Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by John Chisholm
“[W]e don’t have to anticipate every AI harm. AI is already regulated. Generally applicable law regulates conduct and harm, not the technology used to produce them. There is no AI exemption. Fraud is fraud, with or without AI. Negligence law applies to both AI developers and deployers. In 2024, for example, a British Columbia tribunal held Air Canada negligent over a refund policy its chatbot invented, rejecting the airline’s argument that the chatbot was responsible for its own words. Courts are also weighing product-liability claims—design defect, failure to warn—against AI makers. … These bodies of law hold those responsible liable for harms, which gives developers strong reason to prevent them.” (10/08/26)
“To free the working class from MAGA’s Trumpian grasp, is a new political organization needed to topple the corporate interests that dominate both major political parties?” (10/08/26)
“The World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 public-health emergency more than three years ago. Its deaths, infections, hospitalizations, and other damage still leave us with a litany of questions about what could have been done better, sooner, or differently. It’s a long list: mask mandates, lockdowns, school closures, stay-at-home orders, curfews, delayed surgeries, etc. Operation Warp Speed, the public-and-private partnership with billions of dollars to bring us a COVID-19 vaccine quickly, never seems to be on it. Rather, the partnership remains hailed as ‘a triumph of public health policy,’ ‘miraculous,’ and ‘a new model for industrial policy.’ … For all the accomplishments of Operation Warp Speed, it was not the first of its kind. In fact, it has an overlooked and largely forgotten predecessor that didn’t require any government partnership at all.” (10/08/26)
“A birth cohort study at Henry Ford followed 18,000 children to compare chronic health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated from birth through long‑term follow‑up. After multivariate adjustment, vaccination exposure showed a higher risk of chronic conditions, including asthma, autoimmune disease, atopic disease, eczema, and neurodevelopmental disorders. By 10 years of follow‑up, 57% of vaccinated children had chronic illness compared with 17% of the unvaccinated. Vaccination was independently associated with a 2.5‑fold increased likelihood of chronic health conditions. Academia chose not to publish the study, citing concerns about career repercussions.” (10/08/26)
“Is one of the world’s most pernicious social stigmas finally lifting? In late September, more than 1,400 young people from nearly 70 countries locked tools at the WorldSkills competition, testing their abilities across 64 crafts, from industrial robotics to culinary techniques. This Olympics-like contest, held in Shanghai this year, has grown in stature and scope over decades. And so, perhaps, has a favorable view of blue-collar work. A survey of the skilled tradespeople pitted against each other for four days found 71% believe the public image of technical and vocational careers has improved. Three-quarters (76%) of respondents say technical and vocational skills are increasingly important to the global economy. Yet just over half had been encouraged by parents or others toward traditional academic paths. In the United States, at least, such advice nowadays makes less sense.” (10/08/26)
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said something out loud this weekend that many in Washington have long understood: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), he argued, lives in fear of the far-left wing of his party. Thune pointed to Democrats blocking debate on military funding and a defense authorization bill, as well as resistance around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He also recalled the backlash Schumer faced after voting to reopen the government during an earlier shutdown fight. In Thune’s telling, Schumer learned the price of defying his party’s loudest faction and has deferred to it ever since. Thune’s criticism deserves scrutiny. He is a Republican leader making a partisan argument, and his account is not the whole story. But the larger point is difficult to dismiss: Party leaders increasingly govern under threat from their own flanks.” (10/08/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Wendy Ramadan-Alban
“These continuous calls by ultraconservatives to withdraw from the NPT have yet to produce an actual withdrawal because of a lack of political consensus. Iran has remained in the treaty despite the war, unprecedented economic pressure, and the return of U.N. sanctions. But is continued NPT membership still an asset for Iran?” (10/08/26)
“Republicans always attempt to pin any incident of violence aimed in their direction on liberals, who have done nothing more than point to the objective fact of Trump’s authoritarianism. Republicans, meanwhile, are openly the party of rape and domestic abuse. … The Republican Party is the party of Andrew Tate, of Richard Hanania, and, more than anything, of Donald Trump—a rapist, an open misogynist, and all-around avatar of male supremacism.” (10/08/26)
