she is a victim and a perpetrator, but also we have to consider that she turned states evidence and made a deal with the feds almost immediately. the feds tend to treat lieutenant level characters in criminal enterprises well if they are willing to flip because they can then use that reasonable treatment to flip…

keith didn’t target people in crisis- he created a secular version of the prosperity gospel. he told non religious people that had a lot of money that their success (that they often didn’t feel they deserved, or left them feeling hollow) that they were justified in their hoarding of wealth because he had a scientific…

i ended up in a bar in albany that functionally never closed so long as the tips kept rolling in once- they had to stop letting people in at 4, but there was no rule saying they had to kick you out either if you were already there. i think we left at 6am and headed to a strip club buffet breakfast in arbor hills. that…

Multi-level marketing. If you recruited people to come to their self help seminars you got a discount and eventually invited to special events with the top brass

thats why everyone is drunk by 10

yeah exactly, and he framed his opposition as coming from his battles with addiction. think its a coincidence his hand picked prohibitionists gave the first look dorchester dispensary rights to a group who aren’t representative of the neighborhood? almost like it might cause local opposition and poor old marty will…

does it also point out that walsh is an incompetent clown and the cannabis issue is because of his patriarchal slow walk of the process because he disagreed with the outcome of the referendum and has done everything he can to sabotage the will of his own constituents?

even if you did it somewhere on a closed track (which i’m also not sure is legal) can you imagine what your insurance company is going to say when you explain what you need it for? 

yeah, i had a weird perspective because i was not the target audience- the idea of not having to apologize or feel for your wealth when you’re pooling crumpled 5's on the weekend to buy a 30 rack in college doesn’t really land. the film makers were basically the old rich sad people that i was observing with confusion…

i’m a little torn- the people i interacted with (even a lot of the volunteer teachers, who were ‘ranked’ in the org) i think were generally good people who meant well. but it also was a little bit frustrating to see these people who had immense wealth and power going ‘but i don’t feel fulfilled’ and instead of say,…

so- the way nexium worked at the time (i believe the sex stuff wasn’t yet happening) was it was basically a ponzi scheme. keith actually wasnt legally in charge- nancy was- because his previous convictions for his old fashion ponzi scheme meant he was bared from owning a business in the majority of states, including…

i have written a few things out a few times over the years, after this turned into a scandal. the sad thing is, i actually wrote down a pretty comprehensive essay right after i finished the session stuff with them, just to document the bugnuttery of the whole thing, but in an era pre-cloud it seems to have died with…

having attended NEXIUM sessions at the age of 19, the vow is the more valuable look at the situation. because without the ‘boring’ narrative of rich white people getting seduced by a con man, you don’t get to the situation where a guy who was otherwise best known for running a pyramid scam can set up the weird sex…

not even albany. clifton park

he got 10 years.... but on 10 charges. however, the charges were treason. apparently giving a speech in which you point out that ww1 was a bunch of rich people sending poor people to die over who got to be the biggest colonialist was treason. luckily nobody would ever say that again in this country

actually i believe he could- eugene debs ran from federal prison, having been given a 10 year sentence for protesting ww1. he ran as a socialist and got about 500k votes. Only thing is i can’t easily find if it was a felony or a misdemeanor. ironically too, debs couldn’t even vote for himself, as he had been…

it’d be a lot easier not to believe them if vetting meg whitman isn’t basically the most joe biden idea ever. centrist democrats have a pathological need to try and kick charlie brown’s football

i realize hating this movie is cool, but it made a significant amount of money- 657ish on a 300ish budget, not counting merchandising and home sales. for all the vitriol that gets tossed at DC, these movies make money- they don’t necessarily rake in the same margins the marvel movies are hitting, but they’re still…

yeah, i figured pangolin as a base line. its an important animal in the history of the region, its a cute critter and also the ‘grown up’ version she is riding later seemed more like a pangolin- i just assumed the early version was a baby

if so, given what we have done to them, i wouldn’t blame them