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.
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?