What the Delphic Oracle Told Me
Plus: Bibi needs to make a choice.
The Meidas Touch headline from last nightās Trump rally in the Bronx: āTrump accepts endorsement from indicted gang membersā:
On May 16, 2023, Michael Williams (Sheff G) and Tegan Chambers (Sleepy Hallow) were arrested as part of a 32 defendant, 140 count criminal indictment in New York. The indictment included murder, attempted murder, illegal firearm possession, and at least a dozen shootings. The are allegedly part of the 8 Trey Crips and 9 Ways gangs.
. . .During Donald Trumpās rally speech it became clear what the two indicted alleged gang members were doing thereāto endorse the Republican nominee for president. Both Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow were invited up on stage where they praised Trump and said they were supporting him for president. Trump complimented Sheff G on his gold teeth and remarked that he wished he had the same teeth.
The candidate of law and order, folks. Happy Friday.
What the Delphic Oracle Told Me
OK, Iām back in the U.S. and ready to get back to work.
Next week.
For now, Iāll just say that spending time visiting ancient ruins in Greece was interesting and fun. It was also a good way to take my mind off of American politics.
But not totally. One of the highlights of our trip to Greece was our visit to Delphi. I figured, when in Delphi, do what the ancient Greeks did. So I approached the Temple of Apollo and asked to speak to the Delphic Oracle. No problem, I was told.
So I asked: āMaāam, Iām from the USA. Who will our next president be?ā
After much smoke and thunder, the oracle responded: āOf years he will have many, in the House of White he will have lived already, and of letters his last name has five.ā
Trump? Biden? Who knows? The wise old oracle was covering her bets either way.
I reported this Delphic response back to the officeāinterpreting it in an upbeat way to mean that at least we have a 50-50 chance in November. But one of my better-educated colleagues pointed out that in modern Greek, while āTrumpā is spelled with five letters, āBidenā requires more than five. So is the oracle suggesting something . . . ominous?
Anyway, I put this all out of my mind and enjoyed the rest of our tripāincluding a visit to Corinth, home of Sisyphus. Which I will admit did remind me briefly of some of our labors here in the United States.
And then yesterday, when we got off the plane, I learned that Nikki Haley had endorsed Trump. Then I remembered another remark of the oracle: Do not hail governorsā speeches.
Oh well.
The only other prophecy of the oracle was something about hung juries in trials in Nea Yorki, but I didnāt know what she was talking about, so I ignored it.
Anyway, itās great to be back! Have a good weekend, go to the website for wonderful Memorial Day pieces by Will Selber and Mark Hertling, and youāll be hearing from us again on Tuesday.
āWilliam Kristol
The Box Bibiās In
Over the last week, the Israeli Defense Forces continued making battlefield progress in Rafah. The IDF successfully evacuated the majority of Gazans from the city with minimal loss of life. During these operations, they discovered 50 tunnels connecting Rafah to Egypt, underscoring yet again the sophistication and aggressiveness of Hamas.
The Egyptians and Israelis have a critically important peace agreement, but that doesnāt mean there arenāt elements of the Egyptian Army that are supportive of Hamas. And Egypt (or some Egyptian officials) likely makes a pretty penny looking the other way. Nonetheless, Israel cannot afford to lose its relationship with Egypt, no matter how many tunnels lead back to its borders.
However, two separate events related to the Israeli-Hamas war dwarfed these battlefield updates. First, on May 19, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, along with Iranās foreign minister, died in an apparent helicopter crash near its border with Azerbaijan. While Iran āmournsā the loss of its leader, a deadly Game of Thrones commences to replace the Butcher of Tehran.
However, whoever replaces Raisi will not change Iranās strategic calculus with Israel. Iranās shadow war with Israel and the United States will continue unabated.
Then, on May 20, the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. While thereās plenty of room for discussion about the merits of the ICCās case, it will have little direct effect on the current battlefield operations.
