Another Chicago brand heads to the gallows

Starting today's link round-up is a report that Deerfield, Ill.—based Walgreens Boots (the pharmacists/chemists, not footwear) shareholders have voted to sell out to a private-equity firm, which no doubt will destroy the company to extract every morsel of short-term value from it. Oh, well, the local CVS is closer than the local Walgreens.

In other fun news:

• Josh Barro hypothesizes that Democrats will actually have trouble running on the recently-passed Republican tax bill because of the timing and nature of the harms that the bill will cause.
• Similarly, Dan Rather frets that Republicans passed "the least popular piece of legislation in the history of modern polling" in part because they believe voters will never figure out what's in it: "The biggest political divide in this country is no longer between Democrats and Republicans or liberals and conservatives. It is between the informed and the uninformed or misinformed."
• The Post fact-checks claims about the bill.
• Adam Kinzinger shakes his head at US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and how delusional theories now drive the Republican party.
• Nathan Taylor Pemberton examines the sadistic memes Republicans post with reckless glee these days portend even worse behavior from young right-wingers in the future.
• Jack Shafer distinguishes between the OAFPOTUS's "honest graft" and other forms of corruption.
• Julia Ioffe wonders what happened to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Finally, satirist Jeff Maurer asks, "Could a drug-fueled maniac be the right person to lead a common-sense political movement?" As he puts it, "If a House or Senate race was Goebbels McIncel versus Moonbeam J. Polycule, a third party could win." But this will probably not happen in 2026 or 2028, as Nate Silver explains less satirically.