President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

If Jones win, Trump would go 0 for 2 in endorsements in one Alabama election. That'd be one for the books. If I represented a suburban district outside the South as a Republican in Congress, I'd just spend my days faxing my resume all over K Street.

 

I still think Moore will win. He’s not running against Jones anymore. He’s running against the “liberal media.” And he’s gonna win that battle in Alabama.

The editorials in the Bama papers that came out against him likely helped his cause.

Would be very happy to be wrong.

 

Look, if hate means more to the voters of Alabama than simple human decency, that's their choice. But nobody from that state then has the right to bitch when any Northerner such as myself uses the worst moron redneck stereotypes to describe the place. They will have made their bed.

 

i'm getting a "very fine people on both sides" vibe here. Looking forward to the vigorous defense by the usuals.

 

I want to log again for the record that I think that Trump is a total doof and I wouldn't vote for him for dog catcher.

Here is my presidential voting record:

1996 - Bill Clinton
2000 - Al Gore
2004 - John Kerry
2008 - Barack Obama
2012 - Barack Obama
2016 - Hillary Clinton

I don't defend Trump. I defend journalism.

 

No puppet! (Unless "Puppet" was his code name, of course.)

He’s a Member of Congress. The Kremlin Likes Him so Much It Gave Him a Code Name

 

A Moore loss won't do long-term damage to the GOP the way a Moore win will. They probably don't have the numbers to keep him from being seated if he wins, and he is a menace to the re-election of any GOP incumbent from a less than blood-red state.

 

The seat is up again in two years.

Write In Nick Saban!

 

Wait, you can get paid to drop out of political races!?! Is it too late to start a campaign and file?

 

I listened to his comments on Moore. He really is an idiot when he's asked to opine about anything other than himself or insulting other people.

I'd never let him answer a non-friendly question again if I were one of his handlers.

 

This deal fascinates me. I'd love to see a log of the outgoing calls on Brian Roberts' and David Cohen's phones since news of the merger broke. Comcast practically has a seat in Congress, and I wouldn't be surprised if they see this deal as an existential threat to the future of their enterprise. How else to interpret it?

The telecom providers clearly seem to think that the future lies in bundling internet service with content. Comcast clearly understands the benefits of a telecom provider with a content arm, as evidenced by its acquisition of NBCU. But doesn't a TW/ATT merger leave Comcast out-flanked on the content side? That's how I would feel in their position. NBCU is a behemoth, but a huge chunk of its value comes from its broadcast division, which lacks the exclusivity that the Time Warner portfolio gives ATT. According to last year's annual report, the cable networks grossed $10 billion and the broadcast network grossed $10 billion. That second $10 billion has a total of zero impact on Comcast's ability to attract and retain subscribers, because all of that programming is available for free over the air. It's also interesting to note that Time Warner owns 10 percent of Hulu, where all NBC shows are available.

It sounds like the telecoms think that the war for subscribers will increasingly be fought on the margins, and that one big carrot will be the programming a company exempts from counting against its subscribers' monthly data limits. Compared to Time Warner, NBCU has little to offer in that regard, since their most popular programming is already available for free over the airwaves. The regional sports networks guarantee them a decent base of customers in a handful of markets, but one thing we're seeing from cord-cutting and the demise of ESPN is that a considerable segment of the population views sports as expendable. Besides, NBC's most valuable national sports programming is over the airwaves.

I guess what I'm saying is, what kind of internet/content bundle could Comcast offer its subscribers that comes close to the hypothetical one ATT/Time Warner could put together? Right now, Comcast looks OK because cable broadband remains the default source of home Internet, and they've bought themselves a monopoly in a lot of metro areas, and they structure their Internet pricing so that it makes sense to add a basic cable package. But we aren't that far away from a world in which cellular is as fast and reliable as WiFi, are we? All it would take is one realistic technological innovation or a shrewd business move for a wireless company to start taking serious aim at Comcast subscribers. Again, what could they offer? ATT has 134 million wireless subscribers. Comcast is attempting to get its own wireless service off the ground. But if ATT can offer a better price on programming, and a better cellular network, what does Comcast have to offer?

If I was Comcast, I'd be swinging all of my considerable weight trying to keep it from happening.