Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Pro tip: you don’t have to pick between one of two evil empires. Karl Marx said that

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Pro tip: you don’t have to pick between one of two evil empires. Karl Marx said that

PeterWeller posted:

Hit me up when there's a good empire.

PeterWeller posted:

Hit me up when there's a good empire.

PeterWeller posted:

Hit me up when there's a good empire.

Byzantine posted:

Hello.

OctaMurk posted:

Imo empires are pretty good for the people doing the imperialism

OctaMurk posted:

Imo empires are pretty good for the people doing the imperialism

quote:

Nevada police executed a search warrant in the murder investigation of Tupac Shakur Monday looking for laptops and other electronic devices at the home of a gang member who said he was in the car when the superstar rapper was fatally shot in Las Vegas in 1996, according to the warrant exclusively obtained by NBC News on Thursday.

Duane Keith Davis, 60, also known as “Keefy D” or “Keffe D,” was the target of the warrant out of Clark County in which Las Vegas police also searched desktops and other electronic storage devices such as thumb drives, CDs, external hard drives and audio recordings, the warrant said.

Davis, the warrant said, was affiliated with the South Side Compton Crips street gang, and he has been vocal about his involvement over the years.

Davis was one of four people who police say was in the suspect vehicle when Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. The alleged shooter, Orlando Anderson, Davis’ nephew, later died in a gang-related killing in Los Angeles. Davis, who was investigated by both the LAPD and Las Vegas Metro PD, initially denied involvement in the Tupac killing but later gave police details about the case under a limited non-prosecution agreement. More recently, he has openly discussed his presence at the shooting scene in interviews, articles and other media.

Investigators were also looking for "notes, writings, ledgers, and other handwritten or typed documents concerning television shows, documentaries, YouTube episodes, book manuscripts, and movies concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur," the warrant said.

The search of Davis’ home in Henderson, a city about 15 miles south of Las Vegas, turned up a Pokeball USB Drive, a black iPhone in a black case, a gold iPad with a broken screen, a gold iPad in a pink case and a purple Toshiba laptop, among other items, the warrant said.

Another Toshiba laptop, a Toshiba hard drive, and a HP laptop were also listed in items obtained by investigators. The book "Compton Street Legend" — co-authored by Keffe D — a Vibe magazine featuring Tupac, "purported marijuana" and tubs with photographs in it, were also collected, the warrant said.

On Tuesday, police confirmed in a statement the search warrant was served.

“We will have no further comment at this time,” the statement concluded.

Shakur, 25, died Sept. 13, 1996. His slaying has remained unsolved.

While he has been gone for more than 25 years, he is arguably as famous and relevant now as he was when he died.

The Oakland, California, City Council this year voted to rename part of MacArthur Boulevard, a main thoroughfare, in his honor.

“Tupac knew deep down that he was always meant for something great,” his sister Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur said last month at a ceremony adding her late brother’s star to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“And as his little sister, I had the privilege to watch that greatness unfold,” she said.

Tupac is not only considered hip-hop royalty, but his musical influence has elevated him in death to that of a legendary artist.

He is considered among the most influential and versatile rappers of all time. Shakur, a six-time Grammy nominee, has had five No. 1 albums: 1995’s “Me Against the World” and 1996’s “All Eyez on Me” and three posthumous releases: 1996’s “The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,” which was recorded under the name Makaveli, 2001’s “Until the End of Time” and 2004’s “Loyal to the Game.”

In 2017, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June.

Shakur has sold 33 million albums — 41 million when track sale and streaming equivalents are included, according to the entertainment data company Luminate. His on-demand video and audio streams total 10.1 billion.

PeterWeller posted:

Hit me up when there's a good empire.

haveblue posted:

quote:

The new antitrust guidelines also reflect the White House's focus on labor issues. "Where a merger between employers may substantially lessen competition for workers, that reduction in labor market competition may lower wages or slow wage growth, worsen benefits or working conditions," the guidelines say.

quote:

US regulators unveil antitrust roadmap with Big Tech in crosshairs

WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - U.S. antitrust regulators published guidelines on Wednesday on the kinds of mergers and acquisitions they object to, reaffirming the skepticism with which President Joe Biden's administration has approached many deals, especially in the technology sector.

