This has been a growing story in gay-blog land for the past several days, but finally appears to have hit the mainstream media with the involvement of non-gay groups. AT&T has somehow received letters supporting its merger with T-Mobile from big Washington special interest groups that have nothing to do with telecom issues. At the same time, as Politico notes, those groups receive funding from, guess who, AT&T. More from Politico:
AT&T is lining up support for its acquisition of T-Mobile from a slew of liberal groups with no obvious interest in telecom deals — except that they’ve received big piles of AT&T’s cash.
In recent weeks, the NAACP, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Education Association have each issued public statements in support of the deal.
The NAACP was one of the first groups to announce public support of the T-Mobile acquisition. It received a $1 million contribution from AT&T in 2009 and has received funding in the six figures dating to 2006, according to the group’s annual reports.
