Amazon scraps plans to build a second headquarters in Queens after facing fierce backlash over its planned collection of some $3 million in corporate welfare in order to build there. Folks who support the growth of Amazon's tentacles seem to have a hard time understanding that giving the biggest, richest corporation on the planet more money so they'll build there is the height of absurdity. Also, too, Amazon kills small businesses wherever it goes, so why would you want it in your hometown? Because you literally can't imagine a way to "create jobs" besides giving the rich even more money?
In a related note, Amazon doubled its profits to over $11 billion in 2018 and paid zero dollars in income taxes. Because of the aforementioned corporate welfare and executive stock option tax breaks, which argues for outlawing stock options as well as anything else does. Also, too, why do corporations need all these tax breaks when they don't pay taxes on their expenses to begin with? They don't pay taxes on the money they pay workers, either, because it's an expense, for frack's sake. If we taxed them as hard as we did in the '50s, they'd create jobs right quick.
Not even a full calendar day goes by before our President says, out loud, to reporters, that "I didn't need to do this" ("this" being "declare a national emergency over his vanity border wall") but "I would rather do it much faster." I can't even see Chief Justice Roberts rubber-stamping this reasoning -- I mean, if you don't "need" to declare an "emergency," how is it an "emergency"? Of course, you have to consider that maybe our President wants this effort to fail, so he can keep diddling the rage glands of his votaries all the way to re-election. No, his votaries won't remember that he shot himself in the foot, although that is always the risk when you "shoot from the hip." Or, you know, from wherever.
This may surprise you: McClatchy interviews with over 30 Democratic strategists reveals widespread fear that a Joe Biden Presidential campaign would fail, with one saying he'd be "a significantly weaker candidate than Hillary." Naturally, some Biden dead-enders see such widespread fear as evidence he'd be a great candidate! There's an elephant in this room, of course: being Barack Obama's Vice President for two terms makes him part of the problem, that problem being power rotating between malicious Republicans and weak Democrats, and a lot of voters are fed up with all of that. It'll be quite the learning experience for quite a few Democrats, not just Mr. Biden, when primary voters won't simply flock to "the candidate who can win." I mean, look where voting for "the candidate who can win" got America in 2016. (Hate to pile on, but maybe the reason Evan Bayh lost in Indiana in 2016 isn't that Democrats can't "bring back voters who haven’t backed Democrats in years," but that voters are generally sick of frauds like Evan Bayh.)
Finally, South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- who, like 293 others, is running for the Democratic nomination for President -- says the epithet "socialist" has "lost its ability to be used as a kill switch on debate" and says folks today would rather know if a potential solution works than whether or not it's "socialist." I'd like to think he's right about all of that, but he definitely won't be right if we don't point out -- every single time it happens -- that folks throw the word "socialist" around when they can't win arguments on the merits.
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