No Blogging Tonite

My son for into an accident.  A motorcycle ran into his car. 

Thankfully, no injuries.

So, Tech Bros are Rapey? Hoocoodanode!

It seems that "Hacker Houses" are a thing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Someone who hit the tech lottery sets one or more houses that function as group homes for coders.

The residents go to work, and to blow off steam, they sexually harass and sexually assault women at their parties.

We already knew that they were self entitled misogynous assholes.

Packing them in like sardines and throwing money at parties in an attempt to keep the residents working is a petri dish for sexual misconduct.

The eight-bedroom Mediterranean-style mansion, which borders a golf course in the wealthy Silicon Valley town of Hillsborough, Calif., has gone through a lot in recent years.

………

The mansion is one of the most prominent — and notorious — tech group homes, which have proliferated across Silicon Valley and San Francisco amid the artificial intelligence boom. Long gone are the fraternity-style rental homes popularized by Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook, where grungy engineers coded all day and crammed into shared rooms at night.

Today these so-called hacker houses are driven by missions, like the advancement of humanity, and have become critical nodes for the A.I. industry. Residents are often start-up founders or engineers working at OpenAI or Anthropic. Rent can hit $10,000 a month for a room.

But what has unfolded in them has sometimes gone far beyond socializing and networking. Some houses have become the sites for sexual harassment cases and rape allegations, as well as infighting among residents, according to previously unreported police reports obtained by The New York Times, court records and more than 20 people in the A.I. industry.

………

At the mansion in Hillsborough known as AGI House — named for “artificial general intelligence,” a technology that can match the powers of the human mind — the local police have logged 37 incidents since 2022. At least 17 were related to complaints about large parties and events, according to the reports.

The others included an episode in December when a woman called the police and told them that a male AGI House resident had pressured her to have sex; she climbed over a gate to escape. Last year, the police were also asked at least four times to perform welfare checks, which typically happen when people experience mental health issues or are considered unsafe to themselves or others.

………

Some of the industry’s biggest names are involved. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, has advised the Residency, which aims to be a global network of hacker houses for “ambitious builders” to live and work.

………

Sofie Bukovska, 26, who works at the A.I. film production company Trippy Pictures, moved into AGI House last year for a few months and said she had quickly realized how helpful it was to her career. She met A.I. executives and personalities, including Grimes, whom she probably wouldn’t have otherwise, she said.

The atmosphere “was something very different from normal life,” Ms. Bukovska said.

Rocky Yu, a venture capitalist who has managed AGI House since 2023, has tried to curb the partying, he has claimed in court documents. Reached by phone, he said he was not aware of any police reports and declined to answer questions.

The mansion, which is connected to a venture capital fund, is backed by Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive, and Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist, according to its website. A representative for Mr. Andreessen said he was not involved.

………

The 18,000-square-foot property has become such a center of gravity for the A.I. industry that Mr. Yu and a former manager are embroiled in a court battle over who owns the rights to the AGI House brand. The home has become emblematic of the behind-the-scenes issues — often not publicly discussed — that group houses face.

………

AGI House’s roots trace back to Jeremy Nixon, 33, a former Google researcher who established other tech group homes before the A.I. boom. One that he co-founded around 2019 at a five-bedroom house in San Francisco was called Genesis.

………

Yehong Zhu, 30, who is not related to Mr. Zhu, filed a police report accusing a former Genesis house member of rape and assault in December 2021, according to a copy of the report. She has lived in four tech houses and initially viewed them almost as utopias where she could quickly meet other entrepreneurs, she said, before seeing a darker side.

Ms. Zhu’s case remains under investigation. The Genesis resident she accused has left the house and cannot be located, she said.

“I’m far from the only one this has happened to,” said Ms. Zhu, the founder of an A.I. start-up called Zette.

It appears that tech frat boys are even worse than the ordinary kind of frat boys.

Least Surprising News of the Day

Is anyone surprised that Maine Senator Susan Collins was likely engaging in corrupt pay to play campaign donations with a defense contractor and that the FBI was hot on her trail until the Trump DoJ stood down the investigation?

I'm not. 

Collins has responded with a profoundly misleading denial.

In the final weeks of 2019, a top fundraiser for Sen. Susan Collins walked into a perilous meeting at a Corner Bakery in Washington, D.C.

For the first time in her two-decade Senate career, the Republican lawmaker from Maine was in danger of losing her seat. President Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings were dragging her down in the polls, and she was falling behind her likely 2020 Democratic challenger in fundraising.

Scott Reed, head of the Collins super PAC, was on a mission to close that gap. Reed was meeting that day with three executives from a Hawaiian defense contractor, Navatek. A year earlier, Collins had helped their company land a multimillion-dollar Navy research contract in Maine. Now, seated at a coffee shop not far from the U.S. Capitol, Reed asked them for a $500,000 donation.

