At a recent competition law symposium in Washington, the Trump administration’s antitrust chief, Gail Slater, made a welcome promise to keep markets open to new competitors and innovation.

That pledge comes at a critical moment. Too many politicians in both parties still believe government’s job is to engineer economic outcomes rather than let consumers decide. That mindset misunderstands what makes markets dynamic — and often locks in the very problems regulators claim they want to fix.

Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced ‘industrial policy’ when it serves their political interests. They call it leadership, but it’s just another form of central planning.

Cronyism takes many forms: subsidies for favored industries, tax breaks for politically connected firms, or lawsuits targeting companies for being too successful.

Take the Biden Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Visa. The administration said it “feared” Visa’s market share, even though the payments space is crowded with competitors — Mastercard, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay, and a swarm of fintech startups. Instead of protecting consumers, the Justice Department tried to punish one company for competing well and dictate the terms of an already vibrant market.

That’s not protecting competition — it’s manipulating it. When government intervenes this way, it distorts incentives, weakens confidence, and replaces consumer choice with bureaucratic preference.

Consumers always lose

When regulators overreach, consumers pay the price. Every dollar a company spends fending off groundless lawsuits is a dollar not spent on innovation. Every subsidy handed to a politically favored firm skews the playing field against smaller rivals. And every new dictate slows the experimentation that keeps markets alive.

Officials who justify these intrusions claim they’re “protecting competition.” But true competition doesn’t need Washington’s help. It needs Washington to step aside. Entrepreneurs, not regulators, create rivals. Consumers, not bureaucrats, decide who wins. The invisible hand disciplines firms far more effectively than any government lawyer.

Free markets need fewer meddlers

Government’s legitimate role is narrow: preventing fraud, enforcing contracts, and protecting property. That’s a far cry from deciding which companies are “too profitable,” which mergers are “too large,” or which industries deserve “strategic” subsidies. When officials cross that line, they stop refereeing and start playing the game themselves — badly.

This temptation spans parties. Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced “industrial policy” when it serves their political interests. They call it leadership, but it’s just another form of central planning that shackles consumers and businesses alike.

RELATED: Smash the health care cartel, free the market

File photo/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

The cure is restraint

The best way forward is simple. Washington should stop punishing success and stop handing out favors to friends. It should let consumers and entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats and lobbyists, determine winners and losers.

America’s prosperity was built on open competition and voluntary exchange — not government micromanagement. Crony capitalism is just socialism by another name, and it breeds the same stagnation and corruption.

President Trump’s team understands that prosperity comes from freedom, not favoritism. If policymakers truly care about fairness, they should start by doing the hardest thing in politics: stepping aside.

​Democrats, Obamacare, Opinion & analysis, Free markets, Antitrust, Donald trump, Visa, Credit cards, Competition, Healthcare, Gail slater, Justice department 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a rare statement admonishing the immigration policies of President Donald Trump.

The conference voted nearly unanimously to pass the statement at the Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland, on Wednesday. There were 216 votes in favor of the statement, only five against, with three abstentions.

‘We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.’

“As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” read the special statement.

“We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status,” the bishops added.

The statement went on to call for reform of immigration policies that would preserve national security while also respecting the human dignity of immigrants.

“We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools,” they continued. “We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.”

The statement also expressed opposition to “indiscriminate mass deportation” and called for the end of “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” against immigrants as well as law enforcement.

RELATED: Bishop in largest California county frees Catholics from obligation to attend Mass over fear of deportations

“We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good,” the bishops added. “Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.”

The last time the USCCB issued a similar statement was in 2013 against political policies related to contraceptives.

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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) is not a moderate or a centrist; rather, as BlazeTV host Liz Wheeler describes him, he’s a “radical leftist.”

But squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) doesn’t care, as his opponent for mayor, Omar Fateh, is a Somali-American — and she was furious when he lost the race, giving an angry speech in her native tongue — likely in the hopes that it wouldn’t be translated into English.

“When a Somali person becomes an enemy, they become a serious one,” she yelled in Somali. “There are people like that living right here in our city. We all see them. Some of us try to dismiss it, saying, ‘Oh, that person just talks too much, it doesn’t mean anything,’ or, ‘Leave them alone, that’s my relative.’”

“You’ve seen them. We need to get rid of these people. We will never gain power and move forward as Somalis as long as these people live among us and we don’t kick them out. The same people [Somalis] we try to defend, they’re the ones who spread lies about us. And when that happens, there’s no way to defend ourselves. I can’t keep saying all day, ‘I didn’t say that,’ because I’ve got work to do,” she continued.

