Steve Randy Waldman

https://zirk.us/@interfluidity

Blog: https://www.interfluidity.com/
Github: https://github.com/swaldman

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interfluidity_at_zirk.us@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2024-10-01 18:01:40

i suspect the Saudi leadership is really enjoying its popcorn.

2024-09-04 03:55:15

if someone refers to “the twenties”, which century do you think?

2024-08-15 20:23:06

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They get some money, because they write it off as a total loss and get some of their money back as a tax deduction.
In theory they should be better off marketing it, for every dollar they earn, they only lose like 21¢ of deduction. Maybe they’d also have to invest to bring it to market?
These are cynical, self-interested operators. I doubt they’re just insane. I’d like to understand why this makes sense to them (then reform the tax system so it doesn’t).

2024-08-15 20:06:11

“so many children dream of moving to Hollywood, becoming an executive, and destroying all copies of a movie they didn’t work on. truth be told, I remember sitting on the floor of my living room, watching the Oscars, imagining deleting the nominees for the tax breaks.” https://www.thewrap.com/coyote-vs-acme-warner-bros-discovery-filmmakers-respond/

2024-07-09 13:25:22

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it prevents Trump from prosecuting Biden, with or without basis.
it enables Trump or Biden to prosecute anyone and everyone else, also with or without basis.

2024-07-09 13:17:04

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i mean, yeah, i agree, this puts us all at risk.
but the enforceability of criminal law crumbles only for the President here. the rest of us are granted no immunity from the accreted skein of criminal law.

2024-07-09 13:09:43

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here, largely? everywhere? i read as widely as i can. read everybody, fully trust nobody, make the best evaluations you can.

2024-07-09 13:07:24

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i don’t know, don’t know for sure what we are doing. who wins the election matters — i am more worried about some kings than about others. but until this is remedied, we are naked. we are very likely to become a nation lawlessly dominated by an entrenched executive, like Russia or China. what sucks about the US going rogue is that nowhere is really immune from our influence. Europe and South America might be last bastions of liberalism, but fragile.

2024-07-09 13:00:15

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I don’t understand why, if the issue is criminal law as a whole is such a terrible mess, it should crumble only for the President of the United States while the rest of us remain on the hook.
That seems like a very particular, engineered outcome, not the result of sone unwieldy chaotic accretion over the centuries.

2024-07-09 12:50:09

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Criminal law almost always cares about motive. Mens rea. Please tell me where any act you could call “democratic” removed consideration of motive from criminal law in the case of the President, but no one else. Please. I think the Supreme Court made it up all by itself. 1/

2024-07-09 03:52:24

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Openly confessing a corrupt motive for actions that would otherwise enjoy immunity I think falls into that category. Yes, there are still ways that a President can be stupid or careless and shed His immunity. But the decision presents a clear roadmap, which if followed, permits a President to act very flexibly without deference to general law, with no way for Congress to regulate or the courts to hold accountable. /2fin

2024-07-09 03:49:21

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But Presidents can still do stupid stuff and get in trouble. If the President instructed his driver to mow down a Congressperson he disliked, Courts would probably pretty easily find that an unofficial act. 2d/

2024-07-09 03:48:22

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Even with several of your too-charitable-I-think reading of a limitation in the taking-Care clause, there'd be no way to demonstrate that the prosecutorial decisionmaking was out of bounds without any ability of courts to inquire into motive, even when there is a credible allegation of lawbreaking. 2c/

2024-07-09 03:47:17

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What the decision is is a *roadmap* to Presidents who want to break the law and get away with it. It's fine to instruct your Attorney General to gin up a prosecution against a political opponent. Your discussions and prosecutorial decisions have absolute immunity. 2b/

2024-07-09 03:44:11

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The way I characterize this decision is not that it's automatic immunity for anything a President does. Trump, if he loses the election, might still be on the hook, because some of the allegations against him involve actions that may well be unofficial acts. 2a/

2024-07-09 03:43:36

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You also wonder, what if it's not a leak, what if the President himself states his motive on the public record somehow? Could courts at least use that, in deciding whether an act was an official act?
I don't know! 1a/

2024-07-09 03:35:56

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And even if it did not, how could mere conjecture and allegation form the basis of any criminal prosecution? /fin

