Today’s links One of America’s most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself: Judge David Jones rigged the ‘Texas Two-Step’ cases his secret girlfriend argued in his court. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading One of America’s most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself (permalink) “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.” The now-famous quip from Robert Reich cuts to the bone of corporate personhood. Corporations are people with speech rights. They are heat-shields that absorb liability on behalf of their owners and managers. But the membrane separating corporations from people is selectively permeable. A corporation is separate from its owners, who are not liable for its deeds – but it can also be “closely held,” and so inseparable from those owners that their religious beliefs can excuse their companies from obeying laws they don’t like: https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2014/10/13/hobby-lobby-and-closely-held-corporations/ Corporations – not their owners – are liable for their misdeeds (that’s the “limited liability” in “limited liablity corporation”). But owners of a murderous company can hold their victims’ families hostage and secure bankruptcies for their companies that wipe out their owners’ culpability – without any requirement for the owners to surrender their billions to the people they killed and maimed: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed Corporations are, in other words, a kind of Schroedinger’s Cat for impunity: when it helps the ruling class, corporations are inseparable from their owners; when that would hinder…Pluralistic: One of America's most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself (16 Oct 2023)