(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Laudable Links #1 [1] ['The Geogre', 'View Profile', 'Greg Dworkin'] Date: 2026-04-17 Preface: The comment editor is a bit TARFU at this point. I live in hopes of restoration. I am usually a habitue of Abbreviated Pundit Roundup (APR), where I write two or three “comments” a day. These have been accused of being mini-essays. I don’t agree with that accusation. (Imagine Montaigne looking at one of them. He’d set fire to his iPhone.) Each comment is designed to promote a link to an article I find interesting, but I despise linkfarms in all their guises. My goal is to do what I tried to teach students to do with research: “Write ‘the author says this, but’ or ‘it is undoubtedly true, as Dr. Famous says, and we can ourselves venture to say.’” In other words, give something more than an href. Will I succeed? No. Will I try? Sure. I created a “group,” so others can do the same format, if they choose. And today, we’re all Tenthers. We’re all inundated with the flood. You know — the flood in the zone? Yeah, well, it makes it hard to swim when we have to navigate between JVD (sic) telling the Pope that he shouldn’t opine on theology — I mean, really, why would the head of the Roman Catholic Church have an opinion better than a baby Catholic? — while Donald is so unaware of this Jesus guy that he thinks a picture of himself wearing a red robe (that’s the paschal robe) and healing with a touch is of himself as “a doctor.” And this is not to get started on the war on poverty. By this I mean the war on those in poverty, not a war on impoverishing conditions or crippling need. We have yet another attempt to destroy LIHEAP (the only federal funding for heating oil or electric bills — Low Income Heating Electricity Assistance Program). Apparently, that’s one of those “little scams” that “we” don’t have the money for, as Donald explained on Easter, when he rose to announce the good news of extra billions for a department of war (because those who live by the sword kick ass). There, we have had our little rafts overtopped by the flood of news of the largest corporations being favored, enshittification being an unstoppable movement, and anti-trust prosecutions being withdrawn. It’s hard, therefore, to notice the islands. During Obama’s presidency, the far right started a movement called “Tenthers.” It was, of course, an anti-governmental/survivalist/militia associated movement, but what it talked about non-stop was the tenth amendment of the Constitution (which is short enough for the most impaired chin-drooling redneck to read). What they became, after they were inflated by donations, was a legal strategy by state attorneys general to fight EVERYTHING on the basis that Congress can’t do nothing to the states. It was neo-Confederate, in other words. We. are. not. But. . . know what? We are 50 states, and the 10th is still there. Corporations, in particular, have to operate in all of the states, and that means, as David Dayen writes at The American Prospect, “Live Nation Verdict Serves as a Warning.” Note “verdict.” He’s referring to the fact that “a jury in New York had found Live Nation guilty of operating an illegal monopoly.” This after Bondo Pam Bondi had worked so hard to drop and settle the suit that Lina Khan had won against Ticketmaster/LiveNation. David Dayen’s articles are generally comprehensive, so I’m not going to do much more than tee this one up. However, I am more than willing to put my toe on the turf and accept the ball from the center. (See? You thought I was talking golfs, didn’t you?) How much of a monopoly is LiveNation (the venue-controlling/booking side)? In this case, the evidence was incredibly clear: Live Nation uses its various business lines—venue ownership, ticketing, event promotion, and artist management—as mutually reinforcing, to build dominant positions and make it impossible for competitors to operate or for anyone to escape its clutches. In internal communications, Live Nation executives regaled one another about “robbing [customers] blind.” They openly threatened venues that didn’t want to use their services, retaliated against those who didn’t heed that warning, and used proxies like Oak View Group, a nominal competitor, to send the message. And they use creative accounting, including multiple sets of books, to hide the fruits of this market domination from the public. [Can’t help the ugly of quotes. Here. A flower. Attribution: The Geogre No more berries to prettify, especially since I’m now going to talk about what the Trump administration did. Despite working tirelessly to remove liability from Live Nation, the Trump administration was wholly unsuccessful. They settled the Biden-era federal case for a fine amounting to four days of Live Nation revenue and a minor sale of small amphitheaters, amid lobbying from MAGA confidants Kellyanne Conway and Mike Davis, along with Trump’s agent Ari Emanuel, who sits on the Live Nation board. They timed the settlement to catch their partners in the case, a coalition of 40 attorneys general, completely off guard, leaving them without any resources to continue to pursue it. This is what makes the fact that it was a criminal trial vitally important. The fact that a state could find the monopoly guilty and hold it to be in violation in the state means that, rather than giving pieces of eight to all the collaborators, it will have pieces broken off. It won’t be able to function this way in New York, and that’s a start. Furthermore, this is a start. The other state attorneys general who invested time and staff to the case now have encouragement and courage to take the matter to twelve citizens not feeling particularly sympathetic to the earnings reports or stock price. There is a whole lot more at The American Prospect to read, so I urge you to read it there. 