Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

San Francisco has its problems, but weather is not one of them:

https://twitter.com/DrewTumaABC7/sta...534146/photo/1

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Well, if their audience was Rupert Murdoch, it worked. Both the NY Post and the WSJ have unendorsed Trump.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think the goal right now is to (a) make this an issue right up to the mid-terms - this and the fallout from the Dobbs decision are the Dem's biggest weapons this fall (not the Dobbs decision itself - I'm convinced that enough people would have gone along with it if there wasn't an insistance on no exceptions for rape, incest, health, etc.); and (b) kill any hope Trump has of getting elected again.

I'm not surprised Cheney and Kitzinger are on board with (a), they way a very different Republican party and the current one has to lose big before that becomes possible.

After the hearings will come prosecutions and convictions, as has been the case with every Democratic hearing like this since watergate.

Im not disagreeing with you, just identifying the political advantages involved.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Everything here is inverted. The GOP wants a Trump indictment (incense the base and run on him being martyred w/o having to run him, as he will lose). The Democrats do not want an indictment (bruise and batter him to ensure he'll either attempt to run and lose, or tear down better R candidates in a hissy fit as the GOP gets behind alternatives).

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

As someone who has been cited in the press as an unnamed former high ranking party official, let me say, indict him, convict him, show the world laws apply to everyone.

This is not just about Trump himself, but about re-establishing the rule of law.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I am not now nor have I ever been a high ranking party official, and Sebby might be right that they are more calculating than I, but 2.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Do you mean "and Sebby," because then I get you 2ing GGG. The "but" is confusing me as to what you meant.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

What are you talking about, crazy old man?? :D

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I could use this as a response to Sebby's Amazon posts.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Yeah, this could be used to respond to just about any post on the board by any male poster. I'd propose detente, here, and suspend all hostilities relating to labeling posters "crazy old men"

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I can go either way on the first point. Indicting him may be worth it, but why at Fed level? Do it in GA and avoid the appearance of DOJ martyring him.

On second point, "the rule of law" has always struck me as a funny concept. I mean, I get what you're saying. But take apart what we call "rule of law" in this country.

Our laws have historically been created in favor the powerful and propertied. And they're created by the powerful and propertied.

And people don't follow them just because they're laws. They follow them because the govt has a monopoly/license on the use of violence. The govt can fine or jail you or worse if you violate them.

So if you really break it down, the rule of law is the rule of power. The laws aren't much of anything. They're a mix of good ideas and bad ones (rules enacted by the powerful to protect themselves, often to control and subjugate the weak). It's their enforcement mechanisms - power to harm and punish - that are important.

I'd say the "rule of law" here is the "rule of power with some guardrails."

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I had a response to your last post, but it became so Byzantine I gave up halfway through it. My only general point would be we need to emphasize the avoidance of anti-competitive acts over the strict definition of monopoly.

I also think WalMart and Amazon are unique markets unto themselves that exert monopsony power in different sectors. But yes, that does cut against the idea of a monopsony.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You can emphasize whatever you want, but monopoly is about who a player *is* -- do they have, say, >50% share in a relevant market -- and anti-competitive acts are about what a player *does* -- are they, for example, fixing prices.

You keep throwing out those terms as if you haven't really thought about what they mean, which is a dangerous thing to do when you are sparring with someone like Adder who has practiced antitrust law for so long that his child calls him Herbert Hovenkamp for yuks.

I'm still waiting to hear from you where you think Amazon is a monopolist, other than, perhaps, in book sales. Perhaps. If you want to talk about markets in books, I'm here for that, but that doesn't seem to be where you are going.

Since you don't seem to be able to stick with the idea that Amazon is a monopolist, you've turned to tossing out the term "anti-competitive acts." The one thing you've particularly mentioned is that Amazon takes information about what third-parties are selling on its platform and uses it to also sell on its platform. Why is that anticompetitive? Do you really think sellers don't know about it? eBay, in particular, has been trying to persuade sellers to use it over Amazon for that reason for something like a decade. Doesn't that suggest there is robust platform competition? How do you think platforms compete with other platforms.

In tech antitrust, defining the relevant market is often the whole game. I think you are using "monopsony" as a synonym for "big", and objecting to anyone with enough scale that they can set terms to suppliers. Unless they are the only show in town, it's not a problem for consumers -- they get cheap prices from the big guys and buy other stuff elsewhere. I'm sure you do that all the time.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

in patent law one can be their own lexicographer. Maybe sebby is defining monopoly his way in an IP sense?

PS I hate Amazon and have left unhinged threatening rants on its attorneys voicemail.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I hate Ted Cruz but he is not a monopoly.