According to the NYT, Trump is angry at the oil companies because they haven’t given him enough credit for their record profits. At the same time, he is annoyed that they haven’t reduced prices for consumers.
Makes sense to me. I can’t imagine why the oil companies won’t express their gratitude to Trump for enriching them by starting his stupid war. That would certainly go over well with the public.
Both Governor DeWine and Senator Husted say they have been promised there won’t be a massive immigration raid in Springfield. That answers one of the questions I raised in a previous post.
For now, at least. Minneapolis showed Trump that shows of force to demonstrate dominance don’t appeal to swing voters. They do, however, make the base happy, so don’t be surprised if the Springfield Haitians are targeted shortly after the election.
Rubio and Ratcliffe told Trump that Bibi’s plan to force regime change through bombing alone was ridiculous. J.D. never supported the war. Even Hegseth just followed orders. No, the responsibility for the unsuccessful war rests solely on the president’s shoulders, which makes him a loser. Since he can’t tolerate being viewed as a loser, someone will have to pay for his mistakes. Who will it be?
To fire any of his principal advisers would be an admission of failure, so I don’t see that happening. Trump will be concerned that his domestic political opponents–even the lukewarm members of his own party–will get the message from the Iranians that it is possible to stand up to him. He can’t permit that, so you can expect him to become even more capricious and autocratic at home.
J.D. likes to tie “Heritage American” status to the Civil War, which raises a question: how does he feel about the Confederacy?
From the reviews of his latest book, the answer is pretty clear. He will concede that slavery was wrong and that the Confederacy was fighting for a bad cause. Individual Confederate soldiers, on the other hand, were as brave and noble as those fighting for the Union. After the war, they came together to inhabit and develop the West and to build the country we know and love today. They consequently bear no blame for slavery or the war. Whatever sins they might have committed have long since been redeemed.
Really? They actually built a new South that was as close to the old one as possible. It was a backward, Third World land with a plantation economy premised on cheap labor, low taxes on landowners, the denial of political rights to black people, agriculture, and the extraction of natural resources. As I’ve noted before, that economy still exists in some areas of the former Confederacy today.
The Civil War, regardless of what J.D. thinks, was about treason and slavery, and he is siding with the traitors for reasons of political expediency. Were they really better Americans than today’s immigrants? Not by any reasonable standard.
For decades, the Republican brand has been built on distrust of government. If the electorate thinks the government is corrupt and inept, the thinking goes, they will vote to limit its powers and return money and freedom to the people. In practice, of course, the primary beneficiaries of this were wealthy businessmen, who welcome the tax cuts and the deregulation.
The problem now is that populists from both the left and the right are opposed to Trump’s dream of data centers from sea to sea. How can the GOP leadership turn off the public’s cynicism just in this particular field? So far, by making backroom deals to avoid public scrutiny until the last possible moment and by running bait-and-switch campaign commercials about AI regulation, it seems.
In the long run, that will only make the problem worse. It also presents an opportunity for the Democrats, if they can figure out how to use it.
He was a charismatic, larger than life figure with a childlike enthusiasm for war. He was an open and passionate imperialist who believed the world was the beneficiary if his country expanded its political and cultural influence. The media adored him, as did some of the public; the rest saw him as volatile and dangerous.
Is it TR or Churchill? It’s both, of course.
Trump has been treating Zelensky with more respect over the last few months. Why is that?
Because Ukraine has mostly weaned itself off of American aid and is doing better in the war. It is also proving to be helpful in the Iran war. In Trumpian terms, Zelensky has more cards to play today than he did a year ago.
C: I’ve gathered you together to discuss the war and AI. First, the war. You had wildly different views of it the last time we met. Have your opinions changed?
M: Not mine. I thought it was a serious mistake back then. Events have proven me right.
S: I’m not crazy about where we are right now, but I still trust Trump to win the war. He’ll pull a rabbit out of a hat. He always does.
C: How do you feel about higher gas prices?
S: I hate them, of course. Everything is more expensive now. We need to find an end to the war. But Trump will figure out a way.
C: How does the war end? Trump doesn’t have enough leverage to force the Iranians to submit to him. Does he use ground troops?
S: No. We don’t need another Iraq. Trump won’t let that happen.
C: Then how does it end?
S: I don’t know. He’ll think of something. He always does. He’s the boss.
C: Let’s turn our attention to AI. How do you feel about it?
M: Great! We’re incorporating it into parts of the business already. I should be able to lay off some of my administrative employees within a few months. That will increase profits even if I’m having trouble selling cars at a reasonable price, thanks to Trump’s stupid tariffs.
S: I will admit, I’m worried.
C: Why? What are your concerns?
S: I don’t want any of those data centers in my neighborhood. My electric bills are way too high already. I’m worried about impacts to our water supply. And I’m concerned about the impacts to American workers. How many of us are going to be out of work? What will we do?
M: They’ll find new jobs. They always do. That’s how the economy always works. Progress is good for everyone, even if there are some short-term adjustments to be made.
