The following is just the infographic from the Los Angeles Times’s excellent and sick-making and excellently sick-making story on the political access enjoyed in Sacramento by hard-thrusting lege-lovers AT&T.
$8,875,539.91
AT&T political contributions in California$791,868.40
AT&T expenditures on tickets and meals for state lawmakers and staffs$225,001.43
Total AT&T spent on 2011 Speaker’s Cup at Pebble Beach$89,749.37
What AT&T spent on iPads at Apple store last year for Speaker’s Cup attendees$14,406.76
AT&T’s average daily lobbying expenditure120
Number of current California legislators who have received political donations from AT&T120
Number of current California legislators
[LAT]
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Damn, and here I've been collecting Green Stamps….
That's what AT&T paid, but what did AT&T get? I want to hear about all the sloppy filthy sexxxy deregulation, but the infographic is as titillating as Eliot Spitzer's credit card bill.
Ooh, here's the money shot:
So we can cut to the AT&T board room for this scene:
"OK, so I got an idea! We can add a brand NEW fee! We'll charge for each digit dialed in a phone number and call it something like 'per unit access fee'!"
That's socialist!!1! Silly 911 calls would be cheaper than 900-HOT-SEXX calls, that's un'Merican it is.
Efforts to force phone companies to be more transparent about fees on cellphone bills died; so did an attempt to end monthly charges to unlist a phone number.
So people who don't want their names listed with their phone numbers have to keep paying for the privilege of privacy–a right that the CA state Constitution explicitly gives to Californians.
Assholes.
If only the coverage for their cellular service was that complete.
Sorry I'm on an elevator, l didn't get that.
I thought the government broke that company up.
Shh… they are watching.
It's AT&A isn't it?
$89,749.37
What AT&T spent on iPads at Apple store last year for Speaker’s Cup attendees
Haha, those were Verizon 3G iPads since the AT&T one's don't get any service. Ha.
Booty and Boobies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ma Bell's daughters sure are gettin' around.
They all married each other in some weird incestual lesbian relationship.
(No, I don't have pictures.)
Don't mock AT&T, beaches, or you'll have the Department of Homeland Security kicking your door in.
If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear…
~
And yet, I'm still forced to wear clothes.
No one is gonna buy Sienna and her teeny 3 whore diamonds when she's stuck next to Sydney's 7. This is a real tragedy.
I think that makes Sienna a better investment. She'll work harder for her whore diamonds.
Come on! Sydney's just mailing it in, she's covered like she's wearing a burqa! Tits or GTFO!
Just stay away from the first option and any other girl named Reagan/Ragan. Her parents are bound to be insufferable.
Maybe the should invest a little more trying to reduce the incidence of dropped calls and a little less on this lobbying.
$14K a day gets you $5M for a year, which buys you 35 new towers (or upgrades to maybe 50), covering between 200 and 1,500 square miles (terrain dependent). And none of that gets AT&T jack squat in additional sales, because consumers are suckers who will endure crap service as long as they get the shiniest new handset every two years.
On the other hand, AT&T can spend that $5M on bribes to fat whores in ill-fitting suits in Sacramento to preserve a $50M annual bogus-fee revenue stream. The choice is an obvious one. Damn those fuckers.
Plus you need to bribe the local pols for the zoning decisions that allow you to put up the towers. Assuming you had the necessary spectrum allocations from the FEC (you didn't think the T-Mobile merger was about the Anne Hathaway lookalike did you?)
Congress seems like a blue light special in comparison.
California State Legislature. Yep, there's an ATT for that.
Ironically, the legislative access cost a lot more than AT&T expected because the first 1000 minutes of lobbying are included, but additional minutes are 45 cents, except on weekends or with individual legislator on their Friends & Family Top Ten list (only available with Premium Plus™ plan).
You can buy a bundle plan and get your internet and local town council thrown in for one low price!
But, but, AT&T Park is such a pretty ballpark. At least 5 whore diamonds pretty.
At the state's Division of Ratepayer Advocates, Denise Mann handles telecommunications issues.
"Every day I look at a case and I think, well, if they [AT&T] don't care, we have a good chance," she said. But if AT&T's corporate offices do care, she added, "all we can do is appeal to conscience, reason and the public interest."
