Tribune of the Year: Lina Khan
In ancient Rome, a tribune was a protector of the people. Few did more in 2024 to stand up for American consumers than the about-to-be-ousted head of the FTC
If The Constant Tribune had a statuette (the TRIBIE?) for best performance by a public servant who without fear or favor stood up for hard-working Americans and struck fear into avaricious corporate boardrooms and the billionaire bros of Big Techdom, we would happily hand it to Lina Khan, the soon-to-be-gone chair of the Federal Trade Commission.
In 2024, the FTC made fresh strides in enforcing antitrust and competition laws already on the books and took bold steps — such as attempting to ban noncompete clauses in employer/employee contracts — that sought to protect the rights and privacy of individuals in the face of an unrelenting quest by companies to control us, weasel more money out of us, and capture our personal data.
The Khan-led FTC — often in concert with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division headed by the already departed Jonathan Kanter — wasn’t always successful and sometimes overreached. But the mere fact that an agency of the federal government had the temerity to stand up to an army of lobbyists and the rabble of bought-off Washington pols was a bracing sight to behold.
Republicans these days are portraying themselves as the party of the people, but it was Joe Biden who appointed 32-year-old Khan to run the FTC — and then got out of her way.
Khan won a $26 million judgment against tech companies that snookered consumers into buying repair services; sued TikTok for violating children’s privacy rules; slammed a telehealth company that disclosed patient data; challenged efforts to block competition by generic drugs; opposed a merger of mattress makers that would have limited choice; successfully shut down a buyout that would have likely jacked up prices for moderately priced women’s handbags; moved against Meta (Facebook) for buying Instagram and WhatsApp to stymie competition; brought down the massive supermarket tie-up of Kroger and Albertsons that would have led to more pain at the grocery check-out — and that was just this year.
No matter who was elected President, Khan’s days were likely numbered. Kamala Harris — whose donors like Reid Hoffman, Barry Diller, and Mark Cuban wanted Khan gone — never committed to reappointing her. And while JD Vance once spoke admiringly of her work, unelected Vice-President Elon Musk called for her head as a House Oversight Committee report frothed about her “leftist policies.”
Khan will never get sacks of thank-you notes from the millions of Americans who have benefited this bare-knuckles warrior, this tribune of the people. Most of them have never heard of her, and having the grace to put a grateful missive in the mail is a quaint gesture in this crass and thoughtless digital era.
But speaking for at least some of your fellow citizens, Ms. Khan, thanks for having our backs and Godspeed.
Doggerel for a Doggy Year
Glad You Are Gone, 2024,
Though If One Thing Is Certain,
You Were Never a Bore
At the State of the Union,
to general surprise,
Joe Biden was feisty
Eyes still on the prize
By July, that blast
of vigor was gone
The stumbling debate
And sharp cries to move on
In a sequence so swift
There was no time to think
Kamala emerged,
her joy ship bound for the drink
It might have become
a two-woman race
after Haley slapped down
the Ramaswamy disgrace
But no poseur could fool
the madding MAGA crowd.
Those cries for Barabbas,
Good Christ, they were loud!
The four-year-old treason
was given a pass —
a deep-state set-up
or Donald being an ass
So the Trumpster was back
amid swagger and cheers
Then a head-turning shot
that just grazed his ear
Was it divine intervention
or a joke by the gods?
Who can be sure,
but he does defy odds
Then buckets of lucre
were hauled to the felon
by Miriam the Israeli
and an oddball named Mellon
The Democrats, of course,
so righteous and woke,
managed again to misread
angry everyday folk
Even America’s dad,
the common man Walz,
turned out to be
a silly pitcher of schmaltz
Oh, sure there were worries,
but the Wall Street elite,
Zuck, Cook, and Bezos
in the end were just sheep
They all lined up to kiss
the lord’s bright orange ring,
to slobber and grovel,
his praises to sing
But you’d be hard-pressed to find
a fatter fat cat
jumping higher for Trump
than the manic Musk-rat
Elsewhere the year
was equally somber,
the slaughter in Gaza,
cowardly IAF bombers
Botox-mad Putin
hammering Ukraine,
Sudan ignited,
its deserts in flames
Death and destruction
from irate Mother Earth
as AI began plotting
to end human birth
A Martian might marvel
at the sludge on TikTok
and think that time’s up
on this planet’s clock
We wish we could see
Redemption 2025,
find reasons to fight
and to keep hope alive
But as the New Year dawns,
the sole comfort it brings
is what my Pop always said:
The pendulum swings