DL Open Thread Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Democrats would have an easier time drubbing Republicans for corruption if there weren’t so many corrupt Democrats. New Jersey is proving a happy hunting ground for indicting crooked ones. While Bob Menendez is still in court explaining his gold bar collection, South Jersey Democratic power broker George Norcross has been indicted for racketeering. Norcross pulled the dick move of crashing the media announcement, sitting in the front row and refusing to move. Some sobering context: On lists of the most corrupt states, New Jersey only sometimes makes the top 10.

Speaking of self-enriching pricks, somebody has taken advantage of Delaware’s secretive incorporation laws to set up a ghost company that has received $3.1 million from the Trump campaign. If it helps, remember that every crooked dollar spent contributes to the booming economy.

Continuing with our theme of self-enriching pricks, the IRS wants to close a tax loophole called partnership basis shifting that costs the government $50 billion a year.

Miles Johnson, a senior attorney adviser and partnership tax specialist at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law, said “these transactions effectively make income disappear from the tax system by creating depreciation deductions or other tax reductions that don’t reflect any true economic cost.” He said the proposed rule and guidance shows that the IRS wants to stop these sorts of transactions “by eliminating their tax benefits and better identifying them to the IRS as without substance.”

I’m sure Republicans oppose it, but will anyone get them on the record defending the practice?

I wonder how many Democrats secretly oppose it as well. “More than a few” would be my guess, because rich people and corporations are the ones who provide them with campaign money. That’s how you get a group of House Democrats fighting Biden’s climate policy – they’re sucking up millions from petroleum companies.

We have the Republican Supreme Court to thank for green-lighting unlimited money in politics, and we now know a big reason is that at least two of them Alito and Thomas, are on the take. What can Democrats do about it? Not much except win elections. Good luck with that.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has authored an article in The Atlantic recounting the first three months of the COVID pandemic. His understated account has some choice nuggets, including this one:

Then, in one Oval Office meeting, I mentioned to Trump that we were in the early stages of developing a COVID vaccine. This got his attention, and he quickly arranged a trip to the NIH. During his visit, Barney Graham told the president that within a couple of weeks, a Phase 1 trial would likely begin. The president asked, “Why can’t we just use the flu vaccine for this virus?” It was not the first or the last time that he seemed to conflate COVID with influenza.

Nor was it the first time that he demonstrated the intelligence of a not-very-bright fourth-grader, but Fauci was too restrained to point that out.

The floor’s yours.