Liberalism Reunited
Source: Liberal Currents
by Janet Bufton
“Classical liberals must rejoin left liberals in fighting for emancipatory politics and against the illiberal right.” (05/19/26)
Category: Opinion
Why AI Is a Train, Not a Bicycle
Source: Persuasion
by Tim Requarth
“In 1981, a young Steve Jobs — bearded, bespectacled, brown corduroy blazer over an open-collared shirt — sat in front of an Apple II and explained what he thought a personal computer was for. He’d read an article in Scientific American that compared the efficiency of locomotion across species. The condor, he said, came out on top. Humans ranked about a third of the way down, ‘not too proud a showing for the crown of creation.’ But then someone had the insight to test a human on a bicycle, and the cyclist blew the condor away. … The computer, he said, was ‘a 21st century bicycle’ for the mind. In the age of AI, Jobs’ quaint bicycle has received an update from Silicon Valley. With the launch of ChatGPT, gushed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in early 2023, ‘We went from the bicycle to the steam engine.'” (05/18/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/what-the-inuit-know-and-ai-doesnt
Government control of chip sales has shocking downside
Source: Fox News
by Stephen Moore
“One of the goals of President Donald Trump’s trip to China is to help ensure continued American tech dominance. One worry is that China steals our technology. But sometimes we foolishly handicap our tech companies with bad policies here at home. An example is export controls, which are a threat to U.S. dominance and limit markets for American-made tech products. The politicians and bureaucrats have decided that they, and not the free market, are best equipped to manage the global semiconductor trade. It’s not going well. We’re still winning the chip war against China, but not by much. Even after years of stringent export controls that have crushed NVIDIA and AMD’s sales into China, recent tracking shows that the U.S. lead over China in AI has almost completely evaporated. Instead of slowing Beijing down, we have effectively subsidized the development of their domestic chip manufacturing by blocking and/or taxing their American competitors.” (05/19/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/stephen-moore-government-control-chip-sales-shocking-downside
The Devil and Tina Peters
Source: The Bulwark
by Jonathan V Last
“On Friday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced that he would commute Tina Peters’s sentence. On the one hand, this is a tiny thing. Inconsequential. If we make it out of this period, then it will hardly be worth a footnote in the history of Trumpism. On the other hand, what Gov. Polis did for Peters is everything. It is the foundational question about how liberalism responds to an illiberal attack. And I’m going to swerve and tell you that I’m not really sure what I think about it. This might seem like an easy call — but it only seems that way.” (05/18/26)
Can “America only” Massie survive today’s AIPAC mobbing?
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter
“As the voting opens in Kentucky today, polls are showing a neck-and-neck race with turnout for both candidates [Thomas Massie and Ed Gallrein] being key, thus Trump pulling out all the guns, even the defense secretary, to shift the tide against his nemisis. But obviously this is far more than just two regular Republicans vying for a House gig. Perhaps even more than Trump’s personal vendetta against Massie, the usual establishment coalition of neoconservatives, Christian Evangelical Zionists and wealthy pro-Israel mega-donors have made this a referendum on the acceptable levels of the Israel lobby’s influence in American politics and in American war policy.” (05/19/26)
More on water
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Environists have a mythology as rich (and wrong) as any other supposed (that is, fake) religion, when it comes to water. These myths are now embedded into school textbooks and media playbooks as much as National Socialism was ever found in schoolbooks of the Third Reich. Here are some of the myths and examples of them …” (05/18/26)
The Types Of Candidate You Find In The California Gubernatorial Race
Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“Sorry, I give up. In past elections, I’ve covered every single candidate for governor of California, from the incumbents all the way down to the cranks. In 2022 there were twenty-six of them, and I covered them all. But sorry, I give up. This year there are sixty. It’s too many. I can’t disambiguate them all into unique individuals with their own personalities, hopes, and dreams. So as consolation for the list I’m not giving you, here are the basic types, and a few examples of each.” (05/19/26)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-types-of-candidate-you-find-in
No one can save Trump from himself this time
Source: AlterNet
by Lindsay Beyerstein
“When Donald Trump was about to miss an interest payment for his dying Trump Castle casino in 1990, his father Fred bought nearly $5 million worth of poker chips to save him from default. When Trump was indicted for inciting the January 6 insurrection, the Supreme Court ruled that he could not be charged …. As inflation spikes, gas prices surge, and the world teeters on the brink of a recession, congressional Republicans are demanding a billion dollars to build the gilded ballroom after Trump bulldozed the East Wing of the White House without collecting enough corporate bribes to cover the project. For nearly 80 years, someone has always saved Trump from himself. With the Strait of Hormuz, the president has finally created a mess so big that no one can save him. No one is coming to the rescue. NATO can’t and China won’t.” (05/18/26)
What to watch in May 19 primaries
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“Seven states hold their primaries on Tuesday, including two — Alabama and Georgia — where Republicans are working to change electoral maps as soon as possible. Polls will start closing before dusk in eastern Kentucky. The night will end with the year’s first West Coast primaries, in Oregon. Here’s an hour-by-hour guide with what to watch, and close looks at what’s at play in each state.” (05/19/26)
https://www.semafor.com/article/05/19/2026/what-to-watch-in-may-19-primaries
The Mifepristone Wars, and What They Mean for Black Women
Source: The American Prospect
by Naomi Bethune
“Still concentrated in Southern states that ban abortion, Black women disproportionately rely on telehealth, which the Supreme Court has allowed — provisionally — to continue.” (05/19/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/05/19/mifepristone-wars-abortion-supreme-court-black-women-south/