A company run by one high-dollar Hillary Clinton donor is reportedly in talks to pay $3 billion for a company run by another high-dollar Hillary Clinton donor. 
Comcast has donated thousands of dollars to charities, think tanks, and state lawmakers that have in turn endorsed the cable and Internet giant’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable, the New York Times reports. Comcast’s transformation from a midsize firm in the early 2000s to a lobbying powerhouse epitomizes how businesses can profit from influence in Washington, but the cable and Internet giant is now facing some resistance from the Obama administration and regulators, the Wall Street Journal reports. (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Friday it paused its "shot-clock" on the review of the proposed $45 billion merger between the two largest U.S. cable providers, Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable Inc. 
(Reuters) - U.S. communications regulators on Friday asked Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) for additional details about its video and broadband operations, including its web traffic management practices, to review the company's proposed merger with Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N). Satellite broadcaster Dish Network told top officials at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week to block the proposed $45 billion merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable because it would create serious anticompetitive pressures in the broadband and video markets, the Los Angeles Times reports. Pennsylvania protestors are taking aim at one of President Barack Obama’s largest corporate supporters for not paying a “fair share” of taxes.
On Sunday, a dozen protestors showed up outside the state capital building in Harrisburg, accusing Comcast and a slew of other major companies of failing to pay enough taxes. The demonstrators chanted “pay your fair share,” in reference to the multi-billion dollar companies tax rate in the state. 
Comcast dropped a popular rural television network last year right before launching the unproven Al Jazeera America network, one of several concerns raised by witnesses on Thursday about the company’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable (TWC) and its potential market power. 
Comcast is continuing to hire former congressional staffers as lobbyists in a bid to secure approval for its proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable (TWC), Politico reports. 
“To see what is in front of one’s nose,” George Orwell famously wrote, “needs a constant struggle.” In front of my nose as I write this is a copy of last Sunday’s New York Times. I have opened it to the business section. Below the fold is one of many Times articles on Thomas Piketty, the French economist and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which argues that America has entered a second Gilded Age of vast inequality, inherited fortunes, and oligarchic politics, where the shape of public discourse and public policy is determined by a wealthy few. 