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Although MS NOW host, Never Trump conservative and ex-GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough often says that the United States' immigration laws must be obeyed and enforced, he is vehemently critical of the way in which President Donald Trump's

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are being carried out. Scarborough considers the raids reckless and blatantly cruel.

Scarborough isn't alone in that view.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on November 29, journalist/author Adrian Carrasquillo reports that companies helping ICE with the raids are facing an angry backlash from consumers.

"Companies that have collaborated with immigration enforcement agencies in various ways to aid Trump's mass deportation initiative — whether through allowing ICE to raid their parking lots, taking on contracts with DHS, or a variety of other actions — are starting to feel the rumblings of a consumer revolt," Carrasquillo reports. "Home Depot is possibly the most visible case after the company’s parking lots became a familiar setting for shocking viral clips and local news segments depicting federal agents' aggressive attempts to apprehend unsuspecting day laborers. The home-improvement chain now faces the prospect of a national boycott."

Carrasquillo adds, "But that's not the end of their troubles: Bold and unpredictable protests are beginning to disrupt retail operations across the country…. For months now, Home Depot has been singled out for its role as a staging ground in the Trump deportation regime."

Another possible target for boycotts, according to Carrasquillo, is AT&T.

Carrasquillo reports, "There's also speculation that AT&T data could have been used by DHS to target people during the shocking raid at the 7500 South Shore Drive residential building raid in Chicago."

Chris Newman, general counsel for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), doesn't see these boycotts letting up anytime soon.

Newman told The Bulwark, "People are becoming more emboldened to cross Trump as his power wanes. The shared goal of the corporate overlords and ICE is to make people feel powerless, and these actions are a way of resisting that sense of powerlessness."

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four years after the United States' 2020 presidential race, former President Donald Trump and many of allies continue to make the false, repeatedly debunked claim that the election was stolen from him. And prominent GOP members of Congress, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), will not commit to accepting the 2024 election results if President Joe Biden is reelected in November.

Since 2021, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has maintained a "sedition tracker" that monitors corporations and political figures who promote the Big Lie and election denialism in some way. And according to an announcement published on June 4, CREW is modifying its system for exposing Big Lie supporters in either government or business.

"In order to more precisely track companies' political giving to members of Congress who are undermining democracy," CREW explains, "we have created a new system for scoring companies' support for democracy based on how much they are giving to members who have done the most to undermine it. Only companies that donated to the 168 members who ran on the Big Lie or voted to overturn the 2020 election are included, but the gifts are weighted to differentiate between those who have gone even further to advance the Big Lie and undermine democracy, both in the leadup to January 6th and since."

READ MORE: ['All she has to do is shut up': Ex-GOP rep skewers RNC chair for risking Senate over Trump 'vanities'

According to CREW, the criteria includes: (1) "voted against certification of the 2020 election results or ran on the Big Lie," (2) "voted against establishing the January 6th Committee," (3) "supported" Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election results in four states that Biden won, (4) "supported absolute immunity for presidents," and (5) "voted against second Trump impeachment."

"The data on this page will be updated as new filings come in and are processed," CREW notes. "To create our company scores, we use these criteria to weight each member's relative anti-democracy rating, and then use that coefficient to calculate each donor company's score."

CREW lists some of the companies that have the "worst scores" when it comes to democracy.

The top five companies CREW names are Koch Industries, AT&T, American Crystal Sugar, Lockheed Martin and United Parcel Service (UPS).

READ MORE: Ex-federal prosecutor slams Mar-a-Lago docs judge’s 'dangerous and disingenuous' claims

*Read CREW's full announcement at this link.

===

mma 2 23 even wsj...

If you’ve been paying attention to this asinine saga at all – and let’s hope for your sanity that’s not the case – you know that Newsmax, with its prior contract with DirecTV having run out, is suddenly demanding a massive pay-out from DirecTV. Newsmax is still providing the channel for free to the likes of YouTube, Roku, and more. Given that the contract had expired and a new agreement could not be reached, DirecTV pulled Newsmax from the air. It began airing The First, another right-wing cable network.

Despite all the indications that the end of the contract was a content-neutral decision by a company under siege from rising cord cutting among its customer base (not to mention having lost the NFL Sunday Ticket), Republican politicians have joined in with right-wing pundits to call this censorship. There have been talks of congressional hearings. Presidential candidates have weighed in. It’s one of the silliest big right-wing media stories since Breitbart broke the news of Obama giving a hug to one of his law school professors.

Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy played the hits in an interview with Mike Huckabee. If you don’t want to watch – and again, I do not recommend it – it starts with Huckabee endorsing a congressional investigation into DirecTV and Ruddy in turn saying that Mike Huckabee’s daughter – current Arkansas governor and former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders – will be president in the future   [vid]

the interview carries on with Ruddy saying that he was just asking for $1 per subscriber per year. That would be on the upper range of subscriber fees overall (above the likes of CNBC, FX, and Nickelodeon according to 2020 data) and would result in a higher bill for consumers, all of whom could right now access Newsmax content at no cost elsewhere.

Notably, DirecTV is not standing idly by. The company pushed back in a letter to Republican senators who have echoed Newsmax’s disingenuous “censorship” angle. The letter reads in part:

• When DIRECTV’s prior agreement with Newsmax was set to expire, Newsmax advised us that it would extend our right to distribute the channel only if we agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars in new licensing fees – a cost we would have to pass along to all of our customers. We did not agree. No other major pay TV operator in the market currently pays per subscriber fees to carry the channel.

• Newsmax seeks to change the model by which it commercializes its channel. To date, Newsmax has been an advertising-supported channel. To maximize ad sales it distributes the channel free of charge to the approximately 75 million US households that have a pay TV service as well as to the approximately 55 million US households that don’t and instead view the channel on Newsmax’s website or through services like Roku and Amazon Fire. Under its proposed new model, Newsmax plans to make its channel available exclusively in pay TV, to the detriment of the 55 million households that don’t have a pay TV service, and to start charging pay TV operators a per subscriber fee to distribute the channel.

• Newsmax insisted on its terms – as is its right to do – and we insisted on ours. Lacking continued authorization to distribute Newsmax, DIRECTV was forced to remove the channel from our lineup.

• Although not currently available on DIRECTV, Newsmax continues to be available on most other major pay TV operators and is also available free of charge (including to DIRECTV’s customers) on Newsmax’s website and on platforms like Roku and Amazon Fire.

• Newsmax’s claims that DIRECTV is biased against conservative voices is untrue. Importantly, DIRECTV recently launched The First, a conservative news and commentary channel featuring Bill O’Reilly, Jesse Kelly, Liz Wheeler, and Dana Loesch, among others.

• DIRECTV carries five channels that most people would consider to be predominately news: Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, The First and NewsNation. By most people’s measure, two lean conservative (Fox News and The First), two lean liberal (CNN and MSNBC) and one is a new channel that is advertising that it is news focused and in the center (NewsNation). Fox News is by far the leader in terms of audience and household penetration. Newsmax, when we distributed it, was a distant fourth among news channels to Fox, MSNBC and CNN.

• The amounts DIRECTV pays for conservative channels, in the aggregate, is roughly similar to what we pay for liberal channels, in the aggregate.

The company makes clear that its decision was made from a content-neutral perspective. (It is darkly hilarious that the only structural discrimination that right-wing figures can see is a far-right election-denying media company run by a friend of Donald Trump not getting a massive handout from another private company, but that’s a story for another time.)

Newsmax has repeatedly whined that Fox News was being silent about the matter. Now, even the opinion page of the Murdoch-owned WSJ is taking pot shots at Republican politicians falling for the charade:

We take no side in this business dispute, and it’s bewildering why many Republicans are getting involved. Forty-two House Republicans last month wrote a letter to DirecTV executives and its joint owners, AT&T and TPG,threatening to investigate the TV provider for colluding with the government to suppress conservative voices.

Sens. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee and Tom Cotton piled on this month with a letter suggesting DirecTV may have dropped Newsmax because of “pressure from administration officials or Democrats in Congress” and “may be the latest example of big business suppressing politically disfavored speech at the behest of liberal Democrats.”

Their evidence? A letter from Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to AT&T CEO John Stankey last February calling for the company to combat misinformation spread by conservative news networks. A letter from two Democratic Congress Members, which was also sent to other TV providers, doesn’t add up to a vast leftwing conspiracy. The Fox News channel, where these pages have a news program, is also a Democratic target.

DirecTV notes that it helped launch Newsmax in 2014 and recently launched the new conservative channel called “The First,” which will increase diversity and competition among conservative voices. Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy doesn’t want that. Instead, he is trying to bring political and government pressure to bear on DirecTV to force the satellite operator to carry the channel on Newsmax’s terms.

(First, a footnote about cable providers and Fox News: Fox News Channel has one of the highest carriage fees in the business, way out of line for what cable providers pay other networks. It’s so high thatFox News would remain profitable even with no advertising.)

It’s unclear where this story will go from here. There’s nothing that goes viral on the right like victimhood, and they simply cannot start examining those claims too closely given how many of them are snake oil. In the meantime, there’s no evidence that either consumers or DirecTV itself are the least bit intimidated by any of this. After all, it’s just another grift.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/timeline-gop-threatens-directv-defense-newsmax

no lnx

Timeline: GOP threatens DirecTV in defense of Newsmax

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 02/02/23

Republicans are accelerating their campaign to force private cable news carriers to not only carry right-wing propaganda networks but pay them for the privilege. The effort demonstrates how the party has institutionalized former President Donald Trump’s corrupt and authoritarian practice of retaliating against companies that refuse to prioritize the GOP’s partisan interests.

NewsmaxTV is a right-wing cable news channel founded by Christopher Ruddy, a conservative media veteran. Its stars include former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer and former Fox News host Eric Bolling, and it drew notoriety for its relentless lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

NewsmaxTV is available for free on Newsmax’s website and through venues like YouTube and Roku, and it has at times paid cable providers to carry it. The channel loses money but helps burnish the company’s brand and drives new subscribers to the company’s various email lists. Those lists are the company’s profit center: Newsmax uses them to scare credulous seniors into buying scammy financial and health products.

DirecTV dropped NewsmaxTV last Tuesday after their carriage deal collapsed. According to DirecTV, the company had previously provided NewsmaxTV “at no cost to the programmer” but that Newsmax was “seeking significant fees” in a new deal, and it subsequently replaced it with another right-wing channel in a deal that did not include “extra fees.” But Ruddy declared Newsmax the victim of “political discrimination and censorship.” 

Republican officials have rallied to Newsmax’s defense – often securing network airtime to do so. They are threatening federal retribution against DirecTV and its parent, AT&T, in apparent hopes of forcing the companies to accept particular customers at their preferred price. Party chair Ronna McDaniel, presidential frontrunners Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and dozens of House Republicans, and several of their Senate colleagues have gotten involved in the private business matter.

The GOP’s Newsmax campaign is the latest in a series of Republican efforts to use the power of the state to target corporations for failing to support its partisan interests.

Key Events

January 20

Amid carriage negotiation, House Republicans lean on DirecTV and its owners. Forty-two House Republicans, including third-ranking member Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY), signed a letter from Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) to the CEOs of DirecTV, majority owner AT&T, and minority ownerTPG Capitalstating that DirecTV was “moving to de-platform NEWSMAX by denying it cable fees on a fair and equitable basis.” The signatories claimed that this would mean that DirecTV “is actively working to limit conservative viewpoints on its system” and suggested that they might respond with congressional “oversight.”

January 23

DirecTV says sticking point in negotiations is that Newsmax is “now seeking significant fees.” In a statement to the Washington Examiner for an article about the House GOP’s letter, a DirecTV spokesperson said: “We deliver Newsmax to our national base of satellite and IPTV customers today at no cost to the programmer or our customers, ultimately offering Newsmax the ability to generate considerable advertising revenue at no cost. … We’ve discussed with Newsmax on several occasions that we’d like to offer their programming, however, the network is now seeking significant fees that we cannot pass on to our broad customer base.”

January 24

DirecTV drops NewsmaxTV. At 11:59 p.m., DirecTV’s deal with NewsmaxTV expired and it stopped broadcasting the channel. In a statement, a spokesperson said, “On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base.” Ruddy responded by calling the move “a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax," adding, “The most extreme liberal channels, even with tiny ratings, get fees from AT&T's DirecTV, but Newsmax and OAN need to be deplatformed.”

January 25

Newsmax tells viewers to demand congressional action. Using identical language, several Newsmax hosts implored their viewers to contact members of Congress and tell them to take action in response to DirecTV dropping Newsmax. “We are urging you to call your congressman and senator today and demand they investigate AT&T and DirecTV for their discrimination against conservative media,” host Rob Finnerty said after accusing the companies of “blatant political discrimination.” The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona reported that by the afternoon, “Newsmax anchors John Bachman, Bianca de la Garza, Shaun Kraisman, and Bob Sellers had also read the prepared monologue on air.”

Trump threatens AT&T and DirecTV over dropping Newsmax. On his Truth Social platform, former President Donald Trump commented: “The Radical Left seems to have taken over the mind and soul of AT&T. This is a big blow to the Republican Party, and to America itself. For DIRECTV to drop very popular NEWSMAX, without explanation, will not be accepted. I, for one, will be dropping all association with AT&T and DIRECTV, and I have plenty.”

