Sure the details were negotiated in 2019, but it isn't even in effect yet. It still needs to be approved by legislative bodies on both sides of the Atlantic. Which will probably happen sometime this year.
Yes, the US is not the center of the universe and there’s lots of room for different perspectives, but there is nothing good that can be said about the regime in Iran.
China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.
But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
Want to be more specific about your argument? I’d consider a government good if it is serves the people of that country. “Iran murders and tortures it citizens by the thousands, and impoverishes them by the millions through widespread corruption, but they sold some drones to Russia, so that’s nice.” Is that your argument?
Uh have you met Republicans? Anyone not fully onboard that had even half a spine retired or got voted out. The rest either love it or just fall in line so they can collect paychecks.
I think it is true that many policies of this administration are only supported by a small minority of Americans and this doesn't seem at all strange to me. The US is (with various state and local exceptions) a first-past-the-post democracy. That means that all political interests necessarily have to coalesce into two political parties or forgo any chance at representation. So the Republican party (and the Democratic party) are really coalitions of dozens of different political interests.
Some people are Republicans because of their opinions on abortion. Some because of their opinions on immigration or crypto regulation. Or their dislike of covid lockdown policies associated with Democrats. Or their preference for tariffs. And so on.
So if a given voter's most important issue is crypto regulation, even if this voter is pro-choice and supports traditional multi-lateral foreign policy, they very may well support Republican politicians, not because they are against abortion or want to invade Greenland, but because those issues are less important to them than their primary issue of crypto regulation.
Now I'm not saying this exonerates the character of the nation. One could argue that it is immoral for voters to prioritize crypto deregulation over multi-lateral foreign policy.
I'm just saying that it is very plausible that only a small minority of the US population supports an invasion of Greenland and, given the political system, there is nothing particularly mysterious about that fact.
Well if the government raises more revenue from tolls, they can raise less from other regressive taxes or just redistribute that revenue to lower income brackets.
During covid the IRS sent everyone a check. No reason this also can't work at a state level and just have toll funds sent out as checks to lower income brackets.
> Either it is correct; or it is not. Perhaps it is somewhat correct, but then it may not be fully correct, so it would contain wrong information.
I don't understand your criticism.
It makes complete sense that the researchers are worried about the research being oversold. It's routine for media to take a scientific finding and grossly exaggerate its impact, i.e. "New research proves you can exercise your way to a fit child" or whatever.
This is science, we don't know if anything is "correct." The more compelling the research, the more we can adjust our priors as to what is "correct."
> There are examples of where theories were lateron shown to be wrong.
There are also lots of examples where theories were later not shown to be wrong. What's your point?
Do you have an actual, concrete criticism of the methodology of the epigentic research in TFA, or are your just bloviating?
Fortunately we have a perfect justice system that never makes mistakes and never abuses their power, so let’s put all the convicts in prison for life for Mac deterrence!!
Probably closer to equality than we have now. I've been told by people who lived there that there were no homeless people and very little crime in the USSR.
Capitalism is just much better with PR and covering up its failures. Even the word PR is itself capitalist spin; a euphemism for propaganda.
Sorry what regulation in particular are you thinking about here? There’s no logical anti-trust angle I can think of.
I mean of course I think the outcome here is bad, but I’m struggling to think of a kind of regulation that could have prevented it that isn’t completely insane.
Edit: Listen everyone, it sucks, but there's no "one weird trick" where you can have a congress, judiciary, and executive branch dominated by Republicans, that then governs like Democrats. This isn't a "regulation" problem. It's a "roughly half the country wanted this" problem. Adding more regulations is not going to suddenly make the FTC act right; we have thousands of regulations already on the books and if they wanted to do something, they could.
Your prior seems to be that the Trump administration is operating in good faith and that they would naturally be predisposed to allow the merger, being free market republicans and all.
That's not the accusation at hand. The contention is that the Trump administration is threatening to block the merger (corruptly, in opposition to their republican proclivities) unless the news arm of the merged company is operated in a partisan way.
And the evidence for that is that Ellison walked in, threw out CBS News's pre-existing leadership, and brought in a reasonably-well-known-but-still-not-celebrity-enough-to-be-independent partisan republican voice to run it. And now that she's there, she's clearly operating the news room in a partisan way.
In July 2025, the Ellisons bought CBS (Paramount) through Skydance. This was approved by Trump's FTC.
The FTC is responsible for enforcing regulations that would prevent mergers that negatively impact the quality of services and innovation. They aren't doing their job.
Agreed. Let's also not forget that a large part of the reason that the Skydance/Paramount merger likely went through in the first place was because Paramount paid off Trump to the tune of 16 million USD by settling a lawsuit in which he alleged deliberate deception during his Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes.
The FTC has not done its job since after the Microsoft consent decree and economists have claimed that up is down and somehow preventing market monopolies is bad for the economy.
What existing regulation are you accusing the FTC of not enforcing? Is it illegal for a rich person to buy a company? It's not like he's cornering TV news or something. He's a minority player by any measurement (revenue, viewers, etc..).
Not a fan of Trump, Ellison, or obviously this expose being buried, but I am just trying to understand what the FTC did wrong.
> The FTC is responsible for enforcing regulations that would prevent mergers that negatively impact the quality of services and innovation.
I don't think this is the best summary of either the FTC's mandate from congress nor the antitrust laws in the US.
But whatever, it just seems like what you want is not more regulation (Trump is adding lots of regulation on solar and wind, that's good right?), but different regulators.
It sucks, but there's no "one weird trick" where you can have a congress, judiciary, and executive branch dominated by Republicans, that then makes them governs like Democrats. This isn't a "regulation" problem. It's a "roughly half the country wanted this" problem.
> I don't think this is the best summary of either the FTC's mandate from congress nor the antitrust laws in the US.
Okay well I basically copy/pasted from ftc.gov:
The FTC’s Bureau of Competition enforces the nation's antitrust laws, which form the foundation of our free market economy. The antitrust laws promote the interests of consumers; they support unfettered markets and result in lower prices and more choices.
The Bureau of Competition is committed to preventing mergers and acquisitions that are likely to reduce competition and lead to higher prices, lower quality goods or services, or less innovation
Were you saying the same thing in 2014 and 2015 too?
According to data from Thomson Reuters, 2015 is set to be the biggest year ever (once the planned deals close) in worldwide dealmaking, with $4.7 trillion in announced mergers and acquisitions—up 42 percent from 2014, and beating the previous record of $4.4 trillion in 2007.
The year stands out, not just for the total value of the deals but for the number of so-called mega-deals, which refers to any deal that exceeds $5 billion. Just in the last three months, notable mega-deals include AB Inbev’s acquisition of SABMiller, creating a $104 billion beverage company; Pfizer and Allergan’s announced a $160 billion merger; and the chemical companies DuPont and Dow Chemical Company’s plans to unite as a $130 billion company. Thomson Reuters counted 137 mega-deals last year, which accounted for 52 percent of the year’s overall M&A value.
Sure the details were negotiated in 2019, but it isn't even in effect yet. It still needs to be approved by legislative bodies on both sides of the Atlantic. Which will probably happen sometime this year.
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