general they have a strong interest in people getting access to what they want because that is what people are willing to pay for broadband. >> this vision is a small startup, and comcast doesn't care about them. comcast can care less whether a small startup is clogging its pipes. doesn't clawed its pipes at all. and and it was difficult engineering problems. and until they are the side of netflix, comcast doesn't know they exist. there is a world in which someone says i hate these people end it is run by jews.

you can construct that, it is not how it is going to work out. it pays compacts -- and its next competitor, >> these are for profit companies. they are not evil but they'd do favor whoever has more money. and it is quite a long there. there are a few spaces left in american society and smaller speakers had a decent chance. and and it -- consumer

experience will get worse. it has to run and so the consumer will stay in the end whether it was by seeing more ads, and raising money more frequently. >> it is exactly the kind of content, there is no profit model, people rely on it, why did that go any faster for any money. >> i didn't hear -- and the question of any of you, is the amazon dispute relevant here? because here you have a monopoly with vast market power, discriminating against specific content down to the level of

individual -- they gave paul ryan a pass. it was a commercial dispute but they now have the power to do significant harm, isn't that -- there is no net new trolleys that applies or could apply to amazon. the kind of thing you are worried about here. >> you need to be worrying about concentrations of power and using their platform, and you can extend the logic tim gave us with a neutral platform. to think about amazon's role here. is absolutely worries some, not saying we have to defend the old publishing model. and hold everything in hamburg. playing favorites the way amazon seems to be doing. >> are you cool with what amazon

is doing? >> yes. i will take a double's advocate role pushing net neutrality of little further and point out that as you said net it trout applies only to the internet service provider, not to any of the other alleged gatekeepers. and thinking through when you mandate neutrality on one part of one level of this internet ecosystem. and the recent dispute between youto bent independent artists who are not getting free access on youtube unless they pay for exposition of videos, and amazon is another example. there are any number of aggregate ears out there who are

as much gatekeepers, comcast is it cheaper for the internet for and author, amazon is as much of one for independent artists, youtube is as much of one as you and think of. that creates two important points that have to be considered here. on the one hand, it means that again i mentioned bobby's blog, if comcast wanted to stop it would be easy except that the blog is onwardpress and wordpress is -- what is his name? arrested development -- anyway. who is it? anyway. the deck that is it is not the blog standing on its own but wordpress, it is not dealt versus comcast, it is youtube versus comcast. that is important to bear in

mind. a lot of the independent, small artists and creators and innovators, their access to the internet comes through aggregation services may have problems you can discuss but also help to counteract the perceived problems of having an i s p as gatekeeper as google vs. comcast which is much verified, comcast -- >> many of them are not for profit. >> few of them that really matter and are successful. wikipedia is one of very few examples. i am not saying this is across the board, this happens everywhere. think about the fact that dynamic exists and helps to moderate or ameliorate the perceived problems, there are powerful entities who are potentially threatened by this rapaciousness on comcast's party and a won't sit idly by. the flip side of this as i mentioned the second ago is if

you take away comcast as a potential break on amazon, facebook, google or whoever else as an intermediary, you are potentially increasing their power and all of a sudden you shifted, you shifted the locus of any potential problem from comcast to google youtube or amazon. in the net neutrality debate, i am being devil's advocate, say you are right about what is going on with respect amazon, are we better off if amazon has sort of unfettered ability, no potential impediment to doing whatever it wants to do from the i s the direction. >> don't understand how comcast is getting a check on amazon. so comcast is taxing, grabbing random money out of companies, or do all the stuff, that is

bad. not only when you look at a robbery, we have a problem, over here with kidnapping -- >> one second, a few questions, ten minutes left, let me see if there are any hands, you can go first and tell us your name or ask one quick question? >> my name is melissa with a fellowship program at the poynter institute called sensemakers and we are making sense of information on the internet. i used to do investigative reporting from 60 minutes. i am finding you cannot have the same -- improve society in some way when you get somebody out of prison or new vaccine on the internet. and the internet, its own

fashion, very slowly compared to having everybody look at a topic at the same time and different stratas of society where you can impact the change, where do you see the internet having the same affect? >> if i understand your question correctly, what you are saying is back in the good old days, a program like 60 minutes or network news show could really focus our attention on the problem, that what often lead to some fix you actually have a new problem which is an oversupply of information if anything the internet made it too easy for us to speak. this is a topic i take up in my new book but what do we do about this? how do you refocus. >> i actually would say the

reasons--there are many reasons in the united states, it seems as though our political, governmental system, which is dysfunctional and problems don't get solved, blamed its pointed back and forth. i would just suggest that part of the problem is our attention wanders too quickly now. we go crisis to crisis, the system that used to then say responded immediately distracted and on to something else and the internet is causing a kind of societal attention deficit disorder. we all feel impersonally in our need to constantly check the latest e-mail or four this, instead of sticking on things but i think that this may be something we can grow ourselves out of as we learn to better filters the media we are all being surrounded with now. that is an open question.

