THE SINGLE MOST CORRUPT SCANDAL BY THE SINGLE MOST CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION IN UNITED STATES HISTORY. I defy you to find another one that even comes close:
The Justice Department has granted President Trump, his family and businesses immunity from ongoing inquiries into their taxes, a potentially lucrative arrangement that could shield the president from significant financial liability.
The provision, quietly inserted on Tuesday as a supplement to a remarkable deal that also created a $1.8 billion compensation fund aimed at benefiting Mr. Trump’s allies, protects the president, his relatives and his businesses from pending audits and tax prosecutions.
The one-page document, signed by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that the government would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED from prosecuting or pursuing” pending tax claims against Mr. Trump, his family members and businesses.
That the addendum to the deal was posted, without fanfare, on the department’s website belied its bare-knuckled audacity. It revealed the determination of Mr. Trump and his appointees to ram through maximalist measures with minimum outside scrutiny at a moment when they still have uncontested control of government.
The provision was the latest in a series of maneuvers this week that blurred the all-but-vanished boundary between official department business and the private interests of a president intent on using his power to extract financial gain from the federal government for himself and his allies.
A day earlier, Mr. Trump agreed to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. in exchange for the establishment of a fund for people he believes were wronged by federal investigations or prosecutions.
Justice Department officials had in part defended the creation of the fund by pointing to the fact that Mr. Trump and his family members would not be paid by it.
But protection from audit could be quite financially beneficial for Mr. Trump, who has always said that there was no wrongdoing in his tax filings. In 2024, The New York Times reported that a loss in an I.R.S. audit could cost Mr. Trump more than $100 million.
There is no defense for this. There is also no defense for every news outlet with even of scintilla of integrity failing to call this what I just called it.
Nick Stonesifer Nails How Much Was Eviscerated From the Substitute For SB 1. No wonder the Delaware Healthcare Association endorsed it:
More than two months after lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 1, a primary care reform bill that also includes price caps for government-regulated insurance plans, state senators unanimously passed the legislation on Tuesday.
But the bill’s prime sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend (D-Newark), filed two substitute versions of his original bill — changing some of its most controversial provisions — before the legislation was brought to the Senate floor.
Those changes would delay the implementation of price caps on hospital procedures, limit some state oversight in setting those caps, and completely exempt some hospitals from the law altogether.
The bill aims to rein in healthcare costs to consumers, which have exploded in Delaware in recent years. By capping how much a healthcare system can charge for services, while incentivizing primary care services, legislators hope to force a reset in how healthcare is approached in the state: If patients can be seen in low-cost primary care settings, they may avoid more costly care later.
The challenge is that virtually all of Delaware’s healthcare services are tied up in just a few major hospital systems, whose budgets are largely dependent on pushing patients through a variety of primary, specialty and surgical care.
How The Delaware Way Works–To Screw You:
Disapproval from the state’s hospital systems led to extended closed-door negotiations between lobbyists and legislators over the amendments to the bill.
Y’see, kids, legislators with your interests at heart would have pushed back and said, “You’re gouging the public. We’re gonna put a stop to that.” They don’t have your interests at heart:
Under the revised bill, hospitals would also have a say in the regulatory process to determine any adjustments to their federally managed Medicare rates. According to the bill, the Delaware Department of Insurance is required to establish this regulatory process within 18 months of the bill’s enactment.
That process would see the insurance department and State Employee Benefits Office, which manages state employee insurance plans, develop a methodology to “determine any appropriate annual inflationary or other applicable adjustments” to a hospital’s Medicare rate, which is set by the federal government.
By adjusting a hospital’s Medicare rate, its price cap would also then be adjusted, since it is based on a hospital’s Medicare reimbursement rate.
According to the bill, the state also would work “in consultation with Delaware hospitals” to determine how any annual adjustments from Medicare rates are calculated – giving hospitals a voice in a process meant to regulate them.
More Delaware Way:
Asked how the law would ensure that hospital systems do not help to write regulations that would be favorable to themselves, Townsend said he expects them to try.
