Sept. 13, 2019
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
New AT&T-Verizon partnership raises antitrust eyebrows
AT&T/Time
Warner recently announced that they were entering into an agreement worth
approximately $9 million with Verizon to manage their email services and web
portal. While the news may have only been noticed in Buffalo, N.Y., the
hometown of the company that lost the contract, this deal should matter a great
deal to all Americans as it is a dangerous portent of further consolidation of
interests between the two of the three largest telecom companies in America. While
the government has no business picking winners and losers, we cannot forget the
lessons learned in the aftermath of the Reagan break-up of AT&T; that
strong, competing companies in the telecommunications space create innovation
and drive down costs while enhancing the customer experience.
Cartoon: Secure
Is enhanced
border security keeping radical Islam out of the U.S.?
Video: 10-year, 2-year un-inverted so does that mean there won't be a recession before the 2020 election?
Usually,
interest rate inversions between the long and short interest rates like the
10-year, 2-year go fairly deep into negative territory for weeks and months as
a certain recession signal on average about 16 months after the inversion, but
in this case, the inversion was extremely shallow and only lasted for six
trading days. Does that mean a hoped-for recession by President Donald Trump’s
opponents is on the ice now?
Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino: Christine Blasey Ford’s father supported Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation
“Privately… it
appears the Blasey family had significant doubts about what Ford was trying to accomplish
by coming forward and making unsubstantiated allegations against Brett
Kavanaugh. Within days of Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, a
fascinating encounter took place. Brett Kavanaugh’s father was approached by
Ford’s father at the golf club where they are both members. Ralph Blasey,
Ford’s father, went out of his way to offer to Ed Kavanaugh his support of
Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, according to multiple
people familiar with the conversation that took place at Burning Tree Club in
Bethesda, Maryland. ‘I’m glad Brett was confirmed,’ Ralph Blasey told Ed
Kavanaugh, shaking his hand. Blasey added that the ordeal had been tough for
both families.”
New AT&T-Verizon partnership raises antitrust eyebrows
By Rick Manning
AT&T/Time Warner recently announced that they were entering into an agreement worth approximately $9 million with Verizon to manage their email services and web portal.
While the news may have only been noticed in Buffalo, N.Y., the hometown of the company that lost the contract, this deal should matter a great deal to all Americans as it is a dangerous portent of further consolidation of interests between the two of the three largest telecom companies in America.
What many Americans may have forgotten is that AT&T was originally founded by the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, and became the “telephone company” with 22 local subsidiaries. The Reagan Administration used the nation’s anti-trust laws to break up the behemoth in 1984.
Verizon is the result of a 1994 merger between two of the so-called Baby Bells (Bell Atlantic and NYNEX) which were spun out from “Ma Bell” and have subsequently become the largest wireless carrier and the third-largest telecommunications company in America.
AT&T/Time Warner, for its part, just last year won a bruising anti-trust battle against the U.S. Department of Justice when a federal judge erroneously (in this author’s opinion) found that the merger between AT&T and Time Warner was legal under our nation’s law. Fresh off of this massive vertical integration play, the company somewhat shockingly entered into this small deal with its largest current competitor in the hot 5G wireless space to manage email and web portal customer relations on their behalf.
The effect for consumers is that Verizon will be managing AT&T/Time Warner’s most significant consumer-facing digital property. Those consumers chose to entrust their data privacy to AT&T/Time Warner, not Verizon. Yet, this deal would put AT&T/Time Warner’s tens of millions of customers’ data squarely in the hands of its competitor, leaving a skeptical outsider to wonder about their long-term motivation.
With multiple bidders, including the incumbent contract holder, vying for the contract, somehow AT&T/Time Warner flew like a moth to a flame into an agreement with the one company it should have kept at arm’s-length – Verizon.
Let’s be clear, it isn’t that either AT&T/Time Warner or Verizon are bad companies. It is that consolidation and cost sharing are very alluring in the very expensive world of developing the communications links of the future, where wireless spectrum leases can sink or swim a company’s future. And when the two currently dominant players in the spectrum marketplace start playing footsie by entering into seemingly innocuous vendor agreements, that operational integration raises red flags.
And while the government has no business picking winners and losers, we cannot forget the lessons learned in the aftermath of the Reagan break-up of AT&T; that strong, competing companies in the telecommunications space create innovation and drive down costs while enhancing the customer experience.
As our nation faces challenges from around the world, it is this type of intense competition which will give us the cutting-edge advantage over the monolithic state-run competitors around the world. While it is premature to urge a federal regulatory inquiry into this tiptoe toward collusion, AT&T/Time Warner executives would be well served to do a cost analysis of whether the hackles likely to be raised over this small-dollar vendor agreement are worth the potential liabilities which it might invoke.
In the game of Jenga, you pull out blocks in a tower with the goal of keeping the tower standing once your block is removed. In the game of creating a mega-company, sometimes you need to know what contractual partners you need to avoid to keep the illusion of competition in place so you can continue to grow your empire. AT&T/Time Warner should avoid doing deals with Verizon like the plague and should reconsider the wisdom of entering into the email services/web portal servicing contract with them.
Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and this would be a good time for AT&T/Time Warner to engage in a strategic retreat before anyone actually starts paying attention.
Richard Manning is the president of Americans for Limited Government, a group dedicated to restoring constitutionally limited government.
Cartoon: Don’t fence me in
By A.F. Branco
Click here for a higher level resolution version.
Video: 10-year, 2-year un-inverted so does that mean there won't be a recession before the 2020 election?
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb6dyZxSf04
Appropriators should retain prohibition against federalized zoning
Sept. 12, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress to retain the prohibition on the Department of Housing and Urban Development conditioning receipt of community development block grants on making changes to local zoning ordinances:
"The temptation is always strong at the federal government level to exert power over local governments, and one such area is zoning. This is why Americans for Limited Government and members of Congress most notably Senator Susan Collins of Maine and U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona who fought the Obama administration on the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation when HUD attempted to condition federal funds on changes to local zoning by enacting a Congressional prohibition against the regulation. Because this prohibition is based on the principle of federalism and not any animus toward one administration over another, it is important that it be retained in the appropriations process this month and that it be respected by the Trump administration HUD leadership."
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2019/09/appropriators-should-retain-prohibition-against-federalized-zoning/
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino, Christine Blasey Ford’s father supported the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation despite the allegations made by his daughter:
Christine Blasey Ford’s father supported Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation
By Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino
Last year, when Christine Blasey Ford emerged after then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings to accuse him of attempted rape at a house party when both were teenagers, there were many unanswered questions both about her story and her credibility.
She offered no proof that she and Kavanaugh had ever even met. She couldn’t remember where it happened, when it happened, or how she arrived at or departed from the party. None of the four alleged witnesses she eventually named, including one of her closest lifelong friends, corroborated her accusations. Prior to airing her allegations with the media, she scrubbed her entire social media history that indicated she was a liberal activist.
To this day, there is zero evidence beyond her claims that the alleged assault ever happened. One detail, however, remains particularly intriguing. The Blasey family stayed conspicuously silent about the veracity of her allegations. A public letter of support for Ford that began “As members of Christine Blasey Ford’s family . . .” wasn’t signed by a single blood relative. Reached for comment by the Washington Post, her father simply said, “I think all of the Blasey family would support her. I think her record stands for itself. Her schooling, her jobs and so on,” before hanging up.
Privately, however, it appears the Blasey family had significant doubts about what Ford was trying to accomplish by coming forward and making unsubstantiated allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. Within days of Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, a fascinating encounter took place. Brett Kavanaugh’s father was approached by Ford’s father at the golf club where they are both members.
Ralph Blasey, Ford’s father, went out of his way to offer to Ed Kavanaugh his support of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, according to multiple people familiar with the conversation that took place at Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Maryland. “I’m glad Brett was confirmed,” Ralph Blasey told Ed Kavanaugh, shaking his hand. Blasey added that the ordeal had been tough for both families.
The encounter immediately caused a stir at the close-knit private golf club as staff and members shared the news. The conversation between the two men echoed a letter that Blasey had previously sent to the elder Kavanaugh. Neither man returned requests for comment about the exchanges.
Blasey never explicitly addressed the credibility of his daughter’s allegations, but he presumably wouldn’t have supported the nomination of a man he believed tried to rape his daughter.
It wasn’t just Ford’s father. The national drama played out on a decidedly local scale as the D.C.-based family and friends of Ford’s quietly apologized to friends and family of Kavanaugh, even as the toxic political environment made it punitive for them to speak up publicly.
One friend who was subjected to both public scrutiny and private pressure because she cast doubt on Ford’s story was Leland Keyser, one of Ford’s closest friends at the time of the alleged attack. Keyser wanted to support her but nevertheless had no recollection of the event.
Keyser’s son noted on a GoFundMe page for his mother that she put “everything in her life at risk” in order to tell the truth about Ford’s allegations. Son Alex Beckel wrote that his mom “resisted immense personal pressure and courageously came forward with the truth,” adding that she “stood up and did what was right when she had everything to lose and nothing to gain.”
While there was no evidence to support Ford’s claim other than her testimony, some believed her because they said she would have no motivation to lie. Critics point to the nearly $1 million she raised in GoFundMe accounts and the honors that Sports Illustrated and Time Magazine bestowed on her. New books featuring her cooperation downplay the copious problems with her account.
So what was the point of the cavalcade of unsubstantiated allegations? Ford’s attorney Debra Katz offered not so much a hint as a confession. Ford testified that she had no political motivation. But in remarks captured on video, Katz admitted that Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh were at least in part driven by fear he might not sufficiently support unregulated abortion on the court.
“We were going to have a conservative” justice, she said, “but he will always have an asterisk next to his name” that will discredit any decision he makes regarding abortion. What’s more, she added, “that is part of what motivated Christine.”
