On the occasion of Stephen Breyer's retirement from our Supreme Court, Matt Stoller describes just how awful Justice Breyer has been on antitrust issues, which reminds us, if nothing else does, that we esteem Supreme Court Justices perhaps too highly for the harm they don't do. If President Biden (who criticized Justice Breyer's antitrust leanings as "presumptuous and elitist" while in the Senate mulling his nomination) nominates a strong anti-monopolist to replace him, I guess we'll see under what circumstances Manchinema will oppose a Democratic Supreme Court nominee. Not that Mr. Biden shouldn't do it anyway! Exposing those two to daylight again and again and again is far better in the long run than capitulating to them, even in a 50-50 Senate.
Robert Reich also says corporate power plays a huge role in inflation. Perhaps imprecisely, he says supply chain problems cause "most" of the recent price increases, but then says corporations don't have to pass those increases on to customers: "(i)f corporations were competing vigorously against each other, they’d swallow these cost increases in order to keep their prices as low as possible." Too many people throw up their hands and say things like they'll just pass on the increases to the consumer without asking "is that moral, or even practical in the long term?" Mr. Reich goes on to point to specific monopolists causing price hikes, and if you think you spot actual collusion in some of his examples, well, all I can say is Joe Biden appointed antitrust crusaders to key positions and then monopolies raised prices when they didn't really have to.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon blames Trumpism, anti-vax activism, and the crypto crash on "an overblown sense of entitlement" largely on the part of white American men, a sense of entitlement that "leads them to believe they are above having to live with the same social contract that binds the rest of us." And they say liberals can't talk about values! She also explains the real reason people cling to the Big Lie even though it's hardly rational: "(l)ike cryptocurrency or ivermectin, the Big Lie is viewed as a kind of cheat code, a way for Republicans to get their way without having to play by the same rules that constrain everyone else." That's a profound insight, one that builds upon another profound insight of hers, that right-wingers simply don't believe all the BS they spew. Being something of a literalist, I'm still getting my head around that.
Surprise, surprise, Glenn Youngkin begins his term as Virginia Governor pandering to the far-right, barring school mask mandates, workplace vaccine requirements, and critical race theory even though no one teaches that to elementary school kids. I guess today's "conservatives" really don't care about empowering local governments or businesses! This is yet another lesson not to trust a Republican who tries to come off as "moderate" and "reasonable," though really, we shouldn't have needed any more of those lessons after the George W. Bush ascension. I do wonder, though, how many Republican candidates for office in 2022 will bother trying to come off as moderate or reasonable. I mean, I would try to come off like that, if I were evil, but these folks might be bold thinkers.
After Neil Young asks his label and management to remove all his music from Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan's continued presence there, Spotify goes ahead and scrubs his music from their platform. And their spokeshack really spokeshacks it up, claiming they've "removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic," without noting how many of those episodes actually contained COVID misinfo or noting how many of them have Joe Rogan's market share. Anyway, good for Neil Young! And if you really want to hear Neil Young without/before buying his records, you can always go to YouTube. I hear the new album's pretty outstanding. And the future ain't about making everything easy.
Finally, after President Biden called Fox News's Peter Doocy a "stupid son of a bitch" for asking whether he thought inflation was a "political liability" -- hey, I've called Mr. Doocy worse! -- Rep. Jim Banks (E-IN) actually asked "(h)ave we ever seen a President attack and malign the free press like Joe Biden has?" Ah, yeah, Sherlock, we just saw President Donald Trump attack and malign the press as the "enemy of the people," usually at the top of his lungs, for four fucking years. I haven't banished anyone to oblivion in a while, so how about we never speak of Jim Banks again after today?
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