Donald Trump, Jr. calls for a right-wing boycott of AT&T.Trump Jr. tweeted, “OUTRAGEOUS: ATT just dropped Newsmax! It’s time for Americans to return the favor and drop ATT. @PatriotMobile is the ONLY conservative mobile provider — use code “DONJR” for FREE activation!” According to its website, Patriot Mobile is “America’s ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider” and the company “is proud to partner with Donald Trump, Jr. in the fight to defend our freedom of speech.”

January 26

DirecTV announces it is replacing Newsmax with another right-wing network. DirecTV said that it would replace Newsmax with The First, another right-wing channel that features Fox and OAN castoffs Bill O’Reilly, Dana Loesch, and Liz Wheeler.A DirecTV spokesperson told the Daily Beast that the deal did not include any “extra fees” for The First, which like Newsmax is also available for free online.

On Newsmax, Reps. Waltz, Van Drew call for hearings into DirecTV. On Newsmax’s Wake Up America, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said that House Republicans could convene “public hearings” in which executives from DirecTV and AT&T “come to talk to usand explain this to us” about dropping the channel. Later that day, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) told the network that DirecTV dropping Newsmax “is what happens in authoritarian regimes” and said he is “going to push for hearings” in order to preserve “the future of our nation.”

Sen. Paul calls for boycott of DirecTVover dropping Newsmax. Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) tweeted, “I would cancel @DIRECTV for censoring @NEWSMAX but I already cancelled them for cancelling @OANN. I guess @DIRECTV doesn’t want conservative viewers so maybe we should all just quit their services and go elsewhere.”

January 27

House oversight chair promises DirecTV-Newsmax probe.Asked by Finnerty whether he would hold hearings, Comer replied, “Yes. There's gonna be a committee that's gonna hold hearings. We're sitting, we're gonna meet later today and try to discuss which committee's gonna do what. That's certainly on the agenda. I'm very concerned by this.”

Sen. Cruz on DirecTV dropping NewsmaxTV: “Conservative voices must not be silenced!” On Twitter, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) shared a Washington Times editorial that described the Newsmax drop as the “censorship of conservative media.” He commented, “Conservative voices must not be silenced!” and included the handles of Newsmax, AT&T, DirecTV, and TPG.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey sends letter of concern to DirecTV. Morrisey, a Republican who is considering a race for governor or U.S. Senate, sent a letter to the CEO of DirecTV stating, “Neither DirecTV nor the channels it carries should face an ongoing concern over whether programming is acceptable to powerful political elites.”

Newsmax’s Bolling condemns Fox for not covering the story. Bolling lashed out at his former employer for not covering DirecTV dropping Newsmax, saying, “By the way. Where are you, Fox? How about you, Fox? I mean, you stand up for us.”

January 30

Speaker McCarthy promises congressional “action,” says he spoke to AT&T directly. In a Newsmax appearance, McCarthy said he found DirecTV dropping the channel “very concerning” and told the hosts, “You're going to see action taken, because we believe it's responsible to allow everybody to have a choice of what news they want to listen to." He also said that he had told AT&T that “Newsmax should not be treated any differently based upon them being a conservative news outlet.”

RNC chair condemns DirecTV for “censoring” conservatives. McDanielshared a clip of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Newsmax castigating DirecTVand commented, “The woke agenda of many corporations is bent on censoring voices they disagree with. @MarkwayneMullin is right – by silencing @NEWSMAX, @DIRECTV is censoring voices who pay their bills.”

January 31

House Republicans give floor speeches condemning DirecTV. Eighteen House Republicans, including Reps. Van Drew, Lauren Boebert (CO), Eric Burlison (MO), and Matt Gaetz (FL), gave demagogic Special Order speeches denouncing DirecTV for dropping Newsmax.Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) wrapped up the event by noting, “many of the speakers today, many of the members of Congress who spoke, made it absolutely clear that they’re going to dedicate time and energy and staff resources to make sure that we look into this further.”

Gov. DeSantis supports congressional probe of DirecTV.Asked at a press conference about the debate, DeSantis said of DirecTV, “They will give different rationales for why they don’t want to do it, but the reality is they have so much other content that is very lightly viewed, and they keep that on, and it seems it is the One America News and the Newsmax that are being targeted. So I think it does warrant an investigation.” He added that Congress should “ensure that there’s not intellectual discrimination when it comes to what people are able to view.”

Rep. Gaetz calls for Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission to investigate AT&T. Gaetz tweeted: “AT&T's DirecTV has REMOVED @Newsmax from its lineup. This is blatant content-based censorship. Congress, the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, and the FCC need to investigate @ATT's decision immediately. Americans should not be denied their right to access diverse viewpoints.”

February 1

Senate Republicans send a letter asking DirecTV to explain the decision. Cruz and other GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (SC), Mike Lee (UT) and Tom Cotton (AR) sent a letter to DirecTV’s leadership stating that they are “deeply disturbed” by its decision and alleging that the company may be “suppressing politically disfavored speech at the behest of liberal Democrats.”

RNC chair praises House Republicans for demanding an investigation. McDaniel said in a statement that “DirecTV’s decision to censor Newsmax – the fourth-highest rated program on cable TV [sic] – is a slap in the face to the voters who pay the network’s bills.” She added, “I applaud House Republicans for taking important steps to hold DirecTV accountable for their censorship of Republican voices.”

February 2

McCarthy reiterates interest in congressional hearings. At a press conference, McCarthy said that “we should look at” DirecTV’s decision to drop Newsmax in order to ensure that the network hasn’t been “jeopardized from being on television simply because of their philosophical beliefs.”

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A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) office has revealed that 34% of large, profitable corporations paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2018, the same year that large tax cuts, passed by former President Donald Trump, went into effect.

The GAO report found that in 2017, the average tax rate for companies was 14.6 percent. In 2018, it dropped to 8.9 percent. A similar GAO report in 2016 found that 20% of corporations paid zero in federal income taxes. Comparatively, the average American tax rate is about 14.8%, according to the data site Statista.

While the recent GAO report doesn’t name the companies that paid zero in taxes, a 2022 report from the Center for American Progress found that the telecommunications company AT&T made $29.6 billion in 2021, but paid zero in federal income taxes that same year. Instead, AT&T received a $1.2 billion IRS refund, Common Dreams reported.

Similarly, in late December, the House House Ways and Means Committee released Trump’s tax returns from 2015 through 2020. In three of the six years, Trump’s taxable income was zero. This means he paid no income tax in three of the years, and just $750 in 2016.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who requested the report’s creation, responded by stating, “While House Republicans want to make huge cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid because of their ‘serious concern’ about the deficit, they voted to provide over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to large corporations and the top one percent…. We need to repeal the Trump tax breaks for the rich and demand that the largest corporations in America finally start paying their fair share of taxes.”

Democrats have suggested introducing a minimum corporate tax rate for the wealthiest individuals and corporations, but these groups and Republicans have both opposed them as hostile to “job creators.”

Meanwhile, 63 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and 9.2 percent don’t have health insurance, according to Lending Club and MoneyGeek respectively.

odd telecomms?

jan 2022

sludge

In April 2021, as Republican-controlled states began passing bills that will restrict voting in upcoming elections, cable and media giant Comcastput out a statement declaring its opposition to the measures.

“We believe that all Americans should enjoy equitable access to secure elections and we have long supported and promoted voter education, registration and participation campaigns across the country to achieve that goal,” the company said in a statement it provided to Deadline. “Efforts to limit or impede access to this vital constitutional right for any citizen are not consistent with our values.”

In the following months, however, Comcast and its political action committees made donations to several Republican lawmakers who authored voter suppression bills that were signed into law last year. At least 19 states enacted 33 laws that further restrict access to voting in 2021, according to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan institute Brennan Center for Justice.

On October 15, Comcast donated $1,000 to Florida Sen. Dennis Baxley, the sole sponsor of SB 90, a 48-page bill that, among other measures, makes it a misdemeanor to give water—or anything else—to people waiting in line to vote in the sweltering Florida heat, similar to a restriction that first appeared in Georgia Republicans’ suppression bill. Baxter’s bill eliminates 24/7 ballot drop boxes and requires such boxes to be monitored at all times and only available during in-person voting hours. It also requires voters seeking an absentee ballot to submit a driver’s license or Social Security number and requires voters to reapply for mail ballots more often, among its many other provisions that make voting more difficult.

The League of Women Voters of Florida, Black Voters Matter Fund, and Florida voters have filed a lawsuit to stop Baxley’s bill, which Gov. DeSantis signed into law in May. The lawsuit argues that the bill is designed to make it more difficult for seniors, minorities, and young people to vote and violates people’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Comcast made several other donations to voter suppression bill sponsors after it put out its statement, Sludge found by reviewing donations to the sponsors of new restrictive voting laws identified by the Brennan Center. The company donated $1,000 in September to Alabama Republican State Representative Alan Baker, the sponsor of a new law that shortens the window of time people have for requesting an absentee ballot. It also made donations to the sponsors of new Brennan Center-identified voter suppression laws in Utah and Kansas.

pharmaceutical company Merck signed a pro-voting rights statement that was published as an advertisement in the New York Times on April 14. “For American democracy to work for any of us, we must ensure the right to vote for all of us,” the ad reads. “We call upon all Americans to join us in taking a nonpartisan stand for this most basic and fundamental right of all Americans.”

After signing the ad, Merck donated $1,000 in September to Florida’s Baxley and $1,000 in October to Texas Republican State Senator Lois Kolkhorst, the primary sponsor of one of the state’s two new voter suppression laws and a cosponsor of the other one.

Kolkhorst’s bill, SB 1111, which was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, limits the types of addresses people can use to register to vote in ways that could be difficult for people who move often or are homeless.The bill says that people can’t use addresses where they do not live full time, and it allows voting officials to demand voters show documents to prove their place of residence. With few exceptions, Texans would not be able to use commercial post office boxes as their registration addresses, a practice that Democratic attorney Marc Elias says is often used by churches that help homeless people register to vote.

Kolkhorst was also one of the 14 cosponsors of SB 1, an omnibus voter suppression law that bans drive-through voting and 24-hour voting locations, requires voters to provide driver’s license or Social Security numbers to request absentee ballots, prohibits election officials from proactively mailing out ballots, says poll watchers can not be denied “free movement” in polling places, and more. The Brennan Center is suing Gov. Abbott in an attempt to stop the law, which it says is “a reaction to Texas’s changing electorate, which is now more racially diverse and younger than ever before.”

JPMorgan Chasealso donated to a cosponsor of Texas SB 1, giving $1,000 from its PAC to Sen. Dawn Buckingham in September. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon released a statement in March saying that “as state capitals debate election laws, we believe voting must be accessible and equitable,” and that “We regularly encourage our employees to exercise their fundamental right to vote, and we stand against efforts that may prevent them from being able to do so.”

AT&T is another company whose political donations seem to contradict its public statements.

“We believe the right to vote is sacred and we support voting laws that make it easier for more Americans to vote in free, fair and secure elections,” reads an April statement from AT&T CEO John Stankey. “We are working together with other businesses through groups like the Business Roundtable to support efforts to enhance every person’s ability to vote.”

In September, AT&T donated $1,000 to Alabama Republican Wes Allen, the chief sponsor of H.B. 285, a new state law that prohibits election officials from setting up curbside voting, ballot drop boxes, or putting voting machines outside of polling locations. The company’s Oklahoma PAC also donated $2,500 that month to Oklahoma Senate Republican Majority Leader Kim David, the sponsor of a new state law that shortens the deadline for applying for a mail-in ballot from 7 days before an election to 15 days before the election, among other provisions.

AT&T and its PACs also donated $500 to Florida’s Baxley in March, after the senator had formally introduced his voter suppression bill, and made donations to sponsors of Brennan Center-identified restrictive voting laws in Utah and Kansas.

Other companies and organizations that donated to the sponsors of Brennan Center-identified state voter suppression measures after publicly denouncing them earlier this year include General Motors and Planned Parenthood, whose PACs contributed to Democratic New York senators who cosponsored a bill that shortens the window for applying for a mail-in ballot, and Microsoft, which donated to a Kansas Republican representative who chairs the committee that sponsored a new law limiting mail-in voting.

AT&T, Merck, and Comcast did not respond to Sludge’s requests for comment on how their donations to the sponsors of voter suppression bills relate to their public expressions in favor of voting rights. JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.

greenwash?

https://www.theclimatepledge.com/content/amazonclimatepledge/us/en/Signatories/uber.html

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/**2022/09/**06/esg-companies-bankroll-gop-ags-the-very-officials-retaliating-against-their-climate-goals/

alex k

the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) investigation has identified more than two dozen major U.S. companies that are publicly committed to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles yet have recently donated large amounts of campaign cash to a group of Republican state attorneys general that is hyper-focused on eroding air and water regulations, promoting fossil fuel companies, and using state governments to punish companies that try to limit their climate-related risks by divesting from oil, gas, and coal.

Republican attorneys general, along with fellow GOP governors and state financial officers, are weaponizing their public offices to prevent action on climate change. Their latest efforts seek to bar companies that divest from fossil fuels or employ other ESG principles from receiving government contracts.

And yet large U.S. companies such as AT&T, Cigna, Citigroup, Lowe’s, Pfizer, T-Mobile, and UPS—all of which publicly promote their commitment to ESG—have recently funded the political prosperity of these Republican AGs.

