Outbound and Down

May 12, 2025

The Outbound Net

Something strange is happening at the northern border. Over the past week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection set up outbound checkpoints at the Peace Arch crossing between Washington and British Columbia. They were pulling over vehicles, popping hoods, checking behind dashboards and questioning drivers. Not for people entering the country. It was for people trying to leave.

CBP’s official line is that this is “standard procedure.” That it’s just part of a multi-day national security operation targeting fugitives, contraband, and weapons. But, for all their effort, they seized only a few small arms and some drugs. That’s their pitiful justification. And if this were a one-off, maybe that would be enough. But as with all things now, I do not ever assume that something is a ‘one-off’ or ‘off hand comment’.

Realize this. And remember it. Outbound checkpoints have never been standard practice in the United States. The entire U.S. border enforcement model has always been built around controlling entry. Who comes in. Not who leaves. These outbound stops have happened before, but always in narrow, case-specific contexts usually tied to an active fugitive search or drug sting. They are normally temporary and isolated. And even then deeply unusual.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO) does not consistently conduct outbound inspections of personal vehicles and pedestrians at land border crossings on the Southwest and northern borders

-CBP official statistics

There’s no law requiring Americans to seek permission to exit the country. No system of exit visas. There is no legacy of travel restrictions like you’d find in Soviet Russia, North Korea, or China. On the contrary, in America, the right to leave is fundamental. It is embedded in our legal tradition, affirmed under international law and inherently expected in our subconscious legal entitlements as Americans. What’s happening now; outbound inspections presented as ‘routine’, expanding surveillance, facial recognition scans of people driving out of the country isn’t normal, and has no meaningful precedent.

Which makes CBP’s claim of normalcy feel much more sinister than a simple lie: My opinion; this is a test. This is a calibration of public reaction. A quiet probe to see how much control can be asserted over outbound movement before people push back.

I can’t prove it, but I believe this is the beginning of a redirection of border enforcement inward. Not to stop others from coming in, but to monitor and eventually regulate who’s trying to get out.

That shift fits with everything else that’s been building. A biometric net cast across land borders. AI-powered predictive systems pitched as “pre-crime.” The normalization of ID checks, checkpoints, and surveillance drones across domestic space. Legal chatter about stripping citizenship. Proposals for “internal passports” framed as emergency migration controls. The mechanics of containment are coming online. One bolt at a time.

Containment, in authoritarian systems the way I am using the term, refers to the strategic restriction of movement. That’s physical, digital, social, and ideological containment. It’s not only walls and borders. It’s comes down to keeping people where they’re useful, visible, and under control. Budding autocracies learn early that it’s not enough to dictate what people can’t do; they have to limit where people can go. Freedom of movement allows dissenters to flee, organize, expose, or simply opt out.

Authoritarian regimes view that freedom as a leak in the vessel. So they seal it. Not all at once always, but often gradually, by tightening border controls, criminalizing unapproved travel, requiring loyalty oaths for visas, or building data systems that track and flag anyone who tries to exit the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. In stable democracies, the ability to leave is a given. In unstable or transitioning ones, the right to exit is one of the first freedoms to be questioned. Not because it threatens safety, but because it threatens control. Containment is how power draws a circle around its subjects and erases the door.

None of this proves intent, yet. But it traces more than the faint outline of it. It traces a logic that no longer trusts its own citizens to move freely. A logic that looks at the ability to leave not as a right, but as a threat. And the more familiar this logic becomes, the easier it is to justify more of it. More checks. More scans. More scrutiny. More Force. Stricter guidelines. Harsher Punishments. Until the border doesn’t just mark who gets in but who gets to leave.

That’s what should keep you up tonight. Not the checkpoint itself, but how easily they’re being immediately explained away. How the extraordinary is already being rebranded as routine. And how quickly we’re adjusting to the idea that freedom of movement is something you earn, not something you’re owed.

Or, you know, maybe I’m wrong and nothing like this will ever happen again. Not a pattern yet, but in this climate, I’m not comfortable waiting for two or three occurrences to mark an emerging pattern. And neither should you.

Yeah But, It’s His Fucking Mess

Trump’s team just announced a 90-day tariff pause with China and immediately declared victory. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods drop from 145% to 30%. Chinese tariffs on U.S. exports slide from 125% to 10%. Markets jumped. Cable news grinned. But take one small peek outside the loop and it’s obvious what just happened: the administration walked back from the fire it started, lit a cigar off the embers, and held a press conference to praise the smoke as a sign of progress.

