Crooked Media - Antitrust the process

- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), noted climate scientist and definitely not a fossil fuel shill

Oh how the mighty have…stayed mighty.
 

• Spearheaded by two giants in antitrust scholarship—Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Tim Wu, who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition from 2021-2023—the White House has made good on promises to challenge the stranglehold of the Big Tech monopolies. But outside of some of the president’s executive orders related to corporate competition, many attempts to prevent these corporate behemoths from becoming even larger have failed in the courtroom. On Tuesday, the administration will face its largest test yet when the Department of Justice will launch a case designed to act as a check on Google’s dominance in online search, in what some experts are calling “the most significant monopoly case in a generation. 
   

• DOJ’s suit against the $1.7 trillion company claims that Google has become the most-used search engine because it illegally uses its money to box out competitors, not necessarily because it has a superior product. Other federal investigations into Amazon, Apple, Ticketmaster, and other corporate giants are waiting in the wings, so the Google lawsuit could have broad implications for the administration’s ability to regulate anti-competitive corporate practices. 
   

• This trial will also be a moment in the sun for another Biden antitrust bulldog: Jonathan Kanter, the head of the DOJ’s antitrust division. Kanter helped build the case, which was initially filed under the Trump administration. The case centers on revenue sharing agreements that Google has with other major companies like Apple, Mozilla, and Samsung, to be the default search engine on web browsers and mobile phones, as well as its control of the ads that come up in search results. Google does not disclose the exact value of the deals, but they are estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars annually.

The ultimate decision in this trial could reshape the entire future of the internet, but no pressure!
 

• This federal case adds to state attorneys general lawsuits against Google over its ad technology business, the FTC’s case against Facebook parent company Meta over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, and a likely forthcoming case from the FTC against Amazon over its marketplace platform and Prime service. Antitrust laws were written decades before the internet even existed, and the federal justice system has become increasingly “business-friendly” (unwilling to prevent mega-corporations from gobbling up every square inch of particular markets) so all of these cases will test whether the existing laws can hold up in the digital age. 
   

• Ironically, Google’s rise came in part because of a successful 1998 antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, which bundled their search engine Internet Explorer with every Microsoft operating system, and made it almost impossible to remove. The DOJ argued that was an abuse of Microsoft’s outsized market share, and a federal court ordered that the company be broken up—before a higher court overruled that decision and the DOJ settled with the company. While Microsoft was rendered temporarily immobile, new companies like Google emerged, and now 25 years later, here we are again.

In the coming ten weeks, some of Google’s highest-ranking executives, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, will likely be called to testify. The world has become much more dependent on the internet since 1998, so hopefully this case will usher in a new era of antitrust enforcement in the United States.

Deep dish isn’t pizza. Now that I have the midwest’s attention, Lovett or Leave It is coming to Chicago on September 21 and Madison on September 22 for two great nights of mayhem, Marlort, and ill-advised dairy consumption. Lovett will be joined by wonderful guests like Brandon Johnson, Shea Coulee, Peter Sagal, Alice Wutterlund, Gillian Flynn, Ben Wickler, and more! Tickets are going fast—head to crooked.com/events to get yours today!

Political “nonprofits” run by political activists and funded by dark money sprung up around the 2010 supreme court case Citizens United, upending almost a century of campaign-spending restrictions. Just months before the decision was handed down, one such group was created by a who’s-who of conservative nutjobs, including Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, and far-right activist/wife of a certain conservative Supreme Court Justice, Ginni Thomas. Ginni, crucially, had a billionaire backer with whom we’re now all far too familiar: Texas real estate magnate Harlan Crow. Together, the three built a vast, billion-dollar network of groups—most of which are registered as tax-exempt nonprofits—to remake the federal judiciary with a conservative majority and overturn longstand legal precedents on issues like abortion, affirmative action, and separation of church and state. The network funded legal scholars to build the cases and execute strategy, helped elect state attorneys general willing to apply fringe right-wing theories, and launched pricey campaigns for conservative judicial nominees who would cite those theories from the bench.