2024-07-09 03:35:39

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John Roberts seems to suggest that at least conjectures or allegations about motive might have a role (how else could the mere public act of a pardon become the *quo* of quid-pro-quo?), but i think a plain reading of "courts may not inquire into the President's motives" would also prohibit entertaining conjectures and allegations about motive. 12/

2024-07-09 03:32:26

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And without some degree of validation, some degree of "inquiry", even what is fully public can only be rumor and hearsay to a court of law. I don't think the court would be able to take into account information about motive that "everybody knows", because converting common knowledge to vetted evidence would be an inquiry to far. 11/

2024-07-09 03:29:33

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I don't think, under this decision, that changes anything. The Court may not inquire. To bring a public New York Times article into evidence, for the prosecutor to subpoena from the Times a copy, to validate it by interviewing and examining its author or the reporter would be the court inquiring into motive. 10/

2024-07-09 03:26:29

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But suppose evidence of motive was just brazenly public? A whistle-blower leaks a memo to the New York Times, in which a President (idiotically) instructs a pardon be issued in consideration of the spouse's loyal financial support. 9/

2024-07-09 03:24:56

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Note that neither Amy Coney Barrett nor John Roberts relied upon the possibility that motive might leak. Evidence of motive (I think!) already exists in Jack Smith's case against Trump. The Court does not consider it, I think because it's now inadmissible, under the may-not-inquire-into-motives standard. 8/

2024-07-09 03:19:14

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We already know, I think, that the mere public act of a pardon subsequent to some nice "donations" is insufficient in practice to establish a bribe. In fact, this Supreme Court has dramatically tightened standards, clarified that only a clear quid-pro-quo is actionable, outright legalized after-the-fact gratuities to state and local officials. 7/

2024-07-09 03:17:22

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Perhaps we can agree that is unpersuasive, because perhaps we have a shared low opinion of Bill Clinton and his ethics. 6/
screenshot from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/112/754/360/924/815/065/original/45c78a80bcbebf4f.png

2024-07-09 03:15:13

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Roberts — extremely unpersuasively in my view — answers that the pardon itself is a public act. So, for example, if the wife of a Federal prisoner gave a big sum to a President or to his campaign, and then that prisoner was pardoned, perhaps that would be enough? 5/

2024-07-09 03:13:24

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If examining the motivation for a pardon is out of bounds, how can you establish a connection between the *quid* and the *quo*? Again, a pardon alone is under the President's absolute discretion, can never be a crime in and of itself. So without motive, could the prohibition against bribing for a pardon ever be enforced? 4/

2024-07-09 03:12:33

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So a pardon, per se, can never be a crime. But accepting a bribe to produce one certainly is. It's *quid pro quo*. ACB points out that we might see the *quid* (someone gave the President money), but unless the *pro* is established, it's not a bribe. 3/

2024-07-09 03:08:51

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In the decision there is actually an argument among the conservatives, between Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, on just this point. Coney Barrett dissents in part, specifically on the excluding motives part. She uses the example of bribery, quid pro quo. She asks, suppose a President is bribed to pardon. Pardons are within the "conclusive and preclusive" powers of the President. 2/

2024-07-09 03:05:18

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First, thank you for saying so, and I do apologize for getting exasperated. I promise that whatever I am doing, I am not arguing in bad faith. I have been in a crisis since last Monday, and my family might well end up emigrating because of this decision. Now let me address your counter. 1/

2024-07-09 02:52:59

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If you want to read a limitation in the "tak[ing] Care" clause — a reading the decision does not support, because it grants Trump absolute immunity without suggesting the actions he is accused of fall anywhere near inside the "tak[ing] Care" clause — how in practical terms could you demonstrate that the prosecution was an "unofficial act", without inquiring into motive? /fin

2024-07-09 02:50:23

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Even if you can credibly allege some violation of law by which the President is still ostensibly bound — perhaps the President was bribed to prosecute someone! — that can't weigh into the determination. You can't examine motive, and you can't examine a role in some larger crime. 8/

2024-07-09 02:48:47

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How, without "inquir[ing] into the President's motives" can you establish that the alleged violation of the law is not only baseless (thin prosecutions happen sometimes, that can't render a prosecution unofficial) but malicious? 7/

2024-07-09 02:47:05

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Then for a court to touch the President for that out-of-bounds prosecution, it would have to somehow be established that what appears to be a valid prosecution, based as all prosecutions are on an allegation that the law was violated, is not in fact that. 6/