This isn’t a resolution. It’s a temporary timeout from a trade war Trump launched for no coherent reason and with no achievable endgame. Back in 2018, the justification was “fairness.” By 2020, it was soybeans and Phase One promises; an empty handshake deal brokered by Trump that claimed China would buy an extra $200 billion in U.S. goods. They didn’t. The purchases never materialized, enforcement was nonexistent, and the structure of the deal gave China room to ignore its commitments without consequence. Biden quietly let the framework linger, but didn’t renegotiate it. No one really did. Instead, the tariffs stayed, the damage deepened, and the promised reset never came. Prices rose. Risk increased. Supply lines degraded. And now, in 2025, we’re still wading through the fallout of the first cold trade war that Trump started. It was never strategic, just loud and tacky.

Now here we are again, being told to celebrate a “de-escalation” that still leaves tariffs at 30% and doesn’t fix a single thing. No long-term deal. No industrial plan. No safeguards against the next spike. Just a vague gesture and a three-month clock.

Even in the best-case scenario, this “pause” does nothing to reverse the actual damage. Critical gaps in manufacturing inputs and logistics are already baked into the system. That damage doesn’t unwind just because the paperwork got friendlier for a season. The shortages coming from the earlier choke points; raw materials, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors will keep hitting. Some have already started. And now businesses are left whiplashed again, unable to plan more than a quarter out, watching a foreign policy rerun while trying to guess what war room mood swing they’ll be forced to eat next.

Worse still, the entire trade policy apparatus is functioning on executive fiat. No congressional process or deliberation. Just one man-baby with a magic marker and a grudge, scribbling tariffs into place and erasing them as his mood shifts based on the texture of his last McFish Filet Sandwich. This isn’t how trade relations are supposed to work in a functioning democracy. The constitutional framework (slow, flawed, and messy as it may be) exists precisely to prevent this kind of erratic turbulence. You don’t build economic stability by treating global trade like a pinterest mood board.

But uncertainty is policy now. This is exactly how a regime that doesn’t believe in stable agreements governs. It prefers to rule by disruption and threats. By temporary relief from self-inflicted harm, and always with a leash attached. That unpredictability is one of the primary features of nascent regimes. Aspiring autocrats thrive in unstable environments because uncertainty concentrates power. If rules can shift overnight, then every player in the system whether corporate, political, or international has to stay close to the source of those shifts. It breeds dependency, discourages dissent, and replaces planning with flattery. The less that people can rely on the system, the more they’re forced to rely on the manchild at the top.

So what does this 90-day pause buy us? Not stability by any definition. Not clarity or growth. Just a brief stall in the wreckage before the next stunt. The economic equivalent of pulling the parachute on the corpse of a fallen skydiver and calling it a favor. And did you even say 'Thank You.'

Fed or Not?

Welcome back to everyone’s favorite authoritarian party game: Fed or Not? The rules are simple. You're walking through a parking lot, maybe heading to work or waiting for your kid to get out of school, when a group of armed men in ambiguous tactical gear swarm someone nearby, or maybe you. No badges. No name tags. Just generic “POLICE” patches (maybe!) and the kind of gear you can buy with a government credit card or a bulk order from HardGritAlphaWear.com.

Now the clock is ticking. Jeopardy music is playing: are they local cops, feds, or a cosplaying militia with a discount code? You have five seconds to guess. If you're wrong, you lose your rights. Maybe your life.

This isn't hypothetical. Former Border Patrol agent turned whistleblower Jenn Budd recently posted images of CBP agents detaining people in unmarked vehicles with zero visible identification. They wear no insignia, no agency markings, just plainclothes agents and masked-up muscle in blacked-out SUVs. It’s not just ICE anymore. It’s a style guide. And it’s spreading. It’s meant to scalable and copy pastable.

The justification is always the same: operational security. Protecting agents. Avoiding retaliation. But strip away the names, the patches and the emblems and what’s left isn’t security. It’s impunity. It’s the normalization of a law enforcement culture that increasingly doesn’t want to be recognized, named, or held responsible.

We’ve been here before. In Portland, 2020, federal agents snatched protestors off the street without identification. The backlash was brief. The practice stayed. Now it’s migrating. Normalizing. Merging into a landscape where the term “federal agent” no longer means a specific role, it means whoever’s in the vest that day.

When identification is optional and accountability is absent, you create a perfect entry point not just for official overreach, but for unofficial force. Deputized civilians. Contract mercs. Movement loyalists in a borrowed badge. This isn’t speculation. The idea of augmenting federal forces with “patriotic volunteers” or private contractors has already been floated. Blackwater, now rebranded as Constellis, is still on speed dial. Groups like the Oath Keepers and 3 Percenters were made for this moment. Some already see themselves as law’s last line. All they need is a patch, a briefing, and a handshake. And maybe not even that.

