Daily Topics - Friday February 14th, 2014

Catch The Thom Hartmann Program LIVE 3-6pm ET M-F!!
Read Thom's latest Liberally Yours column online at The Daily Caller..be sure to add your comments & support your local liberal!
Anything Goes Friday - Happy Valentine's Day
Hour One: Brunch With Bernie - Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) takes your calls
Hour Two: Survey says "geek chic in...gym rats out" - Dr. John Gray, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus / Geek Chic
Hour Three: The Wolf of Sesame Street - David Sirota, Pando Daily / Plus, Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour - Stephanie Miller, The Stephanie Miller Show
Comments


More on content provider monopoly; your internet provider may be unable to access certain websites that you request. If you log on to (for example) YouTube, you may be asked "Name of television provider", and you scroll through the list and click on your provider, then you get full access to YouTube. Your TV provider not on the list? You don't get access to YouTube.
I use YouTube here for example, but this is already the practice of some websites. Fox Television will let you watch last night's episode of 'Rake' a week from today, but if you want to watch it tonight, you have to be using one of their content providers from a list. ESPN 3 is another such site that requires you to use one of their content providers for your television in order to use the website. This content strangulation will only get worse under mega-merger monopolization of content providers.



This a email I sent to the FCC Chairman.
Sen. Sanders, What can we do about informing the public through network news broadcast, when the stations are owned by large corporation? People get most of their news on these networks.
Comcast Buy Out of Time Warner Cable (2)
Me
To tom.wheeler@fcc.govMe
Today at 6:43 PM
I am writing in protest of the announced buyout of Time Warner Cable by Comcast. Our media is already controlled by five to six corporations and this merger would create yet another mega corporation that could affect the consumer’s use of information and/or misinformation. I believe the FCC has the power to stop the continuing monopolization of our media.
I read your speech of February 10, 2014, to the University of Colorado’s Law School and was encouraged by your recognition of the rapid development of technology and the flexibility needed to insure the FCC are following their mandate in regulating the public airwaves. Your use of the quote of Lincoln and your understanding the meaning of the quote is not common.
I know you are new to your position, but from your speech you seem to recognize the complications of our information and entertainment media. I will use a quote from your speech that I believe spells your philosophy of regulations: “The Network Compact – universal accessibility, interconnection, public safety, and consumer protection – constitute the things we have to promote and promote and protect if we are to be faithful to the public interest imperative.” I sincerely hope you will follow this statement and begin undoing the domination of a few large corporations of our media. My local TV News is owned by Fox and they continually fail to report important news and /or slant the news. A very good example is the fact that a protest march in Raleigh, NC on February 8th, reliable sources estimated the marchers to number 80,000, but the news used the term “several” thousands protestors and ended the coverage with a Republican statement that also downplayed the march. My daughter in Charlotte did not even know the march occurred. I believe this behavior is in violation of FCC regulations and the First Amendment right to a free press.
I wish you much success in solving the problems created over the last thirty years. You can begin by announcing that the FCC will not approve the creation of a national monopoly of one Cable Company and a statement on net neutrality. I stay informed by reading and the internet, but unfortunately that is not true for the majority of public. I will be watching what you do more than what you say because, “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew”.
Respectfully Yours,
Michael R Brannon