Trump’s use of FBI to target ‘enemies’ echoes FBI’s dark history of mass surveillance, dirty tricks and perversion of justice under J. Edgar Hoover

Trump’s use of FBI to target ‘enemies’ echoes FBI’s dark history of mass surveillance, dirty tricks and perversion of justice under J. Edgar Hoover

The building in Media, Penn. where burglars in 1971 found evidence of decades of FBI abuses against citizens. Betty Medsger By Betty Medsger, San Francisco State University As a candidate last year, Donald Trump promised retribution against his perceived enemies. As president, he is doing that. At the Department of Justice, a “Weaponization Working Group” has a long list of Trump’s perceived enemies to investigate. At the FBI, director Kash Patel has conducted a political purge, firing the highest officials…

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Manufacturing mediocrity: AI-generated ‘workslop’ is destroying productivity

Manufacturing mediocrity: AI-generated ‘workslop’ is destroying productivity

Harvard Business Review reports: A confusing contradiction is unfolding in companies embracing generative AI tools: while workers are largely following mandates to embrace the technology, few are seeing it create real value. Consider, for instance, that the number of companies with fully AI-led processes nearly doubled last year, while AI use has likewise doubled at work since 2023. Yet a recent report from the MIT Media Lab found that 95% of organizations see no measurable return on their investment in…

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Most daily actions are habitual, not the result of conscious choices

Most daily actions are habitual, not the result of conscious choices

University of Surrey: Habit, not conscious choice, drives most of our actions, according to new research from the University of Surrey, University of South Carolina and Central Queensland University. The research, published in Psychology & Health, found that two-thirds of our daily behaviours are initiated “on autopilot”, out of habit. Habits are actions that we are automatically prompted to do when we encounter everyday settings, due to associations that we have learned between those settings and our usual responses to…

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‘We are the storm’: Stephen Miller evokes memories of Joseph Goebbels

‘We are the storm’: Stephen Miller evokes memories of Joseph Goebbels

  The New Republic reports: Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, delivered a deranged speech at the Sunday memorial service for Charlie Kirk in Arizona. MAGA “patriots,” Miller claimed, have inherited a civilizing mission from their ancestors. To continue this mission, save humanity, and continue the legacy of Kirk, he said, they must vanquish the “forces of darkness,” their political opponents. At the beginning of his remarks, Miller said Kirk’s widow, Erika, reminds…

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Are America’s business leaders ready to stand up to Trump?

Are America’s business leaders ready to stand up to Trump?

As ABC and Disney defy the Trump regime by bringing Jimmy Kimmel back, it may finally be dawning on corporate America that deference to Trump is bad for business. John Cassidy writes: Why can’t business leaders band together to resist Trump’s bullying and autocratic tendencies? The profit motive certainly plays a prominent role: from Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and modern China, there is a long history of major corporations conceding to authoritarian governments for commercial…

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America’s top business leaders agree: Trump’s policies aren’t working; MAGA is like Maoism

America’s top business leaders agree: Trump’s policies aren’t working; MAGA is like Maoism

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld,founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, and Stephen Henriques write: The Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute’s CEO forum gathers top political leaders with Fortune 500 CEOs for a Chatham House rules discussion where direct quotes are off the record. In Washington DC this week at the 155th gathering, as clouds swirled around the Capitol building just steps away, senators from both parties and some top Trump administration officials joined us. They had to face down the near…

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FCC Chief Brendan Carr has defined himself by his total fealty to Donald Trump

FCC Chief Brendan Carr has defined himself by his total fealty to Donald Trump

Jonathan Reiss writes: The FCC holds tremendous sway over broadcast media, but few administrations have pushed the boundaries of its power — and few appointees at the agency have openly talked about doing so with such nakedly political aims the way Carr does. In his effort to bring the media to heel, Trump could not invent a better ally than Carr, who has laid out a program for weaponizing the FCC against Trump’s enemies. Do you even understand the level…

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Tech got what it wanted by electing Trump. A year later, it looks more like a suicide pact

Tech got what it wanted by electing Trump. A year later, it looks more like a suicide pact

Steven Levy writes: For decades, Mark Lemley’s life as an intellectual property lawyer was orderly enough. He’s a professor at Stanford University and has consulted for Amazon, Google, and Meta. “I always enjoyed that the area I practice in has largely been apolitical,” Lemley tells me. What’s more, his democratic values neatly aligned with those of the companies that hired him. But in January, Lemley made a radical move. “I have struggled with how to respond to Mark Zuckerberg and…

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I look at this country and I see a stranger

I look at this country and I see a stranger

Masha Gessen writes: The price of admission to Trump’s America is aggressive compliance, the sort demonstrated by more and more universities. Columbia and Williams College, for example, have been voluntarily flying flags at half-staff in honor of Kirk. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley, has notified about 160 students, faculty members and staff that it has given their names to the federal government in connection with “alleged antisemitic incidents.” The philosopher Judith Butler and the Middle East historian Ussama Makdisi…

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Is AI throwing climate change under the bus?

Is AI throwing climate change under the bus?

  Spoiler alert: Yes, AI is bad for the climate. AI’s computing power relies on massive data centers that use enormous amounts of electricity and water. The Trump administration wants that energy to come from burning fossil fuels, rather than renewable sources. Where does that leave the climate and communities caught in the crosshairs? Inside Climate News executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Dan Gearino, ICN’s clean energy reporter; Arcelia Martin, who covers renewable energy in Texas; and Alabama…

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Fascist pronatalist policy depends on the veneer of white, Christian ‘family values’

Fascist pronatalist policy depends on the veneer of white, Christian ‘family values’

Adrienne Matei writes: In 1980, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, an unrepentant former leader of the Nazi women’s bureau in Berlin from 1934 to 1945, described her former job to historian Claudia Koonz as “influencing women in their daily lives”. To her audience – approximately 4 million girls in the Nazi youth movement, 8 million women in Nazi associations under her jurisdiction, and 1.9 million subscribers to her women’s magazine, Frauen Warte, according to Koonz – Scholtz-Klink promoted what she called “the cradle and…

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How gaming platforms have become hidden incubators for extremism

How gaming platforms have become hidden incubators for extremism

Axios reports: While policymakers and headlines have traditionally zeroed in on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X, young people are increasingly gathering on gaming platforms — and having conversations that are typically anonymous and largely invisible to the outside world. Why it matters: Spaces like Discord, Roblox and Steam — built for gamers to connect — have evolved into the social discourse hubs where authentic interactions happen, as mainstream apps chase virality instead. Now, these gaming platforms are drawing new scrutiny…

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Trump regime cut foods stamps then ended the government’s annual report on hunger in America

Trump regime cut foods stamps then ended the government’s annual report on hunger in America

The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration is ending the federal government’s annual report on hunger in America, stating that it had become “overly politicized” and “rife with inaccuracies.” The decision comes two and a half months after President Donald Trump signed legislation sharply reducing food aid to the poor. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the tax and spending cuts bill Republicans muscled through Congress in July means 3 million people would not qualify for food stamps, also…

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Israel has transformed military service from a civic obligation into economic opportunity

Israel has transformed military service from a civic obligation into economic opportunity

Assaf Bondy and Adam Raz write: When Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel went to war, economists worldwide braced for a familiar pattern. History teaches us that wars devastate economies in predictable ways: people stop buying cars and furniture, businesses shut down, unemployment soars, and governments take over the economy by spending massively on weapons and military equipment. Israel seemed destined for this classic wartime economic transformation. Defense spending has shot up by more…

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