2. We’re not getting trolled. We’re getting rolled. For those who don’t know, there is a thing called the Office of Legal Counsel. It has no standing in courts. It is not a court itself, and its rulings do not mean anything special, except that they bind Department of Justice actions. The OLC is made of Presidential appointees, and it is supposed to be a collection of wise scholars (wise men these days) who will, with dispassion and disinterest, advise the President on the most thorny questions of justice — questions that are not yet before the courts. You know the OLC because of two decisions. One is its decision that serving Presidents cannot be prosecuted for any crime. This has bound every DOJ since. It was cited over and over again by Robert Mueller in the Mueller Report conclusion on prosecution. The other decision you may have heard about is the one saying that torture is A-Okay if done by a president on a “terrorist” to stop that infamous ticking time bomb. (There has never been a ticking time bomb, incidentally.) Donald Trump’s OLC makes George W. Bush’s torture OLC look like Nixon’s. On April Fool’s Day, his OLC made a Not a Prank decision that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional. Yes, the law that Donald Trump violated countless times even before he put Top Secret materials on a moving van in banker’s boxes. . . not “constitutional,” even though the OLC doesn’t determine constitutionality. That’s something the Supreme Court does, and only the Supreme Court. Christopher Fonzone, at Just Security, has an answer: “The Presidential Records Act is Constitutional.” I mean, it really didn’t need to be argued, since Blank Todd’s DOJ would have never investigated current, ongoing violations of the PRA by Trump, so the OLC was otiose at best, and it’s hard to imagine any court ruling that the Act is unconstitutional. . . . Besides, John Roberts already wrote “for the ages” that no ex-president can be prosecuted for something done in the “outer periphery” of “official duties,” and eating classified documents is surely an official doody. The glue sniffers of the OLC say that the PRA is invading that glorious Article II power by allowing Article I to tell it what to do with its jobs. Mr. Fonzone points out that, weirdly, no prior President felt impugned — just the one who likes to rip up briefing notes, eat memos he doesn’t like, flush things that anger him (really), and steal things he plans to. . . we don’t know. . . profit on? As the D.C. Circuit recognized decades ago, the PRA attempts to “balance two competing goals.” On the one hand, records of what happened in the White House are an important part of the nation’s history and potentially essential to the present functioning of all three branches of our government. The PRA thus ensures that persons in the White House, including but not limited to Presidents, do not destroy, abscond with, or otherwise fail to preserve, the government’s own records of what occurred in the Executive Office of the President. On the other hand, in crafting the PRA, Congress recognized that the President was the head of a co-equal branch of government with important interests in the proper functioning of the Executive Branch and the confidentiality of his deliberations and personal information. The PRA thus contains a number of provisions designed to “assiduously” protect these important presidential interests. (The ugly of the format. It cannot be helped.) But about the OLC and the “I am big man. I am big. You will listen to big man” attitude it brings, I say again that it simply don’t get to say ‘boo’ about constitutionality. Know who does? Likewise, in Nixon v. Administrator (1977), the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA), a statute Congress enacted to prevent President Nixon from destroying his presidential records after his resignation. The Court held that “Congress can legitimately act” to “protect” the “substantial interests” that the public and future Executive and Legislative Branch officials have in accessing the records “by entrusting [them] to expert handling by trusted and disinterested professionals.” And the Court further rejected President Nixon’s argument that “the disposition of Presidential materials within the Executive Branch” violates the “principle of separation of powers.” Finally, the Executive Branch has also long agreed. Testifying before Congress in 1978 as it was considering legislation that ultimately became the PRA, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General from OLC. . .provided a lengthy statement for the record which concluded “that the subject matter of this bill is well within the province of Congress, that it deals with matters appropriate for congressional concern, and that the underlying purposes may constitutionally be achieved.” The statement further said that, “insofar as declaring the President’s official papers to be public property is concerned, Congress’ action is not subject to serious challenge,” So, what can we conclude about this OLC determination? Is it just more of The Federalist as White House legal counsel? I don’t think so. It seems to be a bit of trolling, a dare. “We dare you to holler ‘April Fools’ at us or to accuse us of changing the rules for the criminal.” It isn’t, after all, weaponization. It’s kleptocracy. This format takes some extra time for me, so I’m not sure. However, I’m willing to give it a try, if folks like it. The first step is folks finding it, I guess. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/17/800021666/community/laudable-link-1/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/