Politics Archives - Attention to the Unseen

The AI backlash: People are irreplaceable

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 23:21:38 +0000

Matteo Wong writes: If there’s one thing America seems to agree on, it’s AI. Some three-quarters of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, three-quarters of Americans think AI will hurt their job security, nearly 70 percent think the technology is advancing too quickly—the polls go on. Progressive and Republican candidates alike are bashing the tech industry to win primary elections. States and cities are halting plans for data-center development. Yet in cloistered San Francisco, where I...

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Prominent Texas Republican predicts GOP losses over data centers

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 23:21:22 +0000

The Washington Post reports: Texas’s outgoing agriculture commissioner is warning fellow GOP leaders that if they don’t take action soon against data centers, they could lose key races in November. “I’ve been leading the charge against these data centers for a year or more, and it’s all falling on deaf ears,” Miller, who lost his primary election, told The Washington Post on Friday. “It’s going to hurt us in the midterms. I think we could lose some statewide races.” Among...

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Trump seeks vast, potentially costly U.S. stake in Venezuelan oil industry

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 23:20:46 +0000

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is negotiating a long-term stake in a vast share of Venezuela’s oil fields, according to three people close to the discussions, a costly and legally precarious proposal that aims to nudge reluctant energy companies to drill in the risky region. The contours of the plan, which is still evolving and could change or fall apart, would involve the United States taking more direct control over Venezuelan reserves as crime and steep logistical challenges...

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What if Canada joined the European Union?

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 23:20:28 +0000

Ishaan Tharoor writes: Ever since Trump’s combustive, combative second term began, a conversation once consigned to academic circles and the parlor rooms of Brussels and Ottawa has entered the mainstream: forget being the fifty-first U.S. state—what if Canada became the twenty-eighth member of the E.U.? A widely read column in The Economist from January, 2025, laid out the case: Canada’s huge territory and abundant natural resources offered a complement to the crammed, resource-sparse European continent; Canada’s social-welfare state and social-democratic...

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RFK Jr lied in Senate confirmation hearings, newly revealed documents indicate

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 23:20:07 +0000

The Guardian reports: Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”. Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps...

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Trump champions data centers as Republicans turn against them

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:15:46 +0000

The Washington Post reports: As voters in both parties grow anxious about the rapid build-out of data centers, President Donald Trump remains one of the tech industry’s most prominent champions — putting him increasingly at odds with members of his own party. Nowhere is that divergence clearer than in Texas, where Trump travels Thursday to campaign for Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and Republican Senate candidate. The state has courted some of the country’s biggest data center projects, but...

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Max Tegmark: Why is AI unregulated?

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:15:29 +0000

The biggest danger facing mankind is a machine that can “outsmart the whole species”, argues Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of the Future of Life Institute. Tegmark tells host Steve Clemons that governments and tech companies are in a “race to replace” human labour, instead of solving human problems. “It’s aimed at getting more money and power to a very small number of individuals,” he says. But a slew of suicides...

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Democrats will force Senate vote on Israel’s human rights practices

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:15:11 +0000

The New York Times reports: Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, on Thursday plans to introduce a resolution that would order the Trump administration to provide Congress with a detailed accounting of Israel’s human rights practices in the West Bank, laying the groundwork to force a vote on the matter in coming weeks. The measure, the latest bid by Democrats in Congress to challenge the policies and actions of Israel’s government, invokes a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act...

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Not American enough: The campaign to create second-class citizens

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:14:54 +0000

Toluse Olorunnipa writes: For Carlos Alemán, the pinnacle of the dozen years since he became a U.S. citizen was the night in 2020 when he was elected to serve on the city council of Homewood, Alabama. One of the lowest moments came earlier this year, when he learned that some of the most powerful people in his state are attempting to ban immigrants like him from pursuing higher office. “It seems to be part of a project to reject anyone...

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U.S. intervened in criminal probe of the ‘most effective ATM machine from Venezuela to the external world’

From elsewhere — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:14:37 +0000

The Washington Post reports: Senior U.S. officials intervened in an international criminal investigation into a Venezuelan businessman who was enlisted by the Trump administration to help assert control over Venezuela’s government and oil industries, according to two people familiar with the matter. The officials lobbied to resolve the case in Switzerland in a way that would avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions against the Britain-based businessman, Alejandro Betancourt, and they have not acted on a Swiss arrest warrant against...

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