The Biden Presidency

Oh come on. Your argument has more holes than a colander.

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You mean Rand Paul’s does. Linking it to China and Cuba is idiotic, and obviously so.

The GOP should be asking why their politics are being mentioned in the same breath politically as Cuba and China.

#birdz#feather#flock#etc

Moving or boycotting the Winter Olympics in China or World Cup in Qatar is something I can agree with.

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I’ve got to admit, a lot of my feelings on this are driven by sheer partisanship. If the shoe were on the other foot, with Facebook and Twitter blocking Obama, or MLB boycotting Oregon because of euthanasia, I’d be the first screaming about censorship and big corporations trying to control things (Editorial: as it was in the past, with most media and corporations leaning center-right). I am uneasy with the amount of control exercised by Facebook and Amazon and Twitter, and other corporate creatures.
The problem is that the only force that can rein them in is government- with a partisan divide like today, any move to do so will raise cries from one side r the other.

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You know what hurts Atlanta and their fans? The team moving from Atlanta into the burbs (Atlanta burb resident here, who was looking forward to going to the All-Star game this year). That, and, oh yeah, bullshit voting laws. :stuck_out_tongue:

But seriously, nobody told MLB what to do. This is like the Dr Seuss thing - they made a business decision. In a year when MLB is moving to recognize Negro Leagues stats, and where Braves icon and civil rights advocate Hank Aaron just passed, they probably made a good call.

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What would Jackie Robinson do?

How about applies to apples though?

If Obama tried to overturn democracy and constantly dog-whistled racism, I’d be a Republican, and would approve of corporate action against it all.

But that’s just me.

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Oh, sure, I know all this Republican whining about ‘corporate tyranny’ is complete BS e.g. Mario Rubio coming out in support of Amazon workers unionizing.You know it’s just because he doesn’t like the Washington Post; he’d be screaming about commies trying to destroy the American Way of Life if it was workers trying to unionize at Walmart. Or Jeff Hawley trying to play populist while voting for every corporate tax break he sees while opposing anything that actually benefits poorer and working people.

Still, I am concerned about the unchecked power of Amazon, Facebook, etc. They do need to be retrained.

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Well these might be monopoly issues to argue, no? If someone has a monopoly and there’s no choice for consumers to speak with their wallets, then yes it becomes an issue if a company with no competitors/alternatives throws it’s weight around.

If one can’t make a legitimate argument about a monopoly existing, I’m not sure there’s an issue. If Coke says they support issue A for example, and I don’t like that stance, I can go get a pepsi, or even start drinking water.

Assuming no monopoly, companies tend to act in the shared interests of the majority of their consumers, much like politicians are supposed to. Except companies tend to more accurately reflect their constituents because not siding with the majority of society will hurt their bottom line.

I tend to like government hands off this stuff as much as possible. Enforce income taxes, fine, or try to regulate social media to protect against disinformation that can harm and even threaten democracy, sure.

But going after a company because they take a social stance, that isn’t a reason for government sticking their fingers in.

They haven’t knocked it down yet?

If they build the wall like you want, will you give them credit?

They wouldn’t build it like I would want.
Reinforced concrete.
But Trump was stymied and could only go for the current design. How much push back will there be now he is not involved?

you believe that?

My point in asking that is it seems to me you would criticize ANY decision Biden made on the matter.

Is there a border policy he could pursue you wouldn’t disapprove of? Remember how objective all of you are now.

Sure, why do you think many of them take stances on social issues? Perhaps there can be a moral decision as well, but it definitely isn’t because the majority of their customers are against the stance they’re taking.

Unless they enjoy self-immolation?

Also, they probably don’t even believe the people who claim they’ll boycott their stuff, I wonder why that is…

The not-quite-out-of-sight soda bottle is particularly notable in light of Trump’s recent calls to boycott Coca-Cola products that he made just a few days before the picture seems to have been taken.

On Saturday, Trump released a statement calling on Republicans and conservatives to “fight back” against “WOKE CANCEL CULTURE,” by boycotting companies like Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, UPS, and more who have all protested Georgia’s restrictive new voting law.

https://twitter.com/svdate/status/1379176179878522883?s=20

:rofl:

Biden to Announce Several Executive Actions to Tackle Gun Violence

President Biden is expected to announce his plan, including a measure to try to stop the proliferation of so-called ghost guns, on Thursday.

WASHINGTON — President Biden is expected to unveil a series of executive actions addressing gun violence on Thursday, weeks after back-to-back mass shootings left 18 people dead and pushed the issue of gun legislation to the forefront for an administration tackling multiple crises.

Mr. Biden is also expected to announce his intent to nominate David Chipman, a gun control advocate, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, officials said. The bureau has not had a permanent director since 2015.

Biden to Announce Several Executive Actions to Tackle Gun Violence - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

**One of the issues progressives in the U.S. actually care about is reigning in the gun mess.

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Because they think it’ll make them money, not because of any actual shared interests (generally), past the most superficial level. I mean, if Coke (for example) actually cared about real shared interests with the consumer, would they be selling delicious sugar water that slowly kills the population?

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These aren’t mutually exclusive things.

I didn’t say why they act that way, just that they do. They take on the stuff the majority of their consumers approve of, and will only do it when public sentiment is so overwhelming they can be confident in profits.

So corporate actions in many situations probably represent the will of the people more often than their elected officials actually do.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Joe is proposing corporate tax changes

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Does 41% control of all books sold and 65% of all books sold online give Amazon a monopoly? In Britain it does

  • In the UK a firm is said to have monopoly power if it has more than 25% of the market share. For example, Tesco @30% market share or Google 90% of search engine traffic.

In the United States it doesn’t, not since Robert Bork supplied the theoretical background for gutting the Sherman Antitrust Act.

With functional similarities to its Gilded Age form, Bork-inspired antitrust helped recreate Gilded Age conditions. Due to few limits on consolidation and monopolization, markets and industries across the economy have become highly concentrated. This systemic market concentration means Americans pay more for essentials, earn less at work, and have fewer opportunities to start businesses. While the internet once promised decentralization and dispersal of power, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have established online bottlenecks over commerce, social media, and search and wield extraordinary power. Corporate power is not restricted to the marketplace: large corporations rule our politics.

I believe, contra Ayn Rand, that sheer size and market control are a form of power. Atomized consumers in the face of a multi-billion dollar corporation is not a fair fight, which is why conservatives are so eager to gut class-action. Even lawsuits are a feeble form of defence against corporate power- for that you need democratic government.

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