From the NYT's "labor reporter."

Link

Dude was selling illegal COVID tests out of an illegal short-term rental filled with illegal guns. Charges dropped without prejudice.

I'm thinking about flashing my phone to GrapheneOS to get rid of all the Google shit. Anybody have experience with it? Do you like it? Is there a better privacy-focused solution for Android phones? I've got a Pixel, and the process looks pretty straightforward but I'm curious to hear if any comrades here have tried it.

Just aggressively learning nothing as hard as possible. is a death cult.

Archive link

Off-duty from TikTok and their Fox News guest-panelist gigs, the young conservatives did exhibit a certain level of willingness to really get into it in a mostly productive way, which, I’ll admit, is more than I can say about a lot of people back in Brooklyn. Still, it was disconcerting how often a normal conversation with one of these so-called normal people could cannonball from politics and policy into, at the very least, a not-so-PC joke and, at worst, something hateful.

When I first reached out to Wexler, for example, asking to talk about her weekend plans for the inauguration, she wrote back, “Let’s do it. Full transparency, I think ‘pronouns’ are ‘ret-----.’” She asked me to tell my readers that. “Tomorrow, we’re going to have images of them rounding up illegals and deporting them. That’s exciting,” she said another time, cackling. She also called me a “man in lipstick,” though I wasn’t wearing any. Later, when introducing me to Sinclair, she said, “He’s a queer. But a friendly one.” I laughed.

“The hold the left has is coming to an end because you guys were making bad decisions,” a droll, self-confident IDF soldier tells me at Butterworth’s. “When you go too far, you isolate people, you polarize people. The pendulum effect is real.” Here, she says, “is where you can say whatever you want!”

I think one big takeaway from this (aside from how fucking insufferable these people are, of course) is that this coalition is extraordinarily fragile. A lot of people in this article are expressing support for extremely "thin" reasons--wanting to be on the winning side, wanting to be able to say slurs, aesthetics, and so on. There are former Biden and Bernie voters who are "on the Trump train" because it's the path of least resistance, and because the casual cruelty is both trendy and easier than giving a shit. It's really important to remember that a lot of these people are opportunists and/or grifters: the true believers of fascism are actually relatively rare. They had their opportunity for cultural ascendency here, and immediately squandered it by allowing those true believers to do whatever the fuck they want, which the vast majority of people find disgusting. I strongly suspect a lot of the people interviewed here will just sit out the next election. This isn't supposed to absolve them--they have blood on their hands as much as Stephen Miller does--but I think it's important to remember that this "cultural ascendency" is really a mirage. These people are fucking losers.

We love our misogynistic oligarchs don't we folks?

Link

The French offices of Elon Musk's X have been raided by the Paris prosecutor's cyber-crime unit, as part of an investigation into suspected offences including unlawful data extraction and complicity in the possession of child pornography.

Why We March

Vilifying billionaires is popular. Losing them is expensive. Most made their fortunes building companies that employ thousands and solve real problems. Their wealth is largely stock in those companies, not vaults of cash.

California benefits enormously when entrepreneurs choose to build here. We're currently watching them leave.

The Billionaire Tax Act has already pushed the founders of Google to leave the state, taking their economic contributions with them. By taxing unrealized gains and voting shares, the act would make it difficult for founders to retain control of their startups.

lol, lmao

Link

[Stocks are] really not that important in the overall context of things, but I have some money invested, so that 's good for me, I guess." -NC Hispanic man

People voted for Trump because we thought we were going to get lower costs of living, to some degree at least, and everything has just increased in price. -GA Black man

So I have an EBT card, and it's a lot harder to prove certain things in order to qualify for that. So just little things like that, they all add up, and I think they need to focus on us more than other countries. -MI white man

At first him speaking his mind was refreshing and I saw him getting a lot accomplished, but then it just got mean and nasty and very unbecoming. And it just made me cringe and I just didn't like him anymore. -AZ white woman

Deportations were a thing he was talking about, just not to the extreme. I would say yes, I was surprised. -MI Black man

I thought the focus was going to be more on securing the border, focused on hardened criminals, not so much everyday folk. -MI white man

I think the ICE has a place in this country right now because of the influx of illegals, but I also think the ICE officers have not been adequately trained. -ME white woman

All the South Koreans, I believe, that were going to be the instructors and teach Americans how to do that job--we had this whole thing where they refused to come back, and now they're going to let AI and robots do the majority of jobs. -AZ Hispanic man

And I also feel like I liken it to 1936 Germany with the brown coats [sic]. And so, there has to be a better way to do this - ME white woman

I think he should take care of the US first instead of acquiring other countries. -AZ white woman

I couldn't believe that I was complicit in deportations and I felt horribly and cried a lot about it and everything. I guess I kind of knew, but refused to pay attention to it because it just seemed ridiculous in my head to think things could really go that way - MI Hispanic woman