alex sammon

thanks dude !

.@alexsammon.bsky.social profiled a day laborer at a Los Angeles Home Depot.

a tragic story, expertly told: slate.com/business/202...

I Spent 12 Hours in the Parking Lot Where Donald Trump’s Darkest Work Is Unfolding. They’re Hoping You Don’t Notice. How a quintessentially American setting became an epicenter of cruelty.

slate.com/business/202... @slate.com Story by @alexsammon.bsky.social

A second kidnap car drove by, a Kia with Arizona plates. Then a third: a Volkswagen ID.4, electric. Sometimes, the group said, it would see vehicles with no plates, or plates blacked out with electrical tape, or temporary paper plates that just so happened to tear off in the wind. Sometimes multiple cars would have the same plates; sometimes the numbers were laughably fake: ABC1234, for instance. Somehow, the cops never seemed to pull these cars over.

plateless presumed kidnap car

A pair of plateless kidnap cars outside every cop's favorite hangout, Pita 360 in Gardena

Great @alexsammon.bsky.social article, and also, I wasn't imagining it after all slate.com/business/202...

Beer Is Officially on the Decline in America. No One Saw the Real Culprit Coming. The war on suds has multiple fronts—but they all come from the same place.

(Story by the great @alexsammon.bsky.social) slate.com/life/2025/09...

I'd be curious how US trends compare to global/ROW trends. Is this really an American only phenomena?

@alexsammon.bsky.social
@slate.com

blue rose you say...somehow i do not find myself surprised

Man Got an Unexpected Text Offering a Dream Job, So He Said Yes — and Discovered a Strange Scam Ring In 2024, Americans reported $470 million in losses to text scams, more than fivefold the amount reported in 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The digital landscape continues to evolve, ...

participated in my first People Magazine exclusive, in which I am "man." people.com/what-happene...

Today in “One-liners That Absolutely Destroyed Me”: “Someone should invent a currency that’s just the amount that it is.” - @alexsammon.bsky.social

This shameful episode👇 set the stage for what Trump is doing today. Cynical Democrats and pundits claimed that D.C. couldn't be trusted to write our own criminal laws, legitimizing Republicans' insistence that we don't deserve home rule. A straight line from there to here. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Just two years ago after a crime hysteria pimped by Matt Yglesias and the Washington Post, Democrats in Congress and President Biden overturned a major criminal justice reform bill passed by the DC City Council – a bill that had been studied and in the works for years.

I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined. The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.

Congratulations to @alexsammon.bsky.social! He won this week's audience award for "My Scammer" at @slate.com

slate.com/technology/2...

haha, thank you!

widespread adoption of crypto
+ proliferation of AI
+ softening of the labor market
+ enforcement “replaced by crypto industry toadies”

= “It is a great time to be a scammer.”

thanks!

This is incredible.

'This whole march of human cultural production—incalculable progress—and the one constant that has survived and adapted and thrived? The scam. ... In the end, I arrived at a simple truth. Over the course of two months, “Cathy” had run me for $96.'

happy to be of service

Crypto is the scam enabler. It's where crooks hide money.

It also does important cultural work by lubricating transactions with a magical get-rich-quick aura. It says you don't fully understand what's happening with your "earnings" because the rules are different in the cryptosphere. Duh.

Scam job offers requiring you to initially pay fees in crypto, "pay" you in crypto that you can't withdraw or access so you get nothing in the end, and use your labor to generate bogus click traffic and "clicks ... captured to beat captchas or overcome security measures that target bots."

no never! cathy wouldn't give up the gun even when i resigned. my guess is that the whole thing is just windowdressing and the point is just to send them bitcoin, and if they're paid a dollar a day then $96 is still worth the squeeze

I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined. The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.

You know those spam text messages you get, saying it's a recruiter with a job for you?

what ... how does the scam work?

@alexsammon.bsky.social took one of the jobs, and the story is *fascinating*

Go check it out: slate.com/technology/2...

when your boss tells you to pursue a second career, you listen

I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined. The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.

i got one of those low effort spam texts from "Indeed," offering a low effort, well-paid remote job. I spent the last two months working in a Filipino clickfarm, for a very disappointed woman named Cathy. slate.com/technology/2...

It Was at the Center of Endless Right-Wing Conspiracies. It Just Closed. Its Legacy Keeps Getting Darker. The haunted final days of the Roosevelt Hotel.

What really happened inside 45 E 45th st? The real story will fill you with rage. slate.com/news-and-pol...

What’s left behind is a story of herculean accomplishment of civic service with few defenders, a parade of conservative opportunists, and a bunch of developers licking their chops, ready to turn 21st century Ellis Island into high end office space in a billion dollar deal.

Finally, as of July, all of the migrants have been evicted. Why did it happen? The government of Pakistan got a $7 billion loan from the IMF, contingent upon rapid privatization of public industries—first up, Pakistan Airlines, and the Roosevelt Hotel, which it bought in 2000.

In just over two years, 155,000 migrants passed through the aging Roosevelt Hotel. Eric Adams conspired to kick them out; Dr. Phil choreographed an aborted ICE raid of the facility, conservative media claimed it was Tren de Aragua HQ.

"The front end, which was also a trunk, came up right to my rib cage, a contact point that would have chagrined any high school football coach as bad tackling form: too high."

It’s the Car That Explains Everything About America Right Now. Elon Musk Only Wishes He Made It. In Florida, on the country’s most dangerous roads, I had a 9,500-pound revelation.

This by @alexsammon.bsky.social is a very good and funny piece on that tank: slate.com/business/202...