July, 20 2011, 02:30pm EDT
House and Senate Leaders Question AT&T Takeover
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, today submitted a letter urging Attorney General Eric Holder and Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski to reject AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile. Sen. Kohl wrote that he had "concluded that the acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies."
WASHINGTON
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, today submitted a letter urging Attorney General Eric Holder and Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski to reject AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile. Sen. Kohl wrote that he had "concluded that the acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies."
Sen. Kohl's letter joins a growing chorus of opposition to the proposed merger. Today Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) also submitted a letter stating that they believed AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile "would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy-- a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace."
Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner made the following statement:
"Senator Kohl's letter and recent statements from other leading members of Congress, including Reps. Markey, Eshoo, Conyers and Inslee, indicate that opposition to this unprecedented consolidation is growing. And it will only continue to grow as policymakers and the public learn how the facts contradict AT&T's pro-merger propaganda.
"The undeniable truth is that this merger would be a disaster for American consumers, competition and innovation. AT&T doesn't need to acquire T-Mobile to serve rural America or improve the quality of its service -- it just needs to reinvest some of its enormous profits in improving and expanding its infrastructure. And as these members of Congress point out, this merger would kill competition in the wireless market, leading to higher prices for all wireless users, reduced investment and higher unemployment.
"We are pleased that leading voices in Congress are speaking out, and we hope others recognize what AT&T is really trying to do here: asking the government for handout instead of competing fairly in the free market. But in the end, politics shouldn't matter -- if the Justice Department and FCC take an objective look at the evidence, they will have no choice but to reject this takeover outright."
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Dec 10, 2024
This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates...
A day after Luigi Mangione was arrested and charged as the alleged killer of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, independent journalist Ken Klippenstien on Tuesday published what he said was the 26-year-old's highly reported on manifesto.
The existence of the handwritten document found on Mangione when he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania on Monday was confirmed by the New York Police Department, and major media outlets have quoted from it, but none had released it in full.
"My queries to The New York Times, CNN and ABC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered," Klippenstein explained on his Substack.
According to Klippenstein—who has previously published dossiers on Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the nominee for the next U.S. secretary of state—Mangione's manifesto reads:
To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.
Common Dreams has not independently verified its authenticity.
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