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'Plutocracy Is Its Own Kind of Dictatorship,' Biden Antitrust Chief Warns in Farewell Address
"When companies larger, wealthier, and more powerful than most world governments threaten individual liberty with coercive private taxation and regulation, it threatens our way of life," said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter.
Dec 18, 2024
Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, the antitrust head at the Department of Justice who helped turbocharge the agency's efforts to rein in monopoly power, bid farewell to his post in a speech Tuesday during which he warned that "plutocracy is its own kind of dictatorship."
Kanter's deputy, Doha Mekki, will take over leading the Antitrust Division starting Friday. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Gail Slater, a tech and media policy advisor who worked for Vice President-elect JD Vance, to permanently replace Kanter.
In his speech, Kanter described how President Joe Biden's administration had a clear mandate from the public to break with the antitrust approach of previous decades: "When I took office in 2021, questions about monopoly power were no longer just a technocratic concern relegated to the narrow halls of white-shoe law firms and elite academic institutions. Our nation was experiencing a remarkable moment unlike any I had seen in my lifetime. Americans across the country had become acutely aware of the powerful forces that were suppressing their economic freedom."
To get himself ready for the role, he looked for inspiration from the "storied trustbusters of yesteryear"—particularly Assistant Attorney General Robert Jackson, who led antitrust enforcement at the Department of Justice under FDR. "In 2021, the similarities to 1936 were unmistakable. They say that history rhymes. Well, it sure does. And this time it had 'bars,' as the youth say."
Then, as now, antitrust enforcement is an engine for economic prosperity, Kanter said. It can lower prices by limiting the market power of large companies, increase growth and prosperity by curbing corporate-imposed private regulation that "sap entrepreneurs of opportunity," and provide greater mobility and higher wages for workers, he argued.
With that "why" in mind, the division "confronted the Herculean task of operationalizing our mandate to restore, revive, and reimagine antitrust enforcement for our nation."
In many respects, Kanter was successful in that mission. During his time with the Department of Justice, the agency notched a major legal victory over the company Google, which Kanter's team and states had argued held an illegal monopoly in the search engine and advertising market. In August, a federal judge ruled that Google was an illegal monopolist for spending tens of billions on default search deals, a decision that has been called the "biggest antitrust case of the 21st century."
The Antitrust Division has also filed ongoing cases against Visa, the rent-fixing software RealPage, Ticketmaster, and others. Cases brought by the division also successfully blocked a merger between publishing giants Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, as well as JetBlue's acquisition of Spirit.
In response to the news that Kanter is stepping down, Nidhi Hegde, interim executive director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Tuesday that under Kanter's leadership "the DOJ Antitrust Division has become an enforcer fit for the modern economy—and a powerful ally of American consumers, workers, and small businesses."
Kanter offered advice to future enforcers, such as engaging people outside of the Beltway and "dispel[ling] the myth that less competition at home helps the U.S. compete more abroad."
The stakes of lax enforcement are high, he warned: "When companies larger, wealthier, and more powerful than most world governments threaten individual liberty with coercive private taxation and regulation, it threatens our way of life."
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Judge Blocks Iowa Book Ban, 'Don't Say LGBTQ' Law
"We deserve to be able to express ourselves safely at school and we deserve to see ourselves in media at school, especially in books," said an eighth grade student who joined one of the lawsuits.
Dec 29, 2023
A U.S. federal judge on Friday blocked key parts of what critics called a "sweeping Iowa law that seeks to silence LGBTQ+ students, erase any recognition of LGBTQ+ people from public schools, and bans books with sexual or LGBTQ+ content."
Judge Stephen Locher determined that none of the plaintiffs in a pair of cases filed against Senate File 496 has standing to challenge the provision requiring school districts to notify parents if a child seeks an accommodation relating to gender identity, including the use of pronouns that does not match registration records.
However, Locher issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a ban on any book containing "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act"—except for the Bible—in all public school classrooms and libraries, and a prohibition on "any program, curriculum, test, survey, questionnaire, promotion, or instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation" in kindergarten through sixth grade.
"This decision sends a strong message to the state that efforts to ban books based on LGBTQ+ content, or target speech that sends a message of inclusion to Iowa LGBTQ+ students cannot stand."