i am hopeful that we can do that but you are right, is the problem today. >> a question. if not, we can continue the argument we are having. in the back on the other side. >> i am from pan-american center. last week my internet was not working, i have time warner and it turned out -- which we haven't mentioned -- we haven't talked about the merger. that is the underlying question. what happened was time warner had actually stopped my service in order to upgrade. and other people if they have time warner, they were offering me a better modem at 50 megabits per second and i had 20.

the way they got my attention to offers that was to shut off my service. i don't think that was an isolated example. overs the phone that was a policy. it was not precisely the same thing. it is unbelievable. that monopolistic behavior, we tell time warner or stories we could be here. >> there is a merger that we haven't talked about. they might and they might not. >> i believe a merger should be blocked. i think we already have a problem with unresponsive overly concentrated power in the cable sector and the merger would make it worse. it is not not only net neutrality, i try to stick with them. price is the thing that bothers

me. comcast, time warner, the average bill for time warner in 1992 was between $12 and $20, it has grown to the average time warner bill, $105. a lot of it is programming but a lot has grown outlandishly. the average comcast bill is $155 a customer per month, so it is comcast begetting the same money out of new yorkers that got out of everybody else in this state alone, at $1.6 billion a year extra for consumers, cable companies are making enough money as it is. the merger should be stopped. comcast did not announce anything that would be in public interest. everything they set these vapid, empty, we will be delivering next-generation services, when they try to back up there just competitors with internet services, like netflix makes money. nothing but the merger i read to make it public interest and the

burden back in the 20s, the progressive era when people look at this problem as overconcentration we need to not allow mergers for these industries when they are not in the public interest. comcast has yet to meet the burden of proof for production on public-interest the merger should be stopped. >> they don't bear a burden of proof. >> not as a matter of antitrust. since 1910 we had an enormous amount of economics, and developed and innovated economics. and this merger in particular, what happened to replace the motor replace time warner with comcast. you actually have to make out an economic matter. make out a case why replacing one monopolist with another.

kent actually relevant to the merger. and our service is better and give them something more the we charge more for, quality adjustment, data throwing around. >> i don't think you can say they replace the exact same internet costing one hundred $5 for something with $155. >> it will give you a chance for a brief last word. >> i'm a lay person and i don't see whether there is an antitrust system working this country or -- where we have the concept of too big to fail,

hyperbanks. i wish you would enlighten me where this is working because that is where we have this huge concentration of wealth. end whole countries being run out. >> there may be issues in the financial markets and by suspect you want to look for blame, you look at the antitrust economics or dan forsman agencies, and higher in the chain and the federal reserve. and treating those banks very differently than the antitrust authorities. eddie founder to be some actual economic basis for breaking up the bank. i guarantee there were a lot of

political reasons, >> weather business is usual , in antitrust. can we have faith and competition to displace regulation. and we had a very narrow definition of what a monopoly is with the antitrust laws and week, flaccid enforcement ever since the reagan administration. everything has been great and we should be continuing that but you are saying we have a good system and things working well. and people like me think it is time for a change, and we have a serious problem with inequality which is exacerbated by failure of the governments to take action in antitrust. serious action to restrain cable monopolies and the stock market is like time warner comcast and start thinking about what are the day to day costs americans are facing. how is this economy working for

normal middle-class people. and we really need to reexamine from the bottom up fins like how we regulate the largest carriers. and how we enforce the antitrust law. we have strong feelings about that and a difference of opinion on this panel. >> are you can disagree with him. >> the internet has gone from being a lucky accident to the network that connects all but net works. it is the functional equivalence of the dial tone of the 21st century. right now there is the kid sitting on the stoop of a public library branch in upper manhattan, can't afford internet access at home and was sitting there and getting free wi-fi that leaks out of the library after the library is closed. people can even apply for jobs

today if they don't have a way of getting on line. if people go to public libraries the first major use in the library when someone signs of to use the computer, to figure out in the resume and apply for job. this is essential to our economic life blood and the ideas that we should sort of take a blase hands-off let the big boys figure it out approach is not one that we can afford. >> this was not billed as the debate but it was a very good one and i think you all for participating. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> congress gets back to work today. both the house and senate will be gaveling in in a couple minutes and 2:00 eastern. debate on ten bills including updating the presidential records act. house republican conference has leadership elections coming up, democrats have there is on november 18th. the procedural votes expected in two district court nominations at 5:30 today. also for tomorrow said republicans and democrats will leaders of the elections and will elect the next majority and minority leaders. with both houses of congress about to gavel in and 2 leasing, we get a preview of what was expected in the coming weeks in this lame-duck session. >> the 2014 midterms are over or just about over in most races in any way and we look ahead to the lame-duck session joined by the hell's rebecca shabad who covers congress for the hill. looking to the 113th lame-duck session, the headline is funding

bill will wait until december. you write in that article the timing would give lawmakers just a day or two to debate and vote. the deadline in december, what is that and what will be included in this omnibus bill? >> that is right. they basically have just a day or two based on what i have been told from the house appropriations committee to pass and on the bus spending bill that would fund the government to the rest of the fiscal year which would be to the end of next september. the problem is the spending bill lawmakers approved in september expires on december 11th which is that week. and vote on the bill, otherwise what could happen is lawmakers extend the continuing resolution that is currently in place for a short period of time until they pass this omnibus spending bill. >> that extension sounds like they have done that in the past. how much is in this bill?