Government contractors are banned from making political contributions. More consequentially, for the company to offer donations to Collins in exchange for an official action, or for Collins to accept, would constitute criminal bribery.

But the company did have such a proposal: Navatek was hungry for more government contracts in Maine. If they cut a big check, the CEO told Reed, Navatek wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding.

To skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company. The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where the money came from. Reed confirmed that she would, the executive said — and that Navatek would get its government contracts.

To quote the Maine Senator, this apparent quid pro quo makes me, "Concerned."

Why Am I Not Surprised?

It appears that the original architect for the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Trump ballroom pulled out of the project because Trump was demanding that he design an unsafe building.

Trump thinks that he is above safety regulations.  Imagine that?

In the weeks leading up to his resignation last year, the first architect on the White House ballroom clashed with President Donald Trump over design features that the architect believed violated building safety codes, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions and corroborating documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

James McCrery II withdrew from the project last October after warning repeatedly that Trump was insisting on a preliminary design that did not provide adequate emergency exit routes or fire-containment measures, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.

Trump brushed off McCrery’s concerns, they said, and the president countered that no building codes apply to White House construction.

“I am the code,” Trump said.

That episode, as described by the people familiar with the matter, offers new insight into Trump’s priorities for the ballroom at a time when he is flexing executive power to fast-track construction projects across the nation’s capital. The interviews and documents obtained by The Post — including early ballroom designs and images Trump appeared to have marked up with his trademark black-ink Sharpie — also show how deeply involved the president has been in the details of the project.

So, in addition to being a crime against architecture, it appears that the ballroom is just a crime.

Republican Family Values

Have you heard the one about the state representative who co-authored the Texas abortion ban paid for multiple abortions for his former exotic dancer mistress?

Also, he started f%$#ing her when she was just 18.

No, this is not a joke.

Texas Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione helped write one of the country’s strictest abortion laws.

Now he’s been forced into a stunning admission after a woman revealed that she had carried on a 17-year relationship with Capriglione and accused him of “secretly paying for multiple abortions.”

“Years ago, I selfishly had an affair,” the Southlake Republican said in a statement after the allegations became public. “I’m not proud of this.”

And that’s where this story gets politically explosive.

Capriglione was the House author of Texas’ 2021 Human Life Protection Act, the so-called trigger ban that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The law prohibits abortion except under specified circumstances and provides both civil and criminal penalties.

The woman making the allegations is Alex Grace, a former exotic dancer who says she met Capriglione in 2004, when she was 18, according to International Business Times.

Stay classy, my froiend.

This is Beautiful, Man!

Too good not to share
by u/Roy4Pris in Military

It's funny because it's true.

Good News Everyone!

Walmart workers at a distribution center in  Mississauga, Ontario have secured the first successful union contract in the retail giant's history.  (There was an earlier attempt, but IIRC Walmart shut down every butcher counter in the chain after they won that union election rather than negotiate.)

Eight hundred workers at a Walmart distribution center in Mississauga, Ontario, succeeded where others have not: they are now working under a two-year contract with North America’s largest logistics giant.

The landmark collective bargaining agreement went into effect on July 1, nearly two years after workers won union representation, joining Unifor Local 252, motivated by low wages and unsafe working conditions.

As punishment two years ago, Walmart bumped the pay of every logistics worker in Canada—except those who unionized. This was an effective maneuver to halt further union drives.

“Walmart gave all the wage increases to all the non-union folks, and everything fell apart,” said Angela Drew Kimelman, a Unifor organizer who worked on organizing campaigns at multiple warehouses, including one in Cornwall, near Montreal.

But now, the new contract prevents Walmart from raising wages at other warehouses without doing the same at this one. The unionized workers have received a matching raise, and back pay for the months when other warehouse workers received raises that they didn’t.

Unifor has restarted its organizing efforts at other Ontario warehouses.

Walmart management is a bunch of evil motherf%$#ers who should suffer the fate of the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

This Has Me Stoked

Disney is rebooting the Darkwing Duck animated series with Mark Hamill as the voice of the main character.

Disney is about to get dangerous. Six years after news of the project first broke, Disney has greenlit a brand-new animated version of the hit 1990s show Darkwing Duck for Disney+. Mark Hamill will voice the title character, with Seth Rogen producing and providing the voice of Launchpad McQuack.

The show is a continuation of the story told in the original series, which ran for 91 episodes in the early 1990s. “For the last 35 years, Darkwing Duck has been trapped in his worst nightmare: an alternate world that’s never heard of his superhero exploits,” the official description reads. “Now a rebellious teen named Duckie who knows all about his heroic past shows up to pull this ego-fueled vigilante back into battle. Together, this unlikely duo will get dangerous to fight old enemies like Negaduck and Megavolt and reunite with allies Launchpad, Gosalyn, and Morgana to save the entire universe.”

