U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
© Brian Snyder/ReutersU.S. Senator Bernie Sanders wonders if he should hit up the Salvation Army to see if they have any new bean bag chairs or lava lamps.
Senator Bernie Sanders has criticised AT&T's proposed $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner Media, saying the merger would result in "higher prices and fewer choices for the American people."

Sanders called on the Obama administration on Twitter to: "kill the Time Warner/AT&T merger. This deal would mean higher prices and fewer choices for the American people."



Comment: The amount of stupid in this tweet is staggering. Sanders' formula is: "Gotta milk the discontent with big business - so make silly claims whenever anything big happens and say that it leads to higher prices and fewer choices, because economics."Let's see:
  1. Create de facto monopolies supported by poorly implemented and nonsensical regulations that make it prohibitively expensive for competitors to enter the market.
  2. Blame everything on lassez-faire capitalism.
  3. Repeat for awhile.
  4. Realize that repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results is silly.
  5. Tell the president to create the reality you expected but failed to achieve thus far.

Sanders joins the growing list of political opposition to the stock-and-cash merger, which was unanimously passed by the boards at both companies, but still has to be approved by US federal regulators.


Comment: Everybody loves a bandwagon.


Presidential candidate Donald Trump was quick to criticize the deal on Saturday, saying this is the kind of power structure he's fighting.



Comment: Yeah - like we believe that.


"AT&T is buying Time Warner and, thus, CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration, because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," said Trump.


Comment: He's just mad he isn't deep in telecoms.


"I'm pro-competition," said Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's vice presidential running mate, on Sunday during NBC's Meet the Press before he echoed Trump's worries about too much concentration. "Less concentration, I think, is generally helpful, especially in the media," he added.


Comment: Less concentration? Yeah - and this is the way you get it? Tim Kaine is about as pro-competition as the average person is pro-spastic colon cancer.


AT&T agreed to pay Time Warner $500 million if the deal did not pass the regulators, according to The Wall Street Journal. In turn, Time Warner pledged to pay $1.7 billion penalty to AT&T if someone outbids its offer.


Comment: Enter the rat we smelled. Someone stands to gain $500 million if a few politicians kill the merger. Jesus Christ - this is so transparent it's x-rayed. Wonder how much the bandwagon gets in campaign contributions...