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change,,,

https://www.techdirt.com/2014/07/25/net-neutrality-astroturfing-stirs-up-conflict-between-latinominority-groups/

no lnx

Net Neutrality Astroturfing Stirs Up Conflict Between Latino/Minority Groups

Politics

Fri, Jul 25th2014- Mike Masnick

We’ve written a few times about the highly cynical astroturfing practice in Washington DC, in which certain lobbyist groups basically have “deals” with certain public interest groups.The basic deal is that the lobbyists guarantee big cash donations from their big company clients, and then the lobbyists get to write letters “on behalf of” those organizations for whatever policy they want enacted (or blocked). We quoted a story from Declan McCullagh in 2008 which included this classic line from a lobbyist who worked in one of these shops:

“You go down the Latino people, the deaf people, the farmers, and choose them…. You say, ‘I can’t use this one–I already used them last time…’ We had their letterhead. We’d just write the letter. We’d fax it to them and tell them, ‘You’re in favor of this.'”

That first option, “the Latino people” turned out to be rather prescient. During the last net neutrality fight, in 2009, it was revealed that a bunch of Latino groups magically supported the telco position — leaving out the bit about how they were funded by the telcos. Here’s Matthew Lasar, back in 2009, revealing some details:

Take the go-slow on net neutrality commentary filed in late September by the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP) and 19 other civil rights groups. Their statement warns that net neutrality policies could inhibit investment and “leave disenfranchised communities further behind.” The coalition describes themselves as having a common purpose, serving communities “that are among the most severely impacted by a lack of access to technology.” And indeed the list includes signers from venerable organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and theLeague of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

But the groups signing the letter have something else in common: financial support from AT&T (and sometimes Verizon and Comcast).These advocates don’t hide this. For example, the website of one of the signers, the Japanese American Citizens League, says “Website made possible by the generous sponsorship of AT&T.” 100 Black Men lists AT&T as a “partner” and “sponsor” of the group. AT&T Foundation’s 2007 tax returns show that 100 Black Men received $100,000 that year and $75,000 in 2006.

Similarly, the NAACP, which also signed the statement, lists AT&T and Verizon on its Centennial Event sponsors page. LULAC’s website indicates that it received a $1.5 million Technology Access Grant from AT&T. Comcast Foundation’s records indicate that it gave the LULAC Institute $60,000 in 2007. And in 2006 the AT&T Foundation gave LULAC numerous grants to support computer education centers across the United States.

And some of these groups have even more direct ties to the telcos. The Asian American Justice Center’s Advisory Council includes Anne H. Chow, listed as “AT&T Chair” on the group’s website. In 2006, AT&T identified her as a senior vice president for the company. Her AAJC bio says that Chow “played a key role in the AT&T/SBC merger with overall responsibility for the Sales and Marketing integration planning effort.”

And then, jump forward to 2011, when AT&T was trying to buy T-Mobile. The merger received some unexpected support:

The Hispanic Institute and the Latino Coaltion have decided that supporting the merger of AT&T with T-Mobile is of utmost importance to them.

A further report noted:

One DC insider informs us that rumblings on K Street suggest AT&T had called every civil rights group in the United States for support within fifteen minutes of the deal being announced. Fearful of losing AT&T donations — most of these groups quickly got to parroting prepared AT&T statements, unconcerned about the actual impact of a T-Mobile deal. Getting funding for a new events center apparently dulls any ethical pangs felt using your organization as a hired stage prop.

Then, last year, the Center for Public Integrity decided to explore the nature of these various “civil rights groups” and their ties to the big broadband players, and found the situation to be quite suspect, especially with regards to theMinority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC), which helps coordinate many of these filings for the FCC:

From 2009 through 2011 MMTC received at least $725,000 in contributions and sponsorships from network neutrality foes including Verizon, Time Warner, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, according to MMTC tax filings and sponsorship lists.

MMTC?s relationship with Verizon demonstrates the group's various methods of obtaining industry revenue. In 2009, at the height of the net neutrality debate, Verizon made a direct $40,000 contribution to MMTC. From 2010 to 2013, MMTC documents list Verizon as funding at least $160,000 in MMTC conference sponsorships.

Additionally, MMTC worked with Verizon on a $189 million sale of wireless spectrum licenses to minority-owned Grain Management this year ? a deal announced in conjunction with a larger $1.9 billion license sale to AT&T. A spokesman for Verizon says money paid to MMTC wasn?t intended to influence its policies but to support its mission of promoting inclusion in the industry.

So it should come as little to no surprise that a bunch of these same groups, once again, filed a pro-telco comment with the FCC, arguing that reclassifying broadband under Title II would somehow be harmful to minorities. Note that the filing was coordinated by HTTP and MMTC — both groups discussed above as taking money from the big broadband guys. The argument they’re presenting makes absolutely no sense, but no one cares how sensible the argument is.

HTTP partnered with the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) and 35 other national minority organizations to file comments in the FCC?s proceeding to protect and promote the open Internet. The group urged the Commission to focus its broadband policies on promoting adoption, engagement, and informed broadband use by minorities, and to exercise its Section 706 authority to protect all consumers? rights to an open Internet. In the filing, the organizations opposed Title II reclassification of the Internet under the 1934 Telecommunications Act, arguing that it would stifle broadband adoption among vulnerable populations, and would limit investment and innovation that have benefitted its constituents. Six HTTP member organizations also joined independently in the filing: Dialogue on Diversity; LISTA; MANA: A National Latina Organization; the National Puerto Rican Coalition; SER Jobs for Progress; and The Latino Coalition.

The difference this time, however, is that other groups, representing Latinos, Hispanics and other minority groups who are not funded by the big broadband guys, are now paying attention. And they filed their own FCC comments supporting Title II reclassification:

On Friday, the Voices for Internet Freedom coalition filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on behalf of more than 50 civil rights, human rights, community-based and media organizations in support of strong Net Neutrality rules that protect the digital rights of communities of color.

In the filing, the groups called on the FCC to treat Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as common carriers, which would allow the Commission to reestablish its legal authority to adopt Net Neutrality rules that prevent telecommunications companies from blocking, discriminating against and interfering with Web traffic. The coalition also called on the agency to ensure Net Neutrality protections are applied equally to both wireline and wireless Internet access.

The group opposes the framework for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed rules, which would allow ISPs to discriminate by creating fast and slow lanes online….

Voices for Internet Freedom is a coalition of nearly 30 organizations advocating for communities of color in the fight to protect Internet freedom from corporate and government discrimination. The coalition is led by the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Center for Media Justice, Free Press and ColorOfChange.

And now the fight seems to be getting personal. Alex Nogales, the head of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, called out the Congressional Hispanic Leadership (which has come out in support of the broadband company’s plan to kill net neutrality) by pointing out that they held a briefing that was sponsored by the telcos and totally one-sided. The event was so over-the-top biased that even some in the mainstream media highlighted how ridiculous it was.

Martin Chavez, from the telco-supported Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership, posted a blog post that purports to be a “can’t we all just get along” type post, but which really personally slams Alex Nogales for what Chavez claims was an “angry outburst and lapse of judgment.” Nogales isn’t taking that sitting down and responded by pointing out that Chavez seems to conveniently leave out who pays his salary:

What is most interesting about Marty?s statement is what it doesn?t say. Notably, he did not address his employment with Ibarra Strategy Group, a lobbying firm whose clients include Verizon ? the main opponent to strong and enforceable Open Internet rules. One would think that a person with such an egregious conflict of interest would, at least, disclose it in his public statements. Marty, unfortunately, does not.

Regrettably, what Marty did say in his statement is just as deceptive as what he conveniently left out. Of the many fabrications, Marty said that ?most Latino organizations? oppose the FCC using the sound legal authority found in Title II of the Communications Act to restrict blocking or discrimination online. This is patently false. A number of highly respected Latino organizations have sided with the community and come out in favor of strong Open Internet rules based on Title II authority, including: the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation (MAOF), Presente.org, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the National Institute for Latino Policy, News Taco, Latino Rebels, and more.

It certainly is disappointing to see groups like this fight, but it’s worth noting that there certainly does seem to be a clear pattern, as noted years ago, that the groups with funding from the broadband guys magically support the broadband players’ position, while the ones who are not funded that way actually seem to recognize the importance of not giving in to the broadband guys’ plans to kill net neutrality.

Filed Under: astroturfing, fcc, latino groups, lobbying, minority groups, net neutrality, open internet, title ii

Companies: at&t, comcast, hhtp, hispanic institute, latino coalition,lulac, mmtc, naacp, nhmc, t-mobile, verizon, voices for internet freedom

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-arent-civil-rights-groups-standing-telecom-giants/

2013

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erika Delgado cut her landline service last December. She had cycled through four different companies since 2000, with each company charging her for calls she didn’t make, services she never signed up for and things she thought were included in her contract. After five years with Pacific Bell, Delgado moved to Verizon because it offered her discounted rates for weekend calls and other services. Though she qualified for Lifeline, a discount program designed to provide basic telephone service for low-income customers, a landslide of unexpected fees and overcharges soon overwhelmed her.

“They say they’ll give you discounts, but it’s not true,” says Delgado, a 40-year-old single mother of three children living off of the $850 a month she earns from her business selling clothes and electronics at the Mt. Vernon Swap Meet in San Bernardino, California. “They just charge, charge, charge.”

The War on America

Delgado cut her service with Verizon after just a year and a half and moved to AT&T. She decided to enroll in a $20-a-month plan that included long-distance calling, an important feature because she frequently makes calls home to Mexico. But after making two fifteen- to twenty-minute calls to Mexico, she was slapped with a $90 charge for the calls. She says AT&Tthen told her that her plan did not cover long distance to Mexico, and that $200 would cover the cost of the calls and the additional fees.

“I had to choose to either feed my kids or pay the bill,” she says. The company sent her to collections and she cut service with AT&T after just six months.

Now, with a mounting collections bill on her credit report, Delgado doesn’t even consider moving away from her mobile home or applying for a job that requires good credit. She has also given up entirely on getting the landline service she needs at home. Sometimes her cellphone doesn’t get a signal in her home, and when she can’t afford the electricity bill, she has no way to charge the battery. “I am a single mom and my kids have asthma,” she says. “In case of an emergency with my kids, I need reliable telephone service at home to call 911.”

Delgado’s decade-long struggle to find affordable and reliable telephone service is not unique. Her story, and the plight of millions of other low-income people, are at the heart of a debate between civil rights groups and public interest advocates who find themselves at opposite ends of a debate about what rules, if any, should prevent companies like AT&T from exploiting consumers like Delgado.

In November 2012, in anticipation of moving its telephone service from traditional, wired networks to IP-based phone networks, which transmit voice communications digitally, AT&T filed a petition with the FCC to run test trials of IP-based telephone services. In exchange for expanding these networks, the company is requesting “relief” from critical regulations that apply to wired telephone services. These regulations, which include obligations to provide universal service and state-enforced price and quality regulations, do not currently apply to IP-based telephone service. The petition has garnered critical responses from many public interest groups, including Free Press, the Center for Rural Strategies and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which are concerned that relaxing these regulations will allow telecom companies to avoid regulating IP-based phone services, leaving them vulnerable to price gouging and poor service quality, with weak access for communities of color and rural residents. (For more about the AT&T petition’s potential impact on underserved communities, click here).

Despite public interests groups’ strong warnings that such regulatory relief would disparately impact communities of color, many business-friendly civil rights groups have come out in support of the petition. Groups such as theLeague of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Urban League and the Asian American Federation—all of which have received millions in private donations from AT&T—have filed comments with the FCCshowing strong support of the company’s proposed plan for its transition to IP-based telephone services. None of their comments specify regulations that should apply to those services.

“The IP Transition will benefit underserved Asian American communities who remain on the wrong side of the digital divide,” wrote several Asian-American advocacy groups in a joint comment filing lead by the Asian American Federation. They explain that “the switch to an all-IP system will bring more competitive choices into the marketplace, which will provide benefits to consumers, including making high-speed broadband more affordable for Asian Americans who have not yet adopted broadband due to cost concerns.”

The National Urban League and National Action Network, both black advocacy organizations, echoed this reasoning in a joint filing: “We support the AT&T Petition as we understand it and urge the Commission to approve it in a manner that advances the interests of consumers of color.” The two groups wrote that the test trials can serve as “a roadmap” for the country’s transition to IP services and should be used to understand how AT&T’s regulatory relief will affect people of color’s “access to affordable, reliable service in the future.”

LULAC agrees, saying broadband brings economic opportunities, educational achievement and job training to Latinos. “Enhancing network capabilities with a smooth transition to all IP-enabled infrastructure will enable Hispanic Americans to multiply these benefits and further improve their ability to build a strong future for themselves and their families,” Paloma Zuleta, LULAC’s director of communications, told The Nation in an email. She went on to explain that policy and regulatory “modernization” that spurs “sustained and long-term private investment in America’s infrastructure” will lead to economic growth.