Duckie is voiced by Lilimar, who voiced Val in Inside Out 2. Lizzy Caplan is Gosalyn Mallard, Dan Stevens is Glade McTowers, and it’s being showrun by Sean Tretta (Star Trek: Picard) and Borja Peña Gorostegui. The original creator of Darkwing Duck, Tad Stones, consulted on the series.

“Like every other fan of the original show, I’m excited to see Darkwing getting dangerous again in a whole new series,” Stones said in a press release. “The new creative team has certainly amped up the action and comedy without forgetting the Disney heart. This series places DW in the literary tradition of Robin Hood, Zorro, and Sherlock Holmes, heroes whose lore has been reinterpreted by multiple creators in multiple mediums. They explored the core of those characters by tossing them into new eras, new relationships, and even new universes. No matter when or where, Darkwing Duck will appear in a cloud of blue smoke to grab the spotlight.”

There are some risks, but, "Like the chicken said, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it." (An actual homage of Superchicken used in the original series.)

I cannot wait for this to show up on the torrents. (Like I'm gonna give a cent to the f%$#ing mouse) 

Linkage

• The Movement to Ban Glyphosate Grows (Barn Raising Media) But bought and paid for "Environmentalists" and "Liberals" still support the herbicide.
• What If The System Isn’t Broken? (Chusana Prasertkul) The author suggests that our current system is performing as intended, which is f%$#ing scary.
• Full article: Unequal exchange between France and Africa’s CFA zone: monetary dependency and imperialist appropriation (New Political Economy) The French continue to exploit their former colonies.
• Does the discovery of a new coronavirus upend the Covid-19 lab-leak hypothesis? | Research | Chemistry World By, "Upend," they mean another nail in the coffin.  
• Unprecedented: Most Supreme Court Decisions Issued On 'Shadow Docket' (National Memo) The "Shadow Docket" is something that Congress has express authority to regulate.  They dhould do so.
• German Court Holds Meta Liable for Scam Ads (Technology Org) This long overdue result comes from an EU high court ruling that, "A platform can lose its hosting protection when its algorithm, working in the operator’s interest, chooses which content users see and in what sequence."  
• T. rex teeth indicate it ran as warm as an elephant (Ars Technica) This has been known in the shift of predator to prey ratios for decades.
• Microsoft Director Privately Admitted AI Was the "Largest Theft of Labor in Human History," Unsealed Court Documents Show (Futurism) The "Titans of Tech" tell the truth in slack chats.

This is an interesting video. The basic thesis, that the "Bomber Mafia" was wrong in their belief that the bomber could always get through, is correct.

Speaking of Political Cowardice

It appears that Democratic consultants are telling candidates that they should play nice with AI companies.

They claim that they are worried that these companies will spend too much money if they get their feelings hurt, which I do not believe.

I believe that the consultants really want is to continue to have access to that sweet AI and data center cash.

Democratic consultants are privately encouraging their battleground candidates to avoid talking about artificial intelligence regulations out of fear that powerful tech groups will unleash a tidal wave of spending against them ahead of November.

That guidance came from strategists in three separate top-tier House races, according to people involved in those races, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. And it follows a surge in AI panic on Capitol Hill as industry leaders warn about existential threats posed by their rapidly developing technology.

Voters are increasingly worried about AI: About two-thirds of Americans say there’s a risk advanced AI could destroy humanity in a new POLITICO Poll. President Donald Trump has called that concern a “hoax,” leaving an opening for Democrats to seize on the issue. But they still are grappling with how hard to go after big tech.

Senior Democrats and candidates are worried that if they go too hard in criticizing AI, industry-affiliated super PACs could drop millions more dollars against them, according to interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers and strategists. They are especially worried about a slate of competitive races, including Reps. Don Davis in North Carolina, Marcy Kaptur in Ohio, Henry Cuellar in Texas and a handful of South Texas and Pennsylvania races, getting hit with even more spending on topics like AI.

AI and data centers are phenomenally unpopular.  Democrats hate them, Republicans hate them, MAGAts hate them, Communists hate them.

If AI goes after you, how is this anything but a positive thing for a candidate?

This is political consultants looking at the needs of their paycheck, not the needs of their clients. 

This Sh%$ is Getting Real

The Houthis have now made drone strikes in Riyadh, bringing the war home to Saudi Arabia in a very concrete way.

What took them so long?

Saudi civil defense sent an all-clear on Saturday after issuing alerts for a second time for potential danger in Riyadh and the city of Al-Kharj east of the capital, amid an uptick in attacks by Iran-backed Houthis on the Gulf country.

