Comparative AI: Exploring the Nuanced Differences Between the Major AIs

Source: The Jolly Libertarian
by Marco den Ouden

“In Walter Donway’s new book, A Serious Chat With Artificial Intelligence, the AI in question was Open AI’s ChatGPT. In one of his blog posts, Curtis Yarvin bragged about how he changed the mind of Anthropic’s AI Claude on his techno-authoritarian philosophy, turning it (Claude) into a believer. In my own dealings with AI I have been using Microsoft’s CoPilot. And another major player in the market is Google’s Gemini. What do all of these powerful artificial intelligences have in common and how do they differ?” (05/10/26)

https://jollylibertarian.blogspot.com/2026/05/comparative-ai-exploring-nuanced.html

Philippines: Presidential hopeful Sara Duterte impeached, awaits Senate trial

Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]

“Philippine ⁠lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly backed the ⁠impeachment of Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio, setting the stage for a trial in the Senate that could end her hopes for a presidential run in 2028. The petition was backed by 255 of 318 lawmakers on Monday, surpassing the one-third threshold required. A House justice committee had last month found ‌probable cause for her impeachment in a petition from activists accusing her of misusing public funds, accumulating unexplained wealth and threatening the lives of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, his wife and the former House speaker.
With her ⁠ally-turned-enemy Marcos limited by the constitution to a single term in office, Duterte-Carpio is ‌the clear favourite to succeed him in 2028, but the impeachment could derail her bid.” (05/11/26)

https://archive.is/DvE26

Trump rejects traditional conservatism, embraces a Republican version of socialism

Source: The Hill
by A Scott Bolden

“Republicans have denounced Democrats as socialists and communists since the 1930s. President Trump has frequently joined the chorus, such as when he said in 2019: ‘A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American Dream.’ Yet despite his hyperbolic rhetoric, Trump has abandoned key conservative principles that Republicans have long espoused and instead adopted some socialist positions.” (05/10/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/5870607-trump-republican-socialism-democrats/

OK lawyer: Tulsa Race Massacre reparations is “soul-redeeming work for the US”

Source: SFGate

“It wasn’t until his junior year of college that civil rights attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons learned about a devastating massacre that took place in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His African American studies professor lectured about what is known today as the Tulsa Race Massacre — the days in 1921 when white mobs carried out a scorched-earth campaign against an outnumbered Black militia protecting the fabled Black Wall Street, a prosperous all-Black community. ‘I actually told a teacher, ‘I’m from Tulsa. That’s not true,” Solomon-Simmons recalled. ‘And of course, I was wrong.’ That day planted a seed for the then-aspiring attorney, who went on to lead a reparations campaign for the living survivors of the massacre and their descendants. Nearly 105 years later, no one has been compensated for what they lost, and none of the culprits have been held accountable.” (05/11/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/tulsa-race-massacre-reparations-is-soul-redeeming-22252272.php

Seats of Power

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler

“Luis de Guindos escaped Spanish politics just in time. In March 2018, he stepped down as Economy Minister, having served under prime minister Mariano Rajoy since 2011; three months later, Rajoy was ousted in a no-confidence vote, his Popular Party engulfed in a huge corruption scandal. De Guindos, now 66, has spent the last eight years as Vice President of the European Central Bank (ECB), the institution responsible for maintaining price stability throughout the bloc. He hands over to Croatia’s Boris Vujĉić at the end of this month, leaving Spain without representation on the ECB’s six-member board for the first time in several years, a situation that Madrid is determined to rectify. Under the Socialist leadership of Pedro Sánchez, Spain has emerged as one of the strongest voices in the EU.” (05/10/26)

https://fee.org/articles/seats-of-power/

Surveillance Reform Hinges on How Congress Defines “Query”

Source: The American Prospect
by James Baratta

“The only reason we know that U.S. intelligence agencies will maintain their sweeping spying powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) through March 2027, irrespective of whether Congress extends the program ahead of its statutory deadline in mid-June, is because of the Fourth Estate. On April 9, The New York Times revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge who authorized the program’s annual recertification in a March 17 ruling ‘also objected to tools that agencies with access to the raw data … have created to allow analysts to process messages.’ In analyzing this data, the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) use filter tools to sift through queries for information on individuals who have communicated with foreign intelligence targets, thus making them legal targets for surveillance. Apparently, those tools are prone to misuse.” (05/11/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/05/11/government-surveillance-spying-fisa-nsa-fbi-republicans/