But history has shown that deregulation tends to hit low-income, working-class people of color most.The $30 billion payday loan industry offers a recent case in point. Payday lenders prey on low-income people by providing small, short-term loans at extremely high interest rates. In order to pay back these loans, plus interest, people often take out further payday loans. The result is millions of mainly poor and working class people of color trapped in a cycle of debt in an already precarious economy. The payday loan industry is a result of Reagan-era deregulation, which relaxed state caps on loan interest rates. This trend continued through the late ’90s as payday loan entrepreneurs capitalized on the country’s spirit of deregulation to get further exemptions from state interest rate caps. For public interest advocates, the impact of deregulation in other industries provide an example as to who will be affected most if the country’s communication industry is further deregulated.

“Deregulation in the communications industry is a lot like deregulation in food safety, worker safety, banks or other sectors,” says Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press. “The companies claim that regulations kill jobs and make the service more expensive. They promise that removing the rules will let them offer better products and more choices. But what we see instead is a series of broken promises, along with increased risks for the people who used to be protected by the rules.”

The extent of AT&T’s influence over some civil rights groups can be measured in the amount of its donations. In the Asian American Federation’s Biennial report last year, it listed AT&T as a “sustainer,” meaning the company contributed between $5,000 and $9,999 dollars. In 2006, theNational Urban League received a $1.6 million grant from AT&T to launch five new digital career academies and expand offerings at eleven existing academies for black students, and it received another $1 million in 2008 for a college prep program aimed at black high schoolers. Donations to the National Action Network, if any, are not available, because AT&T is not required to disclose private corporate grants to the organization. Since at least 2004, LULAC has received between $1 million to $1.5 million in grants to fund technology centers for Latinos and a program aimed at curbing Latino dropout rates.

Money isn’t the only thing connecting these groups to AT&T—they share basic institutional ties. For example, the board vice chair of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, which filed positive comments with the Asian American Federation, is formerly AT&T’s Pacific region director of marketing and community affairs. And AT&T’s director of external affairs served onAsian Pacific American Legal Center’s 2012 anniversary dinner committee, which AT&T sponsored. AT&T also sits on LULAC’s Corporate Alliance, which guides LULAC’s programming, and was a major sponsor of its National Legislative Conference and Awards Gala, where the organization discusses the year’s policy priorities. Just this April, the National Action Network honored Tanya Lombard, assistant vice president of public affairs at AT&T, and featured her on telecommunications policy panel at their national convention.

These relationships are not new. Civil rights groups have a long history with telecommunication companies that dates back to workplace discrimination lawsuit settlements in the 1970s. In 1972, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission led a workplace discrimination lawsuit against AT&T for discriminating against women and people of color in hiring, promotions and pay. AT&T and the plaintiffs eventually settled the suit and the company was required to give millions in back pay to thousands of workers and establish internal affirmative action programs. Diversifying its hiring practices strengthened AT&T’s relationships with civil rights groups, who were critical of the company’s hiring discrimination.

A recent investigation led by the Center for Public Integrity revealed a longstanding relationshipbetween telecommunications companies and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, a Washington, DC–based pro bono law firm that represents civil rights groups on FCC issues. Critics of MMTC say it serves as the “nerve center” for civil rights groups’ actions on telecommunications issues. It was one of the lead organizations in a group filing on the AT&T petition that included the NAACP and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Over the last twenty years, MMTC has evolved from a volunteer-based organization to a fully-funded nonprofit. According to the Center’s report, most of the organization’s revenue comes through generous donations from companies, like Comcast and AT&T, and the organization’s decade-long business of brokering spectrum license sales and station sales to minority broadcasters on behalf of companies like Verizon and Clear Channel.

Despite these close and longstanding relationships, these groups deny accusations that their ties to AT&T affect their policy agenda. “Our decision to support the AT&T IP Transition Petition was based on the fact that the transformation is already underway in the US and globally,” writes Zuleta of LULAC.

The Asian American Justice Center, which has received donations from AT&T and supports its petition to the FCC, echoed this. “At the end of the day, AAJC is a civil rights group that works on behalf of the Asian American community,” Jason Lagria, telecommunications and broadband policy senior staff attorney for AAJC, told The Nation in an e-mail. “We value our supporters’ opinions, but that support doesn’t change our mission or positions we take.”

To be sure, civil rights groups like AAJC don’t always side with telecom companies. This year the organization urged the FCC to consider how their spectrum auction proceedings marginalized minority-owned broadcasters, a concern AT&T does not share, since it would subvert its goal to buy most of the available spectrum. And on August 9, mainstream civil rights groups and public interest groups claimed a joint victory when the FCC voted in a two-to-one decision to cap interstate prison phone rates to twenty-five cents per minute and ban phone service providers from charging extra fees to connect a call or use a calling card. Groups like the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League and the NAACP were strong advocates in lowering the cost of these calls.

Some groups find that corporate funding is essential to keep their work moving forward. The National Hispanic Media Coalition, a public interest group opposing AT&T’s proposal, does not receive AT&T funding but has accepted corporate donations from groups like the National Association of Broadcasters. “Certainly if a sponsor wants to tell us their opinion, it means we’re going to listen,” says Jessica Gonzalez, the group’s vice president of policy and legal affairs. “But it doesn’t mean we need to adopt that position.” Gonzalez continues, “It puts Latino-led organizations in a tough position, because we’re trying to benefit our community, but there are never enough resources.” A 2011 report from Hispanics in Philanthropy found that only 1 percent of foundation money went directly to programs benefiting Latinos, even though Latinos made up roughly 13 percent of the population in 2010.

Corporate influence extends into the far reaches of state policymaking. In California, legislators passed a copycat deregulation bill, SB1161, which exempts VOIP-based telephone service from some basic regulations and strips the Public Utilities Commission of regulatory power. The campaign to keep basic consumer protections and regulations was no match for the company’s massive lobbying efforts. AT&T spent $1,902,774 in the nine months that it lobbied the California Public Utilities Commission and the state Capitol over SB 1161. Since 2005, the company has spent roughly $14,000 a day on state lobbying, according to the Los Angeles Times. Organizations such as the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,California State Conference of NAACP and Asian Business Association were outspoken supporters of the bill, citing reasons similar to some civil rights groups’ support of AT&T’s FCC petition.

“AT&T has all the grassroots support money can buy,” says Mark Toney, executive director of TURN, a utility reform organization. TURN worked with sixty-five organizations in opposing the bill—none of which received funding to support their work opposing SB 1161. “Anyone can look at the list of bill supporters and see who is getting money and who is not.” The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has received $30,000 from AT&T every year since 2006, according to TURN’s analysis of AT&T’s 2011 tax documents. The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, California Black Chamber of Commerce and the Asian Business Center also share a $287,000 California Emerging Technology Fund grant, an effort supported by AT&T and Verizon as a condition of their respective 2005 mergers with SBC and MCI.

Public interest advocates say the fight for media reform and media justice is increasingly an economic one. “When you talk about dismantling this kind of monopoly power, you’re really talking about restructuring our whole economy,” Robert McChesney, professor of communications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, explained at the National Conference for Media Reform this year.

Advocates say the stakes are high and emphasize a need for unity among people of color. “I’ve spoken with several folks and made my personal plea out of respect that we really need you,” Joseph Torres, senior external affairs director at Free Press and co-author of News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, says of civil rights groups. “At times it’s a little painful because a lot of the positions some [civil rights groups] have taken on these telecom issues are the wrong positions.” While Torres says there should be room for debate between civil rights and public interest groups, “the policies telecom companies are trying to pass would have a negative impact on our community.” For Torres, aside from the affordability and service reliability issues in the petition, he sees it as another corporate ploy that would weaken the voices of people of color in this new technological era.

“We’ve been fighting to democratize traditional media from corporate gatekeepers who demonize our community,” Torres continued. “We need to ensure they don’t continue to act as corporate gatekeepers.”

After ten years of fighting for basic telephone service, Delgado refuses to fall for company ploys. For the last two years, she has worked as a parent leader with Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement, where she mobilizes parents at San Bernardino schools to testify at town hall meetings and lobby legislators on policy issues like California’s AT&T bill last year.

“These companies need to be stopped,” she says. “It’s difficult for companies to understand that it’s important for us to have reliable telephone service at home. The prices that they offer are too high. We need services that are affordable and reliable.”

For Delgado, the solution is clear. Now she waits for civil rights leaders to catch up.

To read more about AT&T’s petition to shed regulations as moves to digital telephone service, click here.

Leticia Miranda is a journalist based in New York City. She writes about race, technology and gender. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including The Nation and Colorlines.com. Previously, Leticia has worked at the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation and Media Literacy Project in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/gigi-sohn/

'Infuriating': Telecom lobbyists spending big money to keep Gigi Sohn off FCC

Julia Conley and Common Dreams May 01, 2022

Consumer rights defenders are warning that telecom companies and lobbyists are taking advantage of the U.S. Senate's delay in confirming Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pressure corporate Democrats to vote against the longtime public advocate.

"There's an unseemly amount of money being spent to promote disinformation about her," Greg Guice, director of government affairs for Public Knowledge, the group founded by Sohn, told MarketWatch this week. "These criticisms aren't based in fact whatsoever."

As Karl Bode wrote at Techdirt last week, former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's rural-focused non-profit group recently launched a $250,000 social media ad campaign targeting at least two Democrats who have not yet confirmed how they plan to vote on Sohn's confirmation, even though it would give the party three of the five FCC seats for the first time in six years and would end the current deadlock.

The group's ads are aimed at Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), neither of whom have indicated how they will vote on Sohn's nomination and both of whom are facing reelection campaigns in November.Politico has reported that Heitkamp is also running ads in West Virginia, where right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin was "undecided" on Sohn after meeting her.

Heitkamp's group, the One Country Project, is claiming that Sohn has been insufficiently committed to improving broadband access in rural communities, pointing to congressional testimony in which she said Congress has been "disproportionately focused on broadband deployment in rural areas."

As Chris Matthews wrote at MarketWatch, Sohn's testimony didn't "argue that the federal government shouldn't fund broadband deployment, but that the main hurdle for Americans accessing broadband in both rural and urban areas is affordability, not infrastructure."

Heitkamp started One Country Project with "leftover campaign cash" to start her political action committee, Matthews noted, and counted AT&T and Comcast as two of her biggest donors when she was in the Senate.

"Telecom monopolies are now terrified that the Sohn appointment won't just break 2-2 commissioner gridlock (they created) at the agency, it will mean the restoration of meaningful federal oversight over one of the least popular and least competitive industries in the Internet ecosystem," wrote Bode at Techdirt.

Andrew Lokay, an analyst with independent policy research firm Beacon Policy Advisors, told MarketWatch that opponents of Sohn in the telecom industry appear to be "taking advantage of Biden's delay in nominating Sohn and the crowded Senate calendar in an attempt to sink her nomination."

Craig Aaron, president of media and technology advocacy group Free Press, accused the telecom industry and its allies of waging a "dishonest astroturf campaign" against Sohn and called the effort to derail the nomination of a strong net neutrality defender "infuriating."

In addition to One Country Project's efforts, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)—which has long partnered with AT&T—published an op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star earlier this month accusing Sohn of having a "deeply problematic track record on media diversity issues."

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The group wrote that as a senior staffer at the FCC, Sohn "masterminded a plan to give Google a government permission slip to steal, repackage and monetize TV programming without paying one cent to its creators"—a move which angered "diverse creators" and lawmakers over "how her proposal would impact vulnerable, underrepresented communities."

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In fact, Bode wrote, "the FCC's goal was to kill the cable box monopoly and save consumers about $20 billion annually in bullshit rental fees," adding that "framing it as a handout to 'big tech' is an intentional misrepresentation."

LULAC denied to MarketWatch that its opposition to Sohn has anything to do with its relationship with AT&T, and the company said it has not donated any money directly to One Country Project.

But as Bode argued, "Sohn's so popular, and the goals of telecom monopolies (less competition, more revenue, no oversight) are so viciously unpopular, they've been forced to fabricate flimsy complaints and funnel them through proxy organizations in a bid to derail the popular nomination."

"If Sohn's nomination is scuttled, it will come at the hands of Senators Joe Manchin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), or Mark Kelly, who will, not coincidentally, parrot the false justifications for opposing Sohn's nomination concocted by the telecom lobby," Bode added.

"It will leave a permanent and violent scar on the political and policy landscape," he added, "loudly advertising once again that the voice of the public (which overwhelmingly supports holding telecom and media giants meaningfully accountable) simply doesn't matter in our purported democracy."

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https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oans-last-months-directv-were-train-wreck

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OAN's last months on DirecTV were a train wreck

Since DirecTV announced it was dropping the network, OAN has become even more deranged

WRITTEN BY BOBBY LEWIS

PUBLISHED 04/06/22

As of April 5, DirecTV has removed One America News Network from its TV subscription packages.

In January, DirecTV announced that it would not renew its contract with the far-right conspiracy theory network. Although OAN provided years of virulent bigotry and right-wing misinformation, including one reporter’s on- and off-screen attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the announcement came after a massive public backlash to a Reuters report which revealed that DirecTV’s owner, AT&T, played a critical role in creating OAN and supplied 90% of its income.