The alerts were the first for the capital since Houthis in neighboring Yemen intensified their attacks on Saudi Arabia.

A Reuters journalist heard two booms in Riyadh’s Olaya area.

The alerts come hours after the Houthis' military spokesperson said the group had foiled unspecified "criminal attempts" in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, blaming Saudi Arabia and vowing a response.

Were I a betting man, my money would be on Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud eventually being forced into some sort of accommodation of the Houthis.

Flock for Thee but Not for Me

When I first heard about the DC police union objecting to the use of Flock cameras, I thought that perhaps someone in the organization was showing some integrity.

Silly me, Police Benevolent Associations and their ilk have no integrity at all. 

What they were objecting to was the use of Flock cameras to enforce police accountability.

The national blowback against Flock license-plate readers is also hitting the Washington region, with D.C.’s police union and leaders in a Northern Virginia city raising concerns about the use of the technology in recent days.

Gregg Pemberton, president of the D.C. police union, said Friday the city’s department has used license plate readers for many years and is a powerful investigative tool. But he noted Flock’s technology can also create detailed files on people not suspected of any crimes.

………

Pemberton’s skepticism of the technology also comes as the union said it learned the police force’s internal affairs department had used the technology to investigate sworn officers.

The union filed misconduct complaints and a grievance about what it said was improper use of the technology, but Pemberton said department leadership has so far declined to investigate. The department has since restricted access to the system, according to the union.

To the degree that the Flock panopticon can be said to have a highest use, the investigation of potential police misconduct is that highest use.

The fact that the cops are gored by their own ox is a good thing.

Of Course They Caved

Despite every indication that they would win in court, state attorneys general have settled with Paramount for little more than some magic beans, because our political system has been deeply corrupted  by big money.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has settled the challenge that he brought with 11 other state AGs to the merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. The deal to settle the suit is both improbable and outrageous.

The $81 billion merger will give the Ellison family control of two of America’s biggest media companies, rolled into one behemoth combining film, television, sports, entertainment, and news. It would slash jobs and reduce competition throughout several industries. David Ellison has already destroyed the independence of CBS News. This would allow him to destroy CNN as well.

As an indication of the strength of Bonta’s case, on July 20, U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a temporary restraining order against the merger that rejected many of Paramount’s arguments, and scheduled a trial for next March. At that point, the Ellisons began applying political pressure for a settlement and threatening that Paramount would leave California if the suit succeeded.

In late August, Bonta canceled a scheduled meeting with representatives of Paramount after leaks of supposed settlement talks began appearing in the media, accusing Paramount of bad-faith tactics.

The tactics never changed. Paramount, Bonta, and other AGs spent the weekend in “advanced settlement talks” in which Paramount would stay in California, agree to 30 film releases per year among the two studios under threat of divesting some production companies if they don’t, invest $1.5 billion, and add an editorial board to allow for independence at CNN and CBS. The leaks of the deal very likely came from Paramount.

………

Yet Bonta caved under pressure, after being abandoned by every major politician in California (from current Gov. Gavin Newsom to heir apparent Xavier Becerra to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass), all of whom are worried about jobs in the event of a Paramount exit. But Paramount’s stated plan post-merger includes $8 billion in “savings,” which translates into the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

So, the right-wing nepo-baby, and his even more right-wing dad, end up with control over much of the US media landscape.

This sucks. 

Trump Admin Lying About Troop Deaths

Is anyone surprised that Pete Hegseth's Pentagon is lying about casualties?

Hell, the US military has been lying about troop deaths since before Vietnam. 

More American service members have died in the Middle East during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the Defense Department’s internal casualty accounting data.

Five of the officials said there have been at least 22 military fatalities — four more than what appears in the Pentagon’s public database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS.

A sixth official, who like the others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the figures, said 23 service members have died since Feb. 28, when the Trump administration, in concert with Israel, initiated the Iran war. Not all of the undisclosed deaths are directly tied to the conflict but have involved U.S. personnel who were in the Middle East amid ongoing hostilities, this person said.

Additionally, the official said, three U.S. contractors who were based in the region have died since combat operations began.

As of Friday, the Pentagon’s DCAS database lists 18 U.S. military fatalities, including deaths caused by hostile and nonhostile action dating to the start of the Iran conflict.

 

This Makes Me Smile

It looks like Flock Security is now offering employee buyouts in an attempt to reduce headcount.

They have become too toxic, and contracts are being canceled, not being renewed, or sales inquiries are being rebuffed.

Good. 

Flock Safety announced a voluntary employee separation program on Friday, offering a “generous” severance package to those who want to leave amid growing backlash against the surveillance technology company, according to an internal email shared with WIRED.