But still, he said he believes the Department of Insurance have been “absolute pit bulls” and would ensure the regulations are appropriate.
Oh. The truth? This bill does only what ChristianaCare allows it to do. The End.
Trump Wins. Trump Loses. I was thinking this, but then Dan Pfeiffer (Delaware’s Own!) went and wrote it:
The Trump Administration has spent a ton of wasted effort over the last year trying to prosecute Trump’s enemies. They have tried and failed to indict Adam Schiff, Jerome Powell, Letitia James, and Fed Governor Lisa Cook. Trump did succeed in bullying his Justice Department into indicting former FBI Director Jim Comey for threatening him with a seashell photo. But the Comey case seems highly likely to be tossed by any sane judge.
Where Trump had more success was in exacting political revenge on those who dared cross him. A few weeks ago, Trump’s political operation invested millions of dollars in defeating many of the Indiana State Senators who resisted his push to redraw their Congressional maps. Then, on Saturday, he helped defeat Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy for voting to impeach Trump in 2021. Trump endorsed Congresswoman Julia Letlow in the race, and she came in first in the primary. Cassidy dropped all the way to third, meaning he doesn’t make the runoff — a brutal and embarrassing result for an incumbent Senator who had spent the last few years debasing himself to get back into Trump’s good graces.
Last night, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie lost his primary to a Trump-backed opponent. Trump has had Massie in his sights for years, but the thing that truly infuriated him was Massie’s work to force the release of the Epstein Files.
The message to Republicans from Kentucky, Louisiana, and elsewhere is crystal clear — buck Trump and lose your job.
The problem for Republicans on the ballot this fall is that the best way to keep their job might be to buck Trump.
Trump’s approval rating is under 40%. He is embroiled in a deeply unpopular war. Voters hate the economy and blame Trump’s economic policies. The voters who made up his winning coalition have abandoned him.
Trump is a massive drag on his party, and to win, many Republicans will need to show some independence from the deeply unpopular President.
Trump won’t let them do that. Cross him, and he could turn on you. It’s too late for Trump to run a primary challenge against someone now, but he could attack them on social media, depressing turnout among the MAGA base, or cut off funding from his array of well-heeled Super PACs.
Here’s the other problem, the one I thought about last night:
The problem with defeating incumbents in primaries is that they don’t immediately leave Congress. They stay in their seats until January of next year. In addition to Cassidy, Trump also forced North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis into retirement. Now the two of them are hanging around the Senate, unburdened by any political need to appease Trump. Earlier this year, Tillis held up the nomination of Trump’s Fed Chair pick to force the DOJ to drop its bogus investigation into Jerome Powell. (The same will soon hold true for Jon Cornyn.)
And yesterday, Cassidy flipped his vote to allow the War Powers Resolution on the Iran War to pass the Senate — a stunning move that will cause some real headaches for Trump.
So sure, Trump has had some short-term wins in these primary contests. But these are wins that he, and the Republicans, will likely come to regret.
BTW, yet another win for the Working Families Party and ‘The Squad’:
State Rep. Chris Rabb will more than likely replace U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans in January. The self-styled progressive benefited from political endorsements from the left and a grassroots ground game by local progressive groups such as the Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party.
Rabb appeared emotional as he took the stage at the Victorian Banquet Hall in the city’s Germantown neighborhood.
“I have been critiqued along this campaign for being too radical, being too bold. They ain’t seen nothing yet.” he said. “This is just the beginning because I see you. I see you. I know what we’re capable of. I see your beauty. I see your power.”
A Philadelphia native, Rabb previously worked as an aide to Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and served on the White House Conference on Small Business during the Clinton administration. He later became a researcher and educator focusing on social entrepreneurship and wrote the book “Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity.”
He ran for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2016 and won, representing Northwest Philadelphia for the last 10 years. There, he built a reputation as an outspoken advocate for racial justice, economic equity, public education and government reform, though some other Democrats have criticized him for being combative.
Many voters in the district said that Rabb was the kind of fighter they want to meet the current political era.
That, my friends, is a winning message. You’ll see it again in Delaware come September.
What do you want to talk about?