Antitrust Victory

Good news, reported by Matt Stoller:

The problem is not convincing voters that monopolies are a problem. They already believe that. The problem is convincing them that doing something about these problems is possible. This fatalism also shows up in conversations with policymakers, businesspeople, and workers. There are any number of comments you’d recognize making this point. Congress is corrupt. Big tech is too powerful. Washington is broken. Big money runs everything. The government works for big business. Essentially, the case for concentrated corporate power is that, well, they are simply too entrenched to overcome.

Well yesterday, the anti-monopoly political movement showed that it is possible to use our political system to fight concentrated power. In a shocking action, the House passed a provision to strengthen antitrust laws by a vote of 242-184. Google, Amazon, Apple, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and various big tech funded trade associations opposed this bill, and Republican leaders like Jim Jordan and Silicon Valley Democrats Zoe Lofgren fought it bitterly. But they lost. And this is very weird to write, because Google never loses in legislative votes. Ever. But they did yesterday.

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How Did the CDC Fail on COVID Information and Messaging? Krystal and Saagar Count some of the Ways . . .

How did the CDC fail the American people?  The CDC failed in many ways. Krystal and Saagar of Breaking Points review some of the main ways the CDC failed us and it is downright embarrassing. They applaud the CDC's willingness to finally decide to evaluate its many failures, but these failures are numerous and embarrassing.

To the extent that Americans (like me) have substantially lost trust in the CDC (no and in the future), the CDC has caused this damage. As Krystal Ball mentions, it was not the CDC's job to psychoanalyze Americans and try to manage our emotions. We wanted and needed straight facts, and that is where the CDC failed abysmally. They should have assumed that, by and large, Americans "can handle the unvarnished facts." Some of the main failures of the CDC:

A) Does the infection spread by surface contamination (no) or only airborne viral particles (yes). Not until May 2021 did the CDC acknowledge the basic fact that the virus was spread by airborne transmission. This was mid-vaccination.

B) whether Americans should buy or use masks. In Feb 2020, Surgeon General told the public to stop buying masks because they were allegedly not effective for the general public.  Even though health care workers needed masks.  This was absurd, oxymoronic and insane messaging that caused Americans to lose trust in the CDC.  The CDC later failed to acknowledge that some kinds of masks are essentially useless.

C) Testing.  The U.S. government refused to allow Americans to use effective and available testing because there bureaucracy of the CDC did not approve them.  We didn't have tests available until more than a year after tests were available in South Korea and other countries.  Americans were forced to "fly blind," according to Krystal.

There are many many other examples. For instance, whether lockdowns are effective.  Whether vaccination protects people from future infection and/or protects people from spreading the infection. Further, there CDC covered up the colossal risk factor of obesity. Excellent discussion.

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When Used Against Trump, Democrats Declare that the Espionage Act is Now a Good Thing

Matt Taibbi:

The Espionage Act is an embarrassment that would make Marcos or Suharto squeamish, but it’s of course not completely impossible there’s an actual espionage offense in Trump’s case somewhere (just as obviously, no evidence of this has been produced). Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried under the Act for giving bomb secrets to the Soviets, as Michael Beschloss and Michael Hayden just helpfully reminded us. However, in modern times, the Espionage Act is more associated with talking to the Times, ABC, The Guardian and The Intercept than with actual spying. The defendants are more often conscience-stricken heroes like Hale than villains.

That’s the problem with this law. “Information relating to the national defense” can essentially be anything the government decides, and they can put you in jail a long time for “mishandling” it, which in Assange’s case included merely having it. Trump or no Trump, if you think that’s okay, you’re an asshole. It’s totally un-American, which is why Robert Reich shouldn’t be surprised if Donald Trump acts proud of being investigated for it. This law is more infamous than he is, and everyone but a handful of blue checks can see it.

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