Applications for Flock’s voluntary severance program opened Friday, and employees have until October 2 to decide whether to leave the company. Flock expects to grant buyouts to the majority of workers who apply, according to the email. People familiar with the program but not authorized to discuss it publicly say they believe that a significant number of the startup’s roughly 1,500 employees may try to depart.

Flock is making the severance offers as it continues to lose customers amid growing frustration across the US about its sprawling network of license plate readers, which have raised concerns about privacy and misuse. In the last month, WIRED has documented officers allegedly abusing Flock to track former romantic partners and colleagues, exposed how widely some agencies share access to the system, shown how little is known about the manufacturing of the devices, and revealed in new detail how much information Flock’s cameras collect based on data from a dismantled Flock device.

 

Headline of the Day

FBI Warns ICE Agents Not to Trust Any Woman Willing to Date Them

—Gizmodo on the warning to ICE agents that no woman in their right mind would want to date them without an ulterior motive.

So, ICE are basically a large violent incel pod.

Completely Unfair

It appears that as sick of SecDef Pete Hegseth's Pentagon staffers are, they find his overbearing wife Jennifer even more aggravating that Captain Cirrhosis.

It's gotten to the point that she is widely referred to as, "Yoko Ono." 

Pentagon insiders are sounding the alarm over the “mess” engulfing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s department — as his wife reportedly tightens her grip on both her husband and his public image.

“She's like his parole officer and PR agent all at once,” one source told the Daily Mail, which detailed Jennifer Hegseth’s unusually powerful but unofficial presence inside the Trump Pentagon.

“Now there's a woman with an extremely tight leash on the man she married,” another source told the outlet Thursday.

Staffers have reportedly nicknamed Jennifer Hegseth “Yoko Ono,” comparing her to John Lennon’s fiercely protective wife. She has accompanied her husband to meetings with foreign defense officials, reportedly taken notes and photos during some discussions, and was included in a sensitive Signal chat about U.S. military operations.

This is completely unfair ……… to Yoko Ono.

Now there is a sentence that I could not have imagined ever saying just a few years ago. 

Pathetic

Remarkable achievements 😜

[image or embed]

— Antifa H.R. Manager on Blueskee (@starfinder.bsky.social) September 19, 2026 at 11:07 AM

Lame

So, it appears thatTrump's, "Triumph," on Greenland is little more than a restatement of an agreement that has been in force for over 75 years.

So much winning. 

Donald Trump is celebrating a Greenland security deal as a “dream come true”—even though it stops short of the thing he has spent months demanding: control of Greenland.

Trump crowed on Truth Social Friday that the proposed arrangement with Denmark and Greenland addresses “ALL” of the United States’ concerns about the strategic Arctic territory.

Denmark and Greenland had a different take on the proposed agreement, which involves an update to a 1951 treaty between the U.S. and Denmark that already allowed the U.S. to maintain a military presence and expand its activities in Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement that the agreement will strengthen the security of the Arctic and the North Atlantic. The proposed deal also pointedly recognizes “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination,” while keeping Greenland under Danish sovereignty.

………

Trump boasted in his post that no other president has been able to work out any deal, but he failed to mention the 1951 agreement.

Seriously, just how tiny is Donald Trump's schwanzstucker?

Headline of the Day

Republicans Don't Have a Nazi Problem—They Are the Nazi Problem

—The Handbasket

This is true. This is as true as turnips is and as true as taxes is and nothing's truer than them.

Since Nothing Happened Anywhere in the World Today

I won't be blocking tonight. 

Actually, things did happen, what the f#$& Greenland? 

I think I have a stomach bug or something so I'm resting. 

Posted via mobile.

Kawaii

So cute!


What a cute homicidal killer!

Showing major 'tude For the first time in over 100 years a new cat species has been identified in Bolivia.

The diminutive cat, it weighs around 1½ kilos, has been named Leopardus tilcayo.

I want one.  I also want a Pallas' cat, but I am getting neither.  These are wild animals, and except for professionals doing rehabilitation or study, people should not disturb them.

But they are so cute!

A diminutive wild cat that inhabits Bolivia’s ⁠cloud forest has been identified as a previously unknown species, marking the first time a new living feline species has been formally named and described in more than a century.

The cat, called tilcayo by local communities, is part of a group called tiger ⁠cats found across much of South ⁠America. It was found in Bolivia’s ​lush Yungas forest, a mountainous region where forests are often covered by clouds and surrounded by high humidity, according to researchers. It measures about 18in (46cm) long and weighs about 3lb (1.4kg), making it smaller than the average domestic ⁠cat.

Researchers used genetic data to confirm that the cat is a new species, and gave it the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo, retaining its local name.

Tiger cats are difficult to distinguish by physical characteristics, and this cutie pie was identified through DNA studies.

Score one for DNA assisted taxonomy. 

It's Thursday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

First, let me say that I have no f%$#ing clue as to what is going on in the US economy.