2024-07-09 02:45:18

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So.
Suppose you take the most charitable read of the text we discussed before, and claim that a prosecution that had no basis in "tak[ing] Care that the Law be faithfully executed" would be render it an unofficial act, despite appearing from the outside every bit like an official act. 5/

2024-07-09 02:42:40

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Let's emphasize.
1. "In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President's motives."
2. "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." 4/

2024-07-09 02:40:43

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But. The decision is very clear about how one might — or really might not! — establish that an act is not an official act. Let me show you another screenshot. 3/
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/112/754/214/895/586/238/original/b187b06a4f329b7c.png

2024-07-09 02:37:06

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Suppose some prosecution is somehow established not be consistent with "tak[ing] Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Would instructing an AG to pursue that constitute an official act because it takes the form of an official act (the President instructing a subordinate officer), or by virtue of its deviation from constitutional authority, could be deemed an unofficial act? I don't think the decision is clear. But. 2/

2024-07-09 02:31:55

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So. Much of the decision concerns the distinction between official and unofficial acts. If the President's prosecutions are not in fact to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed", in pursuit of violators of law, then you might argue they are not "official acts" at all, and there is no immunity for whatever a President does that is not an official act. 1/

2024-07-09 02:29:06

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But the text is quite clear that a President's actions with respect to prosecutions and prosecutorial decisionmaking, including and discussion or instruction He gives directly to subordinates, is within the special domain, the sphere of "conclusive and preclusive" authority that is beyond Congress and the courts. /fin

2024-07-09 02:27:40

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When the first screenshot (regarding prosecutions and the Attorney General) refers to prosecutorial decisions, it refers to all actions by the President with respect to prosecutorial decisions. It is not clear to me whether that would bring in prosecutorial decisions by, say, a DA making those decisions on his own. Those might or might not still be regulable! 1/

2024-07-09 02:18:29

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As requested, here is the paragraph of the decision that says that. /fin
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/112/754/128/940/949/409/original/31ad3b47bee1489a.png

2024-07-09 02:15:09

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The basis for the portion of the decision regarding DOJ and prosecutorial decisions — it’s in that screenshot! — is that prosecutorial decisions fall under the “‘conclusive and preclusive’ Presidential authority”, which no laws by Congress or acts by courts can regulate, the “special province” of the Executive. 2/

2024-07-09 02:13:41

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Please read the separation of powers discussion earlier. I don’t want to repeat myself. 1/

2024-07-09 02:10:01

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That prosecution would occur under the President’s authority to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
However, again, no law, no Court, has any authority to inquire into whether the prosecution serves that function, or in fact subverts the law. Congress cannot regulate prosecutorial decisions, and Courts cannot inquire. 3/

2024-07-09 02:07:19

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Under this decision, no one, no law, no Court, can review whether any allegation that the law has been broken has any basis. A President and his Attorney General can simply make up an allegation of a violation of law and prosecute it. 2/

2024-07-09 02:03:32

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Yes. Every prosecution is allegedly against “defendants who violate the law.” Every Federal prosecution is performed under the President’s authority to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Every *malicious* prosecution alleges a violation of the law, and is pursued under the authority of the “take Care” clause. Every one. 1/

2024-07-09 01:39:17

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You and @npub17wk…v452 are intent on adding caveats and limitations to the decision that simply do not exist in its text or its logic. It's one way to cope, I guess. /fin

2024-07-09 01:38:39

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The decision protects those prosecutions, because it claims no law from Congress can regulate prosecutorial choices at all, including the motive for those choices, their even-handedness, or their evidentiary basis. 4/

2024-07-09 01:37:01

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What distinguished malicious prosecution from other prosecution isn't prosecution where "there is no crime". Malicious prosecution is prosecution where the evidence is weaker than it ordinarily would be to prosecute, or perhaps even nonexistent, motivated for some purpose other than evenhanded enforcement of the law. 3/

2024-07-09 01:35:37

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Where in that screenshot (or elsewhere in the decision) do you think you see that kind of restriction? You don't. You are making it up, imputing it. 2/

2024-07-09 01:34:45

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No. Prosecutors never know whether crimes have been committed. They allege, based on lesser or greater evidence. The accused is innocent until proven guilty. Prosecutorial decisions are not restricted to which "crimes that have been committed" to prosecute. You've made that up entirely. It's nowhere in the decision, or my screenshot of it, and it couldn't be, since there is no certain crime before the prosecution. 1/

2024-07-09 01:05:55

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But sure. If you think absolute immunity for even malicious prosecution is fine and dandy, you my good friend are just as entitled to your opinion on that as I am to mine.
I am glad we agree on the facts of what was held by the Supreme Court of the United States, one week ago.