We’ve already seen what happens when those lines blur. January 6 showed us. Charlottesville showed us. Portland, again, showed us. And yet the border, the streets, and the next protest zone are being reshaped in a way that invites those same forces back but this time under official sanction. Not as a rogue mob, but as auxiliaries. As force multipliers. As “security support.”

This is the final brick in Curtis Yarvin’s Butterfly Revolution. Step 7, specifically. Turning out supporters and loyalists to the street to enforce the regimes policies.

That’s the path we’re walking. If ICE and CBP can operate with no names, no unit tags, and no oversight, then what’s to stop a well-connected paramilitary group from slipping into the mix? Who’s checking their ID? Who’s vetting their orders? The whole setup depends on the illusion of uniformed legitimacy. But that illusion is getting cheaper and easier to fake.

When violence comes without a name, and law enforcement becomes a ‘concept’ rather than a legal structure, you don’t get safety. You get regime muscle with plausible deniability. You get fear in place of law. You get order by rumor and punishment by guessing.

And then you lose the game.

Tell them what they’ve won Johnny!

They don’t even need to deputize anyone. Once the public gets used to unbadged enforcement, the rest is just costume. The structures that should prevent abuses like internal oversight, external accountability and judicial recourse are already compromised or captured. If you resist, you’ll be charged. If you sue, you’ll lose. If you identify the wrong person, you’ll be punished. And if no one can tell who’s legitimate in the first place, then everyone in tactical gear becomes legitimate by default. They can slap a 'POLICE' patch on anyone, and it’ll stick because the courts, the agencies, and the media have already agreed not to ask too many questions. Or any at all.

The Plane, the Grift, and the Applause

The president may soon be gifted a jet. A literal Boeing 747-8, previously owned by Qatar Airways and retrofitted with luxury interiors, is reportedly under negotiation for transfer to Donald Trump. The stated plan, according to multiple news outlets, is to use the plane during his term and later ‘house’ it in a presidential library. While the deal has not yet been finalized or formally accepted, the intention is clear, and the public rollout has already begun. MAGA world is elated. Newsmax anchors are nearly in tears. Influencer accounts are posting tribute reels. Supporters are calling it “beautiful,” “presidential,” and “perfect.”

But set aside the optics. And set aside for one moment the fact that accepting a multimillion-dollar aircraft from a foreign government would have triggered a bipartisan scandal just a few years ago. Focus instead on the substance: this plane is useless.

It’s not secure. It’s not equipped. It’s not hardened for electronic warfare or nuclear survivability. It doesn’t have defense countermeasures or encrypted systems. It doesn’t meet a single standard required to be called Air Force One in function, only in paint. And it isn’t even a Boeing 757, as some outlets misreported. It’s a 747-8, a different platform altogether. Even that distinction doesn’t help. The aircraft was designed for comfort, not crisis. What it offers in aesthetics, it lacks entirely in capability.

And that’s the point. This wasn’t a gift for a functional presidency. It was a gift for the brand. It’s not meant to serve the country. It’s meant to serve the aesthetic. To help the campaign trail feel like a coronation tour. To give the illusion of legitimacy without any of the burden of actual readiness.

The real Air Force One is a flying command center. It's built to operate in a crisis, to protect the continuity of government, to communicate with every wing of the military in real time, and to shield the Commander in Chief from missile attacks. This? This is a flex. A flying prop. A monument to a fragile ego.

And the worst part? Everyone pretending otherwise knows better.

Take Eric Lipton at the New York Times, who insists, without irony, that corruption only counts if there's an explicit quid pro quo. That’s not analysis. That’s camouflage. It’s the kind of lawyer-brained dodge that turns the entire machinery of influence into a magic trick: if no one signed a contract that says “this is a bribe,” then nothing happened, right?

But bribery is a legal term. Corruption is a structural one. Bribery needs proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Corruption doesn’t. Corruption is what happens when powerful people come to expect favors, rewards, and immunities as the natural consequence of their status. When wealth and allegiance buy access. When gifts are given not for a policy but for proximity. And everyone in the room understands the trade even if no one says it out loud.

Lipton’s argument doesn’t clarify anything. It obscures. It narrows the definition of corruption so tightly that almost nothing qualifies unless it arrives with a notarized confession and an itemized money trail labeled “kickback.” That’s not investigative rigor. That’s complicity masquerading as nuance. And it’s exactly the type of intellectual shenanigans that keeps the public confused while the machinery of influence rolls on, unchallenged.

