DL Open Thread Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026

Not only is Big Tech forcing Americans to pay for their unwanted products, the federal government is incentivizing them to do it.

Last year, corporations ran away with one of the biggest federal income tax breaks in history, thanks to rule changes, write-offs, and credits made permanent in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). According to a recent analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), companies avoided paying more than $200 billion in federal income tax in 2025. …

Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at ITEP and author of the institute’s latest report, estimates that Microsoft, Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, and Nvidia, despite holding close to half a trillion dollars in cash reserves, together received $83 billion in federal income tax breaks last year, about 40 percent of the total granted to all corporations. What these hyperscalers and Jamie Dimon’s bank (which is deeply involved in financing data centers) saved in federal income taxes is equivalent to roughly one-fifth of what hundreds of thousands of other entities paid in federal corporate taxes in 2025….

Clever accounting, greenlit by Congress, has helped the Big Tech giants secure those massive gains. They’ve claimed billions in tax credits for research and development and selling products built using their intellectual property abroad. They’ve leaned on stock options to compensate their employees, in order to deflate how the IRS calculates their profits. And the hyperscalers have been able to write off billions in capital expenditures on AI infrastructure like data centers essentially overnight, preemptively claiming the machines they’ve installed have undergone wear and tear, years before they actually have.

Trump’s unhinged behavior continues to worsen. He threatened to bomb Oman, which sits across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, for not doing more to … well, nobody really knows what. He also curtailed joint military exercises with South Korea because North Korea is so nice to him. I’m not making that up.

In news the media ignores because there’s only one side to the story, Lake Powell, the second-largest reservoir on the Colorado River, has fallen to its lowest level on record.

The reservoir’s levels dropped to 3,519.91 feet on Saturday, breaking the record low of 3,519.92 feet set in April 2023, according to data from the US Bureau of Reclamation published Sunday. It is now just under 30 feet away from the point at which its dam will no longer be able to generate hydropower.

The record comes nine days after downstream Lake Mead, the US’s biggest reservoir, dropped to its lowest level since it was first filled nine decades ago. “We are in uncharted territory,” said Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.

The media does play up the sort of stories we used to call tabloid fodder. For example, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff made headlines by insulting Trump, specifically by saying he “wants to spend time with Natalie” Harp, the aide who trails the president and prints out positive media coverage for him. That once earned her the Human Printer nickname, but New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman recently called her Trump’s Human Binkie.

Also, Nancy Mace, the Loonball congresswoman from South Carolina who got trounced running for governor, went public with a bunch of tattoos she’s gotten over several months by posting bikini selfies, bringing her one step closer to her future endeavors on OnlyFans.

The floor’s yours.