In other words: if AT&T cares, we're fucked.
I find this post rather difficult to masturbate to.
"Wait, you mean the legislator will do just as you say?"
"It'd be a fucking great waste of money otherwise."
At the state's Division of Ratepayer Advocates, Denise Mann handles telecommunications issues. "Every day I look at a case and I think, well, if they [AT&T] don't care, we have a good chance," she said. But if AT&T's corporate offices do care, she added, "all we can do is appeal to conscience, reason and the public interest."
Ha — the things that legislators and lawmakers are supposed to be in their seats for? Poor lady doesn't stand a chance.
Snark off…
Christ, the more I read the more annoyed I get. The redistricting reform technically gives CA Democrats a chance to get a 2/3 majority (and hence the chance to get out from under the R – word 2/3 requirement to change our tax policies that give handouts to corporate property tax payers, for example), but stories like this one will not help at all.
Wish I could go to Sacramento right now and slap some sense into Perez and Co. "Bitches, CA has not always been a blue state, and nothing says it is guaranteed to remain one in the future. Stop whoring around, dammit!"
Politicians owned by large corporations, what else is new?
So these legislators want money to spend time with lobbyists…there's a word for that … now what's that word …?
We get they government they paid for.
And that's why, in 2012, it costs $60 / mo. just to have a fucking phone in your house.
So, AT&T is the Southern Pacific Railroad of the 21st century. Got it!
Their cell towers are set up by coolie gangs?
Does the Foreign Investment Act apply in CA.?
Looked closely at my AT&T cell bill and saw a $9.95/month charge for "other fees." No other explanation. Called and asked what it was and learned that I'd been "crammed" by a text message I'd opened. Merely opening it added a sawbuck to my bill. They took it off and gave me my money back. Asked the very nice rep if this kind of racket wasn't the sort of thing my cell phone carrier ought to protect me from, and was told that although AT&T would like to do so, the FCC won't let them.
Yeah, right.
Later learned in an NYT article that this practice is common, and although they're evasive about it the cell carriers almost certainly make money from it and therefore have no incentive to stop it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/your-money/cell…
Sometimes the old phone company seems friendly by comparison.
i had three of these about a year go. one was a 'subscription' for security tracking i never ordered. took me forever to get them cleared up.
course on the plus side, i got to yell at a bunch of assholes which is always fun.
Yep. They did this as well as other terrible things to my bill as well. Finally starting asking for supervisors when I called, got more supervisors (I never got the same person more than once), until one day I spoke with a very pissy female. She asked me: what will make me happy? I told her on my next bill, I wanted her to tape two ten-miiligram Valiums to it – one to take when I open my bill, and the other to take when I got her on the phone.
Still, all that great entertain wasn't worth what I was paying for dropped calls, lack of signal, etc. And never mind how they screwed up the service at my business, I'd rather take a bath in acid than recount that nightmare. So I changed carriers, changed carriers at my business, and sold all my AT&T stock.
I hate them.
Ha…a couple of days ago I commented about wooing a drunk horny telecommunication client. Well there you go.
It's good to see the pols maximizing their incomes in these hard times.
Corporations are assholes too, my friends.
Wal-Mart bribes.
AT&T gives "donations."
And these two things are different, how?
Volume, grampa. Volume!
The recipients are (probably) US citizens.
Here's an idea for an initiative; make the act of accepting political contributions from anyone who is not directly eligible to vote for you punishable by death. I'll bet that you could get this on the ballot and have it worded just like that and that it would pass in California.
So we can't throw money directly at Grayson, while all corporations have to do is find a constituent they can pay a small "handler's fee" to.
Yeah, except for the fact that that's illegal. And why should we be able to throw money at Grayson? We're not eligible to vote for him. If you have a candidate who receives most of his contributions from people who aren't eligible to vote for him who is he really representing, the people in his district or the people writing the checks?
THERE's that invisible hand working its magic on the free market.
knew it was around somewhere.
Why not just have AT&T draft the bills, oh, they already do that, never mind …
Ahh yes! The invisible hand of the Market giving AT&T a reach-around.
Things would be different if Ron Paul was in charge.
Like, all phones would be wall phones, with rotary dials…
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