The Hill is reporting that America's only admitted socialist member of Congress on Tuesday said he would seek to block the merger of Comcast with NBC as a result of Keith Olbermann's suspension last week (h/t NBer Beukeboom):
[Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)] said Comcast's attempt to acquire NBC from General Electric would result in "another media giant run by a Republican supporter of George W. Bush." [...]
The senator pointed to Comcast's COO Stephen B. Burke's history as a major fundraiser for former President George W. Bush as a reason why the deal, which has drawn criticism from other lawmakers for different reasons, should be blocked.
“As Vermont’s senator, I intend to do all that I can do to stop this merger. There already is far too much media concentration in this country," Sanders said. "We do not need another media giant run by a Republican supporter of George W. Bush. That is the lesson we should learn from the Keith Olbermann suspension.”
So Sanders is worried about Comcast's supposed conservative influence on NBC if the merger goes through? Maybe he should take a look at how much that company's officials gave to Barack Obama and Democrats in 2008 as the Hill reported last December:
Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts made more than $76,000 in political contributions to Democrats since 2006, compared to $13,500 in contributions to Republicans. Comcast vice president and top lobbyist David Cohen made about $180,000 to Democrats in the same period, compared to $12,000 to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Cohen also helped raise more than $6 million for Obama’s election campaign.
There have also been political endorsements. On Thursday, the same day the merger was announced, Roberts expressed his support of Obama’s healthcare package. It was the first time Roberts took a position on the issue. He had been invited to attend the White House job summit that day, but could not make it.
Indeed. Here's the letter Roberts sent to Obama endorsing his healthcare package.
Add it all up, and Comcast has been quite a supporter of the current administration, an inconvenient truth America's only admitted socialist member of Congress is either unaware of or chooses to ignore.
No wonder he's such a huge fan of MSNBC's, a network whose anchors and hosts are perpetually oblivious to facts when they interfere with their agenda.
But maybe more importantly, what does it say about this so-called news network's biases that a socialist is so ardently defending it?
Of course, this shouldn't be altogether too surprising - an MSNBC anchor just last Friday proudly admitted to being a socialist while on the air.
We sure have come a long way from the '50s when folks in front of the camera did their darnedest to conceal their extreme political views, haven't we?
