Amy Klobuchar's Big Antitrust Bill Wants To End the Age of Megamergers (vice.com) 176
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: On Thursday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the incoming Democrat head of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, introduced an omnibus bill signaling a pitched battle over the future of antitrust law. The law takes aim not just at big tech companies, but potentially all large companies. According to experts Motherboard spoke with, some parts of the bill offer ambitious changes to antitrust law, but others adhere to a framework that has undermined enforcing antitrust law for too long already.
At its core, the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act essentially combines legislation Klobuchar has proposed over the past few years as well as some that Senate Democrats have been considering. It takes a harder stance on anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions, and also promises to empower the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division to aggressively enforce antitrust law. Some of the bill's key proposals concern amendments and provisions to the Clayton Act of 1914, an antitrust law that made certain anticompetitive practices such as price discrimination outright illegal. In her omnibus bill, one key proposal seeks to strengthen anticompetitive merger enforcement by amending the Clayton Act to outright ban mergers that "create an appreciable risk of materially lessening competition," as well as mergers that create monopsonies (buyers or employers who can suppress prices or wages via anti-competitive practices targeting other buyers or employers).
Klobuchar's merger prohibitions also shift the burden of proof to the merging companies, which would have to prove a deal would not be anticompetitive, or create a monopoly or monopsony. In part, this means deals where a merger (or acquisition) yielded over 50 percent market share, where a transaction is valued over $5 billion, or where an acquisition worth over $50 million by a company valued over $100 billion would be presumed illegal. This move won her some praise from experts who praised its clear presumptive bar on large mergers. Other key proposals, however, that have raised concerns among antitrust advocates who are seeking larger structural changes.
At its core, the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act essentially combines legislation Klobuchar has proposed over the past few years as well as some that Senate Democrats have been considering. It takes a harder stance on anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions, and also promises to empower the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division to aggressively enforce antitrust law. Some of the bill's key proposals concern amendments and provisions to the Clayton Act of 1914, an antitrust law that made certain anticompetitive practices such as price discrimination outright illegal. In her omnibus bill, one key proposal seeks to strengthen anticompetitive merger enforcement by amending the Clayton Act to outright ban mergers that "create an appreciable risk of materially lessening competition," as well as mergers that create monopsonies (buyers or employers who can suppress prices or wages via anti-competitive practices targeting other buyers or employers).
Klobuchar's merger prohibitions also shift the burden of proof to the merging companies, which would have to prove a deal would not be anticompetitive, or create a monopoly or monopsony. In part, this means deals where a merger (or acquisition) yielded over 50 percent market share, where a transaction is valued over $5 billion, or where an acquisition worth over $50 million by a company valued over $100 billion would be presumed illegal. This move won her some praise from experts who praised its clear presumptive bar on large mergers. Other key proposals, however, that have raised concerns among antitrust advocates who are seeking larger structural changes.
An Idea Even a Conservative Can Back (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a life long fiscal conservative (not as much on social issues). I believe in the free market and competition. What many who will oppose this don't understand is that a free market ONLY exists when there is competition, and thus regulation is required to prevent monopolistic behavior.
The Sherman Act is John Sherman (R, Ohio) (Score:1, Troll)
Republicans overwhelmingly voted for the Clayton Act, mentioned in the summary. That and the Sherman Act are the two big antitrust laws. The Sherman Act is named after John Sherman, a Republican Senator, Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State.
As you said, the Republican platform is free market competition.
The distinction between Democrats and Republicans is that the Democrats often say that monopoly is natural and good, we just need (Democrat) politicians in charge of the monopoly. Democrats thou
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I'm aware of that. Both Democrats and Republicans agree on antitrust (antimonopoly) laws like the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act.
The difference between the two parties in regard to monopolies is that Republicans are consistent in saying competition is better than monopoly, Democrats sometimes say monopolies are natural and good - they just need to have politicians in charge of the monopolies.
You won't hear Republicans saying this business or that business is a natural monopoly, that's the distinction. The
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You're talking about Ma Bell and Sprint from the 1980s. Politics and parties have changed substantially since then. Reagan era republicans are hardcore leftists compared to current day republicans.
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> You're talking about Ma Bell and Sprint from the 1980s. Politics and parties have changed substantially since then.
