#jonathankanter — Public Fediverse posts

I've written a lot about Biden's excellent appointees, from his #NationalLaborRelationsBoard general counsel #JenniferAbruzzo to #ConsumerFinanceProtectionBureau chair #RohitChopra to #FTC Chair #LinaKhan to #DoJ #antitrust boss #JonathanKanter:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

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The right wants in on this. At a #FederalistSociety black-tie event last week during the National Lawyer's Convention, Biden's top antitrust enforcers got a warm welcome. #JonathanKanter, the DOJ's top antitrust cop, was praised onstage by #ToddZywicki, whom Stoller and Hepner call "a highly influential law professors," from #GeorgeMasonUniveristy, a fortress of pro-corporate law and economics.

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The incredible #LinaKhan brought a long-overdue antitrust case against Amazon while her #DoJ counterpart, #JonathanKanter, dragged #Google into court.

The EU is taking on #Apple, and French cops are kicking down #Nvidia's doors and grabbing their files, looking to build another antitrust case for monopolizing GPUs. The writers won their strike and #JoeBiden walked the picket-line with the #UAW, the first president in history to join striking workers:

https://doctorow.medium.com/joe-biden-is-headed-to-a-uaw-picket-line-in-detroit-f80bd0b372ab?sk=f3abdfd3f26d2f615ad9d2f1839bcc07

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This kind of gaslighting, where Google pisses in all our mouths and tells us it's raining, is the hallmark of a decrepit, arrogant, crapulent monopolist that needs to be shattered in the courts. Kudos to the DoJ for doing the people's business here - and kudos to DoJ #antitrust boss #JonathanKanter for promising that he will *not* go into corporate law when he finishes his stint in government.

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The work of enforcers like DoJ antitrust boss #JonathanKanter, #FTC chair #LinaKhan, and #SEC chair #GaryGensler is at the heart of #Bidenomics: muscular, fearless deployment of existing regulatory authority to make life better for Americans.

Of course, "existing regulatory authority" isn't the last word. The judges filling stolen seats on the illegitimate #SupremeCourt invented the #MajorQuestionsDoctrine and have used it as a club to attack Biden's photocopier-kickers.

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Biden's ceding of antitrust policy to the left of the party, combined with disaffected GOP senators viewing Khan as their enemy's enemy, led to Khan's historic appointment as FTC Chair. In that position, she was joined by a slate of Biden trustbusters, including #JonathanKanter at the DOJ Antitrust Division, #TimWu at the #WhiteHouse, and other important, skilled and principled fighters like #AlvaroBedoya (FTC), #RebeccaSlaughter (FTC), #RohitChopra (#CFPB), and many others.

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But neither claim holds water. Far from being pie-in-the-sky idealists with no theory of change, the party's left is *incredibly* good at getting stuff done. Take the antitrust enforcers #LinaKhan and #JonathanKanter, as well as the recently departed #TimWu. They aren't mere idealists - they're *brilliant* tacticians and proceduralists who have figured out how to use their existing authority to do more than decades of their predecessors combined:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

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The Biden administration is a weirdly perfect illustration of this "independence." The Biden admin is a kind of referee, doling out policies and appointemnts to its competing wings, without any coherence or consistency.

That's how you get *incredible* appointments like #LinaKhan at the #FTC and #JonathanKanter at #DoJ #AntitrustDivision and #RohitChopra at the #CFPB.

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Until now. For the first time in two generations, the Biden administration has taken up the neglected, noble art of #trustbusting, blocking mergers and promising to break up the mergers we've already seen, through enforcers like #JonathanKanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division and #LinaKhan at the #FTC:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

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On one hand, you have progressive appointments like #JonathanKanter at the #DoJ and #LinaKhan at the FTC, leaders who are determined to challenge and curb corporate power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

On the other hand, you have deferential leaders like Pete Buttigieg, who fill their own staff with status quo counsel, and then let those timid corporate apologists run the show, leaving the substantial enforcement powers of a powerful agency to gather dust:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

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These three - #TimWu, recently departed from the White House; #LinaKhan at the FTC; and #JonathanKanter at the DOJ - wasted no time turning word into deed, taking on mergers, addressing anticompetitive conduct (like blocking #noncompetes and protecting #RightToRepair), and filing suit against abusive firms:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/09/rest-in-piss-robert-bork/#harmful-dominance

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It's not just the FTC that recognizes the risks from rollups. #JonathanKanter, the #DoJ's top antitrust enforcer has raised alarms about private equity strategies that are "designed to hollow out or roll-up an industry and essentially cash out. That business model is often very much at odds with the law and very much at odds with the competition we’re trying to protect."

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