The law—part of a national wave of GOP-led book bans and other policies targeting LGBTQ+ youth—was passed by the Iowa Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds this spring. The Associated Press noted Friday that it "was set to take effect January 1 but already had resulted in the removal of hundreds of books from Iowa schools."
The two lawsuits against S.F. 496 were filed last month. The Iowa State Education Association, Penguin Random House, and some popular authors partnered for one of the cases. The ACLU of Iowa, Lambda Legal, and the law firm Jenner & Block also sued on behalf of Iowa Safe Schools and several students and their families—including Berry Stevens, an eighth grader from West Des Moines.
"I've known since I was in third grade that I am a part of the LGBTQIA+ community," said Stevens—whose mother, Rev. Brigit Stevens, is also a plaintiff in the case—when the suit was launched in November. "In sixth grade, I first changed my name and started using they/them pronouns because I knew I wasn't a boy or a girl. I'm just a person. This is a concept that a lot of adults have trouble understanding."
The younger Stevens explained that "I am participating in this lawsuit because this new law hurts all kinds of kids and it hurts many of my friends. We deserve to be able to express ourselves safely at school and we deserve to see ourselves in media at school, especially in books. This law is trying to shut us down and make us be quiet and not openly discuss our lives, who we like, or who we truly are."
"I know what it's like to be bullied and harassed because of being in the LGBTQIA+ community. I wish my school would do something to actually prevent bullying before it happens, not just tell kids it's wrong after the fact," they added. "But because of this law, I feel like the school is too worried about getting in trouble with the state if they try to speak out. This law gets in the way of educators trying to make a safer, more inclusive space for all students."
Another plaintiff, high school senior Puck Carlson of Iowa City, said that "like it or not, sex and sexuality are parts of the teenage experience. Refusing to provide adolescents with information about it means they'll seek out their own information—from the Internet, or from others, in ways that are significantly less safe than books reviewed by teachers or librarians."
"Removing books that discuss queer topics or people from our schools tells our queer students that they do not belong there, that their existence is shameful. I am not shameful," they added. "School is one of the main places that children read, and being able to access literature in which you can see yourself can be instrumental to a student's discovery of themselves—it certainly was to me."
In response to the judge blocking Iowa's book ban and "don't say LGBTQ" provisions, Lambda Legal senior attorney Nathan Maxwell said that "we are glad our clients, Iowa families, and students will be able to continue the school year free from the harms caused by these parts of this unconstitutional law."
"This decision sends a strong message to the state that efforts to ban books based on LGBTQ+ content, or target speech that sends a message of inclusion to Iowa LGBTQ+ students cannot stand," Maxwell added. "Lambda Legal and the ACLU of Iowa will continue our fight to ensure Iowa schools are safe for LGBTQ+ students."
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Critics Rip Private Equity Firm's Deal to Buy Simon & Schuster as 'Dark Day for Publishing'
"I guess all of corporate book publishing is beholden to investors above all else but this really makes it blatant," said one literary podcaster.
Aug 07, 2023
American literati recoiled in howls of articulate indignation Monday following news that multinational mass media conglomerate Paramount Global has agreed to sell venerable publishing house Simon & Schuster to KKR, described by one critic as "possibly the most vile example of a private equity firm that acquires, eviscerates, and kills off companies for profit."
The New York Times reports KKR will pay $1.62 billion in an all-cash deal for the 99-year-old publishing giant, which was first put up for sale in 2020.
Last October, a proposed $2.2 billion sale to Penguin Random House (PRH) collapsed after a federal judge sided with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which opposed the deal on antitrust grounds.
"I guess all of corporate book publishing is beholden to investors above all else but this really makes it blatant," tweeted Maris Kreizman, host of the Maris Review literary podcast. "As we saw in DOJ v. PRH, the people at the top truly don't know how the sausage gets made. And now a private equity firm will be at the tippy top. What could go wrong?"
Dashka Slater, the New York Times bestselling author of The 57 Bus—which won the Stonewall Book Award in 2018—said she was "horrified" to get an email from Simon & Schuster "announcing their acquisition by kleptocrats KKR."
"This is a dark day for publishing," Slater added.