Whatās unclear is how the ICC case will affect Bibiās political standing. Will it cause a rally āround the flag effect in favor of Bibi? Or will it accelerate the demise of Israelās wobbly governing coalition?
Over the last few weeks, politics has come back to the forefront in Israel. The Israeli hostage families flexed their political muscle by releasing a horrific October 7 abduction video. This video forced Netanyahuās hand, causing him to return to the negotiating table with Hamas.
More importantly, both Gallant and Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, have been criticizing Netanyahuās handling of the war. Gallant, whom Netanyahu previously tried to fire in 2023, rejected the possibility of Israeli military rule in Gazaāa direct challenge to Bibiās ruling coalition, which is broadly supportive of a return to Gaza. Not to be outdone, yesterday, Gantz demanded the immediate formation of a state commission to investigate the October 7 pogrom. But the starkest rhetoric came from opposition leader Yair Lapid, who said that if Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, were alive today, āhe would be ashamedā of Netanyahuās government.
While Bibiās political enemies maneuver against him, the Biden administration is trying to pressure him into a political deal with Saudi Arabia. The deal would hand Bibiās dream to him on a silver platter: normalization with Saudi Arabia, the home of Mecca, further cementing the Abraham Accordsā staying power. In return, Saudi Arabia would receive closer defense relations with the United States, which would help move Saudi Arabia away from Chinaās increasingly influential role in the Middle East.
However, for this to happen, Bibi would have to agree to a nebulous pathway to a Palestinian state. Should Bibi accept the deal, his far-right flank could bolt, though they may need Bibiās support to keep the Haredi exemption to military service alive. Should Bibi reject the deal, his war cabinet may splinter, possibly galvanizing calls for new elections.
At first, I thought the ICC decision could rally some to Bibiās defense, especially a few lukewarm Likud members. Now, Iām not so sure. The knives are out for Bibi, irrespective of the IDFās progress in Rafah, because everyone knows that Hamas will survive Rafah.
Bibi has pulled rabbits out of hats before, and he will use all available angles to delay this decision as long as possible. However, he must choose soonāeither the far-right or the war cabinet.
āWill Selber
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Catching up . . .
Will the jury convict Trump? Here are the clues: Politico
Trumpās pattern of sowing election doubt intensifies in 2024: New York Times
Biden hosts a state dinner for Kenya, with a cameo from Obama: Washington Post
Trump stays mostly silent on Haley after she backs him: Politico
Trumpās V.P. pageant has an unexpectedly strong contenderāTom Cotton: New York Times
NCAA agrees to share revenue with athletes in landmark $2.8 billion settlement: Wall Street Journal
J.D. Vance courts Silicon Valley for Trump: Axios
NOAA issues its most aggressive hurricane season forecast on record: Fox Weather
Quick Hits
1. The Classified Docs Shell Game
āThis weekās most important news is barely making headlines,ā Kim Wehle writes for the site:
On Tuesday, it was revealed that a federal judge found over a year ago that there is sufficient evidence, if believed by a jury, to find that Donald J. Trump committed numerous federal crimes in connection with his alleged theft of classified documents and obstruction of the FBIās attempts to get them back.
Meanwhile, a second federal judge is dragging her feet getting that case past āGo,ā let alone ready for trial before the November election . . .
The first judgeās decision, which was unveiled this week by Trumpās lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago case, underscores how vital that trial is to the fate of the nation. The judge is U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, who sits in Washington, D.C. and presided over the grand jury investigations, including the special counselās probe into the classified documents situation, and related disputes. On Tuesday, when Trump filed his motion seeking to dismiss the Florida case, he attached a March 17, 2023 ruling by Judge Howell that had previously been kept confidential and under seal. That 2023 ruling involved Special Counsel Jack Smithās request to interview one of Trumpās lawyersāpresumably Evan Corcoranābefore the grand jury. Corcoran was advising Trump during the time period in which the really bad obstruction allegedly happenedāfrom May 2022, when Trump first got the grand jury subpoena asking for the records back, through the FBIās raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022. In the interim, boxes were moved, closed-circuit television videos were recorded, and a false certification that all the records were returned was signed.