2024-07-09 01:05:00

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The President can face no legal accountability for those choices. No public or judicial process can inquire into their motivations, no Congressional act can regulate them in any way.
I think that's pretty fucking scary, and deeply threatening to any social order other than authoritarian tyranny.

2024-07-09 01:00:13

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if it sounds fine and dandy, well your opinion is your prerogative.
But i hope we share an understanding of the holding. Prosecutorial decisions are the sole province of the President, not regulable by Congress' laws. So there can be no such thing as an "illegal" or "invalid" prosecution. The President can prosecute whomever, whyever He chooses, however unfounded or "malicious" the basis for those prosecutions might be.

2024-07-09 00:44:43

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The domain of prosecutorial decisionmaking, the decision very clearly proclaims, is within the sphere of absolute Presidential immunity that the decision here and elsewhere defines. /fin

2024-07-09 00:44:20

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And prosecutorial decisions, not just discussions, not just personnel decisions, are proclaimed to be within this domain. Congress and its laws have no authority to regulate whom the President chooses to prosecute, says the majority, so of course Congress' laws can have no authority here. 6/

2024-07-09 00:41:53

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would violate the Constitution's "separation of power" principle, in the Court majority's view. The President has "absolute immunity" in these domains because acts of Congress or the Courts — laws and the infrastructure of their enforcement — simply have no power to reach this "special province", this "conclusive and preclusive' Presidential authority". 5/

2024-07-09 00:38:41

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This is one of the key logical themes of the entire decision: Some Executive authorities are deemed to be shared with Congress, but others to be solely the province of the Executive, personified by the President. Where they read Constitutional authority not to be shared, Congress — the maker of laws — cannot regulate Him. *Not* providing immunity in this sphere, subjecting the President to Congress' laws… 4/

2024-07-09 00:35:32

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Note this does not refer merely to discussions. It refers specifically to prosecutions and prosecutorial decisionmaking. The President can decide who to prosecute. The Constitution, Roberts claims, vests all decisionmaking power surrounding prosecutorial choices in the President, as a "special province". *For that reason* it falls within the "'conclusive and preclusive' Presidential authority" + commands absolute immunity. 3/

2024-07-09 00:28:49

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"Trump’s threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General likewise implicates “conclusive and preclusive” Presidential authority."
The emphasis (the *xxx* signalling italics) is mine. 2/

2024-07-09 00:28:15

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OK. Here's the key stuff:
"the Executive Branch has 'exclusive authority and absolute discretion' to decide which crimes to investigate and *prosecute*...Investigative and *prosecutorial* decisionmaking is “the special province of the Executive Branch,”…and the Constitution vests the entirety of the executive power in the President, Art. II, §1… *For that reason,*…" 1/

2024-07-08 18:11:40

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driving now. later.

2024-07-08 17:52:41

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Sure.
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/112/752/137/132/494/783/original/555e32807463469e.png

2024-07-08 17:30:39

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Yes, but until a week ago, if Presidents used that control to contrive malicious prosecutions, once they became a private citizen they faced risk of prosecution for that crime.
Now they face no such risk, are absolutely and explicitly immunized for whatever they do in directing their DOJ
This decision has *legalized* malicious prosecution for everyone else, ostensibly in order to remedy the possibility of malicious prosecution of a President.

2024-07-08 17:12:28

"there has been much discussion about ensuring that a President 'is not above the law.' But…the President’s immunity from prosecution for his official acts *is* the law."
— Justice Clarence Thomas
United States Supreme Court
concurring in Trump v. US
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

2024-07-08 17:06:52

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This case *explicitly* grants *absolute* immunity to Presidents for their compelling a justice department to engage in prosecutions, political, malicious, or otherwise.
It does not protect civilians at all, other than the President himself, and those the President pardons.
If Joe Biden hates your grandma and tell Merrick Garland to throw the full weight of the Justice Department into finding dirt to lock her up, the decision IMMUNIZES Biden for that conduct.

