Just around the riverbend.

We ain’t had “checks and balances” since Allen Dulles and Curtis Lemay had JFK and RFK killed.

I mean, the Truman-Era Red Scare / Eisenhower-Era “Operation Wetback” / “Operation Eagle Eye” weren’t exactly America’s finest hours, either.

And you only have to thumb through a few chapters from Hoover back to McKinley to notice a certain historical weight of Fascist tendency baked into the American bureaucracy post-Reconstruction Era.

Honestly, the more notable moments in US History are when “Checks and Balances” actually work. Like, Nixon actually leaving office before the Senate could impeach him was something of a high water mark for the country, precisely because it suggested these institutions functioned as advertised (eventually). Even Comey threatening to prosecute Hillary was something of a moment for the country, as it suggested a President’s Wife Turned Senator Turned Mega-Bundler Turned Presidential Nominee wasn’t impervious to the consequences of her shitty stupid decisions.

But then Ford pardons Nixon and Trump fires Comey and you have to come back down to Earth to reconsider whether this game is rigged from the start.

The last 12 years have taught me that there are simply to many fucking republicans.

So many that they’ve been bleeding into the Democratic Party.

Felt like I was taking crazy pills when Kamala Harris spent the back half of October leaving her very popular VP candidate on the side of the road while doing a whirlwind tour with… Liz fucking Cheney. Between that, importing all of Keir Starmer’s UK campaign staffers, and letting Michael Bloomberg manager her social media, it’s a wonder she didn’t do worse.

That wouldn’t be a problem but every single last one of them are worthless pieces of shit

Waking up every day and saying the Pledge of Allegiance on a pile of Ayn Rand novels will do that to you.

The Guardian. When news breaks, you can guarantee they’ll say something about it in five to fifteen years.

I suspect the AI is going to be more interested in your history with Delta (frequent flyer status) and the fanciness of your credit card than your zip code. Age, employment status, and race/gender/number of social connections will also likely factor in.

Great time to be in the “Influencer” business, but I wouldn’t want to be a member of a marginalized group (dark skin, poor English, scary religion/gender, etc).

the catch is that the vpn connects to the poorest areas of the country you live in

A common mistake.

The High Price of Being Poor

You’re going to get a worse deal if the airline thinks you’re not going to be a repeat customer or part of a larger network of frequent fliers. The customers who get the best deals are the ones that airlines believe they will be able to collect money from routinely. If they have you pegged as someone who will only ever buy a ticket once or twice in their lives, they’re going to try and sell you the worst possible seat at the highest possible price.

What you can expect as a poor buyer is debt-financing, bait-and-switch, and the worst kind of economy service at the highest marginal price point. Budget airline travel is miserable and AI isn’t going to make the experience any better.

Maybe you could run for something

Sadly, I don’t have any billionaires willing to put up seven digits to stack my campaign.

But hey, better luck with whatever slop the next election cycle feeds you, I guess.

Slight difference. When Trish Stratus Betrayed Chris Jericho, it didn’t cause me to lose health insurance.

You mean in the year and a half he had two of the biggest cases in American legal history?

Sam Bankman-Fried went from “investigated” to “in jail” inside nine months. The entire OJ Simpson Trial only lasted eight months. The time between the murder, the failed criminal case, and the successful civil suit, and the conviction was less than three years. Trump’s only been in office for six months and he’s already taken 20 different cases before the SCOTUS.

One of them with the most obstructionist judge possible?

Seems like an experienced veteran DOJ attorney would have known to file the case in a more friendly venue. But I guess a man that loses 78% of his court cases is just too damned slick for the Garland DOJ.

You’re right, the DoJ totally failed the bourgeois. Or was failed by the bourgeois. Or whatever.

Almost as though they were set up to lose by an incompetent chief executive and his worthless cronies.

It’s been long alleged that Trump’s businesses functioned as a money laundering scheme for criminal cartels and foreign intelligence services. I have to wonder how many other VIPs O’Donnell witnessed Trump lead through the casino floor. Nevermind how much human trafficking he oversaw as a senior administrator at an Atlantic City Casino.

This feels a bit like getting an interview with Whitey Bulger to talk shit about the Boston Mafia.

During one visit to the Atlantic City resort in the late 80s, O’Donnell claimed inspectors of the state casino commission, which regulates gambling and ensures casinos comply with the law, were waiting for him in his office, after the president and disgraced financier had turned up to the venue with a group of three women.

At some point, maybe CNN could do a story about how state agencies regulate for-profit gambling dens.

What was the most high profile conviction Smith secured?

You can absolutely fill out your W2 to have no withholdings taken out of your check.

And your HR department can reject it, then tell you to fill it out correctly.

I know people who do this

You’re either gullible enough to believe some Sovreign Citizen tier liars or a liar yourself.

Garland waited until late November of 2022 to appoint a special counsel, after Democrats in Congress had lost their subpoena power, and put a guy with a broken leg on the case. Smith’s office focused on the Mar-a-Lago documents case, which floundered for years, before his very appointment as special counsel was rejected by a Trump appointee Judge (which they recognized was a problem going into the case clung to the venue regardless).

To my knowledge, Smith didn’t pursue any third party financiers or media figures responsible for organizing the J6 riot. His primary role was to fumble the Mar-a-Lago documents case. He did get a Grand Jury to indict Trump for inciting a riot, under a more-friendly DC venue, in August of 2023. But Smith never managed to bring the case to trial in the subsequent year and a half. The case was scuttled as soon as the election was over.

there needs to be a nation wide denial of tax payments

Nearly 10% Of S&P 500 Companies Paid No Tax in 2023 — Including Tesla

Way ahead of you!

People should just straight up not pay in large enough numbers that they can’t prosecute everyone.

For the vast majority of salary earners, taxes are collected at the point of wage payment. You fill out a W-2 when you are hired and your employer sets aside a percentage of your income based on your anticipated tax debt. This often results in over payment, at which point taxpayers file returns to recoup the balance.

For instances in which a taxpayer owes on their return and fails to pay the balance, the IRS can simply order the employer to zero-out exemptions on the W-2 and recoup the excess due over time plus a penalty. Alternatively, they can file with the courts to garnish wages in excess of the W-2, put liens on property, and seize unprotected assets.

This is incredibly easy for the professional legal and prosecutorial team at the IRS. It is comparatively much harder to resist by individuals - even in large numbers - without comparable legal firepower. Your employer is almost certainly not going to assist in tax avoidance, as that exposes the company to legal liability.

“I warned you, bro! Didn’t I warn you? Your soul is bound within the confines of perceived reality, dude. The mind is a cage, my guy! You have to free yourselves from the cave and search for meaning beyond the simulacrum of the senses, man!”

Chasing the small fry while the big fish swims away?

Some might argue it would have been more beneficial to flip defendants into witnesses and use them to prosecute the media organizers and financiers, not unlike how the FBI (finally, after decades of dragging their feet) broke up the East Coast mafia gangs.

PayPal made Valve remove them

You can buy games outside of the Steam store.

That’s not a contradiction to them being independent.

If they’re beholden to private banking interests, they’re explicitly not independent.

Garland was more than happy to prosecute all the goofy little J6ers, along with the traditional list of migrants and smugglers and foreign adversaries.

He just steered clear of anyone with power.

Aw… they did poor Curtis Silwa dirty.

Like, Mamdani all the way. But if I’ve got to pick between those last three, Silwa’s clearly the least awful choice.