This isn’t some academic distinction. It’s a tactical one. Because the entire point of soft corruption is that it doesn’t require a smoking gun. Just mutual benefit, unspoken alignment, and a shared understanding of how power flows. When a foreign regime gives a former president a plane, they aren’t buying legislation. They’re underwriting the myth. They’re investing in narrative control. They’re rewarding the return of a favorable ally. And they don’t need a receipt to prove it.

Which is why this moment with this plane, this gift, this fawning coverage, isn’t just a spectacle. It’s a stress test. A chance to see how much authoritarian theater the country will applaud. And it’s working. Because we’ve spent so long pretending corruption needs a paper trail, we’ve forgotten it only ever needed a runway.

What Lipton calls 'accuracy and fairness' is just strategic naivety. He is pretending not to see the power dynamics when they unfold in full view. No, it doesn’t need to be a briefcase of cash. It can be a jet. A flattering headline. A contract awarded quietly. Corruption isn't about legal technicalities. It’s about control. And the journalists who feign ignorance of that fact are doing more to sanitize autocracy than the grifters they're covering. This isn’t just a security nightmare. It’s a loyalty test. An open-air display of power for a leader who doesn’t need function, just adoration.

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Just days ago, a wave of new executive orders and regulatory memos quietly began codifying the same logic Lipton cheerleads. One that insists punishment can only follow provable, explicit intent. The kind of intent that’s nearly impossible to demonstrate when the actors are powerful, the deals are informal, and the evidence is deniable by design. It’s the same shield used by white-collar criminals and war criminals alike: if you can’t prove the moment of the handshake, you can’t call it a crime. *WINK*

But power doesn’t operate through signed confessions. It operates through implication, alignment, and silence. These new regulatory shifts don’t just reflect that reality, they weaponize it. They’re carving out legal sanctuaries for bad faith, conditioning the public to believe that unless someone says the quiet part out loud on a hot mic, then no violation occurred. This is how systems rot. Not with grand declarations, but with quiet permissions. With legal frameworks that say, 'Unless we catch you red-handed with a contract in blood, you’re free to go.'

That’s not rule of law. That’s rule of loophole. And the more we pretend that’s good enough, the faster we lose the ability to distinguish corruption from governance at all. I mean, aren’t we already there?

Gravity Wins, But at What Cost?

Four jets down. Two weeks apart. All from the same strike group. I tried to ignore it. It’s just internet memes so far. But there’s something about watching aircraft worth more than most towns vanish into the ocean without consequence and that feels... instructive.

No one’s claiming sabotage. No one’s even pretending to launch an inquiry. I suppose that is just what happens now? A half billion dollars falls into the sea, and the response is a shrug and another ribbon graphic on Fox? That’s it?

Something is bothering me here but I can’t quite pin it down. Not the crashes themselves, but how unremarkable they’ve become. Sure it’s easy to post a low hanging joke on social media. But what does it mean? The White House issues loyalty pledges by executive order while the military forgets how to land planes. We’re building a regime that wants to look invincible but can’t stop tripping over its own landing gear.

It’s not corruption. It doesn’t scream encroaching authoritarianism. Curtis Yarvin never gave a lecture about how beneficial to his world vision it would be if we dumped all our jets in the ocean. So I don’t know how to frame it, or if it’s even in my lane. Overall, I guess it’s just decline. Quiet and repetitive. Absolutely no one is at the wheel except the guy yanking it off the column and holding it up like a trophy.

Final Thoughts

There is no master plan. Just overlapping ambitions, decaying safeguards, and a growing indifference to consequence. What used to be outrageous now happens on a Tuesday. What used to be illegal gets repackaged as policy. And no one really needs to explain anything. They just announce, enforce, and wait for the news cycle to roll over.

We’re not witnessing some dramatic transformation. We’re watching the same machine run without calibration. The legal inputs don’t match the outcomes anymore. The agencies don’t match their missions. Enforcement isn’t tied to law, it’s tied to loyalty. Every time someone asks a question like “Can they do that?” the answer is ‘Well of course they can, I mean, they obviously are, so what’s your problem?’

And so we end up here. With checkpoints in the wrong direction. With jets falling off of boats while loyalty pledges get drafted in the West Wing. With private muscle in federal vests. With a president being handed a plane by a foreign power on camera and somehow that’s not the story. Because there are too many stories now. Too many breaches to track. Too many red lines repainted.

This isn’t collapse. It’s repurposing. The parts are still moving, just not for you.