Reclaiming the Courts from Corporate Capture How the consumer welfare and tort reform movements eroded the right to a civil jury trial, and how to fix it.

economicpopulist.substack.com/p/reclaiming...

I hope @chmnmendelson.bsky.social, anitabondsdc.bsky.social, @cmcharlesallen.bsky.social, and our mayoral candidates are paying attention and will take steps to fix this and protect our most vulnerable neighbors.

I got this email from the DC Bar today. As a Ward 6 resident who cares about access to justice, I'm alarmed. Courts shouldn't be the exclusive province of the wealthy. DC residents facing eviction, DV, and loss of benefits depend on these services. Cutting the budget 86% is outrageous.

Reservoirs drying up. Water tables dropping as aquifers are drained. New wells are too salty. And now they need reverse osmosis plants.

The catastrophe from Corpus selling all its water to industry keeps getting worse.

Every city leader talking to a data center developer should know about this.

Surprising intersection of issues in WaPo's story today on the border wall in Big Bend:

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/u...

Turning to local issues: A gunfight broke out off East Capitol in DC on Saturday. It was behind my friend's house. At least 7 bullets went through her home, including a child's bedroom. No one died, so police kept it quiet. DC deserves better.

www.hillrag.com/2026/03/16/e...

⚡What else? Don’t repeat these mistakes with data centers vying for sweetheart deals right now, all over the United States. They will consume our resources and give back almost nothing.⚡

💰Gov. Abbott is threatening a state takeover, and there's a lot of finger pointing. But no one's talking about the obvious move: revoke the tax breaks and make these corporations help fund the billion-dollar desalination plant taxpayers are currently on the hook for. 💰

⏳The region is now months from a “water emergency” and less than a year from “total depletion.” It’s also facing “mass layoffs, disruption of fuel supplies and billions of dollars in emergency spending to avoid an evacuation of the city." ⏳

💦 Last week, @texastribune.org published a blistering report on industrial water use and gov't failure. Local officials gave Exxon, Steel Dynamics, and Tesla massive tax breaks AND guaranteed water to build plants that opened during a historic drought and consume over 21M gallons a day combined. 💦

Corpus Christi careens toward water catastrophe City officials expect to reach a “water emergency” within months and run out of water next year. That would halt jet fuel deliveries to Texas airports, hike gas prices and trigger a local economic dis...

Worried about data center tax breaks and resource consumption? Tune in to the South Texas water crisis, ground zero for bad governance and corporate boondoggles. 🧵 below.

www.texastribune.org/2026/03/08/t...

Back on Bluesky after a long silence. Experimenting with more posts to see what resonates.

Starting with state and local politics, but will focus mostly on how the anti-monopoly movement is working to rebuild Main Street America + my niche favorite, the intersection of sports and antitrust.

As private equity buys into the $40 billion youth sports industry, everyday families are being priced out.

"We have this affordability crisis, and youth sports are one of those things that’s becoming an activity only for the wealthy,”
@capitolkvd.bsky.social tells @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social

For those keeping track, the first half of our motion has already been granted, and ILSR is officially an Intervenor in FTC v. Pepsi. Good start!

I was thrilled to file this motion yesterday. Public access to court filings is a foundation of our democracy. Don't let the powerful hide behind protective orders. Force them to play by the rules and justify every single redaction.

Defying Supreme Court orders, w/ a complicit Congress, is not just a constitutional crisis. It is a constitutional failure. We're officially in an autocracy. Time to start disciplining lawyers who defy court orders. Revoke licenses and court admissions, deny PHV apps, enforce the rule of law.

What antitrust immunity looks like.

Imagine the NFL doing this with Mahomes and State Farm or the NBA with LeBron and Nike.

I guess college sports tradition is a junior Deloitte accountant deciding how much Buddy Garrity can pay the new tight end for local TV spots.

#NIL #NCAA

Trump's Big Speech, Trade War Roller Coaster, and Elon v. Jon Stewart Podcast Episode · Pivot · 03/07/2025 · 1h 18m

@karaswisher.bsky.social nails it on Pivot this week talking about oligarchy and innovation. Hint: the former kills the latter.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

Please, please, please. Tell me there are alternatives to the Lexis/Westlaw duopoly for law journals. Please, please, please. Don’t point point me to Fastcase.

I hope Congress doesn't lose sight of why we have these laws. Giving the NCAA an exemption would be unprecedented, trap athletes in a ridiculous free labor system, and upend 135 years of U.S. competition and labor policy.

The courts know this conduct is wrong. The public knows it's wrong. Our audience knew it was wrong.
We won the debate, with 66% voting in our favor, against the Big East commissioner and the head of the National Sports Law Institute.

What the NCAA wants is broad, and it's not limited to antitrust immunity. They want to be excused from the FLSA and Title IX too.

Amateurism is a myth, the market is broken, and a $17.5 billion business doesn't need protection. The athletes working long hours and traveling back and forth across the country—with no bargaining power, no monetary compensation, and few health and safety regs—do.

ICYMI: Watch me and Jim Cavale argue, at last week’s AEI Debate, against an antitrust exemption for the NCAA.

www.aei.org/events/aei-e... 🧵

On Thursday, I'm participating in a debate at the American Enterprise Insitute, arguing against an antitrust exemption for the NCAA. No doubt that this will be a spirited discussion. Learn more and sign up here: www.aei.org/events/aei-e...:

Thank you Judd! The media sowed chaos and confusion yesterday. DealBook this morning still calls it a “buyout package”. But it’s really a poker game putting a lot of federal employees in a tough spot. Those who don’t read the “Fork” closely could easily be deceived into something they don’t want.

Hi Bill!👋🏻

🏆The 5th Cir. rejected wholesale Illumina's appeal. Its reading of sec. 7 eschewed overly formalistic "hard metrics" and self-serving promises in favor of common sense and embraced "the purpose of Section 7—'to arrest anticompetitive tendencies in their incipiency.'" Huge win 🏆

🚨🚨Officially no settlement in Epic v. Google. This went all the way up to Pichai. The future of the Google Play Store is going to a jury. ⚖️⚖️

NCAA prez Charlie Baker really stirred things up in the business of college sports today. As I said on the other site, his proposal isn't perfect. But it is a textbook example of how vigorous antitrust enforcement leads to better working conditions and a fair economy.

t.co/SytNloM30l