#anti trust law

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Taylor Swift is the music industry.... and that's not a good thing

why is no one else worried or weirded out about Taylor Swift occupying all top 15 spots on the Billboard chart? Even songs that aren't singles are getting radio time...

is no one concerned?

People know that having a monopoly on an industry is a bad thing, right? like we have anti-trust laws and laws against forming monopolies in industries... for a reason.

[1900scartoons]

The Receivership Idea

July 14th, 1907

Policeman Kellogg pushes Harriman toward a 'receiver', a very whiskered man with a key to a jail cell.

The caption reads "Mr. Kellogg would place Mr. Harriman in the hands of a receiver."

Kellogg was a U.S. Prosecutor, who hoped to place government supervisors to regulate the trusts.

From Hennepin County Library

Original available at: https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/Bart/id/6526/rec/194

[demigoddessqueens]

The writing strike having a tentative deal, the SAG still going strong, and the FTC is now suing Amazon??? 👍👍🙌🙌👏👏👏👏

[hussyknee]

I need someone to explain the Banana Discourse on Twitter in small words. I might be wrong, but far it looks like an argument between

Western communists deciding the economic reorganization of South America towards "self-sufficiency" by taking away the USAmerican demand for bananas, and

White liberals insisting that South America is better off with the US buying bananas from them because collapsing the industry (somehow) would take away jobs.

Because boycotts totally work, nobody else eats bananas, those are the only two options, and South American people don't have any opinions about their own economy. Pick your imperialist.

Edit: Just found out the discourse is because "we must give up bananas for the good of South American socialism" lady brought up her cocaine habit as evidence that she wasn't moralizing pleasure. On being told that the cocaine trade fuels violent crime by drug cartels across South America, she tweeted:

The nightmares of bananas and cocaine production have nothing on the take industry by the hell nexus between white women and Tankies.

[planetoflovers]

I think it’s so funny seeing Jason Todd stans try to rationalise extrajudicial murder. Like if you think Jason taking on the role of judge, jury and executioner is an adequate way of getting rid of crime good for you but I refuse to take that notion seriously

[vonehrenfest]

DCxDP: Dead guys stick together

(A Batman 138 fix-it)

After Bizarro becomes King of Hell he watches the mortal world and is distraught to find that his brother/best friend/sorta father-figure has been hurt very badly and is calling out for help.

Distraught, he goes to another lord of the netherworld who he's heard has access to a portal (and subjects a bit more compatible with the act of helping someone). He asks King Phantom would he please please help him protect his brother/friend, and if he does Bizarro will owe him a favor and leave his realm alone.

When the inferno had initially breached the Ghost Zone Danny had thought he was going to have to deal with f*cking Trigon again, but as it turns out that guy's been replaced and the new guy is pretty nice. After a brief cosmic battle and a clearing of misunderstandings, Danny agrees to Bizarro’s request.

While Gotham's vigilante civil war continues on its rooftops, Jason is in a cell. He is trembling, practically catatonic again, and losing his mind. He’s seeing the flaming figure of a knight on horseback appear from the shadowy far wall of his room, like some kind of fairytale nightmare version of Batman. It takes a while for Jason to realize he’s talking. 

“... part of the treaty between the King of Ghosts and King of Demons, Jason Todd: Prince of Demons has been granted special status and is henceforth a protected and honorary citizen of the Infinite Realms.” 

Nightmare-Bruce touches his flaming sword on Jason’s shoulder and the unearthly fire instantly engulfs him. Relief washes through Jason, and it’s so strong he nearly drops asleep.

Bruce is apologetic when everything’s over and he realizes the mistakes he’s made... but nothing really changes. (It is a relief to Bruce that no one died or was permanently injured, Jason's condition resolved itself somehow, and Bruce is normal now so really everything is fixed or at least it will be fixed.)

Just like when Jason first came back from the dead, Bruce's response makes him hurt deeper than the physical torture itself. Jason is the one who died but Bruce acts like the ghost. Singleminded, possessive, stuck in time and blind to it; bound to repeat the same cycles again and again. Jason is the ghost but he's died multiple times now, and maybe that's kind of like living and maybe that means he can move on. 

