So much for that, part 5

A common narrative was that even though Trump had not accomplished much in terms of policy, he had appointed ‘hundreds of judges’ that would reverse the tide of liberalism and the left.

Facebook antitrust lawsuits ‘legally insufficient,’ rules judge

A federal judge on Monday dismissed antitrust lawsuits brought against Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a coalition of state attorneys general, dealing a significant blow to attempts by regulators to rein in tech giants.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Monday that the lawsuits were “legally insufficient” and didn’t provide enough evidence to prove that Facebook was a monopoly. The ruling dismisses the complaint but not the case, meaning the FTC could refile another complaint.

As I wrote earlier, the era of anti-trust is dead. None of these tech companies meet the impossibly high criteria of being monopolies, and the political impetus to do anything is gone too. The democrats of today are fully entrenched with Silicon Valley, as are many republicans.

“These allegations – which do not even provide an estimated actual figure or range for Facebook’s market share at any point over the past 10 years – ultimately fall short of plausibly establishing that Facebook holds market power,” he said.

How does having 1/3 of the world’s population on your social network, addition to What’s App and Instagram, fall short of having market power?

Boasberg was appointed by Obama.

And now today Federal judge rules Florida social media law likely violates free speech

June 30 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a recently-enacted Florida law that was meant to authorize the state to penalize social media companies when they ban political candidates, with the judge saying the law likely violated free speech rights.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law, which was scheduled to go into effect Thursday.

Hinkle was appointed by Clinton. A possible loophole would have been to declare yourself a candidate even if you had no intention of campaigning, if the law had actually gone into effect

Recent rulings, such as the outcome of Bostock v. Clayton county, 2020, in which Gorsuch and Roberts defected from Thomas and other conservative appointees, is all the evidence we need that the culture wars will not be won in the courts. Additionally, Gorsuch denied two Colorado churches’ petitions from being exempt from Covid restrictions.

It reminds me of the hype about Bitcoin. In 2011-2017 many people were certain Bitcoin would ‘change the world’ and be the ‘future of money’. Almost a decade later, Bitcoin still has close to zero market penetration, almost no adoption, and is regulated so much as to make it useless as an anonymous form of payment. It is legal in the same way owning an old machine gun or an exotic imported animal is legal.

History unfolds over eons. The Spanish empire lasted 5 centuries. Rome lasted a millennia. Such quiescence is punctuated by upheaval and crisis, but we’re in something of a continuum, so this means we cannot look to or expect quick fixes.