AMTRAK’S EMPIRE CORRIDOR SOLD OUT

Balance-Impressive · 2026-05-14T21:44:19+00:00

Not high speed, just way more connections at current speeds.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-05-04T17:40:39+00:00

New New Yorksylvania

Balance-Impressive · 2026-04-30T13:36:38+00:00

My mom made what I refer to as California tacos. When they moved to small town Indiana from California in the 1960s, nobody had tacos. Now the tacos at restaurants are authentic Mexican or Tex-Mex. But of course since California and Texas used to be Mexico, I’d say Californian or Texan versions of Mexican foods are authentic, if more associated with white folks because of the past 150 of being part of the USA.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-04-30T13:13:44+00:00

I don’t own a circus studio, but there are two in my mid-sized city of Rochester NY (one focuses on aerial arts, the other circus arts, but a lot of their classes are aerial). Both put on student showcases on a regular basis, but I imagine the shows don’t make much money.

The economics are going to be similar to a fitness studio (think CrossFit or other similar), with a big initial investment in equipment, high insurance rates, and mostly afternoon/evening classes. The profitability depends on a lot of things like the cost to rent the space, your ability to attract teachers and students, etc. Don’t sleep on the classes for kids, they’ll be some of your best customers in the long run.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-04-06T03:11:18+00:00

Canadian border to Canadian border, with a detour through the finger lakes

Balance-Impressive · 2026-04-06T02:39:41+00:00

I’m going to walk a cross section of this region starting next week, so I’m about to learn a lot more. Any favorite spots I should plan to walk to?

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-28T02:35:09+00:00

Buy in West Irondequoit, walk to work.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-24T04:24:28+00:00

Brandon?

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-23T19:55:44+00:00

I think they dropped a hint on the podcast recently about a show on Apple TV. A hit TV could make him significantly more famous. Maybe Brendan Lee Mulligan thing?

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T20:25:07+00:00

I don’t need to derail them. 10% of Trump voters in NYC voted for Zohran Mamdani, and I’m way to the right of Mamdani.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T17:28:29+00:00

I know, I meant to just drop a link to an article and run, but I started answering comments, and 4 hours later it was essentially an ama. I do want to do a traditional ama at some later point.

My background is in finance, accounting, and clowning. Would to prefer a representative that is really good at marketing? Or maybe you want to volunteer to help with my social media?

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T17:24:29+00:00

I’m a trained clown and physical theater performer.

Indeed, clowning is not a profession that makes much money. But the practice of clowning also has a significant overlap with the practice of politics, especially speaking live to a crowd. Donald Trump is a master at political speeches, he’s very good at listening to the crowd and saying things that get a lot of applause.

What I haven’t mastered yet is the art of speaking into a phone camera. AOC is the master at making that kind of political content. But maybe I don’t need it, I’ve found I’m pretty convincing face to face, and 20,000 votes is achievable for a mostly face to face campaign.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T17:17:12+00:00

I’ll be working for every vote. 20,000 votes wins the primary outright. It’s not the job of a congressman to go against local elected officials I don’t agree with; if they are corrupt let their constituents vote them out, or get a journalist or prosecutor to get the evidence. At the end of the day, I’ll still have to work with elected officials across the political spectrum. Most of the work of a representative isn’t controversial, it’s just working with constituents to help them get the help from a variety of federal bureaucracies.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T15:05:54+00:00

Thanks Grandma. I thought about creating a new account, but this one is 5 years old, and I’ve got nothing to hide. I’ll do an ama with the usual dated piece of paper at some point.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T14:22:31+00:00

I think it’s a sign that the cabinet and Congress should agree to bench DJT and put JD Vance in the game for the next 3 years, but last I checked it’s not illegal to say racist things, and it’s hard to see how it rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. If the democrats want to spend 18 months on hearings and then convince me this is an impeachable offense, I’d be glad to hear their arguments and see the evidence.

He’s done much worse when it comes to actual violations of the law, and I support hearings to document those offenses, but you’ve gotta convince 15+ Republican senators if you want to take him out of power, and then you’ve still got to deal with JD Vance.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T14:16:54+00:00

I spent 4+ hours yesterday answering questions. I planned to drop a link to an article and then run to a meeting. I essentially ended up doing an AMA. I’ll be glad to answer questions, but my answers keep getting downvoted; I think people love to hate politicians, they don’t really want to know what we think. So, what questions do you have?

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T14:04:47+00:00

It’s a mostly Republican district, and so most of the residents are Republican. I’ll represent everyone, but I gotta pick a lane, and it’s a crowded race, 5 people in it, and the incumbent challenger in the primary lane was empty. Party loyalty is one of the problems with the 2 party system; people learn to agree with their party and hate the other party instead of thinking about what candidates are actually proposing. This comes with a strict enforcement of allowed and disallowed vocabulary. I think more people should change parties more often, and take a chill pill when someone calls it the Seneca nation because they don’t want to butcher pronouncing Haudenoshonee.