And, it turns out, thereās evidence that Trump was behind all of it.
2. Her
Itās not every day you see a celeb-centric controversy with far-reaching economic and policy implications. Scarlett Johanssonās public fight with OpenAI over its rollout of a voice assistant in the spitting image of her own voice is one. The Wall Street Journal has the behind-the-scenes details of the fight and its significance:
Sam Altmanās artificial intelligence powerhouse, OpenAI, had for months unsuccessfully courted Johansson, who memorably voiced an AI assistant in the 2013 film āHer.ā Last September, Johansson turned down an offer to work with OpenAI and voice a new assistant feature.
Altman didnāt give up. In mid-May, he texted Lourd, co-chairman of Creative Artists Agency, asking if Johansson might reconsiderāhe wanted to show the actress something heād been working on, people familiar with the interaction said. The camps couldnāt settle on a time to meet.
Then on May 13, OpenAI showcased an updated AI system, equipped with new voice assistants for its Chat GPT tool, including a female named Sky.
Johansson was surprised and angry. She and Lourd thoughtāand others agreedāthat Skyās voice sounded āeerily similarā to the actress. Lourd and the actress spent the morning fielding calls and emails from friends and associates, some of whom worried that OpenAI had simply appropriated Johanssonās voice without permission . . .
The emergence of AI as a rapidly advancing and perhaps unstoppable force has sparked deep anxiety in creative industries that for decades have been governed by strict rules of how creators are compensated for their work. The reason is that the language models that power generative AI chat tools are typically made using text, images, music and videos hoovered up from across the internet. That can include material that is copyrighted, valuable and often paywalledālike Scarlett Johanssonās voice . . .
A cash-strapped Hollywood has tiptoed toward generative AI tools, hoping it will save money on tasks involving scripts, production schedules and visual effects. Boosters say AI will speed up mundane tasks, offer payouts to actors who grant rights to AI versions of their voices and could help stars create synthetic doubles of themselves to maximize the number of commercial projects they can pursue at once. Some stars have begun hiring advisers to help them spot instances of their likeness being misused and issue takedown notices.
Yet as talent contemplates what AI means for the future use of their likeness, studios continue to explore opportunities to license content to data-hungry AI companies or build engines that they can use internally.
Cheap Shots
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I'd just like to say right now that if Trump asked me to be his Vice President, I'd say no. I know you were all wondering, since I'm probably at about the same level on the list as Ben Carson. But I'll have to decline as I hear that Trump fellow can't keep his hands to himself.
Also, I haven't decided if I'm going to accept the results of the most recent vote here. I know it's just the school budget, and me accepting it doesn't make any difference, but I'd like to announce my ambivalence, just in case you were forgetting about me and how important I am.
I'm going to go out on a big, wobbly limb here and speculate that the gang members who have embraced DJT and his candidacy don't actually give a defecation about him and his agenda -- or lack thereof -- so much as they see the prospect of him either a) offering them pardons for any federal crimes committed if he were to return to the presidency, b) enabling them to get into the good graces of MAGA with an acceptance of and public shoutout for their endorsement, or c) both.
True that the contrast with DJT's supposed law-and-order stance is glaring. But he crossed the bridge of contradiction on that count long ago, and has done so many times since then. Instead the concern is that the person who seeks to be the leader of our nation, and by extension the free world, cannot see how blatantly he is being played by a group of thugs for their own personal gain. If he is dumb enough, and/or is desperate enough for approval, to make that sort of deal with the devil with gang members, what does that tell everyone about his ability to figure out what Putin, Xi, and others want when they come calling with their own flattery and much more dangerous agendas for our nation and the world?