So the Democrats aren't promoting government-run ISPs and fighting against school choice TODAY? That was a quick change, because they were on Wednesday.
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You're being massively disingenuous.
So the Democrats aren't promoting government-run ISP [...] TODAY?
You're implicitly claiming government == monopoly. Thing is we both know they're promoting the ability of people to choose to form a local municipal ISP precisely because the local monopoly ISPs aren't doing a good enough job.
So the answer is: no he Democrats are acting against monopolies in this regard.
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The Republican solution to that is for city council to end the government-enforced monopoly of that ISP, which is called a "franchise".
So why do the Republicans never do it then?
Seriously dude if you have to invent stuff out of whole cloth in order to promote your "viewpoint", then maybe, just maybe you should consider why you can't use an actual event to support it, and what effect that should have on your views.
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I'll catch you next week, my friend.
You're not quite yourself the last day or so.
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Yeah in 2015 the FCC order ended the monopoly that Minneapolis had given Comcast. They've been forced to allow competition and now you have two gigabit providers.
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You've cited cases where Republicans did not support the government creating a monopoly ISP which all households are required to pay for, whether they want the service or not.
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"Reagan era republicans are hardcore leftists compared to current day republicans."
Mostly only compared to the QAnon morons who are literally a tiny fraction (there are polls you can look it up) of it, but most of what you'll hear in the clickbaiting media.
Re:The Sherman Act is John Sherman (R, Ohio) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Sherman Act is John Sherman (R, Ohio) (Score:4)
To be fair, they're also going to get a lot of pushback from Democrats. Most Democrats are corporate whores, too.
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The GOP was like that once perhaps, but now they seem more interested in building swamps and helping the buddies out. The last administration was a great example of that.
Would be nice if they went back to their old values.
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The GOP was like that once perhaps [...] Would be nice if they went back to their old values.
What, keeping down black and brown people?
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Yeah, that's true. Who know what will become of them now.
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Ps, Democrat Congresscritters have been there 25% longer, on average, than their Republican counterparts. The swamp, the life-long politicians, is primarily Dems.
Which makes perfect sense - Democrats believe we SHOULD have more government controlling more of our lives. They believe that the career politicians are smarter and more capable than you and I. They might be right.
Republicans, on the other hand, believe that the elites should not be controlling your life. Even if they were smarter than you, you hav
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> political shit because you are a poop flinging partisan monkey. LOL. Fuck this guy.
Facts just get you in a tizzy, don't they. Seems to make it hard for you to put a sentence together.
Your rep might only do actual work part time. They collect the per diem 7 days a week along with being paid a salary SIX TIMES as much as Texas. Six times.
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I haven't seen Biden appoint members of his family to important government jobs, or make changes that benefit his businesses and his legal problems. So far he seems a lot less swampy than Trump.
Re: The Sherman Act is John Sherman (R, Ohio) (Score:2)
I am more worried about appointees that have long standing associations and below board vested interests with coalitions, corporations, political parties, and power brokers.
Pasting the damage such a person can do onto a nepotistic political dead-end seems either intentionally disingenuous or incredibly short sighted.
Can you explain how a family appointee who hasnâ(TM)t been in politics previous to this, and certainly wonâ(TM)t be after the end of their family memberâ(TM)s administration, has
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What I mean is what has Biden actually done that is a problem? We knew Trump was a cook before he took office, but Biden seems... extremely middle of the road, nothing of much concern thus far. It's all innuendo until there is something concrete, something more than "her emails".
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If his kids are not in the government and he's not part of any wrong doing then I don't see how they are relevant.
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I've just had enough of "her emails" type bullshit. If something substantial comes along then fine.
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I'm a life long fiscal conservative (not as much on social issues). I believe in the free market and competition. What many who will oppose this don't understand is that a free market ONLY exists when there is competition, and thus regulation is required to prevent monopolistic behavior.
You aren't kidding - because as soon s one person/company pulls ahead in the free market, they switch to activley working to destroy it. And most of the time, they succeed.
The free market is driven by greed - which is not necessarily a bad thing. But the pathologically greedy tend to become successful, and they want it all.
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But letting our companies get as big as they can is the only way we'll be able to fend off the lizard people!
Re: An Idea Even a Conservative Can Back (Score:2)
As a self-described moderate, I wholly second your opinion. Capitalism is great, but a free market needs certain guidelines to remain free.
