The F.E.C. dismisses claims that Twitter illegally blocked a Hunter Biden article.

The Federal Election Commission has dismissed Republican accusations that Twitter violated election laws in October by blocking people from posting links to an unsubstantiated New York Post article about Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter Biden, in a decision that is likely to set a precedent for future cases involving social media sites and federal campaigns.

The F.E.C. determined that Twitter’s actions regarding the Hunter Biden article had been undertaken for a valid commercial reason, not a political purpose, and were thus allowable, according to a document outlining the decision obtained by The New York Times.

The commission’s ruling, which was made last month behind closed doors and is set to become public soon, provides further flexibility to social media giants like Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat to control what is shared on their platforms regarding federal elections.

The suppression of the article about Hunter Biden caused an avalanche of conservative criticism in October and prompted accusations that the tech company was improperly aiding the Biden presidential campaign, including a formal complaint by the Republican National Committee that said Twitter’s actions amounted to an “illegal in-kind contribution” to the campaign.

But the F.E.C. disagreed. The commission said Twitter had “credibly explained” that blocking the article’s distribution was a commercial decision and that the move followed existing policies related to hacked materials, according to the “factual and legal analysis” provided to the parties involved in the complaint.

Twitter actually reversed course within a day of its decision to block distribution of the Hunter Biden article, and its chief executive, Jack Dorsey, has called the initial move a “mistake.”

LAUGH BREAK.....who is REALLY doing the paintings Hunter is selling under his name. Art / Style magazines ran lots of photos of him doing his ‘art’... BUT.....the technique and style shown were completely different from those up for sale in the galleries, consisting of several genres.

Books politicians sell to launder money are usually ‘ghostwritten’....... Hunter’s money laundering art is ‘ghostpainted’.

Many crackheads are found passed out with colored pencils and adult paint by number kits.......science says it’s part of the addiction....../s.

How Joe Biden helped build a financial system
great for Delaware banks and terrible for the rest of us.
TIM MURPHY, MOTHER JONES, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 ISSUE

SNIP

Though he’s now a MULTI-millionaire thanks to (he says) book sales and speaking fees, Biden has long positioned himself as the champion of the middle class, a scrappy kid from Scranton who’s fought the good fight for decades. His adopted home state is part of that identity too—an unglamorous enclave of scrapple and toll roads, the Acela Corridor’s own Flyover Country. But as he pursues his third and likely final quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, his record haunts him, because the interests of Delaware are often at extreme odds with everyone else’s.

Biden did not create this system, but he used his influence to strengthen and protect it. He cast key votes that deregulated the banking industry, made it harder for individuals to escape their credit card debts and student loans, and protected his state’s status as a corporate bankruptcy hub.

Biden’s career in the Senate placed him on the wrong side of some of the biggest financial fights of his generation and brought him into conflict with some of the same rivals he faces today. If you want to understand how Biden became Biden, you have to understand how Delaware became Delaware.

Delaware is a tiny state, and because it is tiny, it has had to get creative to survive. Small countries sell shipping rights, citizenship, and secrecy. Delaware offers an American variation of the same—a legal and administrative sanctuary that allows businesses to do things there that they could not do elsewhere.

The foundation for the state’s economy began with its 1776 constitution, which created a special venue for the handling of business disputes, called the chancery court. But Delaware’s role as America’s corporate epicenter traces back to 1899, when—with the backing of the du Ponts—legislators passed the General Corporation Law, allowing anyone in the United States who wanted to form a company in Delaware to do so. The number of corporations based in the state grew quickly, and when New Jersey—the OG of lax incorporation laws—decided to crack down on trusts, Delaware welcomed the exiles.

The incorporation law made it easy to set up shop in Delaware, and the chancery court made it convenient to stay. Companies knew they’d get a reliable pro-business forum for their disputes. Today, there are nearly twice as many Delaware-incorporated companies as there are Delaware voters, and incorporation fees constitute the second-largest share of the state’s annual revenue.

But Delaware’s windfall comes at the expense of other states. Corporations can place their profits in Delaware-based holding companies to avoid paying taxes in the places where they actually operate. Delaware LLCs can also be incorporated anonymously via third-party agents, stifling transparency. “Setting up a company in Delaware,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says, “requires less information than signing up for a library card.”

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