DL Open Thread: Thursday, May 2, 2024
Will Biden’s Tone-Deaf Response To Protests Cost Him In November? To me, this is like spring of 1970 all over again. I can only hope that there isn’t another Kent State:
The national group representing college Democrats released a statement Tuesday standing with pro-Palestinian campus protesters and criticizing President Joe Biden for his “bear hug” of what the group called “the genocidal acts of the far-right radical extremist Israeli government.”
The statement, released by the College Democrats of America, illustrated a break with the Democratic Party — of which it is an official arm. It was approved by an 8-2 vote of the group’s executive board, which is made up of national leadership that has been elected by representatives of campus and state college Democrats chapters across the country.
Hasan Pyarali, a senior at Wake Forest University and chairman of the CDA Muslim Caucus, helped write the statement, and told HuffPost the group was “trying to do a service to the party and the White House” by alerting them to what CDA leadership believes is a growing rift between Biden administration policy and the views of young voters.
“If you keep ignoring us, keep giving us the cold shoulder, you risk losing your own base, and then in turn, the election,” he said. “Because let’s just be frank about this: They can’t win without young voters. 2020 was won in large part because of young voters. So if you neglect them and assume that they’ll come along no matter how you treat them, you’re risking the entire country. And we didn’t think that was fair or right, which is why we decided to call them out on it.”
They have said what I’ve been thinking.
MTG: Yep, Jews Killed Jesus. She’s bent on self-destruction. She won’t be treated like a martyr like, you know, Jesus:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) cited one of the most prominent historical antisemitic narratives as her reason for not approving legislation aimed at combating antisemitism on Wednesday. Greene posted on the site formerly known as Twitter to explain her thinking.
“Antisemitism is wrong, but I will not be voting for the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (H.R. 6090) today that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews,” Greene wrote.
Greene’s comment was accompanied by a photo of the bill text, which said it would use the “definition of antisemitism” adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016. The text noted this includes “claims of Jews killing Jesus,” which it described as “classic antisemitism.”
Hey, you just know that a shitload of the Rethug supporters of Israel quietly believe the same thing. Anti-semites publicly opposing antisemitism.
A New Form Of Sports-Washing. Wealthy owners using purchase of teams to avoid taxes:
The IRS has launched a campaign to examine whether wealthy taxpayers are violating the law when using their ownership of sports teams to save large amounts in taxes.
The effort will focus on sports industry entities that are reporting “significant tax losses” to “determine if the income and deductions driving the losses” are lawful, according to the IRS announcement earlier this year. That announcement, which consisted of one sentence on a webpage devoted to compliance campaigns by the IRS division that focuses on large businesses, did not specify what kinds of abuses the agency will be looking for.
The initiative comes after ProPublica, drawing on leaked IRS data, revealed how billionaire team owners frequently report incomes for their teams that are vastly lower than their real-world earnings.
When someone buys a business, they’re often able to deduct almost the entire sale price against their income during the ensuing years. That allows them to pay less in taxes. The underlying logic is that the purchase price was composed of assets — buildings, equipment, patents and more — that degrade over time and should be counted as expenses. Owners of sports franchises routinely avail themselves of such deductions, which can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
But in few industries is that tax treatment more detached from economic reality than in professional sports. Teams’ most valuable assets, such as TV deals and player contracts, are virtually guaranteed to regenerate because sports franchises are essentially monopolies. There’s little risk that players will stop playing for their teams or that TV stations will stop airing their games. But the team owners still get to deduct the value of those assets over time, sometimes billions of dollars’ worth, from their taxable income.
It helps billionaire sports team owners pay far lower income tax rates than the athletes they employ or even the low-wage workers who sell food or clean their stadiums.
Yes, Delaware House Rethugs Engaged In A Filibuster. What’s that saying: 50 witnesses can’t be wrong? House D’s were right in voting to cut off the filibuster. This is true whether you think the bill should have been worked or not:
After nearly four hours of heated debate, House lawmakers passed legislation Thursday that would establish a hospital cost review board in the First State.
As the controversial bill heads to the Senate, Thursday’s session in the House of Representatives was marked by lawmakers clashing, leading to several points of order, a motion to table the legislation, legal questioning and an anticlimactic end to the night as House Democrats invoked a special procedure to put an end to the lengthy discussion.
Throughout the debate, House Republicans called Delaware Healthcare Association president and CEO Brian Frazee as a witness. His organization represents the state’s five hospitals and has been a staunch opponent of the cost review board.
