War Breaks Out Between Whimsically Named Tech Giants

Companies named to sound cuddly are getting red in tooth and claw

Aug. 29: Google gets sued again … Supreme Court blocks student loan forgiveness … More absolutely enraging Trump cemetery shit … Trump loses a leading abortion foe …

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Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan appearing on The Daily Show with John Stewart on April 1, 2024, after Apple told him not to have her on his Apple show which he no longer has. (Screengrab / Comedy Central and definitely not Apple video.)

Yelp is suing Google. 

Which pains me to say not because I love them both but because, as a grownup, its degrading to say something that sounds no different than Blurk is suing Fleegel.¹ Grown-ass journalists shouldn’t have to suffer such indignities. Unless they work at Yahoo! Or Boing Boing.

On the other hand, the lawsuit is good news for humanity, As Cory Doctorow has written, Google is now an enemy of humanity, and if a nation turns its lonely eyes to Yelp to save us, so be it.

Yelp is claiming in its lawsuit that Google prioritizes its own content in searches over everybody else’s, a concept known in Big Tech algorithmic circles as “No Shit, Sherlock.”

Yelp’s lawsuit got bad reviews from Google, which pointed out that a judge just last month tossed out some similar claims. But Yelp still has other aspects of its anti-monopoly claims to pursue.

And the reason they’re doing it now — after complaining about Google for years just like the rest of humanity has — is thanks to Big Government.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last month won a massive, landmark ruling declaring Google a monopoly. The judge will soon rule on whether to break up Google or force the government to become Google’s babysitter.

That precedent, and the government’s new eagerness to fight monopolies, have changed the legal landscape dramatically. “[T]he winds on antitrust have shifted dramatically,” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told The New York Times after that ruling.

Ironically, some of these antitrust suits originated under the Trump administration, which likely would have killed them if anyone in the White House ever screwed up and told then-Pres. Donald Trump what the Trump administration was doing.

But the real antitrust crusader here is FTC Chair Lina Khan, who’s become a controversial, polarizing, and therefore probably vital figure in the effort to prevent an outright American corporatocracy.

But here’s the real takeaway from the Yelp suit and Khan’s efforts generally: She’s not anti-business. Just the opposite. Zealous restrictions on monopolies are pro-business. Not pro-gargantuan business, but pro-every other business.

Yelp was getting squelched by Google but didn’t sue until now because it was too much of an uphill climb before Khan’s victory against Google. Fighting monopolies helps business, helps us, and helps the country.

The only question now — which CNN’s Dana Bash will probably ask² Vice Pres. Kamala Harris today — is whether Khan will get to continue her vital work if Harris wins.

(While TFN is officially a No Stanning zone, your obedient newsletter wrote about Khan stanning earlier this month.)

Supreme Court Screws Trump, Student-Loan Borrowers

The Supreme Court yesterday temporarily upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking one of Pres. Joe Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plans. Coming about three months before the presidential election, the court’s order effectively served as an advertisement for Biden, meaning the court may have violated campaign-finance laws by giving Biden an undisclosed in-kind donation.³

The Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) (🙄) program had provided some degree of debt-cancellation for 400,000 people. But more than eight million had applied, and their financial fates are now in limbo.

Biden has succeeded in erasing about $167 billion in loans for 4.75 million people, but Republican litigants and judges have thwarted many of Biden’s attempts to add to those numbers.

In its order yesterday, the most corporate-friendly high court in U.S. history sided with Republican attorneys general who sued to block the SAVE program. Their suit makes the same argument other GOP suits have: That Biden overstepped his presidential authority in forgiving the loans.

Lacking presidential authority is a condition that afflicts every Democratic president when their attempts to help people end up in courts. Typically, courts only allow presidents to do what they’re not allowed to do when the presidents are Republican and what they’re doing is just a standard part of a president’s job, like ordering the Justice Department to lie about elections.

Vilsack Worsens Hunger, Dodges Blame

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack fucked up. Which will not surprise longtime readers of me. 

Part of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s mission is to get agriculture — food — to hungry people. So the USDA has programs to bring food to reservations, poor seniors, and food banks.