The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have mounted an unprecedented number of legal challenges to mergers since Biden came to office in 2021.

Their success in court has been mixed, with two losses recorded just last week in their attempts to scupper Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) and to undo a merger in the sugar industry.

During the Biden administration, the FTC also lost a bid to stop Meta from buying a virtual reality content maker and another in cancer detection. The Justice Department lost a merger in the insurance industry but won an effort to stop a book publisher merger.

Several challenges are scheduled to go before judges in the next few months, including the Justice Department's fight against JetBlue Airways Corp's purchase of Spirit Airlines Inc (SAVE.N).

The 51 pages of guidelines by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission described, without naming them, deals such as Amazon.com's purchase of video doorbell Ring in 2018, and said the antitrust agencies should scrutinize them.

The concern is that Ring's competitors are sold on Amazon.com, giving Amazon the incentive to favor Ring over competitors.

The guidelines also said a transaction should not eliminate a potential entrant in a concentrated market or create a situation in which a firm buys a company that provides inputs for the acquirer's competitors.

Deal advisers said companies had already braced for a tough antitrust regime under Biden and some had been emboldened by the regulators' recent court losses.

"The courts are the ultimate deciders, and the courts are guided by precedent and case law," said Kenneth Schwartz, an antitrust partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Several other antitrust lawyers, including Daniel Culley at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, said the new guidelines are unlikely to disrupt dealmaking activity meaningfully and the impact of enforcement could be limited in the near term.

"The new guidelines may not have that much of an impact until we see what the courts are willing to go along with," said Megan Browdie, an antitrust partner at Cooley LLP.

Global deal volumes in the technology sector have dropped by more than half so far this year, according to data from LSEG Deals Intelligence.

Tougher antitrust enforcement in the sector has been a contributing factor to deal appetite waning, according to Fiona Schaeffer, an antitrust partner with law firm Milbank LLP.

She argued that if the guidelines are adopted as proposed they will not necessarily be accepted by judges hearing merger challenges because they do not reflect recent court decisions on contested mergers.

"The (regulators' guidelines) do provide more transparency but that transparency also reveals some concerns that they are quite hostile to consolidation. Big is bad," she said.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who has pushed hard for tougher antitrust enforcement, called the guidelines a turnaround "after more than 40 years of lax antitrust enforcement."

She and others defended the guidelines, with Warren saying they were "rooted in the laws passed by Congress, aligned with court precedent, and provide a much-needed update to counter the real harms posed by corporate monopolies."

The new antitrust guidelines also reflect the White House's focus on labor issues. "Where a merger between employers may substantially lessen competition for workers, that reduction in labor market competition may lower wages or slow wage growth, worsen benefits or working conditions," the guidelines say.

The guidelines replace those last issued in 2010 on companies buying competitors and 2020 guidelines on companies merging with suppliers. The new guidelines will be open for comment for 60 days before they are finalized.

Furnaceface posted:

Didnt the FTC/government just OK the Microsoft takeover of ActiBlizz just last week?

Mellow Seas posted:

Megacorporations are very bad but at least it’ll make it really easy to nationalize industries if the public ever starts demanding it.

(Yeah I know, privatizing the government seems more likely but you never know which way the wind will blow.)

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Also, part of this anti-trust and junk fees package involves apartment rental sites having to list their full price upfront without hidden fees. I have not used one of those for a while, but what kind of hidden fees could not be advertised and end up costing hundreds of dollars?

Some kind of convenience fee? Some extra fees on top of the paid criminal background/credit checks? Does Apartments.com actually charge you some kind of fee before you even apply for an apartment? Even those seem like it would be hard to spring into the hundreds of dollars for looking at apartments online.