After an initial public outcry in early 2010 that Ginni Thomas had launched Liberty Central, a group whose targeted issues would be argued before her husband’s Supreme Court, Leonard Leo pivoted and reactivated a dormant group called the Judicial Education Project. Ginni pivoted as well and created a for-profit consulting business called Liberty Consulting (God these people are unoriginal). Now, Liberty Consulting is at the center of a Supreme Court ethics probe, and Senate Democrats have demanded that Leo and Crow provide a list of “gifts, payments, or other items of value” that they’ve given to Ginni and Clarence Thomas. Between Leo and the Thomases, the whole apparatus is a circle-jerk of personal enrichment scams made possible by lax disclosure laws for Supreme Court Justices. In a July 25 letter to Congress, Leo’s lawyers said his “advocacy” is protected under the First Amendment and that any congressional inquiry into his relationships with the Supreme Court is “politically charged” and effectively harassment. Sure it is, pal. Sure it is.

A devastating 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco late Friday, becoming the deadliest in over 60 years, with a death toll of over 2,800 and climbing as of Monday. 

Capitol police arrested seven activists occupying GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office demanding that he reauthorize the global HIV-AIDS program PEPFAR, which will expire at the end of the month.  

Top economic advisers to disgraced former president Donald Trump are, unsurprisingly, plotting a huge new set of tax cuts for his second term, which would build upon his deeply unpopular 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. 

Twitter (or “X” if you’re a loser) appears to be limiting users’ access to the New York Times, because Elon Musk hates the publication. “Free speech” amiright?

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) joined his hand-picked state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapro, (who was previously found to have manipulated data on vaccine safety) in urging Floridians not to receive new COVID-19 boosters amid a resurgence of the virus. 

Some of the most high-profile names in Big Tech will go to Capitol Hill this week to brainstorm with members of Congress on ways to regulate artificial intelligence in a closed-door session.

Right-wing “journalist” and activist Christopher Rufo has an active imagination. He’s largely responsible for transforming “critical race theory” into a GOP bogeyman. He spearheaded the takeover of the New College of Florida and imposed an overtly right-wing higher education model on it under the “anti-woke” policies of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Now, he’s pushing his most elaborate fiction yet. This summer, Rufo published a book called America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything, which argues that the United States has been quietly taken over by the ideological heirs of the New Left of the 1960’s, culminating in Marxist ideology becoming the reigning belief system in all American institutions, including the government and corporations. Yes, the nation which basically wakes up each morning and pledges allegiance to unfettered capitalism is overrun by…Marxism. Rufo wrote a book in declarative sentences about a “secret regime change in America” but when pressed to defend some of his most extreme assertions, claimed to be writing in “a kind of artful and kind of narrative manner.” In other words, he made shit up. Rufo is just one architect of an increasingly-ubiquitous, galvanizing message among GOP politicians: conservatives are under attack, “Leftists” have won, and Republicans need to “realign” the nation’s governing ideology. Gotta hand it to him, it’s very creative fictional world-building.

Whether you’re searching for a buzzy new memoir, riveting true crime, or a fantasy novel that sweeps you away, Bookshop.org has just the book you’re looking for. Their online bookstore is stocked with a range of titles that will keep you entertained for hours. From James McBride’s “The Heave & Earth Grocery Store" to "The Woman in Me" by Brittney Spears , there's something for everyone. Book recommendations on Bookshop.org also come from real people who love books, not algorithms.

And the best part? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you’re supporting over 1,800 local, independent bookstores across the country. 

Bookshop.org is a certified B Corp, named “Best of the World” in Governance and they believe local bookstores are essential community hubs that foster culture, curiosity and a love of reading, and they’re committed to helping them survive and thrive. 

Join Bookshop.org in uplifting independent bookstores nationwide today. AND - for a limited time, use the exclusive code WhatADay at checkout for 15% off your entire order. Happy reading!

Donald Trump’s Electoral College advantage is shrinking. Great! Maybe one day we will discover the answer to the riddle: “Why do we still have the Electoral College at all?”

President Biden traveled to India and Vietnam over the weekend where he was able to seal agreements on global infrastructure projects, debt reform for developing countries, and challenging China’s sphere of influence. The trip concluded on Monday with a visit to the site honoring the late Sen. John McCain.