DL Open Thread: Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Does This Have The Faint Aroma Of Kathleen McGuiness Stench To It? No, it has complete and total McG stench affixed to it. A PAC was registered with the Delaware Department Of Elections yesterday.  The PAC is called the ‘Prescription For Change’ PAC.  Its stated purpose is ‘to support candidates who make a positive impact for policy relating to the field of pharmacy’.   Hmmm.  The sole name on the registration form is that of the treasurer, one Tori Parker, who just happens to be a Rethuglican operative of longstanding.  Her Facebook page is a shrine to, wait for it, Kathleen McGuiness.  Now, check this out.  While Parker’s home address is listed, as is required, it is not the same address for the PAC.  That address is:  235 Rehoboth Avenue, Rehoboth Beach.  Hmmm, wonder whose address that is. Wellwellwell, lookee here:

https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/Public/ShowReview?memberID=465345%20&memVersID=7%20&cTypeCode=01%20&ftype=SO%20&fpath=%20&fname=%20&isPublic=true

That’s right, kids. 235 Rehoboth Avenue.  It’s the same address as the McGuiness for Auditor campaign.

Meaning, the only purpose of this phony-baloney PAC is to funnel money directly to Delaware’s ‘pharmacist of the year’.

I believe that this is illegal.  PAC’s can’t coordinate directly with candidates, amirite? It doesn’t get more direct than sharing the same address, now does it? Gee, I wonder if Storm Strategies, the company that Tori Parker heads, got any contracts from the Auditor’s office.  I’ll have to check it out.  Memo to any and all news outlets that might want to follow up: Be sure to give credit to the source of your inquiries.  I do the same for you.  Professional courtesy and all that…

Trump And Nunes To Follow New Media Company–Into Court.  PT Barnum was wrong.  There is more than one sucker born every minute, and they’re all MAGAts:

The publicly traded company that plans to merge with former president Donald Trump’s media company is under investigation by two federal regulators, which have asked for stock trading information and communications.

Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that it had received “certain preliminary, fact-finding inquiries” from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in late October and early November regarding stock trading tied to the merger agreement announced Oct. 20.

Separately, the SEC asked for information related to meetings of the company’s board of directors, information on investors, and communications, according to the filing.

In a Nov. 17 letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) expressed concern that the new media company does not have a clear business model, noting that its corporate overview documents do not list any officers, operations or employees. She cited a New York Times report that said Trump had discussed the deal with business partners as far back as March, which the newspaper described as a possible violation of securities laws and stock exchange rules.

“The reports that DWAC may have violated securities laws and harmed investors during its acquisition of Trump Media and Technology Group are deeply troubling and provide an opportunity for the SEC to follow through on its commitment to investigate wrongdoing and fraud in the SPAC space,” Warren wrote.

Well, they’ve raised more than $1 billion from the suckers.  Should pay for the lawyers. If there are any lawyers still willing to work with Trump.

Anti-Vaxx Influencer’s Entire Family Gets Covid.  This guy’s a real piece of work. Argued that Native Americans died to provide succor to the Pilgrims:

But Squanto was kidnapped in the early 1600s by English “traders,” taken to Europe where he learned English, eventually making his way back to Massachusetts. When he returned to his home, however, he discovered that the Patuxet had been wiped out, most likely by smallpox. Which, in the view of Metaxas, was a miracle because it led Squanto to make contact with the Pilgrims — who providently decided to settle pretty much on the bones of Squanto’s people — when the Pilgrims were on the verge of being wiped out themselves. It was also a miracle that Squanto had been kidnapped and that he learned English, apparently. Without his assistance, the colony likely would have returned to England after a winter that decimated them by half. Well, that wouldn’t have done, would it?

‘Bob Dole’s Asshole’.  Something I didn’t know. From the Urban Dictionary:

When smoking marijuana, the last hit from a bowl often has a displeasing taste or aroma; Bob Dole’s asshole is what this last hit is often called. This is what a person can say when passing the questionable hit to the next person in rotation.

Yes, I discovered this by typing ‘Bob Dole was an asshole’ (which he was) into the search engines.  Like McCain, he deserves respect for his war service.  Nothing more.  A Trump supporter to the end.

More Tax-Avoidance Secrets Of The Ultra-Wealthy.  I know you’d prefer not to read this. But, knowledge provides a pathway to change:

He is among a subset of the ultrarich who take advantage of owning businesses that generate enormous tax deductions that then flow through to their personal tax returns. Many of them are in commercial real estate or oil and gas, industries that have been granted unusual advantages in the American tax code, which allow the ultrawealthy to take tax losses even on profitable enterprises. Manhattan apartment towers that are soaring in value can be turned into sinkholes for tax purposes. A massively profitable natural gas pipeline company can churn out Texas-sized write-offs for its billionaire owner.

By being able to generate losses — effectively, by being the biggest losers — these Americans are the most effective income-tax avoiders among the ultrawealthy, ProPublica’s analysis of tax data found. While ProPublica has shown that some of the country’s absolute wealthiest people, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Michael Bloomberg, occasionally sidestep federal income tax entirely, this group does it year in and year out.

The techniques used by these billionaires to generate losses are generally legal. Loopholes for fossil-fuel businesses date back practically to the income tax’s birth in the early 20th century. Carve-outs for real estate and oil and gas have withstood sporadic efforts at reform by Congress in part because there has been widespread support for investment in housing and energy.

The commercial real estate and fossil fuel breaks have enabled some of the wealthiest Americans to escape federal income taxes for long stretches of time. Sometimes they amass such large losses that they cannot use all of them in a given year. When that happens, they fill up reservoirs of deductions that they then draw down bit by bit to wipe away taxes in future years. Before ProPublica’s analysis of its trove of tax data, the extent of this type of avoidance among the nation’s wealthiest was not known.

What do you want to talk about (as if I couldn’t guess…)?