tl;dr: Lina Khan is successful at working legal levers of power to uphold the law, and as conservatives we hate that
oversight.house.gov/wp-content/upl… This alleged rampant illegality starts with pro-monopoly conservatives grousing that Khan was appointed to a White House council. Can you imagine!

We are rolling out a special issue today. It's about the states. We're calling it the Cold Civil War. And I want to explain why we did it. 1/
prospect.org/politics/2024-… We've noticed two major trends over the past few years. One is that, while Trump led a shadow government in his mind, the locus of power in the conservative movement is really at the state level, where all the ideological extremism has come from.

Financial advisers went to court and blocked a rule that they have to act in the best interest of their clients. They sued to steal your retirement money, and won.

https://twitter.com/hamiltonnolan/status/1823382017058210001

The rule in question has a 15-year history. It starts in 2009 with one public servant in the Department of Labor named Phyllis Borzi. It took her the entire 2 terms of the Obama administration, through sheer will, to get the rule done.
The 5th Circuit then blocked it in 2018.

This is the final day of our pricing series and we have two pieces for you.
First, @Bilalgwork of Groundwork looks at what policymakers can do about unfair, deceptive, and abusive pricing. Turns out there's a lot, some of which is already happening
prospect.org/economy/2024-0… One thing not brought up enough in the context of this pricing evolution, and corporate power more generally, is tax policy. Bilal does that:
prospect.org/economy/2024-0…

We continue our series on how pricing really works with one of my favorite pieces: Joanna Marsh on subscription pricing, which relies on dark patterns and absent-mindedness to keep consumers paying.
prospect.org/economy/2024-0… It's the inattention economy: "A survey found that consumers estimated they were spending $86/month for their subscriptions. The total was actually $219."
Subscriptions are so out of hand that there are now subscription services to help you manage them.
prospect.org/economy/2024-0…

So:
Judge Pittman (Trump judge in Texas) got the Chamber's challenge to CFPB credit card late fees.
He said it wasn't germane to Texas, sent it to DC
The 5th Circuit said no, sent it back to Pittman
And now Pittman put it on hold.
accountable.us/wp-content/upl… Pittman clearly seems mad about how the process went and mad at the Chamber. He even added this graph of the winding timeline of the case.
But that didn't stop him from ruling for big banks.

The $138 billion in student debt that's been relieved by Biden has nothing to do with his "Plan B" for debt relief after the Plan A was shot down by the courts. It's just about Biden's Education Department running existing forgiveness programs with a modicum of competence. Today's announcement, for example, involves the speedy implementation of the updated income-driven repayment (SAVE) program, which promised that people paying 10 years with less than $12,000 in debt would get it forgiven.
npr.org/2024/02/21/123…

The UAW's selective strike strategy is new for UAW, but it's been very successful for one other union. So much so that they trademarked the practice.
That would be @afa_cwa's CHAOS strategy. 🧵 CHAOS stands for Creating Havoc Around Our System. It began at Alaska Airlines in 1993. There was a protracted strike with the flight attendants, despite the airline earning record profits. Negotiations had dragged on for 3 years.

I read @FranklinFoer's Biden bio The Last Politician, and found this disconnect between a peripatetic presidency of action and the public perception that nothing's happening. What accounts for it? Maybe it's the White House's theory of politics.
prospect.org/culture/books/… Reading the accounts of Biden directing meetings and horse-trading with Congress—the work of politics—is so disconnected from this White House's extreme cloistering of the president that it called to mind the old SNL Reagan mastermind sketch:

This whole story is quite something. Timeline goes like this:

https://twitter.com/ChristaLaser/status/1693740050553409737

Aug 7: Josh Wright suddenly announces he's leaving GMU
Aug 7: Prof Laser releases Wright's attempt to turn a job interview into a date ()
Aug 8: GMU bids Wright a fond farewell ()

https://twitter.com/ChristaLaser/status/1688753648589819904

https://twitter.com/lutherlowe/status/1693744341607452908

Our business of health care series continues with a history of UnitedHealth, the largest insurer & the largest employer of physicians in the country, with so many subsidiaries that 25% of its revenues come from *itself*.
From @SaraLSirota & @KristaKBrown.
prospect.org/health/2023-08… We go through UnitedHealth's entire history, from its founding as a way around state laws that required HMOs to be nonprofits run by physicians to its serial acquisitions of just about everything in healthcare.
https://t.co/DYbarYOQxJprospect.org/health/2023-08…

