April 16 Open Thread: Corporate Crooks Can Count on Delaware
Delaware’s sketchy system for hiding the ownership of corporate entities is back in the news thanks to hapless Michael Cohen, who apparently used his Delaware-sanctioned artificial personhood for all his non-disclosure-agreement needs. Delaware: The Backpage.com of American finance.
If the Trump presidency were a football game, this is the point at which the fans would start singing “Sha-na-na-na” on the way to “goodbye.” Trump’s screeching tweets this weekend sounded like they were composed by Napoleon XIV. The New Yorker’s Adam Davidson, a veteran of reporting from Iraq and Wall Street’s 2008 meltdown, makes a convincing case that the Cohen raids were the beginning of the end for Trump — not because of election collusion, but common criminality. Josh Barro at Business Insider takes solace in the fact that despite Trump’s autocratic nature, he’s facing numerous complaints that the courts are upholding. Reporters say the White House is eerily quiet, and aides can’t get Trump to focus on anything but the Cohen raid. Personally, I think the aides should be slipping rhino tranquilizers into his Diet Cokes.
Also, too, the tough actions against Russia came not because of Trump but despite him, according to a WaPo account.
Republicans hoping to run on their tax cut scam are paddling upstream. Quinnipiac polling shows most people don’t care about taxes anyway — only 8 percent list them as an election concern, and support for the tax cuts remains underwater. “If they can’t run on tax cuts in a district Trump won by 20 [points] and win, where can they run on tax cuts and win?” said David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Missouri Republicans have it even worse. The state party is so desperate to prop up rapist Gov. Eric Greitens they have threatened lawmakers their funding will be pulled unless they rally around a guy whose accuser’s claims were found credible by a committee dominated by Republicans. As I point out whenever I can, we train these special-forces guys to kill without remorse, but we don’t reprogram them into humans before we turn them loose into civilian society.
Oh! That Backpage.com slap really stings…
That’s all Delaware has left besides bedroom communities for cheapskate transplant retirees
If the Trump presidency were a football game, this is the point at which the fans would start singing “Sha-na-na-na” on the way to “goodbye.”
Not at all the impression I get from TV news. MSNBC all the way over to OAN – each talking head has a rationale for why “___X___” is good for Trump. it is disgusting.
“I feel it important to respect the relationship that the individual employee has with their employer concerning pay. A state mandate raising wage, does not strengthen that mutual respect.” So says Senator Lopesss. Champion of the worker, he. He is confident that positions like his on the minimum wage will result in an atmosphere in which workers respect owners, and owners respect workers. He suggests that government interference with things like a minimum wage muddies what otherwise would be respectful waters!!!! What a crock!!! And this on top of his principled stand on the kids walking for life inMarch. Has he ever stepped into a blue collar workplace? Wage theft abounds. It is a muddy cesspool of owner greed and incompetence. Owners are enlightened! Of course he’ll vote to keep cannabis illegal, he’s high as a kite!
@jason: The TV media are in it for the fighting. They don’t know jackshit about how investigations work. Thanks to Tom Gordon, I spent years reading and interviewing lawyers about legal filings. That’s why I said from the beginning that this was about money laundering, not Russia fixing the election. If Hillary Clinton had hired Cambridge Analytica the media would be hailing her operation as a bunch of cutting-edge geniuses.
Gotta agree with Jake Tapper, who, upon learning that Sean Hannity was Michael Cohen’s third and “secret” client, said, “Go home, 2018. You’re drunk.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/inside-court-room-how-hannity-revealed-third-cohen-client
Classic.
Professor Timothy Synder on his new book “The Road to Unfreedom”.
https://youtu.be/9urTazzgGAc
Haven’t read this one yet, but I will be travelling the next three weeks and I’m going to use that time to get through some non fiction. I’ll very likely have more to say about this…