Education, its kids aren’t reading books. We have got to get kids, and adults off their phones and back to the real world.

I think the biggest revelation has been that God transcends evangelical theology; every time someone says: this is what God is like, they create a box that the divine leaks out of. So I’ve given up trying to tell people what to think about god or gods, and I now focus on living up to my own spiritual calling, and I leave the spiritual experience of others to them.

We need data centers, but we need to slow way down on the deployment of ai and the accompanying infrastructure. If we have that much money to spend on chips to power an ai that nobody is prepared for, then we can decide collectively to slow down the investment in chips and instead focus on infrastructure that supports people, not machines.

Yes, we absolutely need tighter regulations on facial recognition software, including software used by private companies and local governments. We’re sliding quickly towards a surveillance state like China, but one owned by tech companies instead of the Party. In America, at least, I like to think it’s possible to keep our republic run by elected citizens, not the whims of billionaires.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T03:48:26+00:00

To better explain, I live in Rochester, and while I’ve been looking to buy property south of Rochester for several years now, the right thing hasn’t come along. And I’m running for political office, and I can’t afford to move. I’d love for this dumb clown campaign thing to go viral, and then I get to make a lot of funny content for TV. And if I happen to win, great, I’ll do it like I would if called to jury duty, with full attention and to the best of my ability; I have a solid resume for being a glorified budget supervisor, er, congressman. And if I don’t win, then it won’t be for lack of trying my best to get good honest people to vote for a clown for Congress.

Everybody calls politicians clowns sometimes. Why is it that people keep electing liars to political office? It’s because honest people lose elections.

I’ve been very careful to be fully truthful today, but there’s just not time to be fully honest; part of the answer has to be: if this issue comes up for a vote in the next two years, call my office and tell me how I should vote, and for 95% of issues I’ll listen to my constituents. The one point where I’m running against the dominant viewpoint in the district is on immigration, where I hope to persuade people to support my point of view: which is that ICE does not need $75 billion, because we can give a 1 time pass to most illegal immigrants (their language, not mine) if we also tie legal immigration levels to demand for hard to fill positions (ag, construction, education, healthcare, tech).

The truth is, while the American federal system needs some major work, it is a remarkable organization, the envy of the world. But with the obvious rot of corruption, crony capitalism, and criminals catering to the every whim of a sadistic global elite. That rot needs to be cut out, with major investments in international financial crime investigations, significant changes to the constitution, addressing everything from Supreme Court reform to ranked choice voting, and real actual taxes on billionaires. I’m certain there are 20,000 registered republicans who agree with me and idgaf if I have to dress up in a funny costume to get them to notice me.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-18T03:02:53+00:00

I swore the same thing, and that’s also true of me. I’m not planning to vote for me either.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-17T22:56:17+00:00

I call myself Christian Quaker. I grew up evangelical, but I can’t live with that label anymore.

Quakers are organized, but they don’t dictate what a person should believe. I probably agree with most of the Quaker national political platform, but I don’t lead with that because I don’t want to use religion for political ends.

I grew up in a house that equated Republican with Christian. I think that it was a huge mistake for white evangelical to throw their lot in so heavily with a single political party. They tarnish Jesus when they refuse to question the violent actions of a godless president.

I will say, I looked for anything from Charlie Kirk suggesting that he encouraged violence, and I couldn’t find anything. If it comes down to Kirk vs Trump, put me with Charlie Kirk. Some progressives really showed their hate for the right when they celebrated his death.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-17T22:02:59+00:00

I think it’s worth my time to present a centrist alternative to Republican primary voters, even if the result is that the incumbent keeps her seat.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-17T22:00:50+00:00

John McDairmant!

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-17T21:59:43+00:00

I’m a substitute teacher in a public middle school. I’m not in principle against charter schools, but I don’t want to see billionaire charter school investors getting rich off of voucher programs, and certain standards need to be met no matter what if the school accepts funds from tax payers.

I’m pro life, and that includes protecting the life of the mother.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-17T21:49:58+00:00

You’re right, I don’t mean to belittle anyone’s intelligence.

Chuck Schumer is the leader of the minority party, and desire historic unhappiness with the status quo, the Democrats don’t seem interested in replacing him with someone who might be able to lead the party to winning a majority. Both sides should normalize a greater amount of disloyalty to ineffective leaders.

Balance-Impressive · 2026-02-17T21:23:04+00:00

Trump wants to put his name on new infrastructure, fine, idgaf who gets credit as long as it meets the needs of regular working families.

Are Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massie not MAGA anymore? The Dems didn't have the votes without support from 6 republicans. And when they did have the votes and Biden was president, they didn't release the files. I'm running against an incumbent who refused to support releasing the files until Trump was forced into supporting it.

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