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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Actions Across US Urge Biden to End 'Cruel' Immigration Detention and Deportations
"Our tax dollars need to be used to strengthen our families and communities and uphold our human rights, not for the militarization of our beloved borderlands," said one activist.
Sep 15, 2023
A coalition of over 80 advocacy groups on Friday co-sponsored demonstrations in eight U.S. states and Washington, D.C. as part of a national day of action demanding the Biden administration close all federal immigration detention centers, release all migrants in custody, and end deportations.
Throughout his campaign, President Joe Biden "pledged to create an immigration system that is just and humane, including ending for-profit immigration detention," the coalition—which is organizing under the Defund Hate and Communities Not Cages banners—said in a statement.
"Our community is enraged and ready to push the Biden administration to fulfill his broken promises."
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Noting that at least 11 people have died during U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention during Biden's tenure, the coalition said that "the negligent death of 8-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Álvarez in CBP custody further highlights an immigration enforcement system beyond compassion and beyond repair."
"Our community is enraged and ready to push the Biden administration to fulfill his broken promises," the campaign added.
The activists are urging the Biden administration to:
- Shut down federal immigration detention centers;
- Defund ICE and CBP by cutting their funding in Biden's fiscal year 2025 budget request; and
- Freeing everyone detained in federal immigration custody.
"We join our colleagues here in D.C. and around the country to demand the Biden administration to move away from the cruel imprisonment of immigrants, release those in ICE custody, end immigration detention, and halt all deportations immediately," Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said in a statement.
Protecting the civil liberties of those seeking a better life in the United States is a core tenant of our nation's democracy," Jozef added. "Throwing vulnerable people into prisons is deplorable—and often deadly."
Jovanny Hernandez, co-chair of the Southern Border Communities Coalition and an organizer for the New Mexico Dream Team,asserted that "it is our constitutional and human right for everyone to live free of inhumane treatment. Yet while the United States presents itself as a beacon of these human rights on the global stage, we continue to witness the violation of our rights at the southern border."
"Our tax dollars need to be used to strengthen our families and communities and uphold our human rights, not for the militarization of our beloved borderlands and the targeting, detention, and deportation of our families, neighbors, and newcomers seeking protection," Hernandez added.
Luba Cortes, immigrant defense coordinator at Make the Road New York, said: "ICE has a horrifying track record of mistreating immigrants—denying them access to legal counsel, denying them freedom, and severing them from their families. Despite this, our government continues to funnel billions of dollars into these detention centers."
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Echoing previous warnings from climate advocates and studies, an environmental watchdog on Friday released research from experts at the University of California which shows that trying to offset fossil fuel emissions with popular forest carbon credit projects "is a pipe dream."
As the new Berkeley Carbon Trading Project assessment—funded by Carbon Market Watch (CMW)—explains, "The voluntary carbon market generates credits, each nominally equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide reduced or removed from the atmosphere, from a wide range of projects around the globe."
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Over the past two decades, more than $3 billion has been poured into REDD+ and nearly half a billion carbon credits have been awarded, yet "deforestation is still continuing at an alarming rate," the report notes. Berkeley researchers' analysis of four methodologies that have generated almost all REDD+ credits—under Verra, the largest voluntary carbon market registry—revealed that estimated GHG emissions reductions were dramatically exaggerated.
"We found significant over-crediting from all of the factors we reviewed, the core causes of which are a combination of incentives and uncertainty," said Barbara Haya, who led the research. "Everyone involved in the voluntary carbon market, from the buyers and sellers of credits, to the registries who write the rules and the auditors who enforce them, all benefit from more credits."
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As a CMW briefing published with the assessment summarizes:
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- Similarly, leakage is systematically underestimated by projects, which make use of flexibilities provided to them by the methodologies to downplay the risk of deforestation moving to areas outside of their project.
- The creation of low-quality carbon credits is further fueled by exaggerated estimates of the quantity of carbon stored within the trees that are protected by projects.
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- Finally, the safeguards implemented by Verra are weak, do not protect communities from harm, and are not properly upheld by the validation and verification bodies.
Inigo Wyburd, a CMW policy expert on global carbon markets, said that "we welcome Verra's willingness to engage with our research and hope that it will take on board our findings and implement all of our recommendations."
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Meanwhile, as Gilles Dufrasne, CMW's policy lead on global carbon markets, highlighted, "biodiversity, the climate, and Indigenous people or local communities are losing out on what should have been a system to drive meaningful financial flows to the forest conservation projects that so desperately need it."
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As Patrick Galey, senior fossil fuels investigator at Global Witness, pointed out on social media Friday, the new research was released as the African nation Liberia is preparing to sign an offsetting agreement conceding 10% of its territory to Blue Carbon, a private company in the United Arab Emirates led by a member of an Emirati royal family.
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"Deals done at DSEI will cause misery across the world, causing global instability, and devastate people's lives," one peace activist lamented.
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Military-industrial complex players big and small gathered in London this week, hawking everything from long-range missiles to gold-plated pistols to arms fair attendees—including representatives of horrific human rights violators—as weapon-makers and other merchants of the machinery of death reap record profits.
"War is good for business," one defense executive attending the biennial Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) conference at ExCel London flat-out toldReuters. "We are extremely busy," Michael Elmore, head of sales at the U.K.-based armored steelmaker MTL Advanced, told the media agency.
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"We think this is a longer-term essentially 'sea change' in national defense strategy for the U.S. and for our Western allies," Jim Taiclet, CEO of U.S. arms giant Lockheed Martin, told investors during a call earlier this summer announcing higher-than-expected sales and profit outlooks.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States, Russia, France, China, and Germany were the world's top arms exporters from 2018-22, with the five nations accounting for 76% of all weapons exports during that period. The U.S. accounted for nearly 40% of such exports during those five years, while increasing its dominance in the arms trade. The U.S. also remains by far the world's biggest military spender.
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Outside the sprawling ExCel convention center in London's Docklands, anti-war protesters rallied against the global arms trade and the death and destruction it fuels. The Guardianreported that at least a dozen demonstrators were arrested during the course of the conference, including nine on Thursday for blocking a road outside the venue.
Sam Perlo-Freeman, a researcher at the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), told The Guardian that "a lot of countries that are being talked about as new arms export markets are ones we would be concerned about."
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Emily Apple, also of CAAT, toldPeople's World that "the companies exhibiting read as a who's-who of the world's worst arms dealers."
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