Creeping Angst

Yack.  It has been a day.

A judge approved the Time Warner and AT&T merger.  The quote is from the NYT article on the subject.  AT&T owns the satellite company, DIRECTV.  I strongly suspect they’ll be raising the rates for DISH to access Time Warner content.  We, of course, have DISH.

The deal would put AT&T in charge of Time Warner’s vast portfolio, which includes HBO and CNN, rights to major sports leagues, and valuable film franchises such as Harry Potter. John Stankey, an AT&T executive, would oversee the integration of these units into AT&T and eventually lead the Time Warner business.
“We want people engaged with their mobile devices all day watching movies and video,” Mr. Stephenson testified at the trial.

The second paragraph is interesting – they want people on their phones ALL DAY watching movies?  This will be doable because AT&T will be exempting their content from data caps.  We can expect to see higher prices, more mergers and less choice.  I was really hoping this would go the other way.

In other news, the DOJ is bringing suit against the ACA to do away with protections for people with pre-existing conditions.  That would be just about everybody.  If those protections are removed, it’s going to make it virtually impossible for sick people to buy insurance at all.  I don’t understand why this administration is so eager to hurt the populace.  NYT wrote about the ramifications of this lawsuit.

And then, there is the summit meeting between the two dictators (phrase courtesy of Fox news.)  Can you imagine how South Korea is feeling about the announcement that joint military exercises would be cancelled?  They were blindsided by that announcement.  If that wasn’t enough, the president went on to say that he thought US troops could be removed from South Korea.  What an ally the US turns out to be.  There is no language about timetables, inspections or verification. Just warm feelings on the part of our president.  The members of the G7, particularly Canada, were castigated at their summit.  However, the president can’t say enough nice things about a dictator who consolidated power by murdering his half brother and others, who maintains gulags to this day and who had a hand in the death of Otto Warmbler.  He praises this human rights violator and calls Justin Trudeau names.  Great, really great.

I have not been this despondent since the election.  I knew it would be bad, I just didn’t think it would be this bad.

The bright spot of my time on the internet can be found here.  It’s a tweet thread from Britain about a fox sunbathing on a roof.  Is he cute or what?