Once news broke of its DirecTV contract expiration, OAN filed a breach of contract lawsuit against AT&T and briefly solicited viewers for “dirt” on AT&T’s board chair. Meanwhile, OAN programming has gotten worse since January, as the network doubled down on old staples like anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and lies about the 2020 election, as well as irresponsible coverage of new topics like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Supreme Court nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

"There are no long-term studies for this vaccine. None. The only protection we have now is not to get it." - Pearson Sharp attacking COVID-19 vaccines

The OAN line on COVID-19 vaccines, as delivered by correspondent Pearson Sharp, is that the vaccines are “turning into DNA” to become “part of your body’s genetic code,” meaning that “there’s a good chance they could … kill you.” None of this is true, but in February, Sharp took these abject lies about vaccine mortality in a genocidal direction, telling OAN viewers that the survival of the United States depended on COVID-19 vaccines killing liberals. Sharp also appeared on Infowars, where he hypothesized that COVID-19 restrictions could spark a justified revolution.

Though she was not OAN’s only misinformer about the 2020 election, former host Christina Bobb became the network’s face of its attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. She fought for, reported on, and fundraised for the Arizona “audit,” and before she left OAN in March to work for former President Donald Trump, Bobb had begun a new phase of her pressure campaign against state-level Republicans to begin new “audits.”

OAN also attached its brand of unhinged conspiracy theories to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Multiple OAN figures have suggested or stated that the Russian attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, was what Sharp called a “false flag operation” connected to billionaire George Soros.

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"It’s deeper – There’s deeper state stuff here, Debbie, don’t you think?” Dan Ball to Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) on Hunter Biden and war in Ukraine

But few OAN personalities took as much of an interest in spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine as prime-time host Dan Ball, who repeatedly spread Russian government propaganda about nonexistent “biochemical weapons plants” in Ukraine, and seems to fervently believe that the war somehow involves President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the 2020 Trump campaign’s old, desperate allegations against Biden and a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. In one segment about Ukraine, Ball even agreed with a guest that the U.S. military should invade and occupy northern Mexico because of immigration.

OAN also spent the past few weeks directing viewers’ ire toward Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Like much of right-wing media, OAN is enthralled by the false narrative that Jackson “lets pedos out of jail early,” according to Ball, who also called the accomplished jurist “scum” based on this smear. OAN programming has called Jackson part of “the pedophilia problem that is currently happening in the left,” an unmistakable reference to QAnon lies (previously seen during the pre-QAnon Pizzagate era) that liberal elites participate in the systematic sexual exploitation of children. 

In what may be OAN's waning days, as DirecTV essentially replaced it with Fox Nation and some of its more visible “talent” have fled the sinking ship, OAN launched its own streaming service in an attempt to stay alive. While subscriber numbers are not publicly known, it seems unlikely that “OANN Live” will make up for the financial loss of OAN’s DirecTV contract.

More importantly, OAN’s conduct since losing DirecTV -- suing its former carrier, spreading Russian propaganda, convincing viewers that not only will vaccines kill people but some of them have to die, to say nothing of its shockingly hateful anti-LGBTQ content -- should make it clear to any TV provider that this litigious, conspiratorial disaster of a channel is simply not worth the trouble.

IN THIS ARTICLE

One America News Network

Related

OAN host: Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is “scum”

04/01/22 12:41 PM EDT

OAN's Pearson Sharp spreads anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, claims vaccines cause death and alter your DNA

03/28/22 2:03 PM EDT

Another OAN host left the network to work for Donald Trump

03/25/22

natalie harp. bobb

yay win scalp

no lnx

DirecTV just dealt a major blow to right-wing viewers

Meaghan Ellis January 15, 2022

DirecTV has announced its decision not to renew its contract with the right-wing media operation, One American News Network (OANN). On Friday, January 14, the cable service provider released a statement to Bloomberg with details about the decision.

“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” DirecTV said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning non-profit Media Matters, also released a statement on Friday commending the cable provider's decision as she acknowledged how influential OAN has been for the spread of misinformation “DirecTV made the responsible decision to drop OAN. OAN is a cauldron of misinformation and extremism,” Carusone said in a statement.

The decision comes after Media Matters' relentless campaigning in hopes of getting cable television providers to drop the right-wing operation. Although they acknowledged DirecTV's effort to make better decisions for the new year, Carusone went on to explain how the damage has already been done.

Media Matters highlighted how miscommunication continued to run rampant for the last 12 months due to the cable provider's renewal of the contract last year. In short, the organization described the 2021 contract renewal as "a negligent mistake."

:{

}:

“DirecTV made a negligent mistake in 2021 when it renewed its contract with OAN even after OAN spent weeks attacking the election and stoking the embers that helped fuel the Jan. 6 insurrection. They gave OAN a full year to undermine our democracy — and our country suffered for it.”

She added, DirecTV has been “functionally propping up OAN for years. Without DirecTV, OAN would certainly not exist in its current form, and possibly not at all."

Following the heightened controversy surrounding the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election, OAN emerged as an epicenter for misinformation often echoing election falsehoods and conspiracy theories promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Mystery Surrounds Decision By DirecTV to Drop One America News ... ›

DirecTV is dropping OANN, the conspiratorial far-right network ... ›

DirecTV says it will not enter a new contract with OANN - CBS News ›

no lnx twt

AT&T has yet to answer for its support of OAN — and customers have had it

Daily Kos October 24, 2021

NAACP President Derrick Johnsonis set to meet with AT&T leadership at the company's Washington, D.C. headquarters today to discuss AT&T's relationship with One America News (OAN). Johnson condemned AT&T after a Reuters investigation published earlier this month found that a lucrative contract with AT&T-owned platforms was responsible for 90% of OAN parent company Herring Networks, Inc.'s funding, and that AT&T even had a hand in creating OAN when it launched in 2013.

"We are outraged to learn that AT&T has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into OAN since the network's inception," Johnson said. "AT&T has as a result caused irreparable damage to our democracy."

OAN head Robert Herring Sr. revealed in a 2019 deposition obtained by Reuters that AT&T executives were the ones who approached him about founding OAN. "They [AT&T] told us they wanted a conservative network," Herring said. "They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one."

Herring hasn't been shy about the editorial freedom and support AT&T has given his far-right network since then. During an interview on OAN last week, Herring showered AT&T with praise and even called on viewers to thank the company.

A full video of the interview also shows Herring outright lying about the controversy surrounding the Reuters report. When pressed by correspondent Pearson Sharp, Herring said that "all of our funding comes from the Herring Networks." Technically true, but much of the funding Herring Networks received appears to come from that AT&T contract.

OAN began airing on U-Verse in 2014. It only started appearing on DirecTV in 2017 after parent company Herring Networks settled a case with AT&T over AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV in 2015. Herring Networks claimed that AT&T had gone back on an oral agreement that would allow OAN to be broadcast on DirecTV once the acquisition went through.

:{

}:

AT&T cited the settlement as the only reason DirecTV even broadcasts OAN. "When we acquired DIRECTV, Herring pressured us for months to carry OAN. We rejected their offer and in response, Herring Networks sued us, claiming we deliberately intended to injure Herring," the company said in a statement. "Only as part of the settlement of that lawsuit did DIRECTV consent to a commercial carriage agreement with OAN four years ago."

:{

}:

OAN is available on other providers, including Verizon FiOS, GCI, and CenturyLink Prism. Those companies appear to be facing minimal backlash compared with AT&T. One source told media consultant Timothy Burke that 20% of the DirecTV cancellations they'd received were because of AT&T's support for OAN.

AT&T really has been hit in the pocketbook lately. The company's stocks have been on a steep downturn since the Reuters report was published Oct. 6, though investors have been wary to hold onto it since the company announced a merger with Discovery Inc. in May. Last week, MarketWatch reported that AT&T was headed for an 11-year low. AT&T's Q3 earnings call today didn't exactly give it the boost the company was expecting, either. The stock rose slightly then continued tumbling and is currently .85% lower than it was when markets closed yesterday.

Last month, CEO John Stankey said the company would focus on a "multi-year effort" to rehabilitate its image. Sticking with OAN doesn't exactly help with that. It remains to be seen what AT&T will do about Herring Networks following the meeting with Johnson. For now, many customers are more than happy to pull the plug on DirecTV and other AT&T-owned ventures instead of waiting for an answer to come.

===

1021

an

The far right wing cable network One America News (OAN) is funded almost entirely by telecom and tech giant AT&T.

OAN, which is even more far right than Fox News or Newsmax, served as a mouthpiece for the Trump administration and is being sued in a $1.6 billion defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems. The extremist network regularly promotes far right wing conspiracy theories as it attacks Democrats and the left.

OAN, according to aReuters special report, is "at the center of a bitter national divide over politics and truth."

But it's how OAN got there that is disturbing for the AT&T brand.

"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN," Reuters notes, adding: "Ninety percent of OAN's revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."

AT&T, the world's largest telecom company and majority owner of DirecTV, has funneled "about $57 million" into OAN. The "news" network's founder and CEO, Robert Herring Sr., "has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network's value 'would be zero.'"

"If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow," OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, a transcript shows.

How did a far right wing "propaganda machine," as The Daily Beast called OAN in 2019, come into being, seemingly overnight?

"They told us they wanted a conservative network," Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. "They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one."

Numerous reports have documented OAN's lies, propaganda, and mistruths, yet despite – or because of – that, Reuters notes, over a two-year period "Trump touted the network, known as @OANN online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times."

Read the entire Reuters report here.

...Again, Bernie McKay ATT, the lobbyistwho had joined Intuit in the late 1990s and outlasted multiple CEOs, led the company’s campaign. In response to the Obama threat, McKay and Intuit’s small army of outside lobbyists turned to Congress, where lawmakers friendly to the company introduced a series of bills that would elevate Free File from a temporary deal with the IRS to the law of the land.

Republicans have historically been the company’s most reliable supporters, but some Democrats joined them. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat whose district includes part of Silicon Valley, has introduced or co-sponsored five bills over the years that would codify the Free File program, with names like the Free File Permanence Act. Lofgren’s spokesperson told ProPublica that the congresswoman believes the IRS, because of its role as tax collector, should not also be the tax preparer.

Hedging its bets, the company also sought to make sure the IRS could not spend a single dollar creating a public filing system. One internal document says Intuit would “advance legislative language in House Appropriations for ‘No Funds’ restriction on IRS spending” on such a system. It worked. Within a few years, Congress passed a 3,000-page appropriations bill that included a single sentence crucial to Intuit’s financial future: “No funds,” the law decreed, could be used “to provide to any person a proposed final return or statement.”

Another important aspect of Intuit’s influence strategy during the Obama years was covertly enlisting minority and women’s groups to press its case.

The internal 2014-15 “encroachment strategy” document discloses plans to “leverage trade groups to support House/Senate Free File bills.” It goes on to list the groups Women Impacting Public Policy, The Latino Coalition and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

Intuit has given money to all of those groups over the years. All have signed letters urging Congress to make the Free File deal permanent. “The Free File program has been a clear success,” said one letter signed by The Latino Coalition and the Hispanic Leadership Fund.

A spokesperson for Women Impacting Public Policy said it has received $70,000 from Intuit. The amounts given to the other groups are unknown, and they did not respond to requests for comment.

Company documents also outline plans to “mobilize” a “coalition” that included think tanks and academics, who published op-eds.

Will Marshall, president of the pro-business Progressive Policy Institute,opposed return-free filing in an op-ed in The Hill because doing one’s taxes is “a teachable moment [that] prompts us to review our financial circumstances.”

Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the most consistent champion of Intuit’s policy positions, warned that “big spenders in Washington, D.C. want to socialize all tax preparation in America.”

It is unclear whether they were paid by Intuit or the Free File Alliance.Norquist didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a Progressive Policy Institute spokesman declined to say whether Intuit gave the group money.

Whatever external challenges to the status quo Intuit has faced, the company has been able to rely on the IRS’ continuing enthusiastic support of the Free File program. Every few years, the IRS and the industry got together to renew the deal....[long]

==

==

http://www.teletruth.org/FTCspeakercorporateties.htm

The FTC Conference on Net Neutrality and Broadband and Corporate Influence.

During February2007 the FTC held a meeting titled: "Broadband Connectivity, Competition Policy”

http://www.ftc.gov/opp/workshops/broadband/index.html

This resulted in a report which quoted the work of many of the speakers. In going through the speaker list, it is clear that many of the speakers had ties to Verizon or AT&T.  (This list was created simply going to Google and typing in the name and "Verizon" or "AT&T"... not exhaustive.) We are in no way implying any wrongdoing on the part of any person or organization, or that these presenters are not respected experts and scholars.

However, we are concerned that:

a) The “FTC Bios” listed for these speakers (see above link) did not include their ties to AT&T or Verizon, the corporations they are discoursing about and who are former and current clients.

b) The FTC may not checked the backgrounds of the speakers and required them to indentify their corporate relationships. This weighted the analysis in favor of the corporate position as opposed to the public interest position.

c) Both the FTC and the Department of Justice have quoted the experts' data without discussing the influence of their funding sources, many of whom are paid as 'experts' by AT&T or Verizon et al.

d) Many of these experts are also part of New Millennium Research Council or Progress & Freedom Foundation's projects, which are also funded by the phone and cable companies. Did these groups help to influence these discussions?