2024-07-07 16:59:51

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this decision is not at all what a Supreme Court would have done if its concern was reigning in politically motivated prosecution while retaining an accountable executive. in its own words, it places as ensuring “energetic”, “unhesitating” executive above any concerns about accountability. https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/07/05/if-the-issue-was-the-lawfare/index.html /fin

2024-07-07 16:56:35

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There is absolutely an automatic “get out of jail card” here. Not for all of the current Trump prosecutions, because some of what he’s being prosecuted for are arguably not “official acts”, and not “conclusive and preclusive” official acts. Trump’s prosecutions are now extraordinarily unlikely to succeed, but they can continue. But future Presidents have a clear map of how to act illegally without consequence. 3/

2024-07-07 16:52:36

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there is nothing about this decision we can democratically change. the Supreme Court has declared absolute immunity for exercise of the President’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers part of the Constitution itself (defying history and literacy to do so). they have not conditioned this immunity on the exercise being otherwise legal. only the Supreme Court itself or a Constitutional amendment can undo this. 2/

2024-07-07 16:51:41

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again, you are just wrong on the facts. if a person is being prosecuted for something not illegal, the remedy is acquittal, not immunity. 1/

2024-07-07 02:00:43

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that is simply not true. absolute immunity is not distinguished by lawful or unlawful actions. there’d be no reason for that. no one needs immunity for lawful actions. prosecutors are explicitly enjoined from even *inquiring* into whether “official acts” are motivated in order to break the law. for “conclusive and preclusive” official acts, including commanding the military + providing pardons, immunity is absolute and automatic.
you misunderstood the decision.

2024-07-06 07:29:37

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People understandably presume reasonableness of the Court, try to fill gaps in in such a way as you could say, look, this is a balanced measure to prevent harassing or politically motivated prosecution while continuing to ensure that Presidents follow the law. But read the text. It is not that, not at all. It provides absolute immunity for actions with sufficient scope to order violent lawlessness and protect perpetrators from any criminal accountability. /fin

2024-07-06 07:26:33

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No. Quite the contrary. The President is given absolute immunity for "conclusive and preclusive" "official acts" including "commanding the Armed Forces of the United States; granting reprieves and pardons", and "at least presumptive immunity" for all other official acts. The majority explicitly states that "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." 1/
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/112/738/353/619/464/492/original/746a6ebf41fad1a3.png

2024-07-03 05:28:45

Did the Supreme Court also implicitly overturn the War Powers Act? Posse Comitatus?

2024-07-03 04:11:48

"Essentially, the Court in Trump v. United States is declaring the Constitution itself unconstitutional. Instead of properly starting with the Constitution’s text and structure, the Court has ended up repealing them." #AkhilReedAmar https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-v-united-states-opinion-chief-roberts/678877/

2024-07-01 20:16:12

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they've made the President immune from prosecution for any and everything that might colorably be described as an "official act". so, if a President were to unilaterally declare that, due to say a pandemic, any Federal election must be delayed, and orders enforcement of that edict, even if courts agree it would be illegal, he could not be prosecuted, while President, or after (if there is any after). an official act can be illegal still, but the President can't be prosecuted.

2024-07-01 19:54:22

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our government is doing fine. our Supreme Court has torn away the guard rails that help insist it will continue to do so.

2024-07-01 19:49:43

If the Supreme Court has legalized tyranny, is it dumb to risk holding an election and giving their guy the opportunity to indefinitely suspend them when your guy has the scepter and the opportunity now?
This is the kind of dilemma the Supreme Court has just interpreted into the US Constitution.
No windows were broken in the US Capitol. But today was the coup. The rest is just events, unless we dethrone this court and reverse today's madness soon.

2024-07-01 19:35:57

Can Democrats run on codifying the criminalization of any substantial gratuity to public officials at every level please?
I mean, this stuff is too basic even for Schoolhouse Rock.

