DL Open Thread: Friday, October 28, 2022

Elon Musk And Twitter Get Married.  Step-kids (workers) likely to be disowned. Conspiracy theorists rejoice. Is Trump back on there yet?:

The closing of the deal, which followed months of drama and legal challenges as Mr. Musk changed his mind about buying the company, sets Twitter on an uncertain course. Mr. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said that he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for all types of commentary and that he would “reverse the permanent ban” of former President Donald J. Trump from the service.

Mr. Musk’s open approach to speech on Twitter could exacerbate long simmering issues of toxic content and misinformation, affecting political debates around the world. Early tests will come within days, when Brazil elects its president and American voters go to the polls on Nov. 8 for the midterm elections. Twitter said it would prohibit misleading claims about voting and the outcome of elections, but that was before Mr. Musk owned it.

Life sucks.  So does (will) Twitter.  Ya think the press might stop reporting on every fucking tweet from the twit? Didn’t think so.

FTC Successfully Challenges Hospital Mergers.  But only selectively.  Because, you know, the Devil is in the agency’s own fine print.

One reason the numbers haven’t risen further is an impediment that is rarely mentioned outside of antitrust circles: The FTC’s guidelines focus exclusively on challenging mergers of hospitals within a single geographic region, not when a major player in one region buys up a hospital in a different one. And those so-called cross-market deals make up an increasing portion of hospital mergers.

Not only does the FTC face that obstacle, it’s short on the money and staffing it would take to duke it out over big-time cross-market mergers. “Our resource constraints overhang every enforcement decision,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, told us in a statement. “It’s not possible to quantify the number of additional mergers that we could challenge, but there’s little doubt that being able to invest more resources in our investigations would bolster our enforcement.”

When hospitals merge, the results are less accessible health care, generally to those who can’t afford it, higher prices, and, of course, the screwing of workers.

How One Iowa Town Succumbed To Evangelical Get-Rich Quick Scheme:

A blending of faith and finance, Life Surge tours the nation offering both motivational and practical lectures on building wealth the Christian way, with emotionally charged, musical worship services peppered throughout the day. The former NFL superstar and evangelical hero Tim Tebow and Willie Robertson of the hit reality show Duck Dynasty were among a host of conservative celebrities speaking at the event, catered by the fast-food restaurant Chick-Fil-A – a pariah among liberals and martyr to the religious right for executives’ public opposition to gay marriage.

Life Surge follows a long tradition of evangelists offering financial advice through the lens of morality and the supernatural. The Iowa farming community I grew up in during the 80s and 90s was steeped in these institutions, which vampirically drained my family and community’s economic momentum. Many of our church’s leaders attended Oral Roberts University, named for the televangelist most associated with the “prosperity gospel”, which explained that your financial success or failure was directly tied to your Christian morality.

These teachings often find the most success in economically impoverished communities and developing countries. During the farm crisis of the 1980s – which radiated out into all avenues of the Iowa economy – many desperate families in my home town were susceptible to the get-rich-quick opportunities offered by proponents of the prosperity gospel. But they were often left with little but shame and debt.

When my dad filed his first of multiple bankruptcies after our retail waterbed store went out of business, people from our church explained that it was his affair that had caused this. While we remained poor, my parents gave an estimated $100,000 to our church over many years, partly in tithing 10% of our business income but also in extra “seed faith” donations, a practice that the prosperity gospel teaches will yield a seven or tenfold return – depending on which preacher you talk to.

Admit it–you want to read the rest of this article.

Bye Bye Firefly.  I don’t think it’s coming back.  The novelty has worn off:

Over the years, pop, hip-hop and electronic music overtook rock as the dominant sound of the festival, which eventually lost much of its older fan base and saw more teenage and college-aged music fans coming to the 300-acre site.

At its height, Firefly drew 90,000 music fans, many of whom were drawn in by the first First State performance by McCartney in 2015. At its lowest point, which could arguably be this fall’s incarnation, attendance was lackluster, matching the lineup, anchored by headliners My Chemical Romance, Dua Lipa, Green Day and Halsey.

What do you want to talk about?