According to Words Rated, an international data and analytics research group focusing on the publishing industry, over 80% of the nearly $91.4 billion annual U.S. book trade is controlled by the "Big Five" publishers—Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster.
Often referred to as "vulture capitalists" because they target financially floundering companies for acquisition before gutting their operations and personnel to maximize profit, private equity firms own or control scores of publishers, according to the market research site mergr.
KKR media chair Richard Sarnoff called the deal "a compelling opportunity to help Simon & Schuster become an even stronger partner to literary talent by investing in the expansion of the company's capabilities and distribution networks."
Jamie Ford, another Times bestselling author, had just "one question for the KKR board."
"What," he asked, "was the last book you read?"
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PEN America Joins Suit Against Florida School District Over 'Unconstitutional' Book Bans
"Children in a democracy must not be taught that books are dangerous," asserted PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel. "The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution."
May 17, 2023
The free expression group PEN America on Wednesday joined Penguin Random House—the largest U.S. book publisher—and a group of authors and parents in a lawsuit challenging a Florida county school district's banning of titles about race and LGBTQ+ topics, a policy stemming from Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' self-described "war on woke."
"Today, Escambia County seeks to bar books critics view as too 'woke,'" states the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and seeks to return proscribed titles to school libraries.
"In the 1970s, schools sought to bar Slaughterhouse-Five and books edited by Langston Hughes," the suit notes. "Tomorrow, it could be books about Christianity, the country's founders, or war heroes. All of these removals run afoul of the First Amendment."
According to The New York Times:
In Escambia County, the restrictions the lawsuit is concerned with began when Vicki Baggett, a language arts teacher at the district's Northview High School, challenged more than 100 titles beginning last year. Among them were picture books, young adult novels, and works of nonfiction. The complaint described her objections as "nakedly ideological," saying that she had argued that the books "should be evaluated based on explicit sexual content, graphic language, themes, vulgarity, and political pushes."
Among the books was And Tango Makes Three, about a penguin family with two fathers, which she objected to for "serving an LGBTQ agenda using penguins."
The school board—which is a defendant in the case, along with the district—has so far "voted to remove 10 books, some entirely and others from certain grade levels," the Times reported. "In each instance, the board did so despite a recommendation from a district-level committee of educators, media specialists, community members, and parents that the books remain in place."
PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement that "children in a democracy must not be taught that books are dangerous. The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution."
"In Escambia County, state censors are spiriting books off shelves in a deliberate attempt to suppress diverse voices," Nossel added. "In a nation built on free speech, this cannot stand. The law demands that the Escambia County School District put removed or restricted books back on library shelves where they belong."
Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya said that "books have the capacity to change lives for the better, and students in particular deserve equitable access to a wide range of perspectives."
" Censorship, in the form of book bans like those enacted by Escambia County, [is] a direct threat to democracy and our constitutional rights," Malaviya added. "We stand by our authors, their books, and the teachers, librarians, and parents who champion free expression."
Lindsay Durtschi, an Escambia County parent and plaintiff in the suit, argued that "without diverse representation in literature in school libraries and inclusive dialogue in the classroom, we are doing irreparable harm to the voices and safety of students in Florida."
"Our children need the adults in their lives to stand up for the promise of inclusion and equity," Durtschi added.
The new lawsuit comes amid a relentless attack by DeSantis—a likely 2024 Republican presidential candidate—on educational freedom from kindergarten through the university level.
On Wednesday, DeSantis signed a bill extending the so-called "Don't Say Gay or Trans" law—which prohibits classroom discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity—to include all grades K-12.
The governor has also replaced key state education officials with right-wing allies who toe his "anti-woke" line, while stoking a climate of fear in which educators have removed books from classroom libraries to avoid running afoul of bans on titles dealing with race or LGBTQ+ issues.
Common Dreams reported last month that laws passed in Republican-controlled states have led to nearly 1,500 book bans nationwide during just the first half of the 2022-23 school year. This followed a record number of book bans last year, according to the American Library Association.
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Internet Archive to Appeal 'Chilling' Federal Ruling Against Digital Books
"For democracy to thrive at global scale, libraries must be able to sustain their historic role in society—owning, preserving, and lending books," said Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. "This ruling is a blow for libraries, readers, and authors."
