I delve into a lot about modern antitrust history & politics — what is the consumer welfare standard? Why do politicians today want to abandon it? What can the case against Microsoft teach us about the cases against Google, Facebook, & Apple? Etc. ....
But my thesis, if you will, is that reactionary politicians are using monopoly concerns as cover to pursue pre-existing political agendas reason.com/2021/06/05/the…
For progressive Democrats, it isn't really about tech companies.
For populist Republicans, it's not really about monopoly power.
It would be really bizarre how much people want to rob young women of agency if the same people didn't try so hard to rob all women of their agency...
Seeing way to much of this idea that even though it's legal for 18-year-old girls to have sex, do sex work, etc., no one should let them for ... what—six months? A year? Three years? At what point after legal adulthood do you think adult women should actually get to be adults?
So, adults. Greenberg sent money to adults. Using a common app that people use to send money. Why are people acting like this is some sort of sex trafficking smoking gun?
The coverage of Greenberg — for whom prosecutors provide ample evidence of corruption schemes & financial crimes & very little evidence of trafficking— almost universally as a SEX TRAFFICKER is so telling. Feds slap this label on folks bc they know it can’t be outrun once they do
And media is so irresponsible with the label sex trafficker because it’s lurid & gets clicks. Then the same media marvel at Q cultists & moms who think traffickers are hunting them at IKEA & the nice progressives who give $ to help cops arrest sex workers???
Finally read through the latest (3/30) Joel Greenberg indictment. There is *a lot* of detail in it about *a lot* of charges but, interestingly, almost all that's listed under the sex trafficking count is the basic definition of the crime
There's also this weird bit under "introduction" to the sex trafficking charge, which just says that he made himself fake IDs & used these IDs to have "engaged in 'sugar daddy' relationships"
This has all been in various reporting on Greenberg, I just expected there was also more to it.... Sure sounds like dude was up to a ton of shady shit, but that the sex trafficking charge is based entirely on someone he met through a sugar dating site pretending to be 18+ but not
Gaetz on Tucker names person he claims is extorting his family, claims it’s a former DOJ official named David McGee
Gaetz again categorically denies having ever dated a 17-year-old
ftr, I think any of this (the teen, the extortion, the FBI involvement, etc) could be true, any of it could be lies, and one part being true doesn’t necessarily negate the other parts
The New York Times et al say Matt Gaetz is under investigation for violating "sex trafficking laws" for allegedly inducing someone under age 18 across state lines for sex. But if there was no *prostitution* involved, he's not under investigation for sex trafficking...
And if there was prostitution & a minor involved, state lines are irrelevant.
I know most people will find the distinction irrelevant. But I think it's important that things can be morally wrong and/or against criminal laws surrounding sex without automatically being labeled as sex trafficking...
Lots of fun stuff in a recent @voxdotcom & @DataProgress poll on billionaires — turns out, most people don't think they should be abolished, nor that they're destroying democracy! — but the best parts related to tech companies & CEOs reason.com/2021/03/30/ame…
Bill Gates and Elon Musk elicited significantly more *favorable* views than not—55% favorable v. 35% unfavorable for Gates & 50% v 23% for Musk.
The only tech CEOs in the poll that people viewed more unfavorably than favorably was Mark Zuckerberg, with 54% seeing him negatively & just 31% seeing him positively reason.com/2021/03/30/ame…