DL Open Thread: Thurs., Jan. 25, 2024

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on January 25, 2024

AMERICAN OLIGARCHY:  This could be the most important long-form piece of journalism you’ll read all year.  Long-form as in book length, but broken down into easily-digestible chapters.  I’ve only scratched the surface, but Delaware makes its first appearance here:

Not only did Delaware’s legislature up the ante on enticements—exempting corporations from taxes and reimbursing their directors for damages incurred by litigious shareholders—but its Chancery Court began producing the most pro-corporate rulings in the country. For good measure, the state also granted anonymity to anyone who wanted to register a company there.

By 1929, 42 percent of state income came from corporate registration fees and taxes. With a population of a tad more than 1 million, Delaware is now home to 1.9 million corporations, including more than 300,000 registered in 2022 alone. Each year, it rakes in some $2 billion in corporate taxes and fees, far more than any other state. The constituents of Delaware lawmakers, “in a very real sense, are companies,” as the University of Cambridge’s Jason Sharman, an expert on money laundering and corporate regulation, has noted.

You should read this piece, and you should then contribute to Mother Jones.  We flat-out need publications like Mother Jones, The Guardian and Pro Publica.

More Rethuglican Meltdowns:  ColoradoArizona.  Sad.

Trump’s White House Pill Mill.  The question I have is what pharmaceuticals was he taking.

Penzey’s Spices: America’s Best Company?  I’d say yes.  They’re now heading to Florida to accept DeSantis’ anti-woke challenge.

Trump Threat To Haley Supporters Backfires:

Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up his attacks on Nikki Haley as he issued a threat to every single person who donates to her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” he wrote on his Truth Social website. “We don’t want them, and will not accept them.”

You know what happened next:

But his threat against Haley’s donors may have had the opposite effect of what he intended as his critics jumped on X to slam the “mob boss” tactics, with some announcing that they were donating to her campaign in spite of him.

This comment sums up my thoughts:

So… Trump has alienated Independents. He’s alienated DeSantis supporters. Now he’s alienating Haley supporters. Is there no one with balls enough on his team to tell him the whole ‘mob boss’ routine is not a winning strategy?

What do you want to talk about?

About the Author ()

Comments (12)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Anon says:

    “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” he wrote on his Truth Social website. “We don’t want them, and will not accept them.”

    This is obviously a huge gift to Haley. I hope she can use it, but I also thought DeSantis could give Trump some trouble, so clearly I don’t know shit.

  2. puck says:

    Are we sure we really want to defend these people under our nuclear umbrella?

    South Korea warns against social media trend of eating fried toothpicks

  3. It once again looks like ‘the calculus’ has trapped some comments that can be posted.

    If you think that’s happened to you, just drop a note in the tipline, and we’ll post it.

    Otherwise, we can’t assume that you didn’t trash your own comment.

    • puck says:

      Aren’t there different bins for “trash” and “moderated?”

      • Yes. Generally any moderated comments are ones we’ve placed there.

        We can also ‘trash’ comments. However, we occasionally notice comments that are appropriate for posting, but are in the trash.

        The person who wrote the comment can indeed trash the comment. But sometimes we think that some sort of ‘algorithm’ flags certain comments. We know, for example, that sometimes longer comments, especially if they don’t have paragraph breaks, get flagged, and not by us.

        Which is why we occasionally let people know that their posts might have been trashed in error.

  4. Anon says:

    Senator Chris Coons was optimistic that a border deal would be reached with bipartisan minded Republicans in “the coming days”. That was four days ago.

    Today “Donald Trump and the GOP would rather have the border as an issue to flog Joe Biden with during this year’s campaign than actually pass a border bill in which Democrats agree to give them big concessions.”

    You really have to wonder about what kind of grip Senator Chris Coons has on reality sometimes.

  5. paul says:

    “With a population of a tad more than 1 million, Delaware is now home to 1.9 million corporations, including more than 300,000 registered in 2022 alone.” Isn’t this the lurking danger behind Seaford’s insane push to give corporations the vote. Thus begins the rule of the machines…