Mar 25, 2023
Internet Archive vowed to appeal after a U.S. district court judge on Friday sided with four major publishers who sued the nonprofit for copyright infringement.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Internet Archives operated a controlled digital lending system, allowing users to digitally check out scanned copies of purchased or donated books on a one-to-one basis. As the public health crises forced school and library closures, the nonprofit launched the National Emergency Library, making 1.4 million digital books available without waitlists.
Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House sued Internet Archive over its lending policies in June 2020. Judge John G. Koeltl of the Southern District of New York on Friday found in Hachette v. Internet Archive that the nonprofit "creates derivative e-books that, when lent to the public, compete with those authorized by the publishers."
A future in which libraries are just a shell for Big Tech's licensing software and Big Media's most popular titles would be awful—but that's where we're headed if this decision stands.
Internet Archive "argues that its digital lending makes it easier for patrons who live far from physical libraries to access books and that it supports research, scholarship, and cultural participation by making books widely accessible on the Internet," the judge wrote. "But these alleged benefits cannot outweigh the market harm to the publishers."
In a statement responding to the ruling, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle pledged to keep fighting against the publishers.
"Libraries are more than the customer service departments for corporate database products. For democracy to thrive at global scale, libraries must be able to sustain their historic role in society—owning, preserving, and lending books," Kahle said. "This ruling is a blow for libraries, readers, and authors and we plan to appeal it."
Internet Archive's supporters have shared similar warnings throughout the ongoing court battle, including after the ruling Friday.
"In a chilling ruling, a lower court judge in New York has completely disregarded the traditional rights of libraries to own and preserve books in favor of maximizing the profits of Big Media conglomerates," declared Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director at the digital rights group Fight for the Future.
"We applaud the Internet Archive's appeal announcement, as well as their steadfast commitment to preserving the rights of all libraries and their patrons in the digital age," they said. "And our admiration is shared—over 14,000 people having signed our pledge to defend libraries' digital rights at BattleForLibraries.com this week alone."
Holland continued:
From a basic human rights perspective, it is patently absurd to equate an e-book license issued through a surveillance-ridden Big Tech company with a digital book file that is owned and preserved by a privacy-defending nonprofit library. Currently, publishers offer no option for libraries to own and preserve digital books—leaving digital books vulnerable to unauthorized edits, censorship, or downright erasure, and leaving library patrons vulnerable to surveillance and punishment for what they read.
In a world where libraries cannot own, preserve, or control the digital books in their collections, only the most popular, bestselling authors stand to benefit—at the expense of the vast majority of authors, whose books are preserved and purchased by libraries well after publishers have stopped promoting them. Further, today a disproportionate number of traditionally marginalized and local voices are being published in digital-only format, redoubling the need for a robust regime of library preservation to ensure that these stories survive for generations to come.
A future in which libraries are just a shell for Big Tech's licensing software and Big Media's most popular titles would be awful—but that's where we're headed if this decision stands. No book-lover who wants an equitable and trustworthy written world could find such a future desirable. Accordingly, we plan to organize an in-person action to demand robust ownership and preservation standards for digital books and libraries. For updates on when and where, check BattleForLibraries.com.
More than 300 authors last September signed an open letter led by Fight for the Future calling out publishers and trade associations for their actions against digital libraries, including the lawsuit targeting Internet Archive.
"Libraries saved my life as a young reader, and I've seen them do as much and more for so many others," said signatory Jeff Sharlet. "At a time when libraries are at the frontlines of fascism's assault on democracy, it is of greater importance than ever for writers to stand in solidarity with librarians in defense of the right to share stories. Democracy won't survive without it."
Fellow signatory Erin Taylor asserted that "the Internet Archive is a public good. Libraries are a public good. Only the most intellectually deprived soul would value profit over mass access to literature and knowledge."
Koeltl's ruling came just two days after the American Library Association released a report revealing that in 2022, a record-breaking 2,571 titles were challenged by pro-censorship groups pushing book bans, a 38% increase from the previous year.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed the so-called Parents Bill of Rights Act, which education advocates and progressive lawmakers argue is intended to ban books and further ostracize marginalized communities.
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