DL Open Thread: Saturday, March 22, 2025
Extortionist-In-Chief. Look who caved today:
Columbia University has yielded to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.
The university released a memo outlining its agreement with Donald Trump’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.
Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.
Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department under a new official, the memo said, taking control away from its faculty.
“In this role, the Senior Vice Provost will review the educational programs to ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced,” the memo read, explaining that the review would start with the Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; the Middle East Institute; and other university programs focused on the Middle East.
I’ve run out of words to describe…there’s more though:
Since taking office, Trump officials have unilaterally expanded the government’s power to expel migrants without a court hearing, forcibly removed hundreds of immigrants to jails in El Salvador and the Guantánamo Bay naval station in Cuba, and conscripted other agencies to arrest immigrants despite their inexperience with immigration laws.
Tesla Vandalism Isn’t An Act Of Terrorism In Canada. Sad:
The Hamilton police in Ontario announced that over 80 Tesla vehicles were damaged in a vandalism attack at a Tesla service center.
It’s the latest example of a series of vandalism attacks against Tesla over the last few weeks.
Police said they are currently “reviewing CCTV camera footage and are asking the public for their assistance in solving this crime.”
There have been many instances of Tesla vehicles being vandalized at Tesla locations over the last few weeks, but 80 vehicles at once is a first.
Tesla is currently under probe in Canada for having pre-filed thousands of rebates worth $43 million with the government before they paused their EV incentive program in January. There are doubts about Tesla having delivered any significant amount of the vehicles it would have needed to deliver in order to justify filing for those rebates.
President Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick can’t stop putting his foot in his mouth.
In a podcast appearance Friday, Lutnick ― a billionaire Trump donor-turned-Cabinet member ― pontificated that seniors wouldn’t worry if they didn’t receive a Social Security check one month.
“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up and she’ll get it next month,” Lutnick, who has an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion, said on the “All-In” podcast.
He suggested that halting Social Security checks might be a good way to root out people trying to defraud the system.
“A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” he said.
“The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” he claimed. “Because my mother-in-law is not calling me. Come on, your mother ― 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds ― they trust the government.”
His remarks come the same day Leland Dudek, the temporary director of the Social Security Administration, suggested agency operations would be so burdened by a court blocking the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive databases that he would just have to shut down the whole department, potentially halting payments to 70 million people.
Lutnick’s out-of-touch comments on Social Security checks come days after a bizarre push he made for Americans to buy stock in Tesla, which has seen its shares lose about half of their value this year, wildly backfired.
Here’s Where The Musk-Pass Bill Stands:
Supporters and opponents of Delaware’s controversial corporate law bill have a few days left to try and change the minds of lawmakers in the state’s House of Representatives on a measure that could shift the balance of power within some of the biggest companies in the world.
The bill has sparked a national debate that has reached an unprecedented size for a corporate law change in little Delaware. Opponents say the measure, Senate Bill 21, allows powerful investors to strike self-serving deals with companies at the expense of mom-and-pop investors.
But backers, including Gov. Matt Meyer and the Senate’s Democratic leadership, have called the bill a “course correction” for Delaware’s business courts whose rulings, they say, have given small shareholders too much latitude in recent years to challenge corporate deals, such as spin-offs or acquisitions.
Backers of the bill also say it is needed to pacify corporate executives who may threaten to cancel their companies’ Delaware registrations and set up legal homes in other states. (That’s the real reason, folks.)
Last week, Meyer called for a swift passage of the measure.
But, in a surprise move, the House did not schedule a vote on the proposal Thursday as had been expected, pushing it instead to next week.
A spokeswoman for Speaker of the House Melissa Minor-Brown said she postponed the vote in order to give lawmakers “time to review the bill and make a thoughtful decision.” (Major shout-out to the Speaker.)
Let’s pause right here. A Democratic Governor and a Democratic Senator/Corporate Attorney have pushed to rush this thing through. An acquiescent Senate Democratic Caucus bought into this ‘need for speed’ and passed it with nary a thought. Except, perhaps, on the part of corporadem Ray Seigfried, who just couldn’t wait to sign on to the bill as a co-sponsor.
Let’s cut through the legalistic white noise and point out the obvious reason for this bill: “If we don’t cave to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and their ilk, other states will.” It’s a race to the bottom no matter how much lipstick the corporate attorneys/apologists try to put on what the Court of Chancery will become once it’s been compromised. Democratic House legislators who vote for this bill should do so with the full knowledge that their faces will be featured side-by-side with Elon Musk’s come the 2026 election cycle. Because they will have sold themselves out to the plutocrat(s) who are currently destroying America. Something not completely foreign to ‘The Delaware Way’.
What do you want to talk about?
Trump’s war against the rule of law continues:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/22/trump-ramps-ups-retribution-campaign-against-legal-community
The silence from people with actual power and resources to fight back is deafening. I really cannot believe how quickly and resistance free the slide into dystopia happened.
Money talks and the greedy listen.
The Speaker talked about the bill at the Dem HQ this week. She told people about billboards and ads and mailers being sent by the opposition, actually suggesting the billionaires are the ones against the bill(?!!??)
Feels like there is something bigger at play with this delay