> At an earlier stage in litigation, the Obama administration took a similar position, urging the Supreme Court not to accept Google's appeal.
Am I understanding this correctly that this has been a bipartisan position?
Am I understanding this correctly that this has been a bipartisan position?
That in turn has colored my opinion of any antitrust action this administration takes, and I wouldn't be shocked if this action had some sort of corrupted subtext as well. I wouldn't trust this administration to perform antitrust actions for the sake of antitrust actions, but rather for some sort of ancillary benefits.
CNN being critical of the administration is immaterial (practically all large media outlets are). The concern from the administration seems justified rather than malicious in this case.
As well, if they cared about freedom of the press in the face of media consolidation, Sinclair wouldn't have been able to buy up so many local news outlets. But Sinclair runs stories that praise the administration, and Sinclair has impunity when it comes to acquisitions.
The Obama administration took the position that SCOTUS should not take up the case, because Google was likely to win on the argument that it had a fair use claim (making the copyright issue moot), and if it didn't, then you could consider both the "is it copyright?" and "is it fair use?" concerns simultaneously.
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/12/tru...
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/18/bar...
Edit: some suggest Ellison doesn’t play golf, that said Obama visited his courses regularly and I’m sure there were plenty of occasions where they interacted closely before or after the round.
Clearly running a political fundraiser sits at a different level of influence peddling. We literally have laws to regulate that and disclose the activity (where disclosure of routine meetings are, in fact, protected by law as executive privilege)!
It's different. It's not the same. Saying "Trump did a favor because Ellison drove $2M to his campaing" has a stronger basis than "Obama did a favor because Ellison let him win at golf."
And I'll just say it: at the end of the day, people who believe "everyone is just as bad" are the ones who are likely to excuse the worst corruption in government via "well, at least it's my candidate doing the cheating".
In my opinion, a possible connection between fundraisers/golfing and political outcomes doesn't necessarily rise to "conspiracy theorist".
Do elites ever give money to deregulate?
"conspiracy theorist" has, to a large extent, become a phrase used to describe a certain class of fairly nutty folks these days, rightly or wrongly. I was noting that it's possible that someone pointing out a possible political outcome based on money transfer/golf games can do so without being a member of that group, as its effectively defined today.
I'm starting to think we should let/get someone to found Sirius Cybernetics and let them snap up the whole FAANG group, Oracle, etc just so they can be "first up against the wall when the revolution comes".
The Trump Administration’s environmental deregulation drive is no doubt lobbied for, backed by, and funded in part by the Fossil Fuel industry.
Enron lobbied for deregulation
Isn't this orthogonal? Golf has absolutely nothing to do with athleticism.
Tiger Woods on his old workout routine: “Well, I used to get up in the morning, run four miles,” Woods said. “Then I’d go to the gym, do my lift. Then I’d hit balls for two to three hours. I’d go play, come back, work on my short game. I’d go run another four more miles, and then if anyone wanted to play basketball or tennis, I would go play basketball or tennis. That was a daily routine.
https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/tiger-woods-revea...
My job involves sitting at a desk and writing code; my athleticism has nothing to do with it. It's the same with Tiger Woods.
I don't see the difference. Golf is not an athletic sport, and it's plainly absurd to try to argue otherwise. There's nothing "athletic" about walking around slowly and hitting a ball with a stick; even bowling is more athletic than that. It might take some skill, sure, just like playing a musical instrument like a piano takes a lot of skill, but there's nothing athletic about playing a piano either.
Golf has more than a little to do with athleticism, though, like many, especially individual, sports, it's possible for amateurs to play at (often, an approximation of) it without much athleticism.