In April, the USDA gave the contract for those programs to a single company instead of multiple contractors and instead of the government doing its damn job its own damn self without jamming a profit margin in there.

Shockingly, the Invisible Hand dropped the ball.

Both programs have experienced delays and shortages. Vilsack told Politico “We’re learning that our system was flawed, and mistakes were made.” Which is what you say when you don’t wanna say, “Despite having been secretary for three years now — and eight years under Pres. Barack Obama! — I and the team I shittily assembled put a shitty system in place and mistakes were made by I, the mistake-making person who fucked up.”

I did a Twitter thread when Pres. Joe Biden brought Vilsack back to the USDA in 2021 that lays out some of the issues with Vilsack’s corporate-friendly approach and the price small farmers paid. Not sure the original article link works, but it seems to be archived here.

Maybe CNN’s Dana Bash will ask⁴ Vice Pres. Kamala Harris whether she intends to keep Vilsack — who has helped Democrats lose rural votes — or put someone in more inclined to protect small farmers from Agribusiness behemoths.

More Trump Graveyard Infuriation

Despite the dangers in valorizing all things military (ask a veteran) and despite the irrationality of sanctifying “holy” places, I had an unusually strong reaction to former Pres. Donald Trump breaking both the rules and the normal-people norms of graveyard behavior in Monday’s campaign stop at the Arlington National Cemetery.

Yesterday, more details came out that stoked my personal eternal flame on this issue.

Turns out, Team Trump didn’t blithely, out of ignorance, break the rules against videotaping or taking pictures or campaigning. The campaign had plenty of notice about how to behave, the Washington Post reports, because the campaign discussed the visit with military officials beforehand.

And the military was so freaked out that Trump would break the rules that — before the visit — they took pains to educate the campaign on the rules. In other words, Team Trump knew going in.

One detail the Post reports that I haven’t seen elsewhere: The Arlington employee was a woman. From the Post:

“A cemetery employee tried to enforce the rules as provided to her by blocking Trump’s team from bringing cameras to the graves of U.S. service members killed in recent years... A larger male campaign aide insisted the camera was allowed and pushed past the cemetery employee, leaving her shocked.”

I know my sexism is showing here, but what in the Andrew Tate Fuck is the Trump campaign’s excuse for shoving a woman? She owned cats?

Has anyone told the Olympic Boxing Committee about this?!?

The Trump campaign still has not released the incident video it claimed it was prepared to release.

And what that shocked, unnamed employee was protecting was not an abstract principle. It was yet another law that Trump has broken. And it was also the families of other people buried there.

Trump was there at the invitation of family of Marine Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover. But in a weird twist, it seems that other people are buried at Arlington, too!

Sure enough, Trump’s campaign photos included the gravestone of Master Sgt. Andrew Marckesano, whose family was not part of the event and whose sister said:

“...the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit to Staff Sergeant Hoover’s gravesite in Section 60, which lays directly next to my brother’s grave.

“...We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected accordingly.”

MORE THINGS THAT ARE MAKING ME LOSE MY MIND ABOUT THIS RELATIVELY TRIVIAL ISSUE

• The cemetery employee is not pressing charges against the Trump staffer who pushed her because she fears being targeted by Trump supporters.

• Trump’s history of denigrating the military — and politicizing our public institutions and spaces — includes not just his oft-noted remarks about service members, but also:

  • A political speech at Mt. Rushmore

  • A TV appearance from the Lincoln Memorial

  • The 2020 Republican National Convention — at the White House.

I’ll just add that this co-opting of our civic common spaces for personal politics isn’t limited to Trump. As TFN first reported, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) this year for the first time allowed the privately and Christianly run National Prayer Breakfast to be held inside the U.S. Capitol.

Anti-Choice Leader Thinks Trump Is Honest, Won’t Vote for Him

Lila Rose — leader of the anti-reproductive rights group Live Action — tells Politico that she’s planning to vote for neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump. The reason? Trump doesn’t hate abortion enough.

And she’s telling her followers not to vote for Trump either.

It’s not that Trump over the decades has probably paid for more abortions than any other human since Caligula. It’s that Trump has softened on protecting the microscopic cell clusters Rose considers people.