is it the levels they agreed to to the budget passed earlier this year? what other surprises may we see in the omnibus spending bill? >> guest: that is correct. level in the omnibus spending bill would be at the levels set by the budget deal that paul ryan and patty murray reached last december so it will be around the $1.014 trillion mark but otherwise it is hard to tell exactly what is going to be new in this omnibus spending bill. obviously the white house has asked for two separate new funding requests that are pretty major. one is for the ebola fight and one is for the war on isis and those of the two funding requests that the administration sent to congress in the last week and lawmakers obviously will have to debate these and is possible they could wind up in the on the spending bill. that is what the administration is hoping for but of course there could be republicans who oppose those requests.

>> host: you tweeted about administration request. democrats call for isis war vote in the lame-duck. not only is there consideration of how much money but whether the president has the authority to do this, correct? >> guest: right. president obama said he does have the authority to carry out military operations in iraq and syria. however, he has said in the last week that he wrote an authorization to carry out these operations in the middle east. problem is a lot of democrats do want to this war operation in a lame-duck session because they have control of the senate. republicans want it to be pushed into next year when they have the majority in the senate. i think that that might be what winds up happening. republicans might get their way because they only have 15 working days in session during the lame-duck session at the end of this year and i don't think

they will be able to get much done besides suspending bill and a few other things. something is larger than authorization, would have to have more time for them to debate and vote on. >> the nomination of loretta lynn street plays eric holder as attorney general, the president making the announcement last week in. interesting the hill and other organizations reporting about a possible delay in her nomination. the headline in the hills says democrats are unlikely to ram through the obama attorney-general pick. why would senate democratic leaders delayed the consideration of a nomination and wait until republican majority takes control of the senate? >> i think democrats are not too concerned about her nomination. i think the white house put her forward as somewhat of a bipartisan choice. she has been confirmed twice before by the senate to be a u.s. attorney in new york so i don't think they will have too

hard time getting her through. even john mccain said earlier today he thinks she will get through a republican senate next year. so i don't think democrats are too concerned and again they don't have too many days to vote on this sort of thing in the lame-duck session. >> host: the likely incoming majority leader mitch mcconnell, what are his potential efforts in terms of appealing obamacare? >> guest: he does want to repeal obamacare. i wrote a story a few days ago about a number of conservative groups trying to push him in the next congress to repeal obamacare. he has suggested that he could use this budget tool called reconciliation to push it through which would only require 51 votes in the senate which he would have. however there are a number of legislative and procedural hurdles that he might face as far as getting that poll repeal through. what would be much more likely,

maybe president obama would be willing to sign as may be a repeal of the medical device tax, may be something on the employer mandate, something that might get some sort of bipartisan attraction. >> host: said republicans and democrats will hold leading to the elections this week. won a race is we should keep an eye out for? >> this won't be too controversial. there are -- republicans are holding their the issue of elections on thursday as i democrats in the senate. what we are looking for is what is happening in the senate. obviously the two sides, mitch mcconnell will get the majority here. there are some races that are open that are not too controversial land as far as john boehner, i think he will get the speakers of the ship again. there might be a few tea party republicans who might choose to put their name in the hat, but i

don't think he will have too hard of a time. it seems pretty clear he will be speakers again. >> his hand was strengthened by the results of the election. rebecca covers congress for the hole. read more at theheld.com. she is that rebecca shabad. thanks for the update. >> the c-span cities to work takes booktv and american history tv on the road travelling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. this weekend we partnered with charter communications for a visit to madison, wisconsin. >> for everyone, the community is large. is a glorious service for the country. the call comes to every citizen. it is and unending struggle to make and keep government representatives.

>> probably the most important political figure in wisconsin history and one of the most important in the history of the 20th century in the united states. he was a reforming governor. pd find what progressivism is. you was one of the first to use the term progressive to self identifiably she was the united states senator who was recognized by his peers in the 1950s as one of the five greatest senators in american history. you was an opponent of world war i, stood his ground advocating for free speech. above all he was about the people. after the civil war, america changed radically from a nation of small farmers and small producers to small manufacturers and by the heat in 70s, 1880s, 1890s, we had concentrations of

wells, growing inequality and we had concerned about the influence of money in government. so he spent the latter part of the 89s giving speeches all over wisconsin. bob lafotte went to county fairs, every kind of event you could imagine and built a reputation for himself. by 1900 he had two issues, direct primary, number selecting candidates at the convention, 2, sought the interests, specifically the railroads. >> watch all of our events troy matteson saturday at noon eastern on c-span's booktv and sunday afternoon and 2:00 on american history tv on c-span3.

the u.s. senate is about to gavel in at 2:00 eastern, 30 seconds from now. we expect procedural votes and also work on two district court nominations coming up at 5:30 eastern, vote on a leadership elections for both parties expected tomorrow including the next majority and minority leaders. tomorrow more work, child care block grant program helping low-income americans pay for child care. now to live coverage of the u.s. senate on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. eternal god, our hope for the years to come, as we prepare to turn a new chapter in the