Dani and Bizarro become friends, and she gets Danny's friend Tucker to somehow set up a working Wi-Fi connection in hell so they can all play games together. (He’s not going to question it. Everything about Amity Park is abnormal. They helped him and they’re good to Bizarro, that’s all that matters.) 

Jason forges a fake identity for Dani. He might ask Babs to make a better one for her if she ever needs it but he doubts that's likely. He hasn’t had a living identity for years now after all, he’s an old hand at fake identities. Dani is delighted and starts attending school soon after. 

Danny has good friends, and as far as Jason can tell plenty of reliable mentors in the ghost world. You wouldn’t think it, but Jason’s less worried about Danny in his role as a little godling than in his civilian life. He’s got too much on his plate- too much power yet not enough to actually resolve his real issues. Not enough to protect himself where he’s vulnerable. 

The “Guys in White” that Danny likes to complain about are concerning. So is the fact that Danny’s lives with mad-scientist parents who are trying to hunt down his alternate identity. So is his ever grinding cold-war with the mayor of his town… And something else too that had been niggling at the back of Jason’s mind ever since he’d first gotten to talk to these kids. 

One day Danny’s sister, Jazz asks to talk to him. He’s an adult she says. That’s true he replies. He’s capable of protecting himself and other people, she says. Well, he has the training and experience for it, he agrees. If things go wrong, would Jason let Danny or Dani stay with him- just until she becomes a legal adult? She asks. Jason’s... not the sort of person who should be taking kids in. Danny saved his life though. He won’t say no. He says of course.

Jason knew it. Everything about Amity Park is abnormal.

The town doesn’t technically exist- there are no maps that include it and even satellite imaging is corrupted where Danny describes his hometown is supposed to be. There are no references to it on the internet that couldn’t be referring to a totally different Amity Park elsewhere, and judging by the problems they occasionally had on gaming nights and the odd offhand remarks Danny and his friends sometimes made, it was looking extremely likely that all communications between Amity Park and the outside were being heavily censored. Before Jason knew it he had started a full-on investigation on the GIW, Mayor Vlad Masters, former Mayor Montez, and Axion Labs.

Hope and fear lodges itself in Danny’s chest. Jason’s an adult and he’s actually going to help.

[thoughtportal]

Corporate takeover of the US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.

[erelavent]

Do I think F1 was being an elitist little shit by rejecting Andretti's bid? Yes.

Do I think that Andretti writing to congress to investigate F1 under anti-trust laws is a little bitch move? Also yes.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ansev Demirhan at Ms. Magazine:

The anti-feminist Independent Women’s Voice/Forum (IWF/V) has officially launched its 2024 election agenda. An internal fundraising document provided to True North Research shows one way it is putting that agenda into action is by continuing to try and blunt the horrific repercussions of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, while deploying their veneer of independence to sway centrist and independent voters.  The document details a two-phase plan and a budget that is almost twice the amount it proposed in its 2022 midterm fundraising documents, as reported by The Washington Post. Despite claiming to take no position on abortion, IWF/V launched a PR campaign ahead of the 2022 midterms—the first election cycle following the Dobbs decision—which included advertising trying to convince younger women that reproductive rights were less important than other issues the group listed. 

One way IWF/V’s agenda for this election cycle stands out from its previous midterm action plan is its emphasis on reassuring women that access to contraception is not in jeopardy—despite key voices in the anti-abortion movement making it clear otherwise. The group is a member of Project 2025, a MAGA blueprint that includes detailed plans to attack contraception access, promote the rhythm method, deploy the CDC to increase “abortion surveillance” and data collection and much more.  IWF/V also has a long history of undermining contraception access, though the group has a talking point about supporting over-the-counter availability of the contraception pill.