Since Trump’s Supreme Court appointments made it possible to overturn Roe v. Wade, fueling stunning Democratic wins even in deep red states, Trump has beshat himself over fears that abortion will terminate a late-term Trump presidency.

So he’s come out against a national abortion ban, for abortion pills, and for in vitro fertilization — even though IVF means destroying tiny, frozen cell clusters wholesale and keeping IVF legal is tantamount to a Dippin’ Dots™ genocide.

Politico asked the obvious question: Don’t you think Trump is just lying about this shit? And, as a former Trump supporter, Rose hilariously responded:

“I’ve received no confirmation from the Trump campaign that they’re going to secretly lie about abortion and then go do pro-life things afterward.”

And while it may be fashionable to treat every Trump utterance (Trutterance?) as a de facto lie, I think Rose is right. Trump was pro choice most of his life — and not just in his personal life. But also, the vast majority of Americans are at least to some degree pro-choice, and what Trump wants more than anything is to win.

As Rose hilariouslier said of Trump:

“It’s disappointing to say, but perhaps he personally lacks principle on this issue.”

Favorite word in that quote? “This.”

(But also “perhaps.”)

Four Quickies

• Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) yesterday announced $148 billion in new infrastructure spending, without saying how much of it was thanks to the federal government. In fact, I couldn’t find any news coverage identifying the federal chunk of that money. State Rep. Mihaela E. Plesa Tweeted that Texas is getting $27.5 billion in federal highway and bridge money over the next five years, noting that Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX) voted against it. (h/t)

• Another Elon Musk thing blew up. The uncrewed, reusable rocket booster was landing yesterday when it blooped over and blowed up real good. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all SpaceX Falcon 9 launches until SpaceX can explain why its rocket blew up and how SpaceX has fixed that. Musk’s other company, Tesla is still somehow allowed to sell crewed machines that do kill people.

• The FBI (finally) released photos of the rifle that was used in the attempted assassination of former Pres. Donald Trump’s right ear. But even with the photos out, I haven’t seen any coverage of the rifle’s manufacturer. As TFN exclusively reported last month, the company that made it was owned by a major Trump donor and insider.

• If you missed it, TFN reported yesterday that Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) defended a lie about tariffs — when challenged on it by NBC’s Kristen Welker — by telling another lie. As I wrote, Vance’s followup lie represents a new species of political dishonesty, one that media are ill-equipped to combat within the confines of their current formats. (You can check out all of TFN’s The Vance Files stories here.)

TCB

FALLING SHORT Last week, a diligent Newsfucker called me out for my ”occasional swipe at [Donald] Trump's personal appearance, weight, ‘manboobs,’ and, to a lesser extent, his orangeness.” They added: “[T]here is plenty to criticize and even ridicule without gratuitous body-shaming.”

I agree with this. When you catch me falling short like this, it’s because I’ve either let my guard down and slipped, or I was feeling insecure and desperate to wring a laugh out of … something stupid.

Our system was flawed and mistakes were made!

Part of the DNA of The Fucking News is to deploy humor appropriately — at ideas, rather than at physical attributes or irrelevancies.

One reason, I think, that we continually struggle with discrimination is that the focus is always on some specific attribute being “okay.” Skin color, etc. I wonder sometimes whether societally we ought focus instead on teaching everyone what we should focus on in judging the actions and words of others. That way we wouldn’t need to keep relitigating it every time we identify a new cohort of people that we shouldn’t make fun of for shit that doesn’t matter. And that includes me, trying real hard to be the shepherd.

TFN only exists thanks to your support. If you noticed all the original TFN reporting cited in today’s newsletter — Vilsack, Johnson, Vance! — that’s work no one else did and that I can only keep doing if enough patriotic Newsfuckers support TFN with a donation or by becoming a paid subscriber.

Thank you! And come say hi on Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, Spoutible, or Twitter.

Go get ‘em, kids.

1. Apologies and much honor to Don Martin, may he gloink in peace.

2. She will not ask.

3. Not really, because the court would just declare any remaining campaign-finance laws unconstitutional.

4. She will not ask.