Two Paths Forward in Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical

Source: Independent Institute
by Robert M Whaples

“How can we safeguard the human person in the time of artificial intelligence? Pope Leo XIV offers two broad pathways in his new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. Its most persistent warning is that AI is putting too much power into the hands of too few people, especially those who design AI programs and run the AI giants. … the encyclical suggests that ‘one viable path is … to establish social criteria for innovation. Here, every introduction of automation and AI should be accompanied by verifiable measures to protect the employment, retraining and participation of workers.’ … Would the State, which already has immense powers, use these additional powers wisely? Could it?” (06/10/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/06/10/two-paths-forward-in-pope-leos-ai-encyclical/

Thomas L. Knapp

Alabama regime asks SCOTUS to allow it to kill prisoner

Source: SFGate

“Alabama is waging a last-minute legal fight to [kill] a man with nitrogen gas on Thursday night, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to set aside a judge’s finding that the method violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Jeffery Lee, 49, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday. However, a federal judge on Tuesday ruled that nitrogen executions are unconstitutional and blocked the state from using the method to put Lee to death. The state filed an appeal Thursday asking the Supreme Court to set aside the ruling and allow the execution. ‘If that ruling stands, it would be unprecedented in American history. Not only does it portend the first-ever permanent ban on a legislatively enacted method, but it would expand the concept of cruelty well beyond the bounds of the Eighth Amendment,’ lawyers with the Alabama attorney general’s office wrote.” (06/11/26)

https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/alabama-asks-appeals-court-to-let-it-continue-22300426.php

Steve Trinward

Immigration Laws Are Made to Be Broken

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“While I’ve done many debates on immigration, this is the first time that you can figure out the correct side without knowing anything about immigration. The resolution states: ‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should complete its mandate to deport all illegal aliens currently residing in the United States’ — and all means all. Which is a crazy view about the enforcement of even the best law imaginable. If we were debating ‘The NYPD should complete its mandate to imprison all murderers currently residing in New York City,’ every person here should still vote nay. How can I say such a thing? This is the basic economics of crime.” (06/10/26)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/immigration-laws-are-made-to-be-broken

Thomas L. Knapp

The Men Who Fear Women? Is “Masculinism” Actually a Real Thing?

Source: American Greatness
by Raw Egg Nationalist

“‘The Men Who Fear Women.’ That’s the title of Helen Lewis’s latest cover story for The Atlantic. It’s currently making a big splash as she travels the podcast and interview circuit (PBS, The New York Times, NPR) explaining what she calls ‘masculinism,’ a movement that apparently wants to put women back in the kitchen where they belong, having stripped them of all their political rights. … You may remember Helen Lewis from her car-crash interview with Jordan Peterson for GQ, way back in 2018. She was the one who really got up the good professor’s nose, needling and poking and making him look like a sulky teenager sitting atop a huge pile of mess in a fusty, darkened bedroom — the precise demographic Peterson arrived on the scene to rescue from its own retarded development and the scorn of polite society.” (06/11/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/11/the-men-who-fear-women-is-masculinism-actually-a-real-thing/

Steve Trinward

The Threat of Big Insurance

Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen

“Earlier this month, the California-based organization Consumer Watchdog uncovered an incredible scandal involving rideshare company Uber, which we covered on the most recent episode of my podcast Organized Money. The company pleaded to the California legislature last year that its insurance costs had spiked so much that the state needed to decrease required payouts on its mandated uninsured motorist coverage. ‘They literally said 45 cents out of every dollar is going to insurance,’ Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, told me. It turned out that these excessive insurance payments were going to a Hawaii-based company called Aleka that is run by Uber executives. Aleka was raising rates on Uber higher than other insurers, but that money just got transferred into a reserve bank account under Uber’s control.” (06/11/26)

https://prospect.org/2026/06/11/threat-of-big-insurance-lobbying-congress-donations/

Steve Trinward