The Daily Beast asked me to write about the relationship between Carl Icahn and Donald Trump.  I responded with a piece about how Icahn's decades of shareholder activism are the foundation for Trump's corporation-focused Twitter rants.

What I'd add for you all is this -- for years we have been told that businesses demand "certainty" in terms of regulation and taxation.  We heard for years, from the right wing financial press, that businesses weren't hiring because who knows what Obama will do to them next?

Well, now we're going to really test that theory because to me, there is nothing more uncertain than loosening regulations only for the president to use shame and publicity and bullying tactics to get the outcomes he wants. Somehow, Republicans have branded themselves the free market party, but they aren't practicing free market principles at all.

Whenever Obama even mentioned a company his critics were outraged.  The President should know his place, they insisted. He should not interfere.  He should never, as if this were somehow in the Constitution, "pick winners and losers" in the economy.

Now look what they've given us. A total power-based free-for-all.