Five Things Dems Must Do to Fight Trump Now
Plus: Republicans Are Using the D.C. Plane Crash to Peddle Racism
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TOM MALINOWSKI: Five Things Dems Must Do to Fight Trump Now
“Fight, fight, fight.”
I DON’T USUALLY QUOTE DONALD TRUMP, but there is a lot we can learn from the man’s instinctive feel for politics and human psychology. He has long understood that you win by projecting strength and self assurance, not weakness and despair, and by pushing forward, forcing others to react to your actions instead of worrying what they will do to you. Everything he’s done since being inaugurated is psychological warfare, designed to demoralize his opponents and make them feel helpless.
PHIL CHRISTMAN: Against the Bullshit Machines
LATELY, EVERY COLLEGE ENGLISH TEACHER I KNOW has been struggling to write an “AI policy.” Even in using that language—and this is one of many excellent points that John Warner makes in his galvanizing new book, More Than Words—we give up too much conceptual ground. LLMs aren’t intelligent, either artificially or in any other way. They cannot “write” the papers that students coax out of them, because, as Warner argues, “Large language models do not ‘write.’ They generate syntax. They do not think, feel, or experience anything. They are fundamentally incapable of judging truth, accuracy, or veracity.”
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WILL SALETAN: Republicans Are Using the D.C. Plane Crash to Peddle Racism
IN THEIR FIRST TWO WEEKS since taking power, Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their allies in Congress are restoring a practice that the U.S. government tried to abolish more than half a century ago: officially sanctioned racial prejudice.
Last Wednesday night, 67 people died in a midair collision between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Washington, D.C. The next day, Trump showed up at the White House briefing room to blame the crash on a “diversity push” at the Federal Aviation Administration. He claimed that diversity, equity, and inclusion policies had sapped the agency of “naturally talented geniuses.”
JILL D. LAWRENCE: Terrible Nominees, Terrified Americans: Senators Could Actually Make a Difference This Month
IT’S TOUGH TO CHOOSE WHAT TO PANIC ABOUT most as Elon Musk, America’s first unelected president—who has so many foreign contacts and so much China business that the U.S. government has denied him several sensitive security clearances—unilaterally shuts down agencies, fires thousands of federal employees, accesses and does who knows what with the personal data of millions of people, and takes over the $6 trillion federal payment system. All while Donald Trump was playing golf in Florida.
DALIBOR ROHAC: Democrats Have to Learn to Love Free Trade Again
TO SALVAGE WHAT WILL REMAIN of American alliances after President Trump’s second term, Democrats must become the party of free trade.
The current occupant of the White House seems willing to disrupt international trade and hurt America’s closest partners in pursuit of nebulous policy goals. Canada, which has just narrowly avoided being hit by a 25 percent tariff, is neither responsible for nor can do much about the fentanyl crisis in the United States, nor about its broken immigration system. The European Union, with its chronic trade surplus, might be next on the president’s enemies list.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
🎵On the Jukebox…🎵 Sunshine On Leith - Coldplay ft. Laura Mvula (Radio 2 Piano Room) and this rendition of All My Love is worth it, too. I’ve never been steered wrong by BBC Radio 1 and 2’s studio recordings.
Congressman Don Beyer’s town hall… On the federal workforce. A constituent of his / reader of ours found this very valuable, and Beyer (a Bulwark contributor!) represents more federal employees than almost anyone. Joining him is Rob Shriver a former Acting Director of OPM who is managing director of "Civil Service Strong" at Democracy Forward. Listen and share.
FBI Agents Sue to Stop DOJ… from Creating List of Staff Involved in Trump Cases (Democracy Docket)
I tested DeepSeek against domestic AI chatbots… to see if Nvidia is screwed (Drew Magary, SFGate).
How to run green… Hannah Yoest on sustainability at the end of the world (Hellcat).
How Trump Is Turning Canada… Into America's Ukraine (Daniel Drezner).
It Sure Looks Like Kash Patel Lied to Congress… Patel appeared to mislead senators about the “J6 Prison Choir.” Republicans don’t care. (Mother Jones)
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“The whole thing is nuts…” JVL on the teevee talking the defrocked priest’s salute.
Olympic City remembers… figure skaters, parents, and coaches lost in DC plane crash (KOAA)
Lost Tables… A fraternity brother / reader shares this neat look back on a forgotten part of Saint Louis’s boozy history: Clark’s at SLU. (I worked at Humphrey’s, which was sort of a successor in more ways that one.)
It’s Waste Management Week… The golf tournament named after the trash conglomerate has, perhaps appropriately, famously trashy fans.
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