We are not the only group to notice that the positions of the Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission on Net Neutrality relies heavily on experts funded by the phone and cable companies. Free Press has filed a FOIA to "uncover whether industry lobbyists or White House politics unduly influenced a recent Justice Department filing against Net Neutrality — the longstanding principle that prevents phone and cable companies from discriminating against Web sites and services." http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=271

PARTIAL LIST OF SPEAKERS: Broadband Connectivity, Competition Policy

*   George S. Ford

• Chief Economist Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies.
• The Phoenix Center hides its funding sources, but a number of different organizatons claim that the group is funded by the phone companies.
• See the cable companies' Phoney Baloney: http://www.phoneybaloney.net/PC.htm
• Other mentions of funding sources:
• “Spiwak said the Phoenix Center is funded by ‘the old AT&T, the new AT&T, wireless companies, software providers’ and other Bell competitors.” [Technology Daily, 7/26/06]
• “In a telephone interview last week, Lawrence Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center, acknowledged receiving funding from AT&T and Verizon Communications.” [Television Week, “Cable Group: Telcos Paying for Support,” 2/27/06]

*Alfred E. Kahn

• Robert Julius Thorne Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, at Cornell University and special consultant to National Economic Research Associates (NERA). a Bell funded group)
• Testifies on behalf of Verizon, SBC, Qwest in multiple states, such as New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland.
• http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:APTm00h71aQJ:www.wutc.wa.gov/rms2.nsf/0/CB77BA
• F6B87B52B088256E830074A999/%24file/UT-023003%2BExhibit%2BTJT-2%2BVerizon%2B042704.pdf+Alfred+E.+Kahn+Verizon&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us

*   William Lehr

• “Testimony of William Lehr, Ph.D.---On Behalf Of AT&T… In addition, I comment on the trigger case for mass market switching presented on behalf of Verizon.
• www.ripuc.org/eventsactions/docket/3550-ATT-Lehr(2.25.04).pdf

*   Thomas M. Lenard

• Senior Fellow and Senior Vice President for Research The Progress & Freedom Foundation http://www.pff.org/about/supporters.html

*   Timothy J. Muris

• Professor George Mason University Schoolof Law.
• Verizon is a “partner” with George Mason University School of Public Policy’s Executive Education Partnering Organization, one of the only corporations on the list and also built the 300 seat- state of the art, Verizon Auditorium.

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:cDJeXVuStu0J:policy.gmu.edu/programs/

List_of_Partners.pdf+George+Mason+University+Foundation+Verizon&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us

*   Gregory L. Rosston

• Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

• Part of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, The Digital Age Communications Act Project group. His FTC bio omits his telco clients.
• http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:R0ibHjiXLDwJ:siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/0519.pdf
• +Gregory+L.+Rosston+Stanford+Institute+for+Economic+Policy+Research+consulted
• +with+AT%26T&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

• Footnote: “I have consulted for AT&T, MCI, Pacific Bell, Verizon, various CLECs, and internet-based companies.”

*   Gregory Sidak

• Visiting Professor Georgetown University Law Center;  Founder of Criterion Economics http://www.criterioneconomics.com/who/
• Clients include: AT&T, Bell Canada, BellSouth, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Qwest Communications, SBC, Verizon, Verizon Wireless,

*   Scott Wallsten

• Senior Fellow and Director, Communications Policy StudiesThe Progress & Freedom Foundationhttp://www.pff.org/about/supporters.html

*   Hands off the Internet, Christopher Wolf.

• Christopher Wolf, Co-Chairman Hands off the Internet
• Sourcewatch info http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hands_Off_the_Internet

Others:

*   Walter B. McCormick, Jr., President & CEO United States Telecom Association, The telephone company association and lobbying group.

*   Michael Altschul, Senior Vice President and General Counsel CTIA - The Wireless Association, AT&T and Verizon are the 2 largest wireless providers.

*   John Thorne, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Verizon Communications

*   Daniel Brenner, Senior Vice President, Law and Regulatory Policy National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

*   Joseph W. Waz, Jr, External Affairs and Public Policy Counsel, Comcast

==

==

https://news.littlesis.org/2019/05/29/these-are-the-millionaire-ceos-whose-corporations-fund-politicians-banning-abortions

Popular Information recently published an important article naming six major corporations that made substantial donations to the political leadership in the states that recently passed extreme abortions bans: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio.

The six corporations are: AT&T, Coca-Cola, Aetna, Walmart, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly.

 2018, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made over$29 million in his role. Coca Cola CEO James Quincey received$16.7 million between base compensation and bonuses. Aetna is now owned by CVS Health Corporation. CVS CEO Larry J. Merlo made $22 million in 2018.

CEO of Walmart, Doug McMillon made nearly$24 million in base and incentive pay in 2018. Ian Read made$19.5 million as the head of Pfizer. Read left his role in January, but incoming CEO Albert Bourla will likely be on the same pay scale. Eli Lilly is headed by David Ricks. Ricks took in$17.2 million in base, stock, and incentive pay in 2018.

In an indication that corporations may be starting to feel public pressure to distance themselves from doing business with states that have passed anti-abortion legislation, Netflix announced that it is considering pulling out of Georgia, where it films some of its hit shows. But as Judd Legum from Popular Information notes, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has given big to state legislators who have pushed abortion bans.

Whether it’s Netflix or the six companies discussed above, it is critical to know who leads the corporations whose donations keep anti-abortion politicians in office where they can push their reactionary agendas.

==

AT&T, the biggest telecommunications company in the world, has followed in the footsteps of Verizon and dropped its membership with ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) over its hosting of hate speech last summer. 

My takeaway? Exposing ALEC works!:{

113 corporations worth trillions in market value have now dumped ALEC since we launched ALEC Exposed in 2012. 

And exposing ALEC is only possible with your support. 

While ALEC has been a tool of the Kochs and big business pay-to-play operations for decades, it has recently veered into alarming far-right territory, denying climate science, embracing racists, and using hatemongers like David Horowitz to whip up alt-right support for rewriting the U.S. Constitution. 

CMD blew the whistle on Horowitz's wild anti-Islamic accusations at ALEC's annual meeting in August and joined 78 civil rights and reform groups in a letter of protest calling on ALEC's corporate patrons to stop funding ALEC extremism.   

And earlier this month CMD exposed that Rep. Matt Shea, who was reported to the FBI for circulating a manual on how to wage a violent Christian holy war in the United States, is the chair of ALEC in Washington State. ALEC still has not removed Shea from his position. 

AT&T's departure is the third major blow to ALEC this year, following Exxon-Mobil's decision to ditch ALEC in July.}:

==

cohen

just a bad actor, keeps showing up, promoted to primary, poster boy 6/18 [ITT?]

eg PIC, class action, climate denial

pruitt?!

charlieBlack is currently working with AT&T in its lobbying campaign to be given retroactive immunity against lawsuits for having assisted the administration in its warrantless wiretapping program.

==

https://www.alternet.org/most-important-surveillance-story-you-will-see-years-report-reveals-how-att-buildings-serve-secret

jake johnson

"The most important surveillance story you will see for years just went online, revealing how AT&T became the internet's biggest enemy, secretly collaborating against its customers and partners to destroy your privacy."

That was how whistleblower and privacy advocate Edward Snowden reacted to the publication of an explosive story by The Intercept on Monday, which reveals for the first time how "fortress-like" AT&T buildings located in eight major American cities have played a central role in a massive National Security Agency (NSA) spying program "that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory."

"It's eye-opening and ominous the extent to which this is happening right here on American soil," Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Intercept in an interview. "It puts a face on surveillance that we could never think of before in terms of actual buildings and actual facilities in our own cities, in our own backyards.. The Intercept's detailed report—based on a large body of evidence that includes public records, classified NSA documents, and interviews with former AT&T employees—shows how the telecom giant has willingly helped the NSA collect the data of its own customers and those of other companies, thanks to its "unique relationships with other phone and internet providers."

According to Intercept reporters Ryan Gallagher and Henrik Moltke, who bylined Monday's story, eight AT&T facilities—known as "peering sites"—in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. "serve a specific function, processing AT&T customers' data and also carrying large quantities of data from other internet providers."

"The eight locations are featured on a top-secret NSA map, which depicts U.S. facilities that the agency relies upon for one of its largest surveillance programs, code-named FAIRVIEW," Gallagher and Moltke write. "AT&T is the only company involved in FAIRVIEW, which was first established in 1985, according to NSA documents, and involves tapping into international telecommunications cables, routers, and switches."

The report continues:

In 2003, the NSA launched new internet mass surveillance methods, which were pioneered under the FAIRVIEW program. The methods were used by the agency to collect—within a few months—some 400 billion records about people's internet communications and activity, the New York Timespreviously reported. FAIRVIEW was also forwarding more than one million emails every day to a "keyword selection system" at the NSA's Fort Meade headquarters.

Central to the internet spying are eight "peering link router complex" sites, which are pinpointed on the top-secret NSA map. The locations of the sites mirror maps of AT&T’s networks, obtained by The Intercept from public records

.

Fight for the Future (FFTF), an open internet advocacy group, reacted with alarm to The Intercept's reporting on Monday, writing on Twitter, "AT&T has bent over backwards to help the U.S. government spy on essentially all internet traffic."

"Giant telecom companies aren't just "anti-consumer," they're actively helping authoritarian governments and pushing for policies that endanger free expression," FFTF concluded.

==

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/us/scott-pruitt-lobbyist-house.html

thehill

Scott Pruitt

once purchased a house from a top lobbyist in Oklahoma with the help of a shell company,The New York Times reported Saturday.

Two business associates involved in the 2003 purchase are now aides to Pruitt at the agency: Kenneth Wagner, a senior adviser at the EPA, and Albert Kelly, who runs the agency's effort to redesign the Superfund program.

According to the Times, the home, which was seen as a prime property because of its proximity to the state Capitol building, was purchased for $375,000 from a retiring telecommunications lobbyist.

But that price was $100,000 less than the lobbyist, Marsha Lindsey, had paid for it just a year before. The shortfall, according to the Times, which examined the records, was picked up by Lindsey's company, telecom giant SBC Oklahoma.

The company, now a subsidiary of AT&T, lobbied on a number of matters including a deregulatory bill that would allow it to raise rates and an effort to reopen a decade-old bribery case. According to the Times, Pruitt sided with the company on both matters.

Pruitt, then a state senator, intended to use the residence as a place to stay while Oklahoma's legislature was in session. During this time he also rented out a room to another Republican state senator, Jim Dunlap.

Wagner, who was a partner at the private legal practice where Pruitt worked, was a co-investor in the shell company that purchased the residence.

Kelly wasn't involved in the shell company but ran the community bank which issued the mortgage for the residence. Kelly was later barred for life from the banking industry by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) because the agency had “reason to believe that [Kelly] violated a law or regulation, by entering into an agreement pertaining to a loan by the Bank without FDIC approval.”

The two now hold top positions at the EPA.

In 2005, the company owned by Wagner and Pruitt sold the residence for $95,000 more than it had paid just two years earlier.

Dunlap told the Times that he had no knowledge that Pruitt had purchased the residence from a lobbyist. He said he was under the impression that Pruitt had purchased it from a group of lawyers.

“This was a place where you slept and had dinner,” Dunlap told the Times. “It was all above board.”

The Oklahoma deal is only the latest in a series of stories raising ethics issues involving Pruitt.

Pruitt was reported earlier this month to have been living in 2017 in a Washington, D.C., condo partly owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist at a rate of just $50 per night, which he and others have insisted was market value.

The EPA chief also came under fire after it was discovered that two top aides received raises after the White House declined to approve the pay hikes.

When asked about the Oklahoma house deal and Pruitt's business relationship with his top appointees, an EPA spokeswoman told the Times that the dealings "were ethical" and that Pruitt's stake in the company "was a simple real estate investment.”

“Mr. Wagner and Mr. Kelly left high-profile positions in law and banking in Oklahoma, to serve in the administration,” the spokeswoman said in an email to the Times.

“They are dedicated EPA employees who have earned the respect and admiration of EPA career employees across the country. They serve the country professionally, and transparently — and are committed to ensuring the programs they work on are successful.”

==

==

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/5/11/headlines/at_t_paid_trumps_lawyer_600k_to_advise_on_time_warner_merger

Washington Post reports that President Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s company won a $600,000 contract just days after Trump’s inauguration to advise the telecom giant AT&T over its planned merger with Time Warner. This follows reports that Cohen used the promise of White House access as he brought in a total of $4.4 million in payments to his shell company, Essential Consultants LLC—the same company that Cohen used to pay hush money to the adult film star Stormy Daniels—also known as Stephanie Clifford—who says she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006.

==

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-att-trump-michael-cohen-20180509-story.html

In 

the early days of President Trump's administration, Trump had a friend in AT&T Inc. Chief Executive Randall Stephenson.

The telecom executive described himself as one of Trump's "biggest defenders on public policy." He met with the president-elect at Trump Tower and talked about all the jobs that the largest U.S. phone company would create. Stephenson also praised Trump to investors, saying the president would usher in a new era of corporate tax relief and fewer regulations.

And as it turned out, AT&T's relationship with the fledgling administration went deeper. The carrier acknowledged Tuesday that it hired a firm founded by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, seeking "insights" on how the unorthodox president would govern. It also wanted guidance on how Trump would respond to its plan to acquire Time Warner Inc., according to a person briefed on the matter.

AT&T said it cut ties with Cohen's firm in December, shortly after receiving word that the administration would try to block its Time Warner deal — a move that Stephenson described at the time as "a big curve ball."

