans have access to no broadband or only one internet service provider. For the majority of those with just one ISP option, that option is Comcast. In 2018, Comcast’s revenue from its internet division alone was more than $17 billion.

******

 
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-2020-campaign-lobbyist-money_n_5cc111dce4b0764d31dc8586

Biden is set to attend a fundraiser Thursday night at the Philadelphia home of Comcast executive David Cohen, according to an invite first published by Politico and later obtained by HuffPost. While Cohen is not a registered lobbyist, he does oversee the cable giant’s massive Washington lobbying operation, which spent more than $4 million and involved more than three dozen lobbying firms in the first quarter of 2019 alone. 

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/comcast-data-fees-caps-public-subsidies

Now, Comcast, one of the monopoly corporations that controls the conduit, is extending its fees on bandwidth usage to all thirty-nine states where it operates — even as the company has received hundreds of millions of dollars of public subsidies and new tax breaks. Whether or not those data caps remain permanent could hinge on whether president-elect Joe Biden and Democrats are willing to take action against a corporation that has been one of their major campaign donors.

At issue is Comcast’s move on Monday that caps home internet usage at 1.2TB of data per month for its customers in twelve additional states, and charging customers up to $100 per month if they exceed the cap. Comcast’s move was flagged by Stop the Cap, which discovered that the company had quietly updated language on its website. The new limits, which will take effect in March, are being imposed in states that have given Comcast and its subsidiaries more than $738 million in tax subsidies in the last few decades. Those states include New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, where state and local governments have given Comcast and its subsidiaries $484 million, $132 million, and $79 million in tax subsidies, respectively, according to data from Good Jobs First.

In all, Comcast and its subsidiaries — which include NBC and MSNBC — have received nearly $1 billion in state and local subsidies. Additionally, Comcast received $861 million in federal tax subsidies....

...That same year, the “telecom industry spent more than $97.6 million on lobbying and hired 603 lobbyists to argue on its behalf – more than half of the industry’s lobbyists were former government employees,” according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which noted that was part of the nearly $1 billion the industry spent on lobbying over the last decade.

New FCC appointees by president-elect Joe Biden could in theory crack down on data caps — but Biden and his party have deep ties to Comcast. In all over the last decade, Comcast donors have delivered more than $25 million to Democrats...

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/david-cohen-comcast-joe-biden-administration-20201203.html

Comcast executive and longtime Philadelphia political power player David L. Cohen is hoping to join President-elect Joe Biden’s administration as either commerce secretary or a high-profile ambassador, according to former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.....Federal ethics rules require cabinet members to divest from significant holdings that may pose conflicts of interest or recuse themselves from decisions that could impact those investments. Ambassadorships, however, do not come with such stringent ethics rules.

As of March 10, Cohen owned or controlled more than 3.9 million shares in Comcast, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. At Thursday’s stock price, that’s worth about $203 million. In 2019, Cohen earned $20 million in compensation from Comcast, including salary, stock awards, and incentives.

https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/comcast-fox-corp-carriage-deal-fox-news-1203551465/

Comcast and Fox Corp. have come to terms on a broad carriage agreement covering all of Fox’s cable channels, including Fox News, and its local TV stations.

The long-term deal is significant for Fox Corp. given the importance of Comcast’s distribution footprint to core earnings...” “We are pleased to extend our longstanding and productive partnership with Comcast so that millions of Xfinity customers will continue to enjoy Fox’s leading sports, entertainment and news programming for years to come,” said Michael Biard, Fox’s president of operations and distribution.

The deal covers Fox’s 28 local TV stations serving 11 top markets, as well as Fox Business and sports cablers FS1, FS2, BTN and FOX Deportes.

Comcast and Fox have previously battled over carriage terms for Fox News, the most-watched cable news channel.

 
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