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[our resident eedjit]: I love this part....
[Glenn]: Whatever one might think about the legal right of corporations to control our public debates by exercising power of this sort, it is impossible to deny how corrupt and damaging it is to have corporations be able to use their control over media outlets to limit and suppress the terms of our most important political debates in this manner.
Damn that rule of law. How dare Comcast refuse to air an ad attacking it.
When you're a common carrier (or given by the gummint an exclusive or semi-exclusive license or "franchise"), your responsibilities are different. Because you are a monopoly or quasi-monopoly so established by the gummint, you should not be allowed to discriminate in ways that violate freedom of speech.
Cable companies are regulated by the FCC (at least in name).
And there are rules quite different for political ads too. For instance, the GM of a radio station I used to work for told us about the Barry Commoner ad (when Commoner ran for office) which started out: "Bullshit!!!" While normally the Carlin Rules would make that impermissible, the stations were not only permitted but required to air that ad. Another rule for political ads is that the station broadcasting such many not make any alterations to the ads. They must be broadcast as received. While the Comcast shysters are trying to claim that the ActBlue ad is not such a "political ad", I think any person of common sense would say that it is indeed such. What complicates things is the rules on election financing distinguishing between "issue ads" and "candidate ads". But while that distinction might be workable or useful (depending on one's POV), that hardly means that the FCC rules as to what is "political" ought not encompass ads on issues in the public interest.
Cheers,
