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  2. February 2017

February 2017

Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the People’

President Donald Trump, in an extraordinary rebuke of the nation’s press organizations, wrote on Twitter on Feb 17 that the nation’s news media “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people.” Even by the standards of a president who routinely castigates journalists, President Trump’s tweet was a striking escalation in his attacks on the news media.

At 4:32 p.m., shortly after arriving at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach (FL), President Trump took to Twitter to write: "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. SICK!" That message was swiftly deleted, but not before being seen by thousands of social media users. Sixteen minutes later, President Trump posted a revised version of the tweet. Restricted to 140 characters, the president removed the word “sick,” and added two other television networks to his list of offending news organizations, ABC and CBS.

AT&T, Time Warner defend deal

AT&T defended its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, writing in a letter to Sen Al Franken (D-MN) and three other Sens that “this merger is about giving consumers what they want." The letter is written by AT&T Executive Vice President for Federal Relations Tim McKone and Time Warner Senior Vice President of Global Public Policy Steve Vest. They say the merger would allow the combined company to offer cheaper and more robust services to their consumers. “The merger will allow us to offer customers more attractive bundles of broadband and video services, prodding cable companies and other competitors to respond by improving their own services,” it states. “And the merger will further incentivize AT&T and other wireless carriers to deploy lightning-fast 5G wireless technology faster and deeper in their networks.”

Top antitrust senators call for Sessions to scrutinize AT&T-Time Warner merger

The top Sens on the Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel are urging the Department of Justice to scrutinize the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger for the possibility that it leads to anticompetitive practices. The subcommittee's chair, Sen Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions pointing to aspects of the deal that they find troubling. "The proposed transaction raises complex questions that will require a fact-intensive investigation that has yet to be completed, as well as a deep understanding of the economics of the digital content creation and distribution markets," reads the letter.

SoftBank willing to cede control of Sprint to entice T-Mobile

Japan's SoftBank Group Corp is prepared to give up control of Sprint Corp to Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile US Inc to clinch a merger of the two US wireless carriers, apparently. SoftBank has not yet approached Deutsche Telekom to discuss any deal because the Federal Communications Commission has imposed strict anti-collusion rules that ban discussions between rivals during an ongoing auction of airwaves. After the auction ends in April, the two parties are expected to begin negotiations.

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