The Monkey and I once again dive into the murky world of the MSNBC to Digital Tier on Comcast Conspiracy. Verdict? Here’s an excerpt: “In short, the Monkey and I now agree that MSNBC is totally in on this deal. I think that they wagered a bet, a fully researched wager, no doubt, supported by a team of economists, ad sales execs, and Nielsen numbercrunchers…”

Perhaps MSNBC was attempting to leverage the increased popularity of Keith Olbermann and (Air America alum) Rachel Maddow in order to charge higher fees to Comcast, and Comcast pushed back by pulling it and covering their costs with increased “digital tier” fees from customers. The fact that I didn’t receive a response from six different entities at MSNBC tells me that either they have horrible customer service, or that they too have something to hide.

I had found out that the Vice President of Public Relations of Comcast in the Northeast, and one of the initial spokespeople defending the decision was a woman by the name of Shawn Feddeman, who prior to running the PR shop at Comcast, was the Press Secretary for former Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney while he was Governor of Massachusetts. I felt that this discovery was evidence of what appeared to be a political move by the cable provider to silence the only progressive leaning voice in the cable news spectrum.

But I do have a question for Ms. Feddeman regarding Comcast’s motivations behind making this change: If you want to provide more HD programming, why didn’t you tap FoxNews for HD broadcast? Wouldn’t FoxNews viewers appreciate seeing their right-wing blowhards in full digital glory?