I learned a long time ago that in the USA the packaging is always far greater than the content.
And it seems to apply to everything, be it political, to personal conversations (example: greeting someone with hey how are you, but actually getting an answer to that question is not interesting, just reply with “great, you?”). Or from people praising their city … but totally glossing over the very large populace of homeless living under bridges.
“We have the best medical care system in the world” … but that it’s only for the top 5% and the rest actually get to see/pay the insane bills is quickly ignored.
And in movies/television it is also very much present. So, yeah, I don’t expect much from the folks shouting about their amendments or hugging their guns under the pretense of fighting off a dictatorship…

Title of his next book:
“Bestident: From broke to $600 million in 6 months”

I only heard the name in relation to this case… Read stuff about the person but have no interest to check it out.

He’s also big on YouTube… and quite funny/original.

Isn’t it because the -frothing at the mouth- “influencer” bo loudon ‘declared’ Khaby Lame overstayed his visa already and must be arrested so bo notified the nazi’s, err regime, like a proper collaborator should?

The head is probably one of those people that think hurricanes appear randomly throughout the year similar to tornadoes or earthquakes.

And perhaps a stern talking to by the orange person and waving a sharpie around a photo can persuade them to deviate from their path.

Ah okay, so everything the US does will be contested and taken away, check.

The Great American Island, where non-diseased eggs cost $3 a piece and smog colors she skies yellow.
Where ports send empty freighters back and forth to appear busy.
Where the lower class are enslaved to corporations feeding the rich.
Where criminals weaponize the lawbook to punish the poor.
The place where most sickness does not exist, people just keel over.
The Island the world leaves behind.

China will gladly be the economic decider, Russia the oppressive world police. And the US the petulant child blaming everyone else.

Yeah well the thing is:
If no one enforces the judiciary’s edicts, but they all say aye to whatever trump’s new decree of the day is then Judicial is just standing there foot in mouth …

I’d say don’t argue with the courts at all.

Declare their opposition to -your new laws- illegal, while being sure there is no force to stop you making the courts submissive to your new king’s laws.

Just about what they are doing now.

He accomplished all he set out to do, with one caveat, because he stood in the bad limelight his image and monetary value took a serious nosedive. This last part is why he now is standing in the back, yet leering around the room wherever the president is.

The one thing he was aspiring towards did receive a huge blow, he was racing to become the world’s first trillionaire. And it might just be a setback that he can catch up with, but for now he does need to focus to try and crank all his stocks back up…

I am not familiar with any of the tipping laws, but what prevents an employer (now) to withhold the tipping jar from employee’s wages, especially now, under the norm of non taxed, in effect non official, incomes?

So, before one would get (income+tips) - taxes; and now only Income - Taxes because on paper the tips don’t exist?

I do not want it, but in a way I would have schadenfreude if in the most polluting areas of the US (at least) severe localized smog appears, like in China the last decade…

A lot of word was out there that the management team at Lucasfilm was a bit soured on Andor after they were told by higher ups at Disney to not interfere with the creative side.
But ofcourse no one will say so in an official interview.
I suspect it was in Gilroy’s contract his project was to be left alone, especially seeing how meddlesome things became with The Mandalorian S2 & S3, Book of Boba Fett and all other just about failed projects that had management sit on the creatives’ chairs.

Andor also is in stark contrast to most of the shows/movies made directly under Lucasfilm’s management and their creative style… and it is bringing in the accolades for it, while most of the other stuff is falling very short.

All in all, I would have preferred a 3rd season, if they could have shot them back to back it would have been amazing. As it is now, while great television, S2 feels like it is rushing through the story.
More tales of Luthen and Kayla, heck even Saw would be a good fit, until season 3 glued it all together.

To close, Tony Gilroy has my deepest respect for making Andor and Rogue One, yet doing so without craziness surrounding it all. If I ever get the chance I’d shake the man’s hand and thank him profusely.

The fanbase that was once the biggest in the world, the one that KK just about personally destroyed with her nonsense and lies, that fanbase.
The same lies that you clearly enjoy gobbling up because an actual open thought about it seems foreign to you seeing how you immediately go on the offensive blaming non existent manosphere influence for the failure of Disney Star Wars.

I’ll give you two examples, KK wearing a “The Force Is Female” t-shirt AND having lead actors spout that same declaration in interviews… while nowhere and never before was there ever a gender attributed to the force…
Now consider a man ever declaring the force to be male only … He’d get chased off the internet, probably doxxed and his career damaged.

Another example, hire a proven man-hater as writer/director and have her drop man hating comments all over the place, how she enjoys hurting men and shocking them, her project also is cobbled together by shooting all kinds of holes in the existing lore. It turns out to be a really bad show … yet somehow it is the fault of the male fans that it failed …

Heck, it’s the same with the “Star Wars has no people of color” and “Star Wars has no strong females” comments, they only come from the KK side of things, there is not a fan who mentioned it because it just is not true. And yet, somehow Star Wars fans are called racist and misogynistic…

Star Wars was destroyed by the bad products Disney released, no ifs and or buts about it, the slop KK put her stamp of approval on and then scapegoat the fans, new and old…
Like it or not, the blame that most of it’s projects fail lies on that side, not on the fans turning their back on it.

Her formula actually IS about offending the fan base … Time and time again her team starts a controversy that insults the fans far ahead of release of any of the products, and the products themselves mess with existing lore and expectations. All for no reason other than to start a ruckus about the product so they can blame the fans for it failing.

I highly suspect Andor slipped past is because somewhere someone declared/decreed it “absolutely hands-off” in the creative stages, and it shows in how a polished product is delivered that has not been meddled with.

I think KK’s team did, half covertly, attempt to set it up to fail. And with the bizarre high budget they gave it it might even turn out to be a flop.

But they set it up to run against The Last Of Us season 2, like they placed the Mandalorian & Grogu movie (dumbest title ever, are they the siblings of Lilo & Stitch?) against the new Marvel movies in May '26…

There was no prior big ticket advertising for Andor, only now when the season is fully out did the advertising start in a big way.

I am also not quite sure on the 3 episodes per week schedule. In a way it worked, story wise, but I feel it would have lasted longer in the ratings if it was one episode per week, with perhaps only the first 3 episodes in the same week as an appetizer.

All in all it feels to me they definitely did not give it their best effort to give Andor’s 2nd season a smooth sailing ride in the hope to be able to declare it a flop.
Why that is I can not directly say, perhaps it is some vindictiveness because Andor succeeded where the more hands on projects failed, or that they just don’t want to give us Andor style products, but it could just as well be some pure incompetence of the management layer…again…

Hey now, don’t stop there…

Shareholder suffering leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.

I did not know this … it is both awesome and interesting.

I think the act of being sworn in should also be on one’s passport, give it more weight that if you break the oath you lose the citizenship.

He was thinking of the concepts of his own constitution, not the current one…

I almost say do it, triple-double-multiplier tariff added on everything! From water to bathroom visits to minutes of watched television, sodas to butter, corn to newspapers, even icecubes must not escape tariffs to make the country great again…
Then I give it 6 months, after which I suspect personal hells will open up…

Say, what about sales taxes eh? Seems those remain, hmm, so it’s actually a tariff on top of taxes?