Posted on 09/18/2011 7:03:25 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Here is one more thing Rick Perry and some Democrats have in common: staunchly supporting AT&T's proposed merger with T-Mobile.
Yet another thing they have in common? Receiving generous contributions from AT&T in recent years.
On Thursday, North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler joined 15 other House Democrats to write a pro-AT&T T-Mobile merger letter to President Obama. The letter rehashed AT&T's PR spin about how the deal would create jobs and bring more high-speed wireless coverage to America.
Save the Internet pointed out that these Democratic politicians have collectively received $570,000 in campaign contributions from AT&T.
"Either these members of Congress actually believe in the fantasies AT&T cooks up, or they are so worried that AT&T will turn off its spigot of campaign contributions that they'll sign anything the telecom puts in front of them," wrote the coalition.
GOP 2012 hopeful Rick Perry, meanwhile, wrote a pro-AT&T T-Mobile merger letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in his official capacity as the Texas Governor in May. Perry touted Texas' record of job creation and also parroted AT&T's PR spin of creating more jobs in the letter.
The National Journal, however, highlighted that Perry received over $500,000 from AT&T's political action committee over the last decade.
"This is just one more example of Rick Perry's pay-to-play network that represents the same old type of lobbyist-first politics," Ty Matsdorf, spokesman for American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic opposition research organization, told National Journal.
Any way you slice it, the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile is a bad deal for America.
The merger will not bring high-speed coverage to America faster; competition will.
The merger will not guarantee more jobs; common sense and historic examples tell us that mergers usually kill jobs.
Does AT&T promise more jobs in the long-term? So did Vice President Joe Biden with Solyndra.
The merger, moreover, will stifle innovation and raise prices for American consumers in the long-term, even if AT&T temporarily promises to keep T-Mobile's cheap subscription rates.
Shrinking an already concentrated industry from four major players to three - while catapulting one of them to hold a meaningful size advantage over the others - is bad for America and bad for capitalism.
Any basic economics class will tell you that.
It's called being anti-competitive; it's why the Department of Justice broke up Ma Bell in the first place in the 1980s.
"The facts don't support this merger, and AT&T knows it. So it's turning to old tricks like getting its paid-for cronies to sign a nonsensical letter of support. Repeating lies ad nauseam is standard stuff for AT&T, but we should expect more from our elected officials," wrote Save the Internet.
Urkle would make a better president than Obama. Thats not saying much.
I support the merger too ... and I'm not Perry or a Democrat and didn't receive any money from any of them.
Due to the amount of money large corporations donate to political parties/candidates, I wonder how many decisions/votes are made by politicians where 'winner' companies did NOT have money in the game.
Urkel’s beanie would make a better President than Obama.
In a battle between the unions and the crony capitalists, we lose either way.
When you say the unions don’t care about competition, you mean competition played by the rules.
Crony capitalists have exactly the same problem.
You didnt prove anything about shipping jobs to India. You just said your friend there has a good plan.
And T-Mobile is not an American company in the first place.
Anyone remember Worldcom/MCI and so forth?
Ahhh so they don’t offshore jobs, cool. pfft
These are all global companies and their profit margins care more for that, then for America.
Three posts of accusations with no proof.
And of course T-Mobile is global, it is a German company. You could probably say that they are outsourcing their jobs here, those darn globalists.
This a very hard left socialist rag ?
Your anti- capitalism and a left too?
I think you need to move to the DU / Daily Koz websites if your peddling this crap .
Your hatred of Perry is oddly extreme and in fact you never criticize the Marxist in the WH ???
Is Perry your enemy and Barry off limits ?
I still can not believe someone posted left wing propaganda from this British rag !
Perry had not
AT&T has been giving a majority of their contributions to Republicans since 1996 :
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?cycle=2012&id=D000000076
The FCC and Holder’s Just-Us Department are blocking the merger, probably at the request of Obama.
Wow ! What a huge scandal that a $170 Billion dollar publicly traded company that is headquartered in Texas and donates mostly to Republicans - actually donated to the Republican Governor of Texas. /s
Proof? Look at their public SEC reports. Pretty stupid argument
I take it you aren’t a person who wants America to stay strong.
Thanks. I think I'd make a better president than Obama, too. ;-)
Oh, sure, my name's spelled a bit different, but no one cares anymore about the details or specifics about people's names when they're running for president--Obama, Soetoro...Barack, Barry...Urkle, Erkyl...who cares?
Now we see posts from hard left socialist rags and donating to the GOP is evil ?
You’re welcome!!!
It would be pretty hard to make a worse POTUS so I took the safe bet.
Coward. Prove your own accusations. Learn about the companies before you go around looking like a moron. Deutsche Telekom is not in the business of making America strong, but they still provide Americans with jobs. We are benefiting from outsourcing in that aspect.
So you like to talk behind peoples back.
Please point out one lie, just one.
Perry isn’t the anointed one. I’d prefer any candidate be properly vetted instead of worshiped.
Learn about them? I’ve worked in the telecom industry and around them for years. I know how they treat their customers and their employees.
They have shipped as many jobs overseas as they could, and are searching for ways to ship more. They aren’t creating jobs, they are destroying them.
Benefiting from outsourcing, ha. Yeah my company benefits so much when the competition wins all the contracts.
eople hee are missing the main point. It isn’t whether the merger is good or bad, it is that Perry is hooked to big corporate donations. Palin really has hit the nail on the head that it isn’t just socialism that is killing us, but crony capitalist socialism. While Perry might have been perfect for ten years ago, the nation is lost unless completely restructured financially - in many ways we are in as bad or worse shape as Greece.
When the shtf will Perry deliver by cutting off the corporations? I am at this point unconvinced.
Noticed is an understatement. Deranged has turned into unhinged.
Funny how few anti Romney posts I see here lately.
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