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Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat

Trump’s Iran intervention claims are ‘escalatory rhetoric’ says former U.S. diplomat

  Reuters reports: U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to come to the aid of protesters in Iran if security forces fired on them, days into unrest that has left several dead and posed the biggest internal threat to Iranian authorities in years. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he said in a social media post. The United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June, joining an Israeli air campaign that targeted Tehran’s atomic programme and…

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After Watergate, the presidency was made legally accountable. Trump decided that doesn’t apply to him

After Watergate, the presidency was made legally accountable. Trump decided that doesn’t apply to him

Matthew Purdy writes: A power-hungry president had twisted the government into a tool for his personal political benefit. His aides kept an “enemies list” of opponents to be punished. His cronies ran the Justice Department and he made puppets of other agencies that were meant to be independent. Corporations that wanted favorable treatment from the White House were pressured to make illegal contributions to the president’s political coffers. As revelations of rot in the Nixon administration tumbled out through the…

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Kennedy Center being operated as a ‘slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies’

Kennedy Center being operated as a ‘slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies’

The Guardian reports: “That’s the tactic they use,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island senator, pondering whether Donald Trump might attach his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “You float stuff and you float stuff and you float stuff until people get inured to what a stupid or outrageous thing it is that has been floated and then you pull the trigger.” Whitehouse was sitting in his Senate office and speaking to the Guardian at…

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Musk indicates he’s ‘going all in’ on financing the GOP ahead of the midterms

Musk indicates he’s ‘going all in’ on financing the GOP ahead of the midterms

The Independent reports: In the aftermath of his spectacular falling out with President Donald Trump last year, Elon Musk blasted the Republican Party as a corrupt force that was “bankrupting” the United States of America. But now, after months in the political wilderness, the volatile tech baron has indicated that he will once again devote his enormous fortune to electing GOP politicians, this time ahead of the midterm elections in 2026. “America is toast if the radical left wins,” declared…

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Grok generates artificial apology for promoting real pedophilia

Grok generates artificial apology for promoting real pedophilia

Parker Molloy writes: Over the past week, users on X discovered something horrifying: strangers were replying to women’s photos and asking Grok, the platform’s built-in AI chatbot, to “remove her clothes” or “put her in a bikini.” And Grok was doing it. Publicly. In the replies. For everyone to see. This wasn’t happening in some private chat window. Unlike other AI image generators that operate in closed environments, Grok posts its outputs directly to X, turning the platform into a…

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Aphoristic intelligence beats artificial intelligence

Aphoristic intelligence beats artificial intelligence

James Geary writes: The first aphorism I ever read was on the Quotable Quotes page of Reader’s Digest, one of only two publications available in my house growing up. (The other was Time magazine.) I must have been about 8 years old when I came across the following sentence by Gerald Burrill, then the Episcopal bishop of Chicago: The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. At the time, I had no idea what an aphorism was….

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When it all comes crashing down: The aftermath of the AI boom

When it all comes crashing down: The aftermath of the AI boom

Jeremy Hsu writes: Silicon Valley and its backers have placed a trillion-dollar bet on the idea that generative AI can transform the global economy and possibly pave the way for artificial general intelligence, systems that can exceed human capabilities. But multiple warning signs indicate that the marketing hype surrounding these investments has vastly overrated what current AI technology can achieve, creating an AI bubble with growing societal costs that everyone will pay for regardless of when and how the bubble…

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AI evangelists dream of data centers in space

AI evangelists dream of data centers in space

The New York Times reports: If the architects of the artificial intelligence boom are right, it is only a matter of time before data centers — the giant computing facilities that power A.I. — will float in orbit and be visible in the night sky like planets. The science-fiction-like dream is being driven by A.I. and space industry leaders who are growing increasingly worried that data centers will eventually require more energy and land than are available on Earth. So…

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The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power

The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power

Allison Stanger writes: On December 31, 1600, Queen Elizabeth I signed a royal charter granting the East India Company exclusive rights to conduct trade in the Indian Ocean region. The document was precise in its limitations: The company could establish trading posts, negotiate with local rulers, and defend its commercial interests. Nothing more. Seventy-seven years later, the same company had acquired the right to mint currency on behalf of the British crown. By 1765, it controlled the tax collection (ruthlessly…

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‘I will not abandon my principles’: Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech

‘I will not abandon my principles’: Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech

  I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations. Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try. To those who…

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They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition

They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition

Molly Crabapple writes: Billionaires raised fortunes against him. The president threatened to strip his citizenship. Mainstream synagogues slandered him as the spawn of Osama Bin Laden and Chairman Mao. But today, Zohran Mamdani became the first socialist mayor of New York City. For all the hysteria, when I look at Mamdani, I didn’t see some radical departure from the past. I see him as the heir to an old and venerable Jewish tradition – that of Yiddish socialism – which…

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Nick Shirley, the right-wing YouTuber behind viral Minnesota fraud video, has long anti-immigrant history

Nick Shirley, the right-wing YouTuber behind viral Minnesota fraud video, has long anti-immigrant history

The Intercept reports: The day after Christmas, far-right YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to have exposed fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota. Portions of the 42-minute video — mostly scenes where Shirley is turned away at the day cares — went viral in conservative circles, catching the attention of the Trump administration, which was already at work targeting Minnesota’s Somali community amid its broader war on immigrants. The video, which has been viewed more than 2.2…

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China signals it won’t give an inch to the U.S. in Latin America

China signals it won’t give an inch to the U.S. in Latin America

The Wall Street Journal reports: China intends to keep playing in the U.S. backyard, Latin America. The Trump administration took veiled swipes at China in its national-security strategy with the vow to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “deny non-Hemispheric competitors.” Less than a week after the release of the U.S. strategy in December, Beijing issued a little-noticed policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean that geopolitical analysts say foreshadows more U.S.-China jostling for regional influence. “China…

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ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires

ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires

The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and…

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