They got Maxwell in 2022. So they were gettin convictions. The real bad DOJ is the one in Florida under Acosta. They could’ve actually saved girls if Acosta didn’t back off on Epstein in 2008.

I get your point, but the FPTP part of Canadian legislature is the House of Commons and there are only 2 viable parties (outside of Quebec). I think it is clear we need a different voting system to build more political parties in the US, like ranked choice voting.

I’m not sure this actually explains it. Vermont is extremely rural but votes blue and is much safer than red states.

And that, as former owner of Miss Teen USA, he does not like underage girls.

Which is why we need to invest in non-capitalist owned economies. The more we grow these economies the more resilient the average person can be. Things like the CFNE need to expand https://cooperativefund.org/. More businesses need to be in a circular local economy where people’s needs can be met without the wealthiest getting profits.

Wow. So this would be like an extra $5,000 per household per year. With half of that money, we could eliminate all property taxes in the entire US.

I think history needed a big swing away from rape culture towards metoo. It can swing back a little bit but we shouldn’t demand that it goes all the way back to accepting rapists as heroes and never questioning morals of men who may be successful in their particular field. Also, men are very much represented in media. Top 10 grossing movies of this year included F1 and Superman. We are arguably witnessing the greatest athletes ever in Shohai Ohtani, Lebron James, Steph Curry… We have people like Jon Stewart. Look to Brennan Lee Mulligan as a hero. The guy is selling out stadiums as a Dungeons & Dragons DM.

And I think we have a lack of heroes because media doesn’t sell ads talking about heroes. They get more attention from villains and negative stories because it is more emotional. This is a product of consolidation of media and lack of standards in news outlets due to a pursuit of profits over trying to build around robust journalism.

I’m currently reading Bowling Alone. And this is pretty much the gist of the story. We will need a good generational shift to rebuild a society that looks to improve things for the next generation.

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/01/1146370950/prison-phone-call-cost-martha-wright-biden Glad you shared this.

Oh boy! This is fun. So in 2008 the Republicans refused to swear in Al Franken. After 8 months of battling Republicans in court and politically, Franken was sworn in July 2009. This gave Dems 60 votes in the Senate. This is when they past the ACA, Dodd Frank, Job Creation Act which extended unemployment benefits. After the 111th Congress the house flipped back to Republican majority.

More recently. Biden was implementing a new approach to monopoly capitalism with the appointment of Lina Khan to the FTC. We also had Elizabeth Warren start the CFPB prior to that.

I will also say Dems have been much better on renewable energy and electrification infrastructure investment. But that is my field and most of those details come across in small bits and pieces through market news emails.

Yes. If congress really had their shit together, they could implement something at the IRS where each really wealthy person is audited and taxed on their personal GDP. Auditors could present their findings of wealth and a committee could tax the value at an appropriate level.

I really don’t see it this way. Sorry. The right wants culture wars to be done by government, the left wants culture to move towards a more fair and free society where people aren’t held back from opportunities because of biases around their identity. These are very different. And, no one in power on the left talks like those who in power on the right. The President has called half the country terrorists. Its insane and so much more one sided than you are saying.

It’s pretty telling that your example of a prominent non-MAGA type republican died 7 years ago. What Republicans support is MAGA. Otherwise they could hold MAGA people responsible for their clear crimes and moral failings.

https://finaeon.com/the-nazis-and-the-stock-markets/ This is how I see it. We’ve had an easy money environment since 2008. Wealth has piled up at the top. They will want to be part of “winners” in the captured economy under authoritarianism. Look at Palantir, Tesla, Fermi… Rich people are betting on connected companies, the rest of the economy will suffer but that is irrelevant to the gains made by the top winners.

Agreed. If you can take a loss forward 20 years on your taxes, the government should be able to go after leveraged losses for 20 years too.

Nah. They have deluded themselves with ideas of “rescuing” the company. But they protect themselves financially first. Then they don’t have the awareness to show that a business could have just made 1-2% a year forever instead of selling off assets for a chance at 4Xing their investment. They think its how life works. Take the big risk and never consider the costs as long as your ass is covered.

In this scenartio, the Landlord also owns the maintenance company, so the renter pays the wages of the maintenance advisor and maintenance costs.

He would have been down right giddy to read this story on his show.

It wasn’t fraud but it was poor business decisions based on their hope for massive growth instead of seeing success as steady profitability. They sold off assets (real estate) and then signed up to lease the property back from the new real estate owners. This shifted assets to liabilities. They idea would be to use cash to grow the business. They took too much cash as distributions to investors instead of making sound long term business decisions that would keep ToysRUs operating for the long term.

Darwin talked about societies and advancement in species around communication. It is important for us to be able to communicate threats in order to build community. Assholes don’t build lasting societies.