Theoretically, yes. It happens all the time. X/Twitter did something like this with Brazil a couple years ago.

The two governments would negotiate the grievance. They could also go after other related businesses: When Xitter pulled out of Brazil, Brazil assessed Xitter’s fines against Starlink.

That was a late-stage enshittification; it’s only been that way for a few years, and it was primarily used to suppress dissent.

It is absolutely not something we should be porting over to the fediverse.

Where do you get this idea?

Where do you get the idea that it is at all possible to stand up on your soapbox in the town square, addressing every Tom, Dick, and Harry, yet keeping certain members of the public from hearing your speech?

When I logout of my instance, you can’t distinguish me from any other anonymous user. I’m part of the anonymous masses. If you want to keep me from seeing your content, you can’t post it for the anonymous masses to see.

Facebook (and other proprietary, centralized services) give the impression that this can be done, but the way they are doing it is by refusing to show content to anonymous users. You can’t do that with federated services.

Who insures the insurers?

About 11 meters.

Term limits in SCOTUS would increase the current president’s power to exert influence in the court. That sounds great, until we realize that about half the time, the president is a complete asshole who shouldn’t be in charge of a McDonald’s franchise, let alone the country.

To reduce a president’s undue influence on the court, we need to strictly limit the number of justices they can add per term. If three justices reach their term limits, and two others die or retire, the president is flipping five justices. That’s a terrible idea.

What we could do is eliminate the fixed size of the court. Eliminate the requirement that the court must consist of 9 people. Instead, the president appoints two justices per term, shortly after their first and third years in office. The court’s size will likely fluctuate between 10 and 15 justices.

To further remove political influence, we could introduce a means of replenishing the court without political grandstanding. Should the court membership fall below 5 members due to some kind of disaster or tragedy, (or should the president fail to appoint or the Senate confirm a presidential appointment, or should too many members of the current court have a conflict of interest and not be eligible to hear a case) appellate court justices are elevated to the supreme court in order of seniority.

The meme isn’t about committing genocide with nuclear weapons. The meme is about having made a ridiculous and obscene ultimatum. It’s about his intimidation tactics. He tries to bluff his way through negotiations with outlandish threats, and looks like an idiot when anyone calls his bluffs.

Vance is going to need that new, impeachment-ready Congress in place before his coup, or his coup will fail.

Bingo.

Vance is going to want to be seen as leading the coup, not being handed the job. But it’s not happening for another 10 months. First, he needs a new Congress, one who is already itching for impeachment. And if he’s waiting for Congress, he’s going to wait another three weeks: so long as he only takes half of Trump’s term, he remains eligible for two full terms himself.

Vance will exercise Section 4 of the 25th after January 20th, 2027.

Nobody paid the 91% tax rate. Anyone who found themselves over the top tier chose to spend their excess money. If they were $10,000 into the top tier, they could elect to pay $9100 in taxes, or spend $10,000 on payroll and other deductible expenses. They could keep $900, or $10,000 worth of products and services purchased from the open market.

Nobody chose to keep the $900.

Securities tax. A type of wealth tax, we confiscate 1-2% of all stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments, each and every year. Not the cash value of those securities; the shares of those securities. Natural persons can exempt the first $10 million of their investment portfolio; no exemptions for corporate investors.

IRS liquidators will hold those securities, selling them off slowly, such that liquidated shares comprise no more than 1% of total traded volume.

“Securities” are “ownership of the means of production”. Directly taxing securities melts their returns, and drives the ultra-rich to reduce their ownership stakes.

Alternatively, adopt universal healthcare, and assess the costs of the program to the richest person. When the richest person’s wealth has been reduced to #2, the second-richest gets to share the burden. Repeat as needed to fully fund universal healthcare. No single person gets to be “richest”; they get to share that title.

Buddy, you clearly aren’t paying attention. The proposal raised capital gains taxes. Capital gains is where the wealthy make most of their money.

The proposal also introduced a type of wealth tax. It would take 1-2% of the stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments (“registered securities” - the things regulated by the SEC) held by the ultra-wealthy. Securities are the specific investment vehicle the ultra-wealthy use to amass their tremendous fortunes. The poor, middle class, and moderately wealthy would be able to exempt up to $10 million of their investment portfolio.

You specifically asked that the poor be exempted; I pointed out that under this proposal, they would be exempt: the securities tax only applies to people with greater than $10 million in stocks and bonds. Capital gains would be taxed the same way as income; the poor are already exempt from income tax.

The F-35 was designed from the start to be a revenue stream. Everything you hear about it is pure, unadulterated marketing wank.

Income tax is already progressive, with “the poors” already exempt. Treating cap gains the same as income tax would exempt “the poors” in the same way.

Taxing cap gains at a lower rate than income is an insult to labor.

Abandoning the 91% top tier rate is what got us in this mess. “Trickle Down” actually worked when there were consequences to not spending your excess earnings.

91%, 100%, 150%, 10,000%, doesn’t matter: nobody paid it. The point of it was to get people to avoid it. What they had to do to avoid the top-tier tax rate is what drove the economy.

We need the 91% top-tier tax bracket.

We also need capital gains taxed at the same (or greater) rate as income tax.

We also need a 1-2% annual tax on registered securities, payable not in dollars, but in shares of the security. No more than 1% of total-traded volume will consist of liquidated shares. Up to $10 million worth of securities will be exempt from this tax, if held by a natural person.

What the fuck are you expecting from me?

PasswordSpring2026!

Just make sure you get that gaudy nightmare currently in progress on the east lawn.

A “silky mom” is one whose kids have all the sleek, modern gadgets, fancy clothes, etc. They hate dirt, and just want to watch their screens. They eat nothing but processed foods. They use fabric softener and dryer sheets. They are primarily concerned with keeping up appearances.

A “crunchy mom” is one whose kids have mostly wooden toys, hand-me-down clothes. You’ll find them jumping in mud puddles and eating wild raspberries. They line-dry their clothes. They are primarily concerned with the happiness of everyone around them.

“Crunchy” is (usually) not a pejorative, and even if it were, a “crunchy mom” wouldn’t concern themselves with such meaningless criticism.

https://www.youtube.com/@ReallyVeryCrunchy

They blew up a Starlink satellite a couple days ago; the debris will be reentering the atmosphere over the next couple days.

The term “locust” refers to “insect plagues” in general rather than mutated grasshoppers in particular. There is a new, mutated COVID variant circulating in 25 states that was nicknamed “Cicada”.