The question now is whether AT&T's payments were an attempt to influence Trump's views on the Time Warner deal or just research on a new and idiosyncratic administration. In addition to seeking guidance on the Time Warner transaction, the carrier also asked for information on tax reform and net neutrality policies, said the person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations were private.

Stormy Daniels

The relationship came to light Tuesday, when AT&T was cited by attorney Michael Avenatti as one of the parties that made payments to Cohen's firm. Avenatti is representing Stephanie Clifford, the porn actress known as Stormy Daniels, who was paid $130,000 by Cohen just before the 2016 presidential election not to discuss an alleged tryst with Trump.

Larry Solomon, a spokesman for AT&T, confirmed the relationship Tuesday.

It "was one of several firms we engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration," he said in an email. "They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017."

It isn't clear why AT&T would use Cohen, considering that he was a personal lawyer to Trump and not in the administration.

Russia allegations

The acknowledgment pulls AT&T into a rapidly unfolding legal saga involving the president, his lawyer and alleged ties to Russia. Avenatti also alleged that a company connected to a Russian oligarch sent $500,000 last year to Cohen's business.

Essential Consultants is a Delaware limited-liability company started by Cohen, and it has been identified as the source of the hush payment to Daniels.

Cohen wouldn't have had to register as a lobbyist unless he spent 20% of the time he devoted to AT&T on efforts to influence the federal government while having at least two contacts with one or more high-ranking government officials, including members of Congress, their staff or administration officials.

AT&T’s payments

AT&T, based in Dallas, made four payments of $50,000 apiece around the end of last year, according to Avenatti. But the company's statement that the consulting arrangement started in early 2017 suggests there may have been other payments.

The carrier announced just before the election that it would acquire Time Warner, embarking on a "vertical merger" that would bind entertainment and news content with AT&T's network infrastructure. There were reasons for concern about the deal: Trump regularly criticized Time Warner's CNN unit on the campaign trail and threatened to derail any merger.

But AT&T and Time Warner weren't competitors, so Stephenson assumed the deal wouldn't be opposed on antitrust grounds.

"We were obviously surprised when the government decided to try and block the merger," he said during a conference call in January. "It is a classic vertical merger between two companies that don't even compete with one another. With 50 years of legal precedent, it's the type of business combination that the government has consistently approved with appropriate conditions."

Courtroom battle

The Justice Department's fight against the merger ultimately proved fierce. The two sides are just now wrapping up a six-week courtroom battle over it.

The companies and the government have filed hundreds of pages of post-trial documents, and U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington is weighing whether to bless the $85-billion deal or block it. He plans to announce his decision June 12.

Critics have spent years accusing Hillary Clinton of making policy decisions during her time as secretary of State based on the interests of corporate and foreign government donors to the Clinton Foundation, especially to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Trump and other Republicans alleged during the 2016 campaign that Clinton's decisions as president would be swayed by donors who had spent years cultivating influence through the foundation — and by paying her to speak during the two years between her departure from the Obama administration and the start of her campaign.

Clinton and her team insisted that efforts to avoid conflicts of interest were made at the State Department and that further steps would be taken if she was elected.

Other companies

Meanwhile, other firms have also transferred funds to Cohen's firm, according to Avenatti's summary. They include Novartis Investments SARL, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical maker Novartis AG, which made four payments totaling $399,920 in the same four-month span as AT&T.

A Novartis spokesman said that he was looking into the issue but added that any agreements with Essential were entered into before the arrival of the company's current CEO in February and have expired.

There also was a $150,000 payment in November 2017 from Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd., a manufacturer of aircraft, including jets, helicopters and unmanned vehicles, according to the summary.

Korea Aerospace, which is seeking to sell its planes in the United States, hired Cohen's entity for advice on local accounting standards and sent a single payment of $150,000 when the work was completed, a spokesman said Wednesday, adding that the contract was legal.

https://www.propublica.org/article/these-professors-make-more-than-thousand-bucks-hour-peddling-mega-mergers

If  THE GOVERNMENT ENDS UP approving the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger, 

credit won’t necessarily belong to the executives, bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists pushing for the deal. More likely, it will be due to the professors.

A serial acquirer, AT&T must persuade the government to allow every major deal.Again and again, the company has relied on economists from America’s top universities to make its case before the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission. Moonlighting for a consulting firm named Compass Lexecon, they represented AT&T when it bought Centennial, DirecTV, and Leap Wireless; and when it tried unsuccessfully to absorb T-Mobile. And now AT&T and Time Warner have hired three top Compass Lexecon economists to counter criticism that the giant deal would harm consumers and concentrate too much media power in one company.

Today, “in front of the government, in many cases the most important advocate is the economist and lawyers come second,” said James Denvir, an antitrust lawyer at Boies, Schiller.

Economists who specialize in antitrust — affiliated with Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, the University of California, Berkeley, and other prestigious universities — reshaped their field through scholarly work showing that mergers create efficiencies of scale that benefit consumers.But they reap their most lucrative paydays by lending their academic authority to mergers their corporate clients propose.Corporate lawyers hire them from Compass Lexecon and half a dozen other firms to sway the government by documenting that a merger won’t be “anti-competitive”: in other words, that it won’t raise retail prices, stifle innovation, or restrict product offerings. Their optimistic forecasts, though, often turn out to be wrong, and the mergers they champion may be hurting the economy.

American industry is more highly concentrated than at any time since the gilded age. Need a pharmacy? Americans have two main choices. A plane ticket? Four major airlines. They have four choices to buy cell phone service. Soon one company will sell more than a quarter of the quaffs of beer around the world.Some of the professors earn more than top partners at major law firms. Dennis Carlton, a self-effacing economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and one of Compass Lexecon’s experts on the AT&T-Time Warner merger, charges at least $1,350 an hour. In his career, he has made about $100 million, including equity stakes and non-compete payments, ProPublica estimates. Carlton has written reports or testified in favor of dozens of mergers, including those between AT&T-SBC Communications and Comcast-Time Warner, and three airline deals: United-Continental, Southwest-Airtran, and American-US Airways.

Mergers peaked last year at $2 trillion in the U.S. The top 50 companies in a majority of American industries gained share between 1997 and 2012, and “competition may be decreasing in many economic sectors,” President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers warned in April.

While the impact of this wave of mergers is much debated, prominent economists such as Lawrence Summers and Joseph Stiglitz suggest that it is one important reason why, even as corporate profits hit records, economic growth is slow, wages are stagnant, business formation is halting, and productivity is lagging. “Only the monopoly-power story can convincingly account” for high business profits and low corporate investment, Summers wrote earlier this year.

In addition, politicians such as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren have criticized big mergers for giving a handful of companies too much clout. President-elect Trump said in October that his administration would not approve the AT&T-Time Warner merger “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”

During the campaign, Trump didn’t signal what his broader approach to mergers would be.But the early signs are that his administration will weaken antitrust enforcement and strengthen the hand of economists. He selected Joshua Wright, an economist and professor atGeorge Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School, to lead his transition on antitrust matters. Wright, himself a former consultant for Boston-based Charles River Associates, regularly celebrates mergers in speeches and articles and has supported increasing the influence of economists in assessing monopoly power. “Mergers between competitors do not often lead to market power but do often generate significant benefits for consumers,” he wrote in The New York Times this week.

...

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2 faced denier

Since Republicans have spent so long telling their constituents that climate change is not a serious threat, they are in no position to do anything about it in government.

This leaves the Democrats with the responsibility to pass as much legislation to lessen the impact of climate change and deal with its consequences. Since Republicans insist on vetoing nearly all legislation concerning the threat, it is likely that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she will have to follow Obama's footsteps and implement policy through executive actions.

Conservative media and politicians may not be the only reasons why Americans are so divided about the climate: Corporate groups are also hedging their bets and throwing investment behind both sides, an investigation by Reuters found.

Some of the country's most vocal corporate supporters of Obama's environmental programs have been found to be funding some of the most ardent anti-climate change politicians in Washington. Among these companies are PepsiCo, Dupont and Google, Reuters said on Tuesday.

Though companies often split their campaign donations to both parties, arguing for both sides of a particular issue may be a problem, the head of the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute Jon Kukomnik told Reuters.

"There really needs to be a process that looks at these issues … at C-suite and board levels on a periodic basis," he said.

Of the 35 biggest U.S. companies which signed on to Obama's American Business Act on Climate Change Pledge last year, 25 of these companies are supporting Congressional climate deniers by helping to fund their campaigns.

These climate deniers include North Dakota Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer, who once argued the Earth was getting cooler and not warmer, and Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, who once held up a snowball in the Senate to prove that global warming is not occurring.

Other companies which signed the environmental pact and then gave political donations to climate deniers are Mondelez, Google, AT&T, Verizon and GE.

Only GE responded to Reuters' requests for comment, saying it supports "elected officials based on a wide range of issues." The company insists it has been "outspoken about the need to address climate change."

Sen. Inhofe said businesses might have signed the environmental pact because it appeared politically expedient to do so at that moment.

"These are competitive companies, and the board might have said, 'Look, right now it might be a popular thing to join this, and there's no downside since we're not really committing to anything,'" he said.

However, investors may want companies to be more committed to environmental sustainability, Lauren Compere of Boston Common Asset Management said.

"No company wants to be perceived as espousing progressive climate policies on the one hand, while funding climate deniers on the other," she said.

http://www.ecowatch.com/companies-drive-climate-denial-1998224867.html

==

==

omg

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Former GOP Sen. Phil Gramm: “It Was an Outrage” That “Exploited” AT&T CEO Got Only $75 Million at Retirement

Jon Schwarz

July 29 2015, 9:44 a.m.

Phil Gramm, a former three-term Republican senator from Texas who once ran the Senate Banking Committee, told the House Financial Services Committee yesterday that “it was an outrage” that his friend Edward Whitacre, the CEO of AT&T, only got “$75 million” when he retired in 2007.

“If there’s ever been an exploited worker” it was Whitacre, said Gramm, testifying on the fifth anniversary of passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Gramm appeared genuinely aggrieved by Whitacre’s shabby treatment and literally pounded the table while speaking.

Whitacre actually received a retirement package totaling $158 million.

Gramm attributed public anger at CEOs like Whitacre to “the one form of bigotry that is still allowed in America,” which is “bigotry against the successful.”

This is a clearly a long-standing belief of Gramm’s, who said almost the same thing, word for word, in 2001.

Gramm was co-chair of John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and McCain’s top economic adviser until he was forced to resign after calling the U.S. “a nation of whiners.”

Transcript:

    GRAMM: It’s the one form of bigotry that is still allowed in America, and that’s bigotry against the successful … My friend Ed Whitacre at AT&T, if there’s ever been an exploited worker, even though they made a big deal about him getting $75 million when he retired, the man added billions of dollars of value, he was exploited, it was an outrage!

https://theintercept.com/2015/07/29/former-gop-sen-phil-gramm-outrage-att-ceo-got/

==

==

Verizon agreed to pay $1.35 million to settle Federal Communications Commission charges that it violated customers’ privacy when it used a hidden undeletable numberto track cellphone users.

In the settlement, Verizon also agreed to make its unkillable “zombie” cookie opt-in, meaning that users are not tracked by default. Previously, users had been tracked by default unless they opted out.

However, the settlement does not apply to Verizon’s tracking of its customers who visit the 40 percent of websites that use AOL’s ad network. That is because Verizon owns AOL, and therefore it is not considered a third party that requires opt-in.

That means that unless Verizon users opt out, they can still be identified when they use their smartphone or tablet to browse Web pages containing AOL’s tracking code.

The Verizon controversy dates back to the fall of 2014, when a flurry of news outlets, including Wired and ProPublica, reported that Verizon and AT&T were attaching tracking numbers to their subscribers’ Internet activity, even when users opted out.

The tracking numbers could be used by websites to build a dossier about a person’s behavior on mobile devices — including which apps they use, what sites they visit and for how long.

Soon after, AT&T stopped using the controversial identifiers. But Verizon said it would keep using them — and assured users on its website that “it is unlikely that sites and ad entities will attempt to build customer profiles” using its identifiers.

In January of 2015, ProPublica reported that an online advertising company was doing just what Verizon had promised wouldn’t happen. A company called Turn was using Verizon’s identifier to respawn tracking cookies that users had deleted. ProPublica dubbed the unkillable identifier a “zombie cookie.”

Two days later, Turn said it would stop using the zombie cookie. And a few weeks later, Verizon also reversed course, and said users could now kill the previously unkillable cookie - but users still had to go in and fiddle with their privacy settings.

Zombie Cookie: The Tracking Cookie That You Can’t Kill

An online ad company called Turn is using tracking cookies that come back to life after Verizon users have deleted them. Turn’s services are used by everyone from Google to Facebook. Read the story.

Verizon’s Zombie Cookie Gets New Life

Verizon is merging its cellphone tracking supercookie with AOL’s ad tracking network to match users’ online habits with their offline details. Read the story.

In October, Verizon said it would give the zombie cookie a new life as a way to boost the tracking abilities of its AOL subsidiary.

https://www.propublica.org/article/verizon-to-pay-1.35-million-to-settle-zombie-cookie-privacy-charges

==

No, no... not "them." The former senator was testifying against a new rule requiring corporations to reveal the spread between their CEO's pay and what their workers get. It's "demagoguery," Phil grumped. Then he lurched into the abyss of absurdity by wailing that overpaid corporate chieftains are actually – get this – victims of public bigotry. The multimillionaire snarled that "The one form of bigotry that is still allowed in this country is bigotry against the successful."