C: Donald Trump is very pro-AI. He’s doing his best to eliminate state and local regulation of AI. Don’t you trust him on that?
S: I trust Trump, but I think he’s getting some bad advice. Those rich tech guys have too much influence on his administration.
C: You don’t trust big tech? Trump does.
S: Big tech barons don’t care about real Americans like me. They just want to line their pockets and tell me what to do. They need to be brought under control.
C: And who is going to do that? Not Trump, based on his record to date.
S: I told you–he’s getting bad advice. Once he knows the truth, he’ll protect people like me. He just needs better information. He needs to get out more.
C: I think we’ll end it there.
As we know only too well, Donald Trump is all about the creation and application of leverage. He thinks he has found a way to bend Cornyn and Tillis to his will; all he has to do is threaten to pull the Blanche nomination until they leave office. Is this likely to work?
No, because they may well be replaced by two Democrats who will never vote to confirm Blanche. A certain no vote is a lot worse than a maybe with reasonable conditions.
The lowest level is the regulation of data centers by state and local officials. This involves the mitigation of typical land use impacts–traffic, noise, and excessive demands for electricity and groundwater.
The next level deals with the impacts that AI is already creating on society as a whole. Will college students with degrees in computer science be able to find work? What happens to the owners of intellectual property that is being used by the tech companies? Can students be prevented from using AI to cheat? Will our ability to engage in critical thinking be impaired? And so on.
The third level involves the long-term impacts of AI on the economy and society. Will it result in vastly higher levels of inequality? Will tech giants become the real rulers of the country? Will cybercriminals use it to shut down the economy? Will jobs be created to replace the ones extinguished by AI, and if so, how much will they pay? Will there even be a need for Americans to work? These kinds of questions are coming faster than we would like.
The top level, of course, is whether AI models will start to operate in their own interests, and whether humans will become increasingly irrelevant. We’re not there yet, but the issues are on the horizon.
In the end, it all comes down to the amount of trust that Americans have in their government and in tech companies to come up with appropriate answers to these questions. As of today, polling shows that the necessary level of trust does not even remotely exist.
With each passing day, we have new evidence that the malevolence of Trump’s DOJ is mitigated only by its incompetence and the courage of grand juries and some federal judges. Todd Blanche is in the middle of this mess. He has given no indication whatsoever that he will resist the president’s autocratic ambitions. There is absolutely no reason to confirm him as the new AG. It’s that simple.
Not for a substantial majority of GOP senators, however. As of now, only Cornyn and Tillis stand in his way. I would say the balance of probabilities is that he will ultimately be confirmed. Then what?
The GOP is inviting blue team retaliation. The next Democratic president will be sorely tempted to pick rabid partisans to head the DOJ and the FBI; the Republicans will have no basis to complain about it. I hope it won’t happen, but it might.
Climate change has a more direct impact on farmers than on most of the rest of us. As a result, you would think that they would be at the forefront of attempts to convert to clean energy. That is not, however, the case, and it isn’t just in America. Will the current wildfires in France and Spain change that dynamic?
Probably not. Reactionary views on morality and society usually prevail over economic self-interest in rural areas except in cases of extreme hardship. How else can you explain the hold that Trump has over American farmers even in the face of his tariffs and deportations?
U2 songs are mostly about love from a Catholic perspective. I would say there are two recurring themes: physical love is a natural part of life, desirable in and of itself, and useful for gaining insight into divine love; and life is a struggle, full of injustice, in which there are no easy spiritual answers. It is a vision that I frequently find compelling even though I am not a Catholic.
J.D. is a recent Catholic convert. It’s pretty clear to me that he converted because he found that Catholicism provides the strongest intellectual grounding for his reactionary views on morality and society, not because he buys into the overall message of the New Testament. He clearly loves his wife and his family, but he despises most of the rest of us; we’re only here to help him further his ambitions. His Catholicism is reminiscent of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. I don’t find his vision compelling at all.
Lindsey Graham died unexpectedly just as one of his greatest hopes had been realized; with his sidekick Bibi, he had finally persuaded Trump to begin a war for regime change against Iran. The irony, of course, is that the long-awaited war has been a disaster, and even the Republican Party has started to have second thoughts about Israel. Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.
Graham had some good moments. He could be funny, and he could be bipartisan at times. He genuinely believed in promoting liberal democracy abroad, even as he attached himself like a barnacle to a man who is doing his best to destroy it at home. My enduring memories of him, however, will focus on two things: his abject subservience to Trump; and his white Rosa Parks speech in the Senate. Nothing to celebrate there.
Does dialectical materialism and the class struggle ultimately lead to demands for free buses and childcare? If you’re Donald Trump, the answer is yes. His political opponents aren’t just demonic and woke; they’re communists.
But let’s look at the record. If the essence of communism is public ownership of the means of production, who was it that decided that the federal government was entitled to equity interests in a variety of companies? If communism in practice is really about rejecting universal claims for human rights, which president has been completely indifferent to the oppression of dissidents in Russia and China? If communism means authoritarian government at home and violations of the Bill of Rights, who in the world is responsible for that?
You know who.