OK I've got a #longread today for our health care series about the godfather of modern health policy, responsible for Medicare Advantage, Medicare Part D, risk adjustment, physician payment schedules & more.
His name is Tom Scully.
prospect.org/health/2023-08… Once out of government, Scully became a partner at the leading health-focused private equity firm (Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe), using his unparalleled knowledge of a system he helped create to exploit pockets of government support.
prospect.org/health/2023-08…

So according to the president's words, they're going to create a new program, I presume with the same parameters, under the compromise & settlement authority of the Higher Education Act that we discussed as the main way to cancel student debt 4 years ago: prospect.org/day-one-agenda… He mentioned that "it will take longer." I think this is what that means.
There are a couple regulatory hurdles. They are discussed in this letter:
static.politico.com/4c/c4/dfaddbb9…

Breaking: 90% of the $4 trillion in Covid funding properly spent, and thousands of people who grabbed at the other (potentially) 10% have been arrested, with thousands more investigations underway
apnews.com/article/pandem… Also another $1 trillion has yet to be spent and therefore has yet to be stolen. So it's more like 8% (potentially) stolen, with many of those responsible arrested and that number probably maximized for sensationalism's sake

NEW from me: student loan payments are going to restart in September. This is an impossible task made more impossible by the private loan servicers whose entire history has proven their incapability to do the job. A 🧵:
prospect.org/education/2023… As @millennial_debt told me, "I’m not aware of any instance where a creditor restarted a 40-million-account portfolio. That’s at a scale that finance doesn’t operate in, let alone government"

If you're the White House this is a salable deal. That =/= a good deal, but they can sell it.

https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1661904792556281857

The expectation is that McCarthy will never get his guys to pass an actual budget. That would then mean a continuing resolution at current levels for 2 years. With all the funding shifts, this is scheduled to be pretty close to that, with a 1% bump in year 2.

I have a feature out today about the new industrial policy, and how it's designed to support the very groups that have been left out of past economic transitions, building the necessary coalition for long-term transformation. 🧵
prospect.org/economy/2023-0… The idea that America has forgotten how to build anything is silly. We went from zero LNG exports to the world's largest exporter in six years, through national policy, willing financing, and economic and political power.
prospect.org/economy/2023-0…

Excited to bring you the cover story of our latest issue today, from @lukewgoldstein. It's the history of the farm bill, an object lesson of how in Washington, "bipartisan" usually means someone's getting rich. In this case, Big Ag.
prospect.org/power/2023-05-… Democrats fight in the farm bill for nutrition assistance (SNAP).
Republican fight for a baroque array of agricultural subsidies.
But the real function of the modern farm bill is to deliver windfalls to industry by subsidizing cheap commodity grains.
prospect.org/power/2023-05-…

We have a little more information now on the debt ceiling case that transpired today a Boston courtroom.
politico.com/news/2023/05/2… "If the emergency is as dire as you think it is, I would think that it’s within the power of the president to address it using executive branch authority," the judge said to the plaintiffs, who sought a faster hearing. (eyes emoji)

So Joe Biden, who mumbles in public about "having the authority" to continue to pay the nation's bills, has signaled intention to file OPPOSITION to the case challenging the constitutionality of the debt ceiling statute.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… It's not that Biden or the White House thinks there's not enough time or that the Supreme Court will stop any effort to end-run the debt limit.
By their actions, they are demonstrably opposed to challenging the debt limit. They believe in it.

Interesting...
The National Association of Government Employees has today filed for an emergency injunction in their case challenging the constitutionality of the debt ceiling statute.
courtlistener.com/docket/6734475… I wrote earlier today that the failure to file for emergency relief has left the case docket bare for nearly two weeks.
prospect.org/economy/2023-0…