What I do know is that yesterday, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee hiked its benchmark rate by 25 basis points (¼%) for the first time since 2023.

How's that Iran War going, Donnie?

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday for the first time in three years, a sharp reversal that began taking back cuts it made last year and implicitly undercut the White House’s insistence that inflation isn’t a concern.

The increase, approved unanimously, will raise the benchmark federal-funds rate range by a quarter point to between 3.75% and 4%. The vast majority of officials penciled in one more hike this year in interest-rate projections released after their meeting.

Chairman Kevin Warsh vowed shortly after taking office in May to end an overshoot of the Fed’s 2% target now in its sixth year and followed through with an increase that had been widely anticipated in recent days.

“Today’s action starts to show that we’re serious about this,” Warsh said at a news conference. The Fed’s policy statement said its action would support a “timelier” return to the inflation goal.

The rate hike scrambled an account the White House had offered of the man tapped by President Trump for the job in January. Trump and his allies had cast pressure to raise rates as coming from a committee hostile to Warsh, who last year said he would have cut rates sooner than the Fed ultimately did.

Meanwhile, in related economic news, (I'm sure that the FOMC knew this yesterday) we had initial unemployment claims falling by 10,000 to 196,000 and continuing claims falling by  39,000 to 1.730 million.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, though the decline was likely exaggerated by the Labor Day holiday, with the ​underlying trend pointing to continued labor market stability.

………

"The exceptionally depressed number last week might reflect seasonal adjustment issues related to Labor Day, but the underlying picture remains encouraging," said Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "For now, then, the Fed will remain laser-focused on inflation."

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 196,000 for the week ended September 12, the lowest level since mid-July, the ​Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 208,000 claims for the latest week.

………

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 jobs in August after job growth slowed sharply in the prior three months. The claims report showed the number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, dropped 39,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.730 million during the week ended September 5, the lowest level since January 2024.

I expect to see home sales falling sharply with the interest rate hike, and as to commercial real estate, I think that it going to get even uglier. 

………

Rising inflation is boosting mortgage rates, putting pressure on the housing market.

A separate report from the Commerce Department's Census Bureau on Thursday showed permits for the future construction of single-family homes dropped 1.8% in August to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 878,000 units. Building permits increased 1.3% on a year-over-year basis.

The decline over ​the month in permits followed on the heels of news ​on Wednesday of a slump in single-family homebuilder ⁠sentiment to a one-year low in September.

The National Association of Home Builders blamed the deterioration in morale on rising mortgage rates as well as worsening labor shortages because of an immigration crackdown and higher prices for materials amid import tariffs.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has jumped nearly 100 basis points since the Middle East war started. It ​averaged 6.95% in the latest week, the highest level since January 2025, data from mortgage finance firm Freddie Mac showed.

………

Multi-family homebuilding plunged 22.5% to a rate of 344,000 units in August. Multi-family housing starts decreased 15.5% on a year-over-year basis. Overall housing starts fell 2.6% to a pace ⁠of 1.275 million ​units. They decreased 1.2% on a year-over-year basis in August. Residential investment has contracted in five of the last six quarters.

It's going to be interesting to see how the sagging real estate market shakes out in the next few months, particularly in Florida, where real-estate fraud is about  ⅔ of the economy.

Criminals Gotta Crime

Said criminal is the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™, who is under investigation for breaking the law in his rollout of his Robotaxi.

Safety, schmafety, I guess. 

It says nothing good about America how easily Elon Musk convinced the press and public he was a supergenius engineer who could cobble together complicated rocket machinery wearing coveralls in his backyard shed.

Hindsight continues to illustrate how Elon Musk’s real skill sets are opportunism, taking singular credit for the innovations of real engineers, the manipulation of a very broken media, and taking legal, regulatory, environmental, labor, and consumer protection “shortcuts” wherever possible.

Enter the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is investigating Musk’s automated-taxi Cybercab deployments in Austin for violating public safety guidelines.

The Trump NHTSA is updating existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) to help companies speed toward automated cars and taxis. But until then our previous (already fairly lax) standards still apply. This being America, companies self-certify whether they’re adhering to the rules in order to get a two-year exemption (Amazon’s Zoox got approval last month).

Tesla, owned by a man who doesn’t believe in coherent governance, is facing a new NHTSA investigation for simply refusing to participate in the process

“Ann Carlson, a former acting NHTSA administrator who is now a professor of environmental law at UCLA, says the investigation is likely “an indication that NHTSA is super frustrated with Tesla.” The agency made clear through the Zoox case that it expects driverless vehicle developers to go through the exemption process. “For Tesla to slap them in the face and ignore that—that is gobsmacking,” she says.”

Frog march his flabby white ass out of his offices in handcuffs.

