Bob-O

I do not tweet, so do not follow

[Cullen Roche @cullenroche]

This is a good takedown.

It’s hard to emphasize how bad Prop 40 (the one time billionaire tax) actually is. It’s so near sighted and void of evidence that its passing relies entirely on narrative.

The fact that it’s retroactive to Jan 1, 2026 is the tell. The people supporting this know it causes capital flight so they made it retroactive to tax people who leave before they leave. But they’ll leave anyhow because they’ll assume this isn’t really a one time tax (it never is, anyhow).

Capital is global. A billionaire moving from CA to TX doesn't change what gets funded. What changes is who pays CA income tax, and the top 1% pays ~half of it. Attacking that wealth is a long-run impediment on the state’s ability to fund the very things this wealth tax claims to fund in the long-run just so some politician can score a short-term “win”.

Property taxes work because you can't move a house and all states have them. Financial wealth moves where it’s treated friendly. Europe learned this the hard way: 12 countries had wealth taxes in 1990, 3 do now.

You can have progressive income taxation without making it punitive. Prop 40 is punitive and will hurt the very people it intends to help.

[Bob-O @BobbyDubz]

@BenAllenCA Another career politician with zero insurance industry experience

[litquidity @litcapital]

Insane that we’re fighting to import welfare recipients supported by US taxpayers. Even more insane, our taxes are being used to fund the lawsuits.

And to top it off, we have lawmakers pushing to increase taxes to offer ever more “free” stuff.

What are we even doing anymore?

[John McCormack @McCormackJohn]

The Republican governor of Wyoming and local election officials were surprised last month when federal agents showed up at the polls on the day of the state’s primary elections and began to confront poll workers in what local officials described as an inappropriate, unlawful, and aggressive manner.

According to poll workers, two Department of Justice officials wanted to examine voting machines and interview voters at the polls. The DOJ officials backed down after a poll worker, who happened to be a former assistant dean of a law school, rejected their requests.

"Having the heavy hand of Washington—even the appearance of the heavy hand of Washington—somehow interfering or meddling in the election process is something I think every American should be concerned about," Wyoming governor Mark Gordon told @thedispatch.

Does the incident tell us anything about what might happen in November?

My latest @thedispatch: https://t.co/KWgeFZVtjk

[Matt Johansen @mattjay]

This investigation into LG TVs spying on you, your family, and your network is absolutely insane.

It has made me irrationally angry that even in this 2 hour video there isn't a whole lot of "what you should do about it" - because there isn't much you can do.

They suggest disconnecting all smart TVs from your network, but also demonstrate that offline TVs still record audio and can try to connect to neighbors open ISP provided WiFi (Xfinity and AT&T default routers) and exfil that anyway.

The lack of control we have over our own electronics is insane, we need massive comprehensive consumer privacy legal reform.

[Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw]

Extraordinary, powerful and heart-wrenching.

Active duty Marine Colonel Zach Schmidt, speaking in his personal capacity, about Khalil, an Afghan national whose family helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Khalil was deported by the U.S. on Friday to a conflict zone.

[Dow @mark_dow]

You're out of your fucking mind. The only presidents to bring the deficit down were Clinton and Obama. One third of the $40 trillion in debt comes from Trump alone.

And Trump has been the most interventionist/least free market president in our lifetimes--in addition to being the most corrupt.

CNBC went off on Harris for two weeks calling her a socialist for suggesting harsher enforcement of price gouging. Trump is extorting companies for payments and equity stakes every two minutes, and weilds tarrifs based on who likes him and who doesn't. He provides Federal disaster relief based on whether a state voted for him.

[Jeremy Raper @puppyeh1]

So Bob Iger is putting up (presumably) a multi billion $ piece of this Lakers buyout. People want to understand what’s wrong with capitalism, this is as good a place as any to start. Iger was a career executive, never founded any business of his own. Over the very long sweep of his tenure Disney stock underperformed the market. Definitionally his value add, in the broad sweep was average.

Despite this he is now worth, at a minimum, a few billion.

This is the shit that’s wrong with capitalism.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

Congress is not serious.

We are voting on a stock trading ban for members of Congress…

BUT Republicans added voter-ID in the legislation.

Not to get Dems to vote for voter-ID,

but to get them to vote against the stock trading ban, so they can use it in the Nov. election.

[infinitebid.exe @nequalonetrader]

Absolutely disgusting

[Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt]

Karen Bass is an incredible liar.

[Jake @EconomPic]

6 months? What a coincidence and I’m sure totally random that retail will provide the exit liquidity for the insiders.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[John Otter @otter401]

@TomSteyer Anything else going on that might be noteworthy, Tom? Back when you were a businessman, how would you have reacted if a company you invested in didn't properly re-size its staff in the face of declining sales?

[jonathanhatami @jonathanhatami]

The current general manager of the Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power (LADWP) had an annual salary of $750,000. The General manager before her made $447,000.

During the current GM’s watch, the LADWP is facing numerous lawsuits because of allegations of inadequate water pressure in the hydrants, the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which was EMPTY at the time of the Palisades Fire, altering station logs to conceal the timeline of events during the fires initial hours and other alleged misdeeds.

12 lives lost, 6,800 structures destroyed and 23,000 acres destroyed during the current GM’s watch.

The City of LA is right now honoring and praising her and she had a going away party yesterday because she is resigning.

This is why no one trusts government anymore. LA City and LA County elected officials - they’re all on the same side. And it’s sadly not ours.

[Tweets from Zach Weinberg @zachweinberg]

This is why moderate Dems feel homeless with the current Dem party leadership.

Elizabeth Warren, one of the faces of the Dem party, is actively just anti-business. Doesn't really want to help anyone, just angry that sometimes people make money building things for customers.

[David Walpiri @DWalpiri]

Chinese fishing vessel in Antarctic scooping up krill, right next to whales and penguins

These ships track where the animals go to feed & take their food.

The ship is Shi Dao, the same fishing vessel that was caught dumping oil into Fijian waters at a shipyard a few years ago.

[Smirkley @Smirkley]

LA: ~$10K per homeless person in 2019. ~$62K in 2024. +480%.

LA County homeless pop: +23%.
RAND’s count finds LA’s official figures understate the pop by 32%.

Floor estimate, excludes LAPD, mental health teams, county and state spending.

[Matt Duss @mattduss]

Remembering Gen. Anthony Zinni’s 2009 warning about a war with Iran:

“If you follow this all the way down, eventually I'm putting boots on the ground somewhere. And like I tell my friends, if you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you'll love Iran.”

[Danny Crichton @DannyCrichton]

No discussion of tech media can get past this basic traffic fact: in the AI world, Google and social no longer refer traffic, which means that the vast majority of readers just never find you in the first place. Analysis: https://t.co/zZW6PhxhZ2