“We’re busy doing our jobs, defending you [Somalis], protecting this country. I can’t waste every day fighting against accusations … that’s your responsibility, and your job is to not welcome those people who work to block and undermine Somalis,” she added.

“The point that’s critical to understand right now is Ilhan Omar is a member of the Democrat Socialists of America. She’s obviously a member of the squad. She’s a crony of Bernie Sanders and AOC and those people who dislike America and want to transform us into a socialist nation,” Wheeler says.

“Ilhan Omar primarily presents herself as being a DSA candidate. This sort of radical sect of the Democrat Party, but that’s not really who she is. Because Jacob Frey, the incumbent mayor of Minneapolis, actually meets all of those qualifications,” she continues.

“If Ilhan Omar wants someone who abides by transgender ideology … who abides by stupid radical leftist unconstitutional policies like gun control, that’s what Jacob Frey does. Jacob Frey is such a pandering leftist that he actually spoke Somali in his victory speech after he defeated Omar Fateh,” she adds.

Wheeler points out that it is because it is not all about politics to someone like Ilhan Omar.

“It’s about Islam. Socialism and Marxism and communism are a means to an end. They are a tool to achieve a secondary outcome. But to Ilhan Omar, the ultimate outcome is Islam,” Wheeler says, pointing out that in the video of her speech after Fateh’s loss, she is speaking like “she’s living in a caliphate.”

And Omar Fateh is, of course, not innocent either.

“Omar Fateh has ties to radical imams. He’s been defended by the Council on American Islamic Relations, who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terror financing prosecution in U.S. history,” Wheeler explains.

“And Ilhan Omar endorsed him and campaigned for him and defended him despite his shady background,” she adds.

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California Rep. Eric Swalwell is the latest of several Democrats to come under fire from the Trump administration, this time for alleged mortgage fraud.

Swalwell was referred to President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice for allegations of mortgage and tax fraud related to his residence in Washington, D.C.

The California Democrat is just one of four political adversaries the Trump administration has investigated. Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook, and New York Attorney General Letitia James are also facing allegations of mortgage fraud.

‘I will not end my lawsuit against him.’

Because of the Trump administration’s string of legal cases against Democrats, Swalwell argues his referral was motivated purely by political purposes.

“As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me,” Swalwell said in a statement Thursday.

RELATED: When I brought the truth to Congress, Democrats lost their minds

Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte alleged that there were several million dollars’ worth of loans and refinancing based on Swalwell’s declaration of his D.C. home as his primary residence.

Pulte also alleged that Swalwell may have made inaccurate or misleading statements in certain loan documents, prompting an investigation into potential mortgage fraud, state and local tax fraud, insurance fraud, and any other related crimes.

“Like James Comey and John Bolton, Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, Letitia James and the dozens more to come — I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world,” Swalwell said.

RELATED: Eric Swalwell finally answers Chinese spy allegations: ‘I would hope that would be enough’

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

“Of course, I will not end my lawsuit against him,” Swalwell added. “And I will not stop speaking out against the president and speaking up for Californians.”

“As Mark Twain said, ‘Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.’ Mr. President, do better. Be better.”

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​Eric swalwell, Letitia james, Lisa cook, Adam schiff, John bolton, Donald trump, Mortgage fraud, Pam bondi, Trump administration, Doj, Department of justice, Bill pulte, Government weaponization, Law fare, Politics 

Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba was the target of an alleged act of political intimidation according to a statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Bondi revealed few details about the incident from Wednesday evening in a post on social media.

‘Any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period.’

“Last night, an individual attempted to confront one of our U.S. Attorneys — my dear friend @USAttyHabba — destroyed property in her office, and then fled the scene. Thankfully, Alina is ok,” wrote Bondi Thursday.

“Any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period,” she added. “This is unfortunately becoming a trend as radicals continue to attack law enforcement agents around the country.”

Habba posted a brief but defiant statement about the incident.

“I will not be intimidated by radical lunatics for doing my job,” she wrote.

Bondi vowed to find the alleged culprit and bring them to justice.

“Our federal prosecutors, agents, and law-enforcement partners put their lives on the line every day to protect the American people,” Bondi added, “and this Department will use every legal tool available to ensure their safety and hold violent offenders fully accountable.”

RELATED: Federal judge rules Alina Habba is not lawfully acting as US attorney for NJ

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel reiterated the promise to lead the hunt against those threatening public servants.

He added, “Zero tolerance for these acts of violence.”

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​Alina habba, Pam bondi, Political intimidation, Political violence, Politics