AT&T

see AT and T bak = TWO

619 bak

no merri

===

poster boy for what? broken up into baby bells. 17 tags--> 23 tags

phoenix inst front ~ rural/ muni broadband

defected from alec

trump TV oann

dirty trick lulac KNS

extraction?

see john oliver

===

---

an 12 25

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."

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/att-starts-running-ads-fox-news-amid-dominion-mess-and-directv-newsmax-feud

an 1 23

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 thedeficit, 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.

no twt lnx

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."

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."

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."

yay win scalp, not n FCC thing?

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.

mississippi officials say AT&T took $283,000,000 to provide broadband — and pocketed the money

Walter Einenkel Daily Kos

October 06, 2020

On Thursday, Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) officials sent a letter to the FCC calling on the corrupt body to investigate AT&T's claims of "providing internet service to 133,000 locations in Mississippi using federal aid from the Connect America Fund." How much federal-aid money did AT&T get their hands on? According to Arstechnica, the telecommunications company has pulled in a sweet $283,000,000 "from the Federal Communications Commission's Connect America Fund to expand its network in Mississippi," since 2015. Ah, that sweet corporate welfare!

AT&T will get the money over six years with an option for a seventh, potentially bringing the total to about $3 billion, according to Multichannel News. AT&T and other carriers getting Connect America funding have to deploy Internet service to 40 percent of funded locations by the end of 2017, 60 percent by the end of 2018, 80 percent by the end of 2019, and to 100 percent of locations by the end of 2020, the article said.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/robert-reich-breaks-down-the-sham-of-corporate-social-responsibility

last August, the Business Roundtable – an association of CEOs of America’s biggest corporations – announced with great fanfare a “fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders” and not just their shareholders.

They said “investing in employees, delivering value to customers, and supporting outside communities“ is now at the forefront of their business goals — not maximizing profits.

Baloney. Corporate social responsibility is a sham.

One Business Roundtable director is Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. Just weeks after making the Roundtable commitment, and despite GM’s hefty profits and large tax breaks, Barra rejected workers’ demands that GM raise their wages and stop outsourcing their jobs. Earlier in the year GM shut its giant assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

Nearly 50,000 GM workers then staged the longest auto strike in 50 years. They won a few wage gains but didn’t save any jobs. Barra was paid $22 million last year. How’s that for corporate social responsibility?

Another prominent CEO who made the phony Business Roundtable commitment was AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, who promised to use the billions in savings from the Trump tax cut to invest in the company’s broadband network and create at least 7,000 new jobs.

Instead, even before the coronavirus pandemic,AT&T cut more than 23,000 jobs and demanded that employees train lower-wage foreign workers to replace them.

Let’s not forget Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and its Whole Foods subsidiary. Just weeks after Bezos made the Business Roundtable commitment, Whole Foods announced it would be cutting medical benefits for its entire part-time workforce.

The annual saving to Amazon from this cost-cutting move is roughly what Bezos – whose net worth is $117 billion – makes in a few hours. Bezos’ wealth grows so quickly, this number has gone up since you started watching this video.

GE’s CEO Larry Culp is also a member of the Business Roundtable. Two months after he made the commitment to all his stakeholders, General Electric froze the pensions of 20,000 workers in order to cut costs. So much for investing in employees.

Dennis Muilenburg, the former CEO of Boeing, also committed to the phony Business Roundtable pledge. Shortly after making the commitment to “deliver value to customers,” Muilenburg was fired for failing to act to address the safety problems that caused the 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people. After the crashes, he didn’t issue a meaningful apology or even express remorse to the victims’ families and downplayed the severity of the fallout to investors, regulators, airlines, and the public. He was rewarded with a $62 million farewell gift from Boeing on his way out.

Oh, and the chairman of the Business Roundtable is Jamie Dimon, CEO of Wall Street’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. Dimon lobbied Congress personally and intensively for the biggest corporate tax cut in history, and got the Business Roundtable to join him. JPMorgan raked in $3.7 billion from the tax cut. Dimon alone made $31 million in 2018.

That tax cut increased the federal debt by almost $2 trillion. This was before Congress spent almost $3 trillion fighting the pandemic – and delivering a hefty portion as bailouts to the biggest corporations, many of whom signed the Business Roundtable pledge.

As usual, almost nothing has trickled down to America’s working class and poor.

The truth is, American corporations are sacrificing workers and communities as never before in order to further boost runaway profits and unprecedented CEO pay. And not even a tragic pandemic is changing that.

