Rising, 05/19/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a viral video showing teenagers brawling at a Chipotle in Washington DC, leading to more calls for cracking down on youth violence in the city.” (05/19/26)
Author: Thomas L. Knapp
Payback Time
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Spain was the second-largest beneficiary of the EU’s Next Generation funding scheme (NGEU), rolled out in 2021 to help member states recover from pandemic-era lockdowns. Its total allocation was €163 billion ($190 billion, after Italy, which received €194 billion, or about $226 billion), enabling Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez to unveil a record-breaking budget for 2022, boosted with the first €26 billion ($30 billion) from this historic program. Yet from the beginning, Spain’s deployment of NGEU money, access to which depends on hitting investment targets set by Brussels (most of them designed to further the EU’s green agenda), has been surrounded by controversy. The latest scandal over Madrid’s alleged misuse of these funds has highlighted one of the most contentious issues in the bloc—namely, the viability of mutual debt schemes.” (05/19/26)
Anthropic, US regime argue Pentagon blacklist case in court
Source: Quartz
“Anthropic and the Justice Department will argue their case Tuesday before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., over the Defense Department’s designation of the AI company as a supply-chain risk. Fifteen minutes are allotted to each side, after which the three-judge panel will deliberate and release a written ruling, according to CNBC.” (05/19/26)
https://qz.com/anthropic-dod-pentagon-blacklist-appeals-court-051926
A birthday shouldn’t dictate who gets to use AI
Source: Washington Post
by Ruhan Gupta
“A 15-year-old opened his laptop to work on a coding project he’d been building for months. His school had assigned tools like Anthropic’s artificial intelligence model Claude to help write code, debug errors and teach concepts instructors hadn’t covered. Yet when the site loaded, he found his project history, saved conversations and every thread of work gone — replaced by a suspension notice. ‘Our team found signals that your account was used by a child,’ Anthropic explained in an email. ‘This breaks our rules, so we paused your access to Claude.’ … I’m 17. In less than a year, a number on a calendar will determine I’m old enough to access the tools that define my field. Nothing about my capabilities will change on my birthday; only my legal classification will.” (05/19/26)
Spotify is launching verification badges for podcasts to help listeners avoid AI slop
Source: Engadget
“Spotify is launching verification badges for podcasts to help ‘authenticate creator identity and likeness.’ The most obvious use case for this is to help listeners find real podcasts amidst a sea of AI slop. To that end, the platform says it will also now remove podcasts that impersonate other creators via ‘AI voice cloning or any other method.’ The ‘Verified by Spotify’ badge is accompanied by a light green checkmark icon, making real-deal podcasts much easier to spot while perusing. These badges and icons will appear on show pages and in search. The verification process takes the podcast itself into account, but also its listeners. AI-generated podcasts tend to attract a bot-driven listenership. Spotify is looking for ‘sustained listener activity, with consistent audience engagement over time.'” (05/19/26)
Year Zero with Tommy Salmons, 05/19/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Rules for Radicals: Tactics pt1 w/John Weeks.” (05/19/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/rules-for-radicals-tactics-pt1-w-john-weeks
The Far-Right’s New Election Handbook Is a Recipe for Chaos in Elections
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye
“The so-called ‘Election Integrity Network’ has released its ‘Model Election Laws Handbook.’ The problem with the handbook isn’t that every proposal in it is unreasonable. Many of the proposals, of course, absurd, but they tend to hide behind reasonable rhetoric …. the handbook repeatedly treats ordinary features of election administration as evidence that the system itself lacks legitimacy. I’ve seen a quote floating around online that states, ‘Everything’s a conspiracy if you don’t understand how anything works.’ The basis of the handbook is that administrative imperfections stop being problems to manage and increasingly become proof that elections can’t be trusted unless the system becomes more restrictive, more adversarial, and more procedurally rigid.” (05/19/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/the-far-rights-new-election-handbook
Syria: Blast outside regime building kills soldier, wounds 12 people
Source: US News & World Report
“A bomb exploded outside a Defense Ministry building in the Syrian capital on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding about a dozen other people, the ministry and state media reported. … The ministry said the blast occurred outside a building linked to the Defense Ministry but gave no further details. … There was no immediate claim of responsibility but such attacks in the past have been blamed on the Islamic State group.” (05/19/26)
The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 05/19/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s $10 Billion IRS Shakedown Takes Darker Turn, Unnerving Experts.” (05/19/26)
The Minerals Consortium Will Result in Malinvestment
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen
“In Washington, bad ideas rarely die — they rebrand. Industrial policy — long discredited in theory and practice — has returned under the more palatable language of ‘resilience’ and ‘strategic supply chains.’ The Trump administration’s proposed minerals consortium is the latest iteration. Sold as a necessary response to dependence on China for the processing of rare earths and other critical minerals, it promises coordination, investment, and independence. What it will deliver instead is distortion, waste, and a fresh round of politically-driven malinvestment.” (05/19/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/minerals-consortium-will-result-malinvestment