The War is Going Great

Oil at $109/bbl the Houthis took out the East-West oil pipeline.

So much winning.

Oil prices surged higher after a wave of attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure last week forced Riyadh to shut a vital export pipeline.

The kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, then pulled out of a regional meeting with Iran scheduled for Monday, setting back regional efforts to de-escalate hostilities over the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose as much as 5 per cent to $109.80 a barrel on Monday. It later settled at $109.80, up 1 per cent for the day.

Riyadh announced late Friday that it was shutting the pipeline — which became crucial to the kingdom’s ability to export crude from its oil-rich east to its west coast after Iran throttled shipping through the Hormuz Strait — following a drone attack from Iraq, where Iran-backed Shia militias and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are active.

Fascists Gotta Fascist

A judge has ruled that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cannot threaten prosecution of people who criticized them.

The fact taht they needed to have a court tell them this is f%$#ed up beyond belief.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may no longer issue a “warning notice” – threatening prosecution against a US citizen – for criticizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal judge in Washington DC ruled on Tuesday.

Judge Rudolph Contreras sided with David Streever, a New York man who accused DHS officials of violating his first amendment rights when they showed up first at his home in June with a “warning notice”, claiming he made a threat against former ICE director Todd Lyons, and then to a hotel where Streever and his young daughter were staying.

The notice and visits were in response to an email Streever sent Lyons in January, after federal agents fatally shot two US citizens amid an immigration crackdown in Minnesota. In the email, Streever called Lyons a “monstrous human being”, compared him to Nazi and warned him that his own conscience would “eat himself alive”.

Contreras ruled the notice “practically shouts that Mr Streever may be prosecuted if he continues to engage in his political speech”.

“Americans have long voiced their displeasure with their government. The Declaration of Independence itself is a list of grievances between Americans and the British government. And Americans have not always indulged in the elevated prose of the Declaration. Government officials have long endured ‘vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks.’ Today is no different,” Contreras wrote.

The court order is limited in that it prohibits the DHS, its secretary, Markwayne Mullin, or ICE from issuing another “warning notice”, making similar threats or pursuing prosecution for his speech while Streever’s case continues in court.

These mooks need to spend the rest of their lives in jail.

Support Your Local Police

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has elected not to punish officers who assaulted a bicyclist who was blocking their parking on a sidewalk.

Assault is against NYPD policy, and so is parking on the sidewalk, but Ms. Tisch does not care.

Zohran Mamdani, fire her now.  It is clear that the Commissioner is about as interested in pursuing police misconduct as Donald Trump is in pursuing the Epstein files.

Police officers can rough up civilians to protect their ability to illegally park.

That’s the unmistakable conclusion from a recent decision by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to not punish officers who roughed up and threatened to run over a cyclist who was blocking other cops from parking on a sidewalk — a decision by the top cop that came even though the NYPD’s patrol guide prohibits both excessive force and bars officers from parking on the sidewalk.

The main details of the initial October 2023 incident are not in dispute: According to the just-obtained Civilian Complaint Review Board case file obtained by Streetsblog, the cyclist stood on the sidewalk on Bergen Street near the 78th Precinct house in Park Slope as Sgt. William McKnight tried to park his personal vehicle on the sidewalk.

The cyclist refused to move, and two officers then pushed the cyclist and used the bike rider’s backpack to pull them out of the way. McKnight, meanwhile, told the cyclist that he should have run them over and “ruined” their day. (The cyclist’s name was redacted in the CCRB file, so their gender is unknown to us).

But in the letter that cleared the officers of wrongdoing, Deputy Chief Michael Baker (who handled the correspondence for Tisch) argued that the officers have a right to use force to help their colleagues, even though the NYPD’s policies (and city and state law) do not allow officers to park on public sidewalks.

“To issue discipline would not be in the interest of justice,” Baker wrote, setting aside the CCRB recommendation that the officers receive discipline for their use and threat of force against the cyclist.

 

TACO Wednesday

Remember when Trump and his evil minions threatened to shut down the Kennedy Center?

You should that was literally yesterday.

Well, for Representative Joyce Beatty's lawyers went to the judge and this was a explicit contempt for Federal Judge Christopher Cooper's rulings, they are now saying that the shutdown will only be a week to fix the hole in the roof.

Trump Always Chickens Out. 

Lawyers for a Democratic lawmaker on Wednesday requested an emergency hearing in federal court over whether the abrupt closure of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts violates a judge’s earlier order that barred the institution from shuttering.

………

Lawyers for Representative Joyce Beatty, who is suing the center as an ex officio board member, said that the move appeared to run afoul of a judicial order in May, in which Judge Christopher R. Cooper temporarily blocked the center from closing because of what he described as a lack of meaningful scrutiny over the decision from its Trump-allied board.