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The "free market" needs careful definition. It only works in restricted circumstances, e.g. there need to be a low barrier to the entry of new companies, and there needs to be a sufficiently large number of existing companies (probably at least 20 of approximately equal success at the top). Given the right circumstances, it's a good choice. It's great for toilet paper and pillows. Less great for cars. Computers fall in between, but CPU chips are not a place where the "free market" is successful. OTOH
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"but CPU chips are not a place where the "free market" is successful"
Curious why you'd single this out? As an investor in some chip firms, I'll tell you it hasn't been a fair market, in cases like DRAM.
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The barrier to entry is too high. It's a real barrier, not an artificial one, but that doesn't mean the "free market" is an appropriate method or description. (The barrier is the cost of building a fab plant.) Also there are too few competing companies at the top end. The real problem is the barrier to entry, which is largely what caused the "too few companies", but that doesn't resolve the problem.
Now the question of "how should this be handled" is a really tough one. Governments have a worse a track
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And Hyundai had to grow up much later in Korea...I was there in the late 80s and bought a new '85 back when I could get an Excel for $4700 loaded. But it was a total piece of shit. They learned and came to the US, and were still quite a piece of crap initially. Japanese cars were crap when they first entered the US markets too. But both of these companies were already huge before they came here. I believe both had assistance from their governments as well. I'm not so sure there are too few auto compan
An free market economist's perspective (Score:3)
I am a free market economist, and sometimes a professor of it.
I categorically reject the notion that antitrust enforcement is a threat to free markets, or a deviation from them.
Market power, whether monopoly or oligopoly, is an interference with my precious markets, that needs to be stomped out.
I haven't looked at this particular proposal closely at this time, but I think that it probably sill allows *too much* merging.
My approach would be to place the burden of proof on the company to prove that any merger
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Then it seems we're in agreement.
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Before you go criticizing, I recommend learning to read.
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You should try following your own recommendations before telling other people what do do.
Re:An Idea Even a Conservative Can Back (Score:4, Insightful)
You should try following your own recommendations before telling other people what do do.
Before you make a real foo out of yourself, consider reading the part he wrote about regulations being needed. It isn't a Laissez-faire versio of free market, where there is no interference, but one with what amounts to brakes on it to keep it from destroying itself.
You might argue that what he speaks of is not a real Free market, but you seem to think he is preaching Laissez-faire free market.
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Thank you. I usually give up after pointing out an error, and the person is still too stubborn to see it.
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Thank you. I usually give up after pointing out an error, and the person is still too stubborn to see it.
People who understand the weaknesses in any pure system have to stick together!
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I believe in the free market and competition.
Then you believe in a piece of propaganda fiction, which has no basis in reality, and do not understand the science of economics well enough to analyze how markets work.
You missed the part about regulation, Mister Marx
Any 'ism will destroy itself if it is allowed to have free rein, and everything it's own way. That's because they all assume that humans are all alike, and inherently good, intelligent, or even altruistic.
So the regulation he speaks of is what keeps free market or capitalism running. With no regulation, they are like an engine with a brick on the accelerator. they run like crazy for a short time, then blow themselves up.
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There are two versions of "free" here: The 'no rules' version that mega-capitalists like to quote and the 'no class warfare' that government likes to claim. When the government says "you're free", that does not mean no-one will stop you grabbing a gun and starting a redneck rampage. It means the rules are applied uniformly to everyone. (A hopeful benefit of bureaucracy.)
You do not understand the abuse of language (eg. trigger-words such as 'socialism') that political conservatives commit to justify thei
Re:An Idea Even a Conservative Can Back (Score:5, Insightful)
one that operates without regulations and government intervention.
That is not what economists consider a free market.
A market is free when there are no barriers to competition.
"Free of regulations" is something else entirely.
Re: An Idea Even a Conservative Can Back (Score:2)
I don't agree. Now obviously I don't want to just quote Wikipedia at you but the opening paragraph is sourced from a Karl Popper book -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It literally is claimed as a market free from government regulation where the demand dictates how the market function
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you should take your own advice and learn Economics 101. There can NOT be a monopoly unless granted and enforced by the government, you know the entity which has a monopoly on force. Furthermore, and oligopoly is also the result of government regulation. The more regulations, the harder it is to have competition as you have to have an army of lawyers (I wonder why lawyers create regulations which means we need more lawyers, but that would clearly be too hard for you to understand) to navigate the complexi
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Regulation means rules written by administrative agencies and enforced by bureaucrats.
