Free Republic

Chinese price manipulation has taken its toll on the U.S. economy Rare earth metals are an increasingly integral part of everything from automobiles to television sets.  But the precious metals are tightly controlled by China, with an excess of 95 percent of current suplly coming from Chinese-owned mines and refineries.  The degree of control has allowed China to manipulate prices, cutting back on demand to sell less material for the same amount of profit, any businessperson's dream. I. New Private-Public Partnership Sets Aim on Chinese Mineral Hegemony The problem is that it takes several years or more to bring rare...

Today the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice prevailed in its second monopolization case against Google. In United States et al. v. Google, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets. According to the Court, Google “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.” “This is a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This Department of Justice will continue taking bold legal action...

An FTC lawsuit accuses the agriculture machinery giant of illegal repair restrictions that allegedly inflate costs and deny farmers timely equipment fixes. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with attorneys general from Illinois and Minnesota, filed a lawsuit against John Deere manufacturer Deere and Company on Wednesday, Jan. 15, charging the agriculture machinery giant with engaging in practices that allegedly force farmers to rely on its authorized dealers for critical equipment repairs. According to the FTC’s complaint, these alleged tactics have inflated costs for American farmers and deprived them of the ability to quickly fix the tractors and combines they...

There’s a video going mega-viral on social media. It features Linda Resnick, a member of a billionaire family deeply entrenched in California’s water business. As a matter of fact, they control quite a bit of the state’s water supply. With California facing severe water shortages—especially as fires rage through the city—people are starting to ask a lot of questions, and rightfully so. ... This is billionaire Lynda Resnick, her family owns 60-75% of the water in California.. – Her family donates HUGE amounts of money to Democrats. – She donated to stop Gavin Newsom’s recall. – They use over 150...

Microsoft's unchecked monopolistic practices and deep ties to the Censorship Industrial Complex demand a conservative-led investigation to safeguard free markets and free speech. It’s no secret that many of the tech giants operate as monopolies, and one of the worst offenders is Microsoft. The Federal Trade Commission recently launched an antitrust investigation against Bill Gates’s creation, alleging it works unfairly to stifle competition and control various sectors of the tech market. The FTC wants to inquire into how Microsoft offers its cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity products. The agency is particularly concerned with the tech giant’s bundling services that...

NYPD officers discovered stacks of Monopoly money in the backpack of the suspect accused of shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare during a high-profile conference in Manhattan. Authorities are still piecing together the motive behind the attack, but the peculiar find has raised more questions than answers. As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier, the New York Police Department discovered a backpack in Central Park believed to belong to the suspect in the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Now, authorities have revealed the contents inside the backpack. According to NYPD officials, a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and Monopoly money were found inside...

Key Points The Department of Justice late Tuesday indicated that it was considering a possible breakup of Google as an antitrust remedy. The DOJ said it was “considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search.” The judge has yet to decide on the remedies, and Google will likely appeal, drawing out the process potentially for years. ==================================================================== The Department of Justice late Tuesday made recommendations for Google’s search engine business practices, indicating that it was considering a possible breakup of the tech giant as an antitrust...

As the US government weighs its options following a landmark “monopolist” ruling against Google last week, online publications increasingly face a bleak future. (And this time, it’s not just because of severely diminished ad revenue.) Bloomberg reports that their choice now boils down to allowing Google to use their published content to produce inline AI-generated search “answers” or losing visibility in the company’s search engine. The crux of the problem lies in the Googlebot, the crawler that scours and indexes the live web to produce the results you see when you enter search terms. If publishers block Google from using...

LONGBOAT KEY, Fla., Aug. 06, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rumble (NASDAQ:RUM), the video-sharing platform and cloud services provider, announced that it has joined the social media platform X to file antitrust lawsuits alleging a conspiracy to withhold advertising revenue from Rumble and other digital media platforms. In its filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Rumble named as defendants the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), as well as the advertising agency WPP and its subsidiary GroupM Worldwide.

X on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of major advertisers, claiming that it had violated antitrust laws by coordinating with brands to dissuade them from spending money on the social media platform. The suit, filed in federal court in Texas, claims that the coalition, known as GARM, “conspired” with leading brands, including CVS, Unilever and the Danish energy company Ørsted to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” that were owed to X, then known as Twitter, in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media company in 2022....

To put it simply, people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott. This behavior is a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue. That is why, today, X has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted and Unilever. This is not a decision we took lightly, but it is a direct consequence of their actions.

"Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in his 277-page ruling. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and several dozen state attorneys general had sued Google, accusing the company of paying billions of dollars to Apple, Samsung and other companies to make Google the default search provider on smartphones and web browsers. "This victory against Google is an historic win for the American people," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "No company—no matter how large or...

A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies. The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century. After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta...

Google has violated US antitrust law with its search business, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing the tech giant a staggering court defeat with the potential to reshape how millions of Americans get information online and to upend decades of dominance. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” US District Judge Amit Mehta Mehta wrote in Monday’s opinion. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” The decision by the US District Court for the...

Washington, Arizona, Colorado, California, and Oregon would see the biggest number of stores flipped to C&S.. Kroger and Albertsons have released a list of hundreds of stores that would be divested to C&S Wholesale Grocers if federal regulators approve its proposed $24.6 billion merger deal, and the states with the largest numbers include Washington, Arizona, and Colorado. Under the proposal, Kroger and Albertsons would divest stores in Washington (124), Arizona (101), Colorado (91), California (63), Oregon (62), Illinois (35), Texas (28), Nevada (16), and Alaska (18). Several states would see 10 or fewer stores divested, including: Idaho (10), New Mexico...

WASHINGTON – If you rent a house when you would rather own, pin some of the blame on corporate landlords. The 10 biggest institutional investors owned more than 430,000 single-family rental homes at the end of 2023, and they continue to acquire houses to rent out to middle-class families. Corporate landlords seek to dominate the neighborhoods they target, simultaneously reducing the inventory of houses to buy while expanding the stock of houses to rent. Members of Congress have introduced bills to force the largest institutional investors to dramatically cut their holdings. The United States suffers from a housing shortage of...

The Justice Department sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Thursday, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in America and asking a court to break up the system that squelches competition and drives up prices for fans. Filed in federal court in Manhattan, the sweeping antitrust lawsuit was brought with 30 state and district attorneys general and seeks to dismantle the monopoly they say is squeezing out smaller promoters, hurting artists and drowning ticket buyers in fees. Ticketmaster and its owner, Live Nation Entertainment, have a long history of clashes with major artists and their fans, including...

Theme Players take the part of land owners, attempting to buy and then develop their land. Income is gained by other players visiting their properties and money is spent when they visit properties belonging to other players. When times get tough, players may have to mortgage their properties to raise cash for fines, taxes and other misfortunes

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday announced a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing the tech giant of engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones that boxes out competitors and stifles innovation. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its control over the iPhone to “engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct.” The lawsuit — which was also filed with 16 state attorneys general — is the latest example of the Justice Department’s approach to aggressive enforcement of federal antitrust law that...

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec What was Donald’s favorite game as a child? Mrs Trump: Monopoly…and he was always building with blocks 9:57 PM · Mar 1, 2024