“In the United States, constitutional amendments are notoriously difficult to adopt. They require two-thirds in both houses of Congress, and then ratification by three-quarters of the states. The process was last used successfully more than 50 years ago. That’s why formal amendments are often dismissed as unrealistic. … There are several worthwhile amendments which could plausibly secure broad consensus if shorn of overtly partisan goals. We also should not fall into a failure of imagination that assumes the current party system and political divisions will be entrenched in perpetuity.” (05/05/26)
“Donald Trump has long called global warming a hoax, but his sweeping anti-climate agenda has stunned even many of his supporters. Since returning to the White House, he’s withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Treaty, rolled back critical greenhouse gas regulations, and opened up millions of acres of previously protected public land for oil and gas drilling. In response, big oil and gas companies have abandoned, without the slightest resistance, the showy public commitments they had previously made to climate transition. For example, BP has slashed green energy expenditures by 70 percent, Equinor has cut back its renewable capacity targets by almost 40 percent, and Chevron has reduced its carbon-reduction capital expenditures to about 5 percent of its total capital expenditures.” (05/05/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by John Coleman
“Recent reports suggest the Trump administration is now considering new oversight for advanced AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Few details have been finalized, but officials are reportedly discussing an executive order to create a government–industry working group. Another idea under consideration is a process for reviewing models before or around their release. As these talks move forward, they risk setting a troubling precedent for free expression.” (05/05/26)
“US public debt has reached 100 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) for the first time since the aftermath of World War II. Just because we have been here before, and we managed, doesn’t mean we will do so again. This time is different in important ways that are underappreciated by both policymakers and the public. In 1946, the United States emerged from a global war with high debt, but also with a young population, strong growth prospects, and a political commitment to fiscal restraint. Today, America faces the opposite: an aging population, structurally rising entitlement spending, and persistent deficits with no credible plan to rein them in.” (05/05/26)
“‘Whatever can happen,’ Augustes De Morgan wrote in 1866, ‘will happen if we make trials enough.’ To which I must add, if ‘we’ don’t make trials enough, someone else will. AI will inevitably be pushed to whatever, if any, limit it has. If American researchers can’t legally do it, Chinese researchers will do it. If Chinese researchers can’t legally do it, Swiss researchers will do it. If every government on the planet imposes pesky regulations on doing it, people who don’t care about pesky government regulations will do it. … Those of us who are allowed to avail ourselves of the most advanced AI possible will disproportionately reap whatever rewards it produces. Those of us for whom maximal AI is forbidden fruit will be more vulnerable to AI’s dark sides.” (05/05/26)
“Contrary to what your high school textbook and film franchises like ‘Rambo’ and ‘Red Dawn’ taught you, the Cold War was not primarily a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. That’s what the US teaches because it frames the war as something the US won — the Soviets are gone, after all — and because it relegates most of the actual violence of the war to the status of sideshow or backdrop to the “real” story of the war, the superpower rivalry. This version of the Cold War is real and lethal, but limited to proxy wars conducted in places white people don’t live, with the occasional spy thriller thrown in to mix things up. … Rather than a hypothetical conflict that occasionally got heated, The Cold War was a series of extremely violent and very real wars in which millions of people all over the world died.” (05/05/26)
“Leo XIV, in the role of Pontiff, does not act as a political figure. The Pope has no elections to run. His job is to safeguard doctrine, maintain the unity of the Church, and serve as a spiritual authority. This makes the President’s attack against the Pope unusually preposterous.” (05/05/26)
“In 2016, then-presidential candidate Trump famously asked Black voters ‘What do you have to lose?’ Trump challenged African American voters to rethink their long-standing allegiance to the Democrat Party, which, he rightly claimed, took them for granted and had failed to deliver on the most pressing demands of African American families, including providing their kids with a good education. Steve Hilton, a Republican and former Fox News host, running to become governor of deep blue California, should be posing that same question to Golden State voters. California is one of the most expensive places to live in the country, entirely because of decisions made by Democrats who have controlled the state with a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature since 2018 and also occupied the governor’s mansion since 2011.” [editor’s note: It was one of the most expensive states to live in LONG before 2011 – TLK] (05/05/26)
“As reported in the Monitor last week, the recent U.S. indictment of 10 Mexican officials poses a key test for President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo: how best to balance pressures from its neighbor and largest trading partner with the domestic imperative to defend sovereignty – while also tackling cartel crime and serving justice for ordinary Mexicans? More broadly, this development also tests both countries’ determination to collaboratively pursue legitimate shared interests in a way that stabilizes rather than further disrupts already-shaky economic, political, and security relations. Last Thursday, President Sheinbaum said the U.S. request for extradition of the 10 officials did not provide enough evidence for arrests. Instead, she said, Mexican prosecutors would investigate the cases to determine evidence of criminality. Her declaration came in the wake of increasing unease after a roadway incident in late April pointed to CIA involvement inside Mexico.” (05/04/26)