, Ed Whiteacre, who retired as CEO of AT&T in 2007.

This is Jim Hightower saying... Perhaps Gramm could do a telethon to support ex-executives like Ed, who suffer such soul-crushing bigotry. Please give 'til it hurts... and don't laugh, for Phil really feels the pain of the rich.

"Former Texas Senator: CEOs are the real victims," http://becausefinanceisboring.com/post/125292445379/former-texas-senator-ceos-are-the-real-victims**

"GOP: Deregulate Wall Street, or The Roman Empire Will Fall," Huffington Post, July 28, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-wall-street-roman-empire_55b7a661e4b0224d8833f37c**

*The Committee on Financial Services, http://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=399397***

http://jimhightower.com/node/8691#.VdNgm_lViko

===

https://www.propublica.org/article/heres-why-the-close-collaboration-between-the-nsa-and-att-matters

8/15

==

==

AT&T and Verizon Wireless contributed $169,500 and $41,000 respectively to the 2010 campaigns of global warming deniers in Congress, including Senators Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, and Marco Rubio.¹

^---

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=AT%26T

AT&T is a global telecommunications and networking company that operates in 60 countries and 850 cities worldwide. The company is divided into AT&T Business Services and AT&T Consumer Services. In 2005, SBC Communications Inc. (formerly the Southwestern Bell Corporation) bought AT&T Corp., creating the largest telecommunications company in the U.S, and started using the AT&T brand name. I

In 2006, AT&T purchased BellSouth for $86 billion in the largest telecommunications takeover in U.S. history. AT&T now services more than 68 million phone lines. Cingular Wireless changed into AT&T Mobility which is under AT&T and is the country's largest wireless carrier. ^[1]

In 2011, AT&T reported total operating revenues of $126,723,000,000.^[2]

Ties to Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt"

The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem."

This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy's investigation of Pete Peterson's Campaign to "Fix the Debt." Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

AT&T is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and is on ALEC's corporate "Private Enterprise" Board. William Leahy, Vice President of State and Legislative Affairs for AT&T, represents the corporation on ALEC's corporate board as of 2011. ^[3] [4] AT&T is the State corporate co-chair of Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas as of 2011.^[5]

A list of ALEC Corporations can be found here.

Ted Mullenix, CEO of lobbying firm Mullenix & Associates^[6] and widely considered Arkansas' top lobbyist,^[7] represents AT&T at ALEC as the Arkansas state chair^[5]alongside Rep. Linda Collins-Smith (D) and Sen. Michael Lamoureux (R)^[8] Pete Hernandez, Executive Director of Legislative Affairs at AT&T,^[9] represents AT&T as the California state chair^[5] alongside Sen. Joel C. Anderson (R).^[8] John Emra, Executive Director of External Affairs for AT&T's Connecticut operations,^[10] represents AT&T as the Connecticut state chair^[5] alongside Rep. DebraLee Hovey (R) and Sen. Kevin Witkos (R).^[8] Daniel Wilson represents AT&T as the Louisiana state chair^[5]alongside Rep. George Cromer (R) and Rep. Joe Harrison (R-51).^[8] Randal Russell, Executive Director of Bell South,^[11] represents AT&T as the Mississippi state chair^[5] alongside Rep. Jim Ellington (R).^[8] Holly Reed, Senior Vice President of External Affairs at AT&T,^[12] represents AT&T as the Texas state chair^[5] alongside Rep. Charlie Howard (R), Rep. Jim Jackson (R) and Sen. Kel Seliger (R)
.^[8]

AT&T was also a "Chairman" level sponsorof ALEC's 38th Annual Conference in 2011^[13] (at a rate of $50,000 as of 2010)^[14] and a member of the Louisiana Host Committee.^[14]

Jim Epperson, Jr., the Senior Vice President of AT&T, is the former chairman of the "Private Enterprise Board.^[15]

Randall L. Stephenson, President and CEO of AT&T, spoke to ALEC on August 5, 2010; see the video here. ^[16]

AT&T has used ALEC model legislation to its advantage to prevent public utilities from laying fiber-optic cables to provide high-speed internet access. At ALEC's annual meeting in Orlando in 2002, a model bill that created significant hurdles for public utilities interested in funding fiber-optic cables. The bill originated in Utah, where two telecom companies lobbied for the set of bullet points upon which the bill was based. Greg Curtis, the Republican assistant majority whip in Utah at the time who was lobbied, could not remember exactly which companies had provided the bullet points, but suspected that one of them was AT&T. ^[17]

The ALEC model bill has since been passed in six states. It was adopted in the state of Louisiana at State Bill 877, and has played a crucial role in preventing public utilities from laying fiber-optic networks. After the bill was passed, BellSouth (which is now owned by AT&T) and Cox Communications used litigation to try to derail a fiber-optic project in Lafayette. They demanded that a referendum take place on the project, which the bill suggests, and BellSouth orchestrated an extensive ad campaign to convince the public that the project shouldn't go through. In addition, Cox paid for a telephone poll that suggested that a public utility might "ration" television. The two companies also filed a lawsuit to prevent the city from issuing bonds to finance the project. Since the passage of the bill, no other municipality has attempted to use a public utility to lay fiber-optic cables. ^[17]

Political contributions

Open Secrets reports that in 2010, AT&T gave $3.7 million to federal candidate and pro-corporate PACs. $1,612,582 was given to Democrats and $2,035,949 to Republicans.

On June 30, 2011, the Center for Responsive Politics wrote, "Contributions to lawmakers and federal lobbying expenditures by telecommunications interests have spiked as a result of government intervention in the market. Facing potentially stifling federal regulations that threaten to short-circuit their profits, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile have each dumped millions of dollars into campaign contributions and federal lobbying expenditures, hoping that a barrage of political influence will subdue any unwanted restrictions." ^[18]

Past Elections

Edward E. Whitacre Jr., then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SBC (AT&T), was a Bush Ranger having raised at least $200,000 for Bush in the 2004 presidential election. ^[19]

AT&T gave $2,341,683 to federal candidates in the 2006 election cycle through its three political action committees - 34% to Democrats, 66% to Republicans. ^{[20] [21][22]}

Lobbying

In 2010, AT&T spent $15,395,078 on lobbying expenses.^[23] You can see a full list of AT&T's lobbying firms and lobbyists HERE.

You can view a list of the federal bills AT&T lobbied for in 2010 HERE.

The company spent $23,070,720 for lobbying in 2006. $3,960,000 went to 25 outside lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists.^[24]

Leadership

Randall L. Stephenson Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President Ralph de la Vega President and CEO-AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets Ronald E. Spears Senior Executive Vice President, Executive Operations John T. Stankey President and CEO, AT&T Business Solutions Rayford Wilkins, Jr Chief Executive Officer — AT&T Diversified Businesses Alex Mandl Former President

Personnel

Executives

As of January 2013^[25]

• Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
• William A. Blase, Jr., Senior Executive Vice President – Human Resources
• James W. Cicconi, Senior Executive Vice President – External and Legislative Affairs, AT&T Services, Inc
• Cathy M. Coughlin, Senior Executive Vice President and Global Marketing Officer
• Ralph de la Vega, President and Chief Executive Officer - AT&T Mobility class action lawsuit
• John Donovan, Senior Executive Vice President, AT&T Technology and Network Operations
• Andrew M. Geisse, Chief Executive Officer — AT&T Business Solutions
• Ronald E. Spears, Senior Executive Vice President – Executive Operations
• John T. Stankey, Group President and Chief Strategy Officer
• John Stephens, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Wayne Watts, Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Former executives include^[26]

• James W. Callaway, former Senior Executive Vice President-Executive Operations
• Richard G. Lindner, former Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Board of Directors

As of January 2013^[27]

• Randall L. Stephenson - Chair
• James H. Blanchard - Lead Director
• Gilbert F. Amelio
• Reuben V. Anderson
• Jaime Chico Pardo
• Scott T. Ford
• James P. Kelly, former chairman of the board and CEO of United Parcel Service
• Jon C. Madonna, former chairman and CEO of KPMG
• John B. McCoy
• Joyce M. Roché, former director of Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.
• Matthew K. Rose
• Laura D'Andrea Tyson, S. K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley

Former board members include^[28]

• William F. Aldinger III
• August A. Busch III, Former Chairman of the Board of Anheuser-Busch
• Lynn M. Martin
• Patricia P. Upton
• Mary S. Metz

Annual Revenue

2010

Total Revenue: $124.3 billion

Gross Profit: $61 billion

Net Income: $19.9 billion

2009

Total Revenue: $122.5 billion

Gross Profit: $60.6 billion

Net Income: $12.1 billion

2008

Total Revenue: $123.4 billion

Gross Profit: $54.7 billion

Net Income: $-2.6 billion

2007

Total Revenue: $118.9 billion

Gross Profit: $60.6 billion

Net Income: $11.9 billion

Contact information

175 E. Houston

San Antonio, TX 78205

Phone: 210-821-4105

Fax: 210-351-2071

Web: http://www.att.com

Articles and Resources

Featured SourceWatch Articles on Fix the Debt

• Fix the Debt Portal Page
  • Fix the Debt's Leadership
  • Fix the Debt's Partner Groups
  • Fix the Debt's State Chapters
  • Fix the Debt's Lobbyists
  • Fix the Debt's Parent Group
  • Fix the Debt's Corporations
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External articles

The firm that "coached" Blackwater CEO Eric Prince for a Congressional hearing previously represented Iraq intelligence launderer Ahmed Chalabi and is now working with AT&T to repair their image in the wake of their involvement in President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

The communications firm BKSH, a subsidiary of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, is run by a man with extremely close ties to the Bush Administration.

The founder and current head of BKSH is Charlie Black, whose ties with the Bush family go back to 1972, when he and Karl Rove were jockeying for control of the College Republicans in a campaign so dirty that George H.W. Bush, then head of the Republican National Committee, had to step in and sort matters out. Black then worked for Ronald Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's presidential campaigns from 1976 to 1992. He served as an adviser to George W. Bush's campaigns in 2000 and 2004 and is often quoted in news stories as an unofficial White House spokesman.

BKSH was representing Iraq exile Ahmed Chalabi as early as 1999 and continued doing so until the invasion of Iraq. An international con-man found guilty in absentia in Jordan for bank scams, Chalabi is most widely known for being one of the key pre-Iraq war intelligence propagandists who supplied skewed information to support the Pentagon's ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans and the now-discredited pre-war reporting of Judith Miller for the New York Times. During 2004, Francis Brooke of the Rendon Group, which had represented Chalabi since the early 90's, was working on contract in Baghdad for BKSH. Then in the summer and fall of 2005, Lincoln Group, which had been tasked by the Pentagon with providing pro-US stories to Iraqi media, was subcontracting the work to BKSH, as the same time as BKSH was registered to represent the government of Iraq as its US lobbyist.

Because of Black's personal ties to the Bush administration, it seems reasonable to wonder whether his lobbying assignments might be selected as much to help his friends there as his nominal clients.

Black is currently working with AT&T in its lobbying campaign to be given retroactive immunity against lawsuits for having assisted the administration in its warrantless wiretapping program.

• Muriel Kane, "Blackwater PR firm aided Chalabi; Works to polish AT&T's image," The Raw Story, October 23, 2007.

^===^

Brand name riggers of the justice system

By Jim Hightower- Mon., 3/4/13

• Amazon
• Dell
• Starbucks
• Verizon Wireless
• AT&T
• eBay
• Time Warner
• Wells Fargo
• Citibank
• Microsoft

The list of corporations that underhandedly bar your access to the courts ranges across every business sector. Buying a home? If you choose one from Centex, DR Horton ("America's Builder"), KB, Pulte, or Ryland-it'll come with forced arbitration built into it. Maybe you or a loved one needs a nursing home. That can be an unhappy experience, but if you have a complaint, you'll find that such national chains as Carrington Place, Covenant, and Kindred shove you into the dark hallways of corporate justice.

Take out a student loan from Discover, invest through Charles Schwab or T. Rowe Price, purchase a television from Sony, or a game console from Xbox LIVE, get involved in some e-commerce on eBay or PayPal, get a Starbucks gift card, buy a membership at Gold's Gym, go for entertainment through Ticketmaster or Netflix, or call Orkin for pest control--every one of those transactions comes with a fine-print proviso that waives your Seventh Amendment rights.

The same goes for the contract you'll have to sign if you take a job with nearly any national corporation. From Hooters to Neiman Marcus, Papa John's to Yahoo!, Hobby Lobby to Nordstrom, Manpower to Macy's, the employment agreement that they tell you is just a perfunctory part of putting you on the payroll has the binding arbitration "gotcha" in it.

^==^

CREDO urges switch from Republican funding AT&T

AT&T phone service to the more liberal CREDO. The president of CREDO, Michael Kieschnick, pointed out the following:

• AT&T was the top contributor — with a $351,500 contribution — to members of the House Tea Party Caucus, led by the extremist Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
• AT&T contributed to the Senate Conservatives Fund, which raised money for Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller, Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, and Rand Paul — all Republicans backed by the Tea Party.
• AT&T's political action committee was recently ranked by Opensecrets.org as one of the biggest political contributors in the 2009-2010 cycle.^[3]