Economic Liberties Launches New Tracker Exposing WSJ’s Unhealthy Obsession With Chair Lina Khan
Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project today released a new tool, “The Wall Street Grumble,” that documents the Wall Street Journal’s ongoing obsession with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan by cataloguing the 63 editorials, opinion pieces, and letters to the editor that criticizes Lina Khan, by name, since she took office in June 2021.
“The Wall Street Journal is hysterical because FTC Chair Lina Khan is serving the public instead of coddling powerful corporate interests,” said Robyn Shapiro, Director of Communications at the American Economic Liberties Project. “While CEOs, financiers, and the elite columnists who launder their image throw tantrums, Chair Khan will continue to deliver on kitchen table issues facing working families and deep structural issues facing the economy. Those that believe the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page do so at their own peril.”
According to an Economic Liberties analysis, the Journal has published a total of 63 editorials, opinion pieces, and letters to the editor since the beginning of Khan’s tenure, all of them intending to undermine the FTC’s enforcement actions. This averages out to a screed against Chair Khan once every 11 days. Sixteen of those 63 pieces published to date include Chair Khan’s full name in the headline.
The Journal also regularly publishes pieces that insert Chair Khan into seemingly unrelated or tangential issues, including blaming her for last year’s baby formula crisis, urging the Congressional China Select Committee to investigate her efforts to hold Big Tech monopolies accountable, and suggesting that she supports the World Economic Forum’s “No Grow” proponents — all while defending the right of big corporations to rip off consumers with junk fees.
Longing for the days when regulators weren’t nearly as tough on the industries they’re supposed to regulate, the Journal also has a habit of chastising Chair Khan’s office for enforcing the law as written by Congress, blocking illegal mergers, and for the agency’s supposed crimes of speaking with global counterparts about regulations and acquisitions that affect the global economy.
Visit the “The Wall Street Grumble” to learn find a link to each piece.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.