Americans know this. A record 76 percent of U.S. adults believe major corporations have too much power.

The only way to make corporations socially responsible is through laws requiring them to be – for example, giving workers a bigger voice in corporate decision making, requiring that corporations pay severance to communities they abandon, raising corporate taxes, busting up monopolies, and preventing dangerous products (including faulty airplanes) from ever reaching the light of day.

If the CEOs of the Business Roundtable and other corporations were truly socially responsible, they’d support such laws, not make phony promises they clearly have no intention of keeping. Don’t hold your breath.

The only way to get such laws enacted is by reducing corporate power and getting big money out of our politics.

The first step is to see corporate social responsibility for the sham it is. The next step is to emerge from this pandemic and economic crisis more resolved than ever to rein in corporate power, and make the economy work for all.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/trump-turns-back-on-workers-as-companies-force-employees-to-train-their-cheaper-foreign-replacements-report/

no lnx

Trump turns back on workers as companies force employees to train their cheaper foreign replacements: report

Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story December 29, 2019

President Donald Trump’s claims that he is bringing jobs back to America are being called nothing more than hot air in a report stating U.S. companies are instead forcing their employees to train their foreign replacements and they will be out of a job once the training is over.

According to a report at Axios, “Opponents of job outsourcing are making a holiday-season appeal to President Trump: Stop U.S. companies from forcing American workers to train the very same cheaper foreign laborers who will soon replace them.”

The reports states: “AT&T is poised to send thousands into the new year hunting for new jobs after assigning them to train their own foreign replacements, according to conversations with current and former workers and documents obtained by Axios,” adding, “Many have worked for the company for over a decade. They aren’t being offered severance or early retirement, and may not easily find a comparable job elsewhere with similar pay.”

According to Sara Blackwell, a lawyer who represents displaced Americans workers, “American workers are tired of waiting for President Trump to do something on this issue. They’ve gone from great hope in President Trump’s administration, to great discouragement.”

Focusing on AT&T, the report continues, “Despite receiving a $3 billion tax cut last year, AT&T announced new and expanded alliances with big outsourcing companies to replace workers with foreign or cheaper domestic talent. Like many major U.S. companies, AT&T has been shifting jobs for years now — but 2019 was especially noteworthy, as workers claimed that as many as 3,000 finance jobs were being outsourced to Accenture. AT&T denied the 3,000 figure, but declined to provide Axios with its own number.”

Speaking with numerous AT&T workers, many acknowledged they will soon be out of a job, stating they were told “they were needed for a ‘knowledge transfer” — then tapped to train people on work visas or overseas who would replace them.”

That, in turn, changed their plans for the immediate future.

“Folks aren’t going on vacation, they’re cutting back on their Christmas shopping,” one employee confided. “If you know that you’re going to be losing your job, you don’t want to spend the money.”

Axios reports they asked for a comment from the White House of the job transfers and were rebuffed.

You can read more here.

===

see cell phone/EMR

2001 carlo gave $419K to john graham (2000 AT&T 300K$on driving)

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 withAT&Tin 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&Temployees—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 ofAT&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

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 at George 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.

...

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

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 number to 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."

To prove this bizarre claim, Gramm cited the specific case of his buddy, Ed Whiteacre, who retired as CEO of AT&T in 2007. Ed was widely condemned for grabbing a $158-million retirement package for himself as he went out the door. Gramm practically wept as he related the sad story of Whiteacre's heartache. The guy was actually underpaid, wailed Gramm – "If there's ever been an exploited worker, he was exploited. It was an outrage!" Odd since the former senator, had never previously expressed the slightest concern about exploited workers.

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.

he 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." Through a special report and new interactive wiki resource, the Center for Media and Democracy -- in partnership with the Nation magazine -- exposes the funding, the leaders, the partner groups, and the phony state "chapters" of this astroturf supergroup. Learn more at PetersonPyramid.org and in the *Nation* magazine.

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.

About ALEC
ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site.

About ALEC

ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our PRWatch.org site.

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

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

Practically every national brand name you've ever heard of now slips predatory arbitration provisions into their customer terms-of-service agreements and/or employment agreements. Not only do these sneaky inserts strip away your constitutional right to take them to court (peremptorily immunizing them from any wrongs they do to you), but many of the boilerplate provisions also arbitrarily ban you from joining with other small claimants in class actions to hold them accountable. Here is a sampling of 10 market powerhouses that suckerpunch you with this double-whammy:

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

In 2010, CREDO sent out emails encouraging people to switch from 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]

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