2024-06-29 16:54:49

"This is the American story of the past 4 decades: accumulate tech debt, merge to monopoly, exponentially compound your tech debt by combining barely functional IT systems. Every corporate behemoth is locked in a race between the eventual discovery of its irreparable structural defects and its ability to become so enmeshed in our lives that we have to assume the costs of fixing those defects. It's a contest between 'too rotten to stand' and 'too big to care'" @npub1fdr…lvhs https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/28/dealer-management-software/#antonin-scalia-stole-your-car

2024-06-26 05:54:53

"The lurch back towards that early web is a deep hunger for the personal web. The web that made you feel like you were part of this crazy but exciting endeavor that suddenly connected you with some other person across the world… We want something that feels more…real. Something authentic, not performative… We don’t want a content treadmill, we want online presences that are idiosyncratic and intimate, peculiar and distinctive." @npub1hp9…9p2z https://rscottjones.com/its-not-about-nostalgia-its-about-human-connection/

2024-06-22 15:18:48

what if as a third party candidate we had “randomly selected eligible citizen” on the ballot?
would that beat RFK Jr etc? from which major party candidate would it pull more? might it win?

2024-06-17 01:06:59

what kind of creature is this?
https://cdn.masto.host/zirkus/media_attachments/files/112/629/278/600/439/319/original/4185af3f749d26fd.mp4

2024-06-16 05:47:25

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taxes have different purposes. a sales tax helps regulate demand. the main point of the income tax, though it has been enfeebled first by Kennedy, then by Reagan, is to regulate the income distribution. progressive is its very point.

2024-06-16 04:03:01

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very progressive, especially at the high end.

2024-06-16 03:02:42

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income tax! https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/06/03/the-us-federal-income-tax-in-pictures/index.html

2024-06-15 21:59:52

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taxation isn’t theft. when we had a reasonable income tax structure in the late 1940s, no one was stolen from.

2024-06-15 17:37:53

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It really isn't about envy! If it were about that, well someone with $50M lives a life of unimaginable freedom and luxury as much as someone with $50B. It's not reductive because it's reasoned. It's not the existence of fat and happy people that's the problem. It's the things last-years winners do to ensure that they keep winning and stay on top. At some magnitudes, they can't do very much. But in the billions, 10s, 100s, of billions? Yes they can. /fin

2024-06-15 17:35:37

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I favor competitive capitalism. But incumbent winners — currently dominant firm, the richest existing people — hate it. They pretend to love it, of course, because it is the basis for the legitimacy of their wealth. But if you're already at the tippy-top, that "dynamism" we all extol has only one direction for you, regression to the mean. It is in your interest to consolidate advantage, not level the playing field. 2/

2024-06-15 17:33:45

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I guess I'd just ask you to think about how we get all these policies gigafirms can milk. There's a lot of lobbying, and more pervasively but less overtly a whole infrastructure of "philanthropically" funded "education and research", that advocates "pro further enrichment of incumbent businesses and the billionaires who own them" as if it were the same thing as competitive capitalism. 1/
EDIT: added the scare quote "education and research" deserve

2024-06-15 06:23:28

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you have to fight it from both sides. the humans are clever. if you don't put limits on the scale of their competition, they will push it always harder, and not confine themselves to constructive dimensions of competition. antitrust will always be whackamole while table stakes in a certain club are billions. you need antitrust. you also need to limit the prizes that incentivize dickish business practices. https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5031.html

2024-06-15 06:08:04

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i have no problem with millionaires. even several tens of millionaires. sure, people should strive to become rich. they should not imagine they can become caesar, and should not have resources sufficient to overwhelm our politics.

2024-06-15 05:46:34

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every billionaire is a policy failure, yes. rich is 10s of millions. much more than i'll ever have anything like and that's great. not enough to finance shadow governments as philanthropy, lobbying, and "business".

2024-06-15 03:31:42

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nope. it’s protecting any semblance of democracy.
but you be you!

2024-06-14 23:39:07

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richer than us is fine. rich enough to live lives entirely apart and own mass media is not.

2024-06-14 23:11:35

maybe musk wouldn't pay himself so much if he faced a 94% marginal tax rate.
just spitballin' here!

2024-06-10 20:42:40

if you ask your interlocutor "are you human?" and it lies, the liability that attaches to that should be existential.

2024-05-31 13:06:33

“Silicon Valley is the land of low-capital, low-labor growth. Software development requires fewer people than infrastructure and hard goods manufacturing, both to get started and to run as an ongoing operation. Silicon Valley is the place where you get rich without creating jobs. It's run by investors who hate the idea of paying people.” @npub1fdr…lvhs https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/30/posiwid/

2024-04-17 14:00:04

Lifehack: Buy two AirTags and mount them as earrings. You’ll never lose your head again.