Paradoxically Speaking

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

Paradoxically Speaking is my new platform for all things big government and antitrust. See our latest post here:

https://t.co/MXoJ97CMZe

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

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Robert Bork and Joseph Coniglio cover what’s happening now in antitrust policy, Trump-era antitrust continuity, and why antitrust is the wrong tool for speech issues.

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

https://t.co/QshoFHVwvK

And this administration continues—without changing a jot or a tittle—the antitrust guidelines of President Biden and his FTC Chair, Lina Khan. Self-styled “Khanservatives,” from Vice President J.D. Vance to Sen. Josh Hawley, style themselves as Teddy Roosevelt-era progressives. The Missouri senator proposes vast expansions to the FTC’s powers and budget, and outlawing any mergers or acquisitions by large companies.

And these are the conservatives who call other Republicans “RINOs”?

At the heart of Pence’s critique is the distinction between principles and populism.

He writes: “Populists follow urges, not principles. They would erode our commitment to the Constitution and abandon U.S. leadership in the world.” Pence reminds us of a 2022 Truth Social post by Donald Trump justifying “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” to overturn what Trump called the “massive fraud” of the 2020 election.

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

https://t.co/ALyxaVgvmP

"The most remarkable aspect of the ruling may be its extension into artificial intelligence. The district court’s remedy reaches beyond traditional search into generative AI products such as ChatGPT and other emerging systems – technologies that barely existed during the period covered by the lawsuit. It is already a crowded landscape filled with competitors ranging from Big Tech hyperscalers to large and growing independent “frontier” companies. Not only was government assistance not needed to create this vibrant competition, aggressive and early intervention by government would probably have prevented it."

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

"This willingness of Bork and Davis to critique the Right from within gives it intellectual bite. The authors consistently return to their core ideas—that consumer welfare should be the lodestar of antitrust and that true conservatives should return to the rule of law and institutional restraint.

The New Paradox is a sharp, necessary critique of a new Right that is ceasing to be on the Right. The real danger to antitrust, they argue, is not overenforcement or underenforcement but the loss of principle itself."

https://t.co/Hlmu2bNFDs

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

Socialism is becoming a problem for conservatives. See our latest: https://t.co/tI4Ev4AfwV

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

"Why is Europe out to wreck America’s leading companies? It seems to be out of a mixture of progressive thinking and anti-Americanism. Consider: In the first quarter of 2024, the largest seller of smartphones in Europe is Samsung, with 37 percent of the market. Add to that China’s Xiaomi market share, and the two Asian giants have a combined 53 percent share of the European smartphone market. And yet it is Apple’s 22 percent share in Europe that somehow defines it as a “gatekeeper” in need of radical restructuring. These latest fines for violating the DMA are eye-popping, but they continue an anti-American trend that has resulted in roughly $8.7 billion in fines imposed on another top American innovator, Google, over the past decade."

Read the latest at Paradoxically Speaking here: https://t.co/Mq6G0DrGEK

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

"Donald Trump could have been the restorer of free markets. Instead, his administration is institutionalizing mechanisms that Washington can use to meddle in the operations of private business.

The president’s defenders will respond that the left has proven ruthless and lawless in its quest to maintain and expand power — a case only strengthened by the recent menacing comments by Democratic strategist James Carville. They argue that a Republican president who truly would be “the restorer of free markets” might be committing unilateral disarmament, a defeatist and largely nonsensical argument that ignores the extent to which the protection of free markets can be reinforced both legally and institutionally."

See our latest: https://t.co/tobpIpib83

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

This is how state capitalism takes root—not in a single dramatic leap, but through a series of interventions. First, regulators block private adaptation. Then policymakers step in to “repair” the damage they created.

See our new post here: https://t.co/BKESkgNMoc

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

For free-market conservatives, Teddy Roosevelt is less a hero than a temptation—a larger-than-life figure whose legacy invites admiration even as it points toward the very expansion of government conservatives resist. That tension is now being exploited by a new generation on the right, eager to wrap progressive antitrust policies in Rooseveltian nostalgia.

https://t.co/FYbyZPOfUq

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

"Econ. 502 – “Small Dealers and Worthy Men”

First, an apology for the title, which harks back to the archaic (and frankly nebulous) word “men.” Yet it derives from a foundational Supreme Court opinion from the late 19th century that presaged the Center’s Brandeisian ethos. This course will explore why a big company’s size is a marker of late-stage capitalism practically begging for the regulator’s wrecking ball."

https://t.co/E5aK3S0rjU

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

Both ideological extremes are in a race to the bottom. Defenders of the First Amendment must be bolder than ever in declaring that speech is not a product – it is a human right.

See our latest: https://t.co/HgcpXgCkbI

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

Jon Nuechterlein explains how the anti-consumer Robinson Patman Act has made a comeback. See his piece in Paradoxically Speaking. "As with so much else in antitrust, everything old is cool again. The Robinson-Patman Act is badly drafted, byzantine in its application, and at odds with the consumer-oriented thrust of America’s antitrust laws. But if you’re an antitrust lawyer, you’d better bone up on the doctrinal details because federal RPA enforcers are back in the saddle." https://t.co/G5p3ohjsYC

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

"For many years as an antitrust lawyer, I hoped to get away with learning little about the Robinson-Patman Act...
Alas, as with so much else in antitrust, everything old is cool again." --Jon Nuechterlein https://t.co/n5lC229AIa

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

For this and other commentary, check out our new site: https://t.co/Zyo6DufU0K

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

Gail Heriot's brilliant new article explains the legal foundations of wokeness. We're living the world of the 1991 Civil Rights Act and we don't even know it. https://t.co/Lh9EB0fnvt

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

For this and other commentary, check out our new site: https://t.co/Zyo6DufU0K

[Paradoxically Speaking @BorkParadox]

Gail Heriot's brilliant new article explains the legal foundations of wokeness. We're living the world of the 1991 Civil Rights Act and we don't even know it. https://t.co/Lh9EB0fnvt