I remember using one of these sites 8-10 years ago and I had to pay for the background check (which you could do through the site with your application), but I don't remember any other fees for just using the site that could be in the hundreds of dollars.

Professor Beetus posted:

One thing I would.really like to see addressed is telemarkets/spam/spam calls, because they drive me absolutely insane and lol and behold, it's another case of American exceptionalism where they're legislated out of existence pretty much everywhere else iirc

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I guess he is embracing the Bidenomics thing and just running with it. Although, this does make it a little harder to determine what Bidenomics is actually defining. Because it now apparently encompasses everything from labor unions to building roads to raising wages to making Ticketmaster get rid of hidden fees to anti-trust rules to minimum internet speed regulations to making sure you get a free hotel if an airline delays your flight. Literally anything the executive branch does is Bidenomics now, baby.

Professor Beetus posted:

One thing I would.really like to see addressed is telemarketers/spam/spam calls, because they drive me absolutely insane and lol and behold, it's another case of American exceptionalism where they're legislated out of existence pretty much everywhere else iirc

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

They actually did crack down on them somewhat recently. The FCC required the VoIP operators to be responsible for blocking calls that come from known scam blocks. Verizon and other providers had been adamantly fighting that for years.

It is definitely not legislated out of existence elsewhere. Unfortunately, VoIP has revolutionized international calling in a lot of great ways, but it also makes it trivially cheap to buy enormous amounts of numbers and make enormous amounts of calls. So the cost of getting all your numbers blocked is minimal. And if you are based in India or Pakistan and the local government doesn't really care that much about going after you, then there is nothing the U.S. can really do to people outside of its jurisdiction.

There are a bunch of really interesting documentaries (BBC did one, Vice did a miniseries, and there's several big "anti-scam" Youtube channels) that go into the logistics and finances of the scam industry and how crazy it is.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

There is a second video from the people he partnered with on their channel (can't find it right now)

Willa Rogers posted:

I mean, it's political branding heading into an election year, branding that builds upon everyone's fond memories of Reaganomics & adopting its alliteration based on their last names both ending in N.

It's also vague enough to encompass virtually any action the administration takes, negligible as it might be, as part of a larger plan to reassure voters.

It's brave, given the 56 percent of Americans who say they are living paycheck to paycheck, as well as the 60-70 percent of voters throughout Biden's presidency who have considered rising costs for meeting people's basic needs like food, shelter & healthcare to be major problems, but it's not a mystery why his reelection campaign would try to convince people that their lying eyes are the problem instead of those cost increases.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Isn't acknowledging a problem and saying you are attempting to fix it literally the opposite of claiming that it doesn't exist?

Willa Rogers posted:

Only if that actually leads to fixing issues of concern to voters, rather than bragging that it's already been fixed.

Willa Rogers posted:

It's brave, given the 56 percent of Americans who say they are living paycheck to paycheck,

Fister Roboto posted:

What is Bidenomics even supposed to be?

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The results are separate from the idea of acknowledging it. Even if you don't do anything to fix it/insufficiently fix it, telling someone that you think X is a big problem and you are doing Y to try and fix it is literally the opposite of saying, "We don't need to do anything because it doesn't exist."

He is objectively not telling people they are imagining it because that is the opposite of the entire premise of doing a big announcement, making policy changes, and promising to try and solve it.

Complaining that something is not enough or won't change much in a year is fine and makes sense, but hearing, "I am going to fix this issue because we have been getting screwed for too long and only my plan will deliver results!" and then saying, "He is telling everyone they are imagining the problem and it isn't real" is a weird jump in logic.

Mellow Seas posted:

I personally find it disgusting when politicians try to argue that they did a good job when they are campaigning for reelection.

Willa Rogers posted:

Biden's approval ratings not being above-water for a solid two years now kind of says it all.

Voters haven't been buying what the administration is selling,

Willa Rogers posted:

Are you addressing this to me? Because I've said it's totally understandable why they're doing PR leading up to an election in spite of voters' lying eyes (ie: their experienced realities).