“We want to be transparent with our communities … we’re willing to put (documents) on the table in the spirit of transparency. The act of having to turn over our entire budgets to the board up front is where we believe that’s a bridge too far,” Mr. Frazee said. “This impacts everything and really will have significant impacts quickly on our health care system.”
BTW, Democratic candidate Terrell Williams, who is running against Kevin Hensley in RD 9, wasted no time in blistering Hensley for valuing hospital bureaucracy/secrecy over affordable healthcare. Good for him. More about RD 9 and Williams in tomorrow’s Political Weekly.
What do you want to talk about?
I don’t care as much about the team owners paying less taxes as much as the leagues being “non-profit”
Here’s an article on the NFL relinquishing non-profit status from back in 2015:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/why-the-nfl-decided-to-start-paying-taxes/391742/
However, the PGA, which is nothing if not a group of extremely well-heeled insiders, remains a non-profit:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/22/pga-tour-nonprofit-saudi-liv/
An excerpt:
“A 2013 investigation by ESPN found the tour had avoided paying $200 million in taxes by remaining a nonprofit, a number that is likely to have grown. ESPN found the tour’s charitable giving, part of its justification for the tax breaks, was not up to industry standards: While the PGA Tour co-hosted many tournaments with charities, those organizations usually spent more money on prizes and other hosting fees than they gave away.
The PGA Tour has maintained that while it is a nonprofit it is not a charity — and the percentage of the money it gives to charitable causes is less important than how much money it gives overall.”
“I can only hope that there isn’t another Kent State”
Agreed, and speaking of repeating history, I can also hope these feckless dupes don’t trash the Chicago Dem convention and tip the election to Trump.
At least we have a Dem president unlike 1970, If some jumpy red state governor calls out the National Guard on campuses I think Biden will nationalize that unit and call them off right away.
‘Feckless dupes’. Been looking in the mirror again?
One person’s “trying to do a service to the party and the White House” and thereby not lose to Trump, is another’s feckless dupery.
I’m a little surprised by MTG’s anti-anti-semitism. If the modern GOP is anything, it is warm to anything that feels like racism, and Netanyahu’s Likud is, at its core, racist.
Since the media is unable (or unwilling) to make any meaningful distinctions between Israel, zionism, anti-pro-Palestine, pro-ceasefire, anti-pro-ceasefire, or Jewish – it seems like it would have been a freebie.
True and a very good insight about the lack of meaningful distinctions on both sides. On the other hand the media has been steadfast in granting protesters the self-proclaimed “pro-Palestinian” designation without quotes.
Where is Governor Hall-Long going to find people qualified to be on the Hospital Board? It will be a thinly veiled political process with one objective. I don’t think they care about affordable healthcare for Delaware, they care about the state budget. The most likely outcome is going to be the state budget gets a side deal and everyone else has to pick up the tab.
I’d say that BHL might be a good candidate for that board once she loses in September but given her very well established inability to manage money (or excellent ability in stealing money) I doubt she’d even make it through very basic vetting.
Besides, the problem has continued to fester in her purported area of expertise under her less-than-watchful eye.
We expect someone who has been part of the problem to be part of the solution?
Where was BHL’s healthcare “expertise” when lead was swimming through the pipes and drinking water in our kids’ schools? She was pretty fuckin’ silent then.
I KNOW where her ‘expertise’ was when she made sure that THIS miscreant failed upwards into the position of Chief of Nursing in DHSS:
https://whyy.org/articles/ex-delaware-legislator-rebecca-walker-acquitted/
If you read the article, you’ll notice that she was acquitted because it was determined that her mistakes were due to incompetence rather than intent.
She and BHL (and Val) were best legislative buds.
“I don’t think they care about affordable healthcare for Delaware, they care about the state budget.”
Bingo.
If hospital corporations get to choose what to reveal, the true picture of hospital finances will never emerge. Kind of like allowing a cat to keep its mouth closed despite a mouse’s tail hanging limply during an investigation into what happened to the familiy’s pet rodent.
Not to mention that statistically, corporate executives are sociopaths.
If we’re going to force corporations to open their books to the public, hospitals are not the ones I’d start with.
KMG is officially announcing on Saturday at 11 am.
If you prefer ethical and accountable leadership, Claire Snyder-Hall would appreciate your support.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/claire-for-delaware-1