IWF/V’s “Hope Agenda”

Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a 501(c)(3), and its 501(c)(4) the Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), are pay-to-play groups that use their “independent” branding to laud right-wing politicians along with the legislative wish lists of some for-profit corporations, such as Juul. Based on its most recent tax filings, the groups reported a combined $8.1 million in revenue. IWF/V has received money from the Koch network, Leonard Leo’s network and funds from secretive donor-advised funds, like the Bradley Impact Fund, the National Christian Charitable Foundation and DonorsTrust. 

[...]

But Americans are intimately familiar with the political reality of abortion access in this country. 

The majority of states have abortion restrictions or bans in place that make it difficult for pregnant Americans to receive essential healthcare. 

The U.S. Supreme Court continues to be deployed as a tool to potentially limit abortion access nationally (in the mifepristone and EMTALA cases). 

Over 64,000 unwanted pregnancies have been caused by rape in states with total abortion bans that were implemented post-Roe. 

Abortions increased in 2023, the first full calendar year following the Dobbs decision, because people continue to need and seek abortions despite the fractured abortion healthcare landscape unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Americans are also faced with the political reality that the anti-abortion movement is coming for contraception. That is one reason why IWF/V honing in on messaging around birth control access as something that is safeguarded and supported by the GOP is so troubling. The group itself has a history of opposing contraception access. 

[...]

Anti-trans messaging is also central to IWF/V’s plan to ‘get out the vote’ in 2024, according to its “Hope Agenda.” IWF also attacked the Right to Contraception Act, using anti-trans scaremongering to falsely suggest that this legislation would “require doctors to sterilize minors.” This is not the only anti-trans tactic the group has used to detract from the devastating impact of the overturn of Roe.  IWF/V is also behind the anti-trans “model” bill the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” which enumerates no rights other than the right to discriminate against transgender people, especially transgender women. This model bill has ostensibly been used by so-called conservative or independent policymakers and groups that allegedly care more about American women, but IWF/V itself has repeatedly attacked pro-woman policies. IWF/V has opposed the Equal Rights Amendment,  federal paid leave, federally subsidized child care, the Violence Against Women Act and Title IX—though it recently backed a watered-down version of VAWA and for decades it sided with men’s sports teams against Title IX spending on women’s sports until it deployed anti-trans messaging about women’s sports.

Ms. Magazine exposes the right-wing Koch/Leonard Leo-funded antifeminist group Independent Women's Forum and their sister groups Independent Women's Voice and Independent Women’s Law Center. These groups claim to be pro-women, but in reality, the policies they support-- such as anti-trans "Women's Bill of Rights" and attacks on abortion access, contraception, and in vitro fertilization-- are harmful to women.

[piplupod]

really getting tired of mother aggressively being against non-harmful things only to sloooowly do a 180 on her opinion of it after several years of making everyone else's lives an absolute hell

[dipodiidae]

honestly my main problem with ai art/writing is more that people are going to use it as an excuse to further devalue art and underpay creatives because an ai can do it for cheaper (not that people dont already have to undersell themselves to get commissions)

[1900scartoons]

No Tainted Money For U.S. - John D. Must Wash It Up

August 11, 1907

John D. Rockefeller hoses off a pile of money labelled $29,000,000 Fine. Numerous dollar bills are hung to dry. Uncle Sam looks on angrily.

The caption reads 'Of course Uncle Sam couldn't think of accepting that fine in tainted money'.

Standard Oil had been fined a record amount for their illegal practices.

See Also: John D. Rockefeller

From Hennepin County Library

Original available at: https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/Bart/id/5327/rec/215

[ranmagender]

Its rumored EA is being bought by Amazon and that its gonna be announced soon.

I hate Amazon. I hate mergers. I hate acquisitions. I hate consolidation. I hate oligopoly. I hate capitalism. I hate lax anti-trust laws. i hate corporations. i hate capitalism.

[hussyknee]

[psychicbluebirdmiracle]

Joaquin Castro calls for federal probe of Warner Bros. over handling of ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ | The Hill

WOAH THIS HAS ME SO INTRIGUED

Highly recommend yall take a look at this this is interesting it's about dang time

Also this is honestly a really good analogy for the shelving movies for tax wrote offs