What do you think the FTC and DOJ do? And who do you think staffs them?
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The Sherman Act Is a statute, correct?
It's a statute that authorized the FTC and DOJ to write regulations.
Virtually all regulatory laws work by authorizing the executive branch to create regulations, and then enforce those regulations. While the law may include the broad goals of the regulations, the specific details are left to the Executive branch.
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No, it specifies violations and standards itself.
It specifies at a broad level the general sorts of things that could lead to a violation.
The regulations written by the FTC make those vague statements far more specific. They're the official interpretation of what will result in legal action.
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If at some point you'd prefer to have a conversation instead of tossing insults, I'll still be here.
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As I stated above, a free market requires competition. A monopoly is the antithesis of it, and must be prohibited, because it is anticompetitive, and thus bad for us all. The consumer, the country, and everyone except the owners of the monopoly lose, because there's total price control and no innovation.
I challenge you to defend with any evidence your claim that this would ensure no realistic competition.
Wrong link, idiots. (Score:5, Informative)
The first link in the story goes to a Vice article called "Auto Industry TV Ads Claim Right to Repair Benefits 'Sexual Predators'".
The correct article is here: Amy Klobuchar's Big Antitrust Bill Wants to End the Age of Megamergers [vice.com].
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The "editors" here have one job...
How about making mergers probationary? (Score:3)
In 5 years, if the merger is or is headed in an anti competitive direction it gets backed out.
Vice link is incorrect
https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com]
If this bill had been law in 2000, what mergers or buyouts would not have been permitted based on what we knew then?
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Man I wish this was law since 2000. I think we would have more independent ISPs than we do now, Charter wouldn't be a giant bag of assholes like it is today. AT&T deathstar wouldn't be back together. Red Hat wouldn't be at the mercy of IBM and we would all still have CentOS. Linkedin, VMware and Dell all still suck, regardless of who owns them.
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No. The number of ISPs serving your area was dictated and heavily regulated by your local government.
FTFY.
All of the government-granted monopolies for cable TV service have expired. I'm not aware of any local government monopoly for an ISP.
The current monopolies in both services are natural monopolies caused by the expense of rolling out new service. The incumbents have already paid for that. A newcomer hasn't, and thus has higher operating costs until they pay it off. The incumbents can cut their price to bankrupt the newcomer unless they have extremely deep pockets.
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I'm in a PoliSci mood lately and I have been reading Adam Jentleson's book "Kill Switch" on the history of the filibuster in the US Senate.
If the filibuster is not addressed in some meaningful way in the long term (in other words doing something more besides just voting to end it, just so the opposing party who wins the next term can bring it back in the next Congress) then stuff like Sen. Klobuchar's proposal will be doomed because the Republican minority can be obstructionist as often as they want all tha
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Neither party is going to eliminate filibustering. Your Founding Fathers designed the system of government so no one group could overpower the other.
The founding fathers didn't create the filibuster. It was a quirk in Senate rules created in 1806.
The anti-democratic formation of the Senate was a bribe to the smaller states, so that they'd join a strong central government that included New York, Massachusetts and Virginia. It was never "Hey, we need to balance rural vs urban".
But there's a huge number of people over the centuries who have tried to justify it with something that sounds better than "Rhode Island and the Carolinas wouldn't join unless we
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They will just wait 5 years. Better would be if splitting a company up is a more common remedy to abuse, especially if that company is the result of a large merger.
Baby steps (Score:2)
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Every person who shall monopolize . . . or combine or conspire . . . to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce . . . shall be deemed guilty of a felony
If I agree to buy all of widgets you can produce, I have possibly committed a felony. This is unworkable and it forces AGs to make policy-based decisions beyond ordinary prosecutorial discretion. Do we use the law to create a vibrant but inefficient marketplace (R&D, employee poaching, patent disputes), or do we consider consumer costs and allow a monopoly or duopoly to exist because their products keep getting cheaper and bet
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Common Carriers are and should be characterized by the type of activity, not the volume.
