{"id":17699,"date":"2026-11-09T09:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T09:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=17699"},"modified":"2026-11-09T04:00:56","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T04:00:56","slug":"wsj-bernie-bros-plan-a-new-war-on-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=17699","title":{"rendered":"WSJ: “Bernie Bros. Plan a New War on Business”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Evil capitalists! Very nasty if half of it is true. Article was in the Journal on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday this column noted the possibility of ideological and partisan overreach by the congressional Democrats who will now exercise majority control. Your humble correspondent did not expect them to be so open about their plans to abuse it. Two months before the 120th Congress even convenes, Beltway leftists are already discussing how to use the reasonable goal of conducting oversight on Trump family business to enable a broader attack on American companies. Voters seeking affordability may be about to find out how expensive goods and services can be when government investigators spend all day harassing the people who provide them.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pranshu Verma reports today for<\/a> the Washington Post:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Democrats are preparing to unleash a wave of investigations that will probe the most sensitive and controversial actions of America\u2019s largest corporations over the past two years, sparking a reckoning among Silicon Valley and Wall Street executives who courted the Trump administration \u2014 and who are now bracing for an onslaught.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Days after winning majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats are setting sharp priorities. They are zeroing in on Apple, Meta and the companies led by Elon Musk as early targets for congressional investigations, according to two people familiar with the plans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The House is laying the groundwork to investigate President Donald Trump\u2019s use of Musk\u2019s AI chatbot, Grok, to plan the military operation and capture of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, according to those people. Lawmakers are also eyeing Apple over its hosting of tracking apps used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This investigative assault will be led by people who never had any interest in exploring Biden family business, but even the Trump family may not be their real target. It seems the inquisitors have already moved on from posing reasonable questions about Trump investments to presenting it as nefarious when companies provide goods and services to the U.S. government. If lawmakers think it should be illegal to serve as a vendor to a particular federal agency they should propose legislation, not smear companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Stein reported yesterday for<\/a> the Washington Sun:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Senior congressional Democrats have been studying a 181-page dossier that identifies hundreds of executives and companies for them to investigate after they take control of the House and Senate next year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The document, drafted by the think tank Groundwork Collaborative and reviewed by The Washington Sun, argues that the party should respond to the results of the election by aggressively probing large corporations, including the biggest tech giants, artificial intelligence labs, natural gas firms, private prisons and nursing home operators, among dozens of others.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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House Democrats on the Judiciary and Oversight committees have been reviewing the document, according to multiple sources familiar with the lawmakers\u2019 private strategizing. The roadmap is the opening salvo in a broader struggle within the party over how aggressively to wield the investigatory powers that come with having the majority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Some Democrats have suggested the party narrowly focus on President Donald Trump\u2019s scandals, such as his renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and dismantling of the Kennedy Center. The Groundwork document \u2014 spearheaded by former staffers for Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) \u2014 argues for a more expansive approach that would broaden Democratic investigations well beyond the president and focus on a wide range of corporate behavior that the group blames for the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bernie and his bros want to attack businesses even if the businesses have operated lawfully. That\u2019s because Sen. Sanders is not trying to fix markets. He\u2019s trying to break them, everywhere and at all times<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Democrats foreshadow their abuses to come, there\u2019s every reason to believe them. The Marxists in the caucus are eager to attack businesspeople merely for doing business. Meanwhile even relatively moderate Democrats who might restrain them will be tempted for partisan reasons to see a virtue in discouraging businesspeople from associating with Republicans\u2014and especially in discouraging them from exercising their First Amendment rights and supporting candidates and causes they choose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evil capitalists! Very nasty if half of it is true. Article was in the Journal on Friday. On Wednesday this column noted the possibility of ideological and partisan overreach by the congressional Democrats who will now exercise majority control. Your humble correspondent did not expect them to be so open about their plans to abuse … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-politics","category-investing-and-business","category-stupid-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17702,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17699\/revisions\/17702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}