Certainly, at the presidential level, however I recall Congress having a bunch of “tea party” nut jobs elected that shut down the government over the passage of Obamacare.

I started paying attention in 2000, even though I didn’t really understand it and couldn’t vote, however my first voting election was 2004 and I remember being disappointed when John Kerry lost to Bush, who had already gotten us involved in two wars that would cost trillions of dollars.

My experience has been that Republican administrations tend to be rife with corruption, cut taxes for rich people and run up the deficit.

Eventually, people get sick of the moral decay and tanking economic prospects and put a democrat back in, who tries to undo all the damage, but is blocked most of the time by Republicans in Congress acting in bad faith.

Then, the right wing media environment drums up a load of fear about immigrants and actual lies about the economy to get everyone voting for a Republican again.

That’s the cycle, except the Republican media ecosystem gets more extreme over time, and so do the candidates.

1. Obama backed Hillary very forcefully in 2016 and discouraged all other Democrats from running. This largely worked. Only Bernie was willing to join the race. Biden was sidelined, even though he very much wanted to run in 2016 and was still young enough to do it. Unfortunately, this move meant the Democrats didn’t nominate a candidate that could’ve beat Trump because the options were limited and Obama had his thumb on the scale for Hillary.
2. In 2020, Bernie had widespread appeal and was winning primaries and gaining momentum. Obama phoned up several non-progressives and had them all drop out and give their delegates to Biden, who at this point was showing his age and obviously would’ve been too old for a second term.
3. In 2024, Biden’s age starts to show, but democrats ignore it. Instead, subvert the primary process and push in a “Party Boss Approved” candidate. Obama gives her his rubber stamp. Democrats again lose to Donald Trump.

Some states still require you to file even if you don’t live there, but have ties, and may tax your income.

Not if you live in a state with state and local income tax. They capped SALT deductions, so you’re basically paying tax on taxed income.

Isn’t it all the metal detectors at the door?

Idk why people say “pay a premium”. MacBook Air is like $1000 bucks. Other laptops are also in this range.

Also, you’re never going to spend a second worrying about making the thing work or fixing an error. Even Windows requires fixing problems and installing drivers sometimes. I guess it depends on how you value your time. I’ve spent hours on linux and windows troubleshooting. I’ve never spent a second on macOS.

I’d like to also blame Obama. No, seriously. That dude has rigged the democratic nominating process for the last three election cycles and it has led us here.

CustomDNS is huge. Finally!!

Sorry for the bad news. Had a family member diagnosed with stomach cancer recently. It puts a shadow over things.

Weirdly these people are probably making 100-300k salaries.

Just tax any income above $10,000,000 per year at 90%. There really isn’t a need for more than that.