I'm listening to Rush Limbaugh again these days. Limbaugh has been assuring his listeners that he is still not on the John McCain for President bandwagon just because he protested the New York Times' article on the Arizona Senator's relationship with a lobbyist. McCain's various collaborations with liberals are still unforgivable, Limbaugh insists.

"This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends," he explained. "Why should any of us be surprised or even angry at what the New York Times is doing here trying to take out John McCain?"

Read the rest at allvoices.com . . .  

A civil but tense tone prevailed on Monday at the Federal Communications Commission's hearing on how to address concerns that Comcast and other ISPs degrade P2P traffic. Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen was the star of the show, and he knew it. "It's a pleasure to be here as a participant and hopefully not the main course for your meal," Cohen told all five Commissioners and a lively audience during the event's first panel discussion, held at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. More here. And did Comcast pay people to pack the meeting? Read here.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the decision "paternalism at its worst," but the Federal Communications Commission today denied the ABC television network's appeal of a proposed $1.4 million dollar fine for an NYPD Blue program that briefly showed a woman's naked behind. And the agency went further in categorically defining the derrière as a sexual/excretory part of the human anatomy, rejecting ABC's argument that it has no sexual or excretory function.

Read the rest . . .

The race is on to get the last word in on the Comcast/BitTorrent controversy. With ten days left to file, telcos, trade, and advocacy groups are sending the Federal Communications Commission their statements on whether Comcast and other ISPs purposefully degrade peer to peer traffic, and if so, what to do about it. Not surprisingly, the debate pits broadband content providers and advocacy groups against the big telcos, cable companies, and their trade association backers. More

Key politicians and a Federal Communications Commissioner are putting heat on the government to get its act together on the DTV transition, before it's too late. FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has warned of a "state of mass confusion" if Federal agencies don't coordinate their efforts to let the public know that February 17, 2009 is the last day of analog broadcasting. The next day, an estimated 19 million to 22 million analog-only TV sets won't work in the all-digital broadcasting environment. Read the rest here.

As the proposed merger of XM and Sirius satellite radio approaches its first anniversary, Clear Channel Communications has filed its seventeenth statement with the Federal Communications Commission on the matter. The comment is similar to some of its previous filings: the merger would constitute an unfair and illegal monopoly, but Clear Channel might accept it if the FCC does something good for the broadcast giant as well.

Super Tuesday is coming on, well, Tuesday. Twenty four states and American Samoa will hold primary elections or primary caucuses for Democrats and Republicans. And while the horse-race watchers obsess over which candidate will be most electable, LLFCC has kept track of their positions on broadcasting and telecommunications related issues.

Democrats

Of all of the contenders for the Democratic nomination, John Edwards had the most clear and comprehensive set of positions on Federal Communications Commission related matters. Unfortunately, the former United States Senator has withdrawn from the race.

Candidate Edwards repeatedly pledged to strengthen rather than weaken the FCC's media ownership rules. "Edwards believes extreme media consolidation threatens free speech," his media page declares, "tilts the public dialogue towards corporate priorities and away from local concerns, and makes it increasingly difficult for women and minorities to own a stake in our media."