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And while we're at it, let's end the "corporations are people too" bullshit. If they actually were, we'd see a lot more of them in jail. Personally, I'm still awaiting seeing some of the housing crisis bankers there, but I'm not holding my breath.
Additionally, we need to end the lobbyists choke on our lawmakers. One person, one vote should also mean that we have an equal influence, and we never will while lobbyists are allowed to dominate.
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Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron?
When you imagine a world in which "we have an equal influence", how do you see that working out, in practice? Do we make the clever and articulate people wear gags when they talk about politics so that they aren't any more influential than you are? Or do we just limit people to an approved list of bumper sticker-level arguments written by people who don't understand the issues, like your "corporations are people" argument?
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I say NASCAR rules should apply to politicians. You wear a suit with all the logos of your contributors. The logos are sized according to donation.
Harrison Bergeron is a false equivalency. You can't compare a dystopian novel about the entire population being equal in intelligence and strength to corporations that literally pay for laws to be written in their favor.
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Okay, let me rephrase...equal opportunity to influence, which is certainly not the case currently. What you have now is money buying influence, and it's nothing to do with being clever and articulate.
Cash is KING is over? (Score:2)
Thank you AmyK. Bill Gates squirreled away Orange.app calendar and the world has been hostage to Outlook ever since.
Great ideas get sacrificed to the whims of monopolists who do throw money at its competition because they can. Unbelievable shit-as-product succeeds on the power of its maker to buy the competition out of business. Yes Adobe you bought Lightroom but quietly suffocated the suite of Lightroom apps that competed against you. Thank you PIXAR for birthing Renderman.app into 60% ownership of Disney.
Unexpected Consequences.. (Score:2)
A few issues here:
It's nice to say that you'll do it the "right" way.. but, when is the last time you've seen that been done in relation to a law that doesn't have loopholes, etc?
1. You can't prohibit assets being sold, so instead of mergers many companies will just sell their assets to another company instead, with a greater impact to consumers and employees.
2. If you prohibit "selling" assets, branches, etc. to another entity then you'll impact consumers - especially in poorer areas. Many times companies
No billions for you! (Score:2)
Shouldn't addressing the China market lockout threat to keep giant corporations and Hollywood in line be of more concern at this point in American history?
Not a good look for Slashdot (Score:3)
I skimmed down this thing, looking for some mention of TFA. Mostly, it was the same arguments about the very existence of government, taxation, and regulation, that I could have read here in the mid-nineties. Clearly, slashdot is not a useful place to put political topics. The site owners should take note.
well (Score:2)
finally.
it is about god damn time
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We can do more than one thing at a time.
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
We can do more than one thing at a time.
I have yet to see evidence of this claimed multi-tasking you describe.
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What does this man who hawks late night infomercial products have to do with politics? He was a Yes Man to Trump and that's why he was allowed to hang out in the whitehouse.
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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Watch the video and find out.
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Can you give me a summary? I don't have two hours to waste on tinfoil hat conspiracy drivel.
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Watch the video and find out.
Have you watched Triumph of the Will? Watch it and find out.
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I'll watch it right now, will you watch Mike Lindell's now?
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So you are saying a Hitler speech is equivalent to Mikes video of evidence that there was election fraud? What kind of fucked up world do you live in?
Re:Let's fix the elections first (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes the man who sells pillows on late night commercials is the only person capable of informing us over election fraud. Meanwhile 60 courts (some with Trump appointed judges) have said no fraud took place. Mr. Lindell is pouring the Kool Aid and you're drinking it.
not the judges (Score:2)
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
It's cute how you pretend 60 courts actually examined the evidence in the cases and found it lacking.
From what I remember, a fair number of the cases were kicked out of court before evidence could be presented - lack of standing, improper filing, etc. doesn't mean 'no evidence' since the evidence was never considered. Democrats know this, yet they pretend otherwise - I wonder why?
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This would have to be by far the most corrupt US election in history and Binden and Harris by far the most hated President and Vice President ever elected by far the majority loathe them, it looks stupid as it can possibly be from the outside, regardless of external corporate media pretending none of the quite public corruption on full display.
You need to calm the fuck down before you hurt yourself.
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
You should seek professional help. You seem to be a very angry person who lacks critical thinking skills.
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
Are you from a place that still uses the âoedivine right of kingsâ and watery tarts distributing swords to determine who gets to participate in politics?