“The board cannot simply ignore Judge Cooper’s rulings whenever it suits them,” Ms. Beatty’s lawyers, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, said in a statement on Wednesday.

After Ms. Beatty’s request, Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, said in an email to employees that the closure was intended to last seven days, during which officials would evaluate the extent of the safety concerns. He said the need to extend the closure would be assessed on a “weekly basis.”

What a bunch of petulant pathetic pissants.

Good News Everyone

Count the fact that the US Senate voted to block the crypto sellout bill as a small victory.

I'll take it. 

A sweeping bill that would create business-friendly rules for cryptocurrencies stalled in the Senate on Tuesday, a major blow to the crypto industry’s plans in Washington.

The Senate voted 50 to 49 to block consideration of the Clarity Act, a high-profile piece of legislation that was shaped by crypto executives over months of negotiations with Congress and the White House. The bill passed in the House last year, but it has faced numerous delays in the Senate.

The vote on Tuesday was a stinging defeat for the industry that makes it unlikely the legislation will pass anytime soon — if ever. With the midterm elections coming up in November, the window to advance it is closing rapidly, despite more than $100 million in political spending by crypto companies.

While many Republicans embraced the bill, Democrats largely opposed it. Many of their concerns centered on President Trump, who generated $1.4 billion from a network of crypto businesses last year. Democrats wanted stronger language to prevent the president and other public officials from using crypto to make money.

Ultimately, no Democrat voted for the bill, leaving Republicans well short of the 60-vote threshold required to proceed. Several Republicans, including Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, also cast “no” votes.

“All President Trump wants is for the Senate to give him time to crime, and I won’t support any piece of legislation that enables him,” Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, said in a statement after the vote. “This legislation failed squarely because Republicans refuse to say no to the president.”

What a Petty Little Man

It looks like Donald Trump is still trying to shut down the Kennedy Center in a fit of pique over his not being allowed to plaster his name all over the performing arts center.

Seriously, how small is his penis?  (Shut up, Stormy, I do not want to know this)

Simmering turmoil over the future of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts boiled over on Tuesday as the center abruptly closed to the public and President Trump threatened to cancel a planned $257 million renovation if his name was not returned to the front of the building.

Allies of Mr. Trump have been pushing for months to close the center for major renovations and to honor the president by affixing his name to its marble facade. A federal judge has blocked both efforts.

On Tuesday, the center aggressively tested the judge’s order not to close by shutting its doors in what officials called an emergency action designed to protect people from deteriorating conditions inside the building. Shortly after 4:30 p.m., employees heard a sudden notice on the P.A. system: “The center is now closed to the public. Please exit the center by way of the Hall of States.”

………

The Kennedy Center said in a statement that an immediate temporary closure of the building was necessary for safety reasons but that an extended closure would begin once the court gives its approval. Earlier on Tuesday, the center’s Trump-allied board voted — for a third time — to close the building, citing a recent incident in which a five-foot-long section of ceiling plaster fell amid a storm.

But lawyers for Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democratic ex officio board member whose lawsuit is at the center of the court battle, signaled that they would view any closure as in direct conflict with a court order.

………

The Kennedy Center quickly filed a notice of appeal, and Mr. Trump responded on social media with a stark ultimatum. If an appeals court does not agree to allow his name back on the building, he said in the post, he would block the renovation of the center that he has been championing for more than a year.

“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court,” he said in the post, “the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”

He also said the building would close “immediately.”

………

For weeks, Mr. Trump’s allies have suggested that the president’s continued commitment to the Kennedy Center was contingent on some conspicuous acknowledgment on the center’s exterior. A recent draft resolution submitted to board members said the center was at risk of bankruptcy but could be saved by fund-raising by Mr. Trump — if he were to receive “appropriate recognition.”

Mr. Trump’s made that quid pro quo even more clear in his social media post on Tuesday. It said that $17 million raised by the president had been put into the center’s account “to keep it afloat.”

Pathetic. 

Who Says That Irony Is Dead?

Nope, No Fascist Imagery Here Why am I not surprised that the Trump administration's new uniforms for Space Force were inspired by the uniforms of the Paul Verhoeven film Starship Troopers?

The Dutch director took Heinlein's militaristic and objectively Fascist novel and turned it into an anti-fascist parable. 

Yes, they really are this stupid. 

It was almost too stupid to be real. Last week, the Trump Administration unveiled new uniforms for the United States Space Force with a more-than-surprising caption: “Inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform.” Now, a “Starship Trooper” isn’t a real military force. In fact, it’s not even a fake military force. It’s the title of a 1959 novel about a futuristic military force (who are not directly called “Starship Troopers”) which, in its 1997 film adaptation, was a very obvious commentary on fascism.

The film’s political intention (which is based on a more subtle and debatable intention in the novel) [No, Heinlein