Chicago - Jul. 4, 2020

Beachwood Politics
Our monthly archive.

Who We Are
Chicago by the numbers.

Sausage Links
Wiki Daley
Wiki Rahm
Illinois Channel
CAN TV
Ralph Martire
Doonesbury
Government Attic
Division Street
Indie Political Report
The Obameter
ProPublica
The Intercept
SCOTUS Blog
American Dream Betrayed

"Don't Believe Proven Liars" - The Absolute Minimum Standard Of Prudence In Merger Scrutiny

By Cory Doctorow/The Electronic Frontier Foundation

"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." - President George W Bush

Anti-monopoly enforcement has seen a significant shift since the 1970s. Where the U.S. Department of Justice once routinely brought suits against anticompetitive mergers, today, that's extremely rare, even between giant companies in highly concentrated industries. (The strongest remedy against a monopolist - breaking them up altogether - is a relic of the past).

Regulators used to go to court to block mergers to prevent companies from growing so large that they could abuse their market power. In place of blocking mergers, today's competition regulators like to add terms and conditions to them, exacting promises from companies to behave themselves after the merger is complete.

This safeguard continues to enjoy popularity with competition regulators, despite the fact that companies routinely break their public promises to safeguard users' privacy and rarely face consequences for doing so. (These two facts may be related!)

When they do get sanctioned, the punishment almost never exceeds the profits from the broken promise. "A fine is a price." Today, we'd like to propose a modest, incremental improvement to this underpowered deterrent:

Continue reading ""Don't Believe Proven Liars" - The Absolute Minimum Standard Of Prudence In Merger Scrutiny" »
Posted on July 4, 2020

Permalink

Political Odds

By The Beachwood Bookmaking Bureau

For entertainment purposes only. Including gambling.
Continue reading "Political Odds" »
Posted on April 1, 2019

Permalink

U.S. Supreme Court Decision Forces Taxpayers To Pay For Religious Schooling 😠

By The Center for Inquiry

"This Court has been opening a hole up in Thomas Jefferson's Wall of Separation between church and state. Now they've built a two-lane highway through that hole, inviting churches to raid the public treasury and drive gleefully away with taxpayer money."

Posted on July 1, 2020

The John Oliver Coronavirus Chronicles IX: Evictions

By Last Week Tonight

"It might be worth thinking twice about what you're taking part in if you're throwing people out of their homes via Zoom - a platform you're only using because it's not safe for people to leave their homes."

Posted on June 29, 2020

Chicago Cops Still Secretly Detaining People

By Kaitlyn Filip/The Chicago Council of Lawyers & Chicago Appleseed

You're supposed to get a phone call because we're not supposed to have secret detention in America. It's that simple.

Posted on June 28, 2020

America Is Exceptional In All the Wrong Ways

By Robert Reich

It's not just Trump.

Posted on June 25, 2020

Data-Driven Police Reforms Have Failed

By Dan Falk/Undark

Many jurisdictions are using data-driven approaches, which is a researcher's dream come true. But it's also a type of incrementalism that this week has betrayed as inadequate - the same cities that have introduced data-driven reforms are some of the ones with the most powerful protests. These cities also experienced some of the ugliest, most violent responses from police, exposed in the wave of viral videos revealing hundreds of cases of police brutality against protestors around the country.

Posted on June 24, 2020

What's Wrong With White Teachers?

By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report

Closing the performance gap between black and white teachers means talking about racism.

Posted on June 20, 2020

Amazon Ring Must End Its Dangerous Partnerships With Police

By Jason Kelley and Matthew Guariglia/The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Technology companies must rethink how the tools they design and sell to police departments minimize accountability and exacerbate injustice.

Posted on June 17, 2020

Nearly 1 in 4 Workers At High Risk Of Serious Illness From COVID-19

By The Kaiser Family Foundation

This includes 10 million who are at least 65-years-old and an additional 27.7 million who have pre-existing medical conditions.

Posted on June 15, 2020

E-Mails Reveal Disgusting Meatpacking Shitshow Over COVID-19 Outbreaks

By Michael Grabell, Claire Perlman and Bernice Yeung/ProPublica

Immorality, greed and Donald Trump's executive order laid bare the willingness of Corporate America to sacrifice lives for profit.

Posted on June 12, 2020

CPD's Records Are A Mess

By The Office of Inspector General

The real-life consequences are profound and Constitutional.

Posted on June 11, 2020

White Parents Should Have 'The Talk' With Their Kids, Too

By Andre Perry/The Hechinger Report

Lessons about police violence, Constitutional rights and white privilege should not be subjects only discussed in black homes.

Posted on June 10, 2020

An ANTIFA American Hero

By David Rutter

Martin Gugino is not the 82nd Airborne landing at Normandy, but he serves the related moral principle. That encounter in Buffalo was a precise re-enactment of what letting fascists run the world looks like.

Posted on June 9, 2020

You Have A First Amendment Right To Record The Police

By Sophia Cope and Adam Schwartz/The Electronic Frontier Foundation

This post provides some practical tips to record the police legally and safely, and explains some of the legal nuances of recording the police.

Posted on June 9, 2020