This is America. A government of and by and for the people is a feature of our agreed upon system.
Your rhetoric implies that only the âoeanointedâ get to participate in politics.
This is the most un-American sentiment that anyone can have in this country.
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
I assume the this you are referring to is the president who received the majority of votes wins the elections. Your troll ass was extolling the virtues of the electoral college when it worked to subvert the will of the majority.
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
Electing presidents is not a popularity contest - it makes you look silly to pretend the Electoral College is some mysterious creation designed to subvert the will of the people.
The ability to really, really, REALLY win a handful of states is no way to elect world leaders.
(Odd how many electoral college critics support DC statehood, granting 3 electoral votes to 380K people in a 10 mile square district...)
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Are you saying corruption doesn't exist at all in politics, and anyone who says otherwise is a loon?/quote>
We all know there's real corruption. The existence of the electoral college, for example, was designed to keep slave states in power they don't deserve. Or for lesser battles, gerrymandering. But we don't have to go looking for it, we all know where it is.
Forget Lindell. There are election laws, to fix. That isn't some conspiracy theory, unless you rather enjoy going through this Hanging Chad Dominion shitshow every four years.
No one has the slightest evidence that Dominion produced a shitshow. If they had, then Trump's lawyers would have had something to present in court.
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A former crackhead who sells shitty pillows made from scrap foam?
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You explained why he can buy his viewpoint presented, not why I should pay attention to it.
FWIW, I've no idea as to the quality of the pillows he sells, and don't really care. I have great resistance to buying a pillow I can't feel before I buy, and I don't need one anyway.
Also, there's more documented evidence of Republicans violating election laws than of Democrats doing so. One may consider various reasons why (the Daley machine in Chicago certainly did so a lot more than was ever proven), but the pres
Re: Let's fix the elections first (Score:2)
If your elections are corrupted you should want to review the evidence, provided you are not a totalitarian who perceives benefit in eradicating the political influence of those you believe guilty of wrong think.
Sadly, I detect a hint of âmy side won and thatâ(TM)s all that mattersâ(TM) pseudo-thought from too many people. This is the terminal result of âthe ends justify the means.â(TM) As long as you receive your cake you will look the other way no matter the depths of depravity
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How much does Moscow pay you to derail political speech?
There is no 'do this first because it is more important'.
1) We can fix multiple things at once. There is no having to do something first.
2) It takes way too long to decide what is 'more important.'
3) It does not help to only talk about the 'more important' stuff unless a solution is known. We should only talk about something that has a known solution.
4) Even if we have a solution, only certain things are politically doable. Stupid and pointless t
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That isn't an unfounded worry. It's important to have a paper trail. But in several disputed cases there was a paper trail, and it backed up the digital count. (I don't know about Georgia, I'm assuming that it did, but IIUC confidentiality required separating the signatures from the ballots, so there was no way to confirm any individual case.)
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That isn't an unfounded worry. It's important to have a paper trail. But in several disputed cases there was a paper trail, and it backed up the digital count. (I don't know about Georgia, I'm assuming that it did, but IIUC confidentiality required separating the signatures from the ballots, so there was no way to confirm any individual case.)
The defeated president tried to sow doubts about Georgia and other swing states that laboriously upgraded their voting systems, while safe red states keep using antiquated equipment. https://www.theatlantic.com/id... [theatlantic.com]
Re:Annother control freak (Score:5, Insightful)
Name some mega mergers which have resulted in benefits to the consumer. You know things like lower prices or competition between different companies. I'll check back.
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Remember when Nest was bought by Google and then started creating amazing devices? Oh, wait.
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The Square/Enix merger didn’t end up being as terrible as we all worried. Annnnd...that’s about all I got. And it’s not even the sort of merger we’re talking about here.
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Yes, that's why mergers are so popular even when they frequently are not financially successful.
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Feeling you can now breathe free again to resume ladling on tens of billions in additional regulatory burden each year helps keep costs for the little guy down again just how?
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As I read comments like these, I wonder what people are smoking thinking this will create a better world. There are changes needed for sure, but stuff like this is gross overreach. Certain things require different scale to work than others— situations where there is either naturally limited competition, or where a limited group of winners will naturally evolve.
How many desktop operating systems do you think is sufficient for 90% of the population? How many of those operating systems will a given deve