Founder, KVD Strategies. Senior Fellow, Economic Liberties and Berkeley. Horned Frog for Life. Fighting corporate power and solving crossword puzzles every day.

Washington, DC
Joined November 2009
Private equity turned neighborhood kids' sports into a luxury product. Community leagues out. Elite travel teams in. Profit and predation teaching kids and parents that casual play isn't an option. And youth sports is only for those who can afford it.
NEW: Youth sports is now costing parents as much as $25,000 a year. Private equity and corporations are turning a childhood pastime into something only the wealthy can afford. Youth sports has become a $40 billion industry, and the steep costs are crushing American families.
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Katie Van Dyck retweeted
Vance: The media and the Democrats in the state of Ohio are obsessed because Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The ad features Amy Acton's estranged mother disputing Acton's account of childhood homelessness, rape and abuse. Both 1978 Mahoning County court records and Acton's brother, Phillip Stearns, corroborate her account of living in a tent and abuse. wyso.org/2026-10-20/amy…
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The leading advocate for the Protect College Sports Act. The man funding the Save College Sports commercials. Endorsing the most racist GOP candidate in recent memory.
Calling balls and strikes: This is a great message @bofrench.
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"Surveillance pricing functions like a hidden tax on the entire economy." Surveillance pricing can make prices higher and less predictable, harming consumers and local businesses. @Pat_Garofalo testifies before the DC City Council on the need to ban it.
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Katie Van Dyck retweeted
Private equity investors and other companies increasingly control youth sports leagues. No kid should be shut out of sports because of price gouging or greed. xitter.cf/MorePerfectUS/status/2…
NEW: Youth sports is now costing parents as much as $25,000 a year. Private equity and corporations are turning a childhood pastime into something only the wealthy can afford. Youth sports has become a $40 billion industry, and the steep costs are crushing American families.
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“Isn’t that illegal?” That's the main question former federal prosecutor Leo J. Wise has been hearing over and over from people as the Trump administration continues its corruption course. For @TheAtlantic, Wise lays out how the Supreme Court legalized this behavior.
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Leo Wise—one of the most accomplished white collar prosecutors in the country—tells it straight. Today’s Trump corruption is the end result of Supreme Court decisions shielding dirty politicians for decades. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1…
Great piece by Leo Wise in @TheAtlantic on how the Supreme Court has legalized what any common-sense reader would say is corruption.
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Last Friday, my kids and I witnessed the Eastern Market scooter crash that killed Talib Shakir. Two riders hit each other, and neither was wearing a helmet. Mr. Shakir's head hit the curb. He suffered horrific head trauma. I sprinted to the fire station for help while someone else called 911. From what I saw, I think he was killed instantly. I've had a week to reflect. 🧵 washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/…
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7/ A lot of people are arguing against helmet laws. My response: No safety device is foolproof. People wearing seatbelts still die in high-speed wrecks. People ignore seatbelt laws. We require them anyway because they dramatically reduce traffic deaths, up to 60% for SUVs. Helmet laws are no different. They cut serious head injuries by 55%. If the worry is that people will stop using bike and scooter share, the answer isn't making dangerous riding easier. And it's definitely not sacrificing public health and safety to protect the profits of Lime and Lyft, which runs Capital Bikeshare. It's making helmets cheap and accessible and forcing these companies to innovate for the public good. I promise you they can if we hold their feet to the fire. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3017…
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Katie Van Dyck retweeted
Seems like the push to get Waymo into DC is premature.
The DC Council should take a real look at SFO. For the safety of DC Residents, let’s hit the brakes. We already face obstacles navigating city streets and an over-burdened 911 system. DC Firefighters have no training on how to handle Waymos. sfstandard.com/2026/07/10/wa…
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Katie Van Dyck retweeted
Like a good neoliberal with blinders against the prospect that some companies might be profiteering--or coordinating their pricing tacitly or explicitly--Andrew Ross Sorkin leads off his newsletter complaining about the excessive margins earned by chipmakers but disclaiming any possibility of gouging. Most definitely a chip shortage!
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5/ In the interest of transparency, I have a scooter. It tops out at 15 mph. I always wear a helmet. I crashed it this summer when I clipped a curb. It was scary. My head hit the sidewalk. But I was wearing a helmet and walked away with scrapes and bruises.
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6/ Mr. Shakir's death is scary and sad. I grieve for his family. Every rider I see without a helmet makes my stomach drop. Please wear one. The convenience of skipping it isn't worth the risk.
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WATCH: @CapitolKVD breaks down how consolidation is driving up the costs of youth sports. "You have ZT Athletics. It owns training academies, over a 140 club teams..., facilities, fields, it has an exclusive partnership with Perfect Game, which is the largest baseball tournament operator in the United States."
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Katie Van Dyck retweeted
I sat in a room last month with a woman who injured her hand at JFK8. She was told to keep working. That was her one hand. Her other arm ended at the elbow. Another woman was sent to do Prime deliveries with a side mirror held together with tape. Another time, she was sent with a fully broken side mirror and was told “stop by a pharmacy, buy tape, keep driving.” One time, she was sent to do deliveries in the summer, in Queens, with school out and kids out, with no reverse camera. When she told her boss she wouldn't be able to see kids behind her van, she was told “so don’t go in reverse.” Another woman was assaulted by a mentally ill man *while making Prime deliveries*, was told by doctors to stay home to recover, and was never paid for that time. Another driver, a young man in his 20s, was sent out to drive in broiling heat in a van with no AC. It was so hot he started vomiting while making deliveries. He asked for help. They told him keep driving. When all of those *Amazon* delivery drivers asked *Amazon* for help, Amazon said 'you don't work for Amazon. You work for an independent contractor.' These workers HAVE a solution, it's called the Driver Protection Act. It's supported by all but one NYC councilmember. And yes, Jeff, most of them think you're a villain. Because that's what happens when you hurt people who work harder than you and get rich off of it.
BEZOS: When you're in the polling booth and you're thinking about who you're going to vote for, think about this. If there's a politician that is picking villains and pointing fingers, that's probably means they don't have a solution If there's an executive at one of my companies, instead of working on a root cause and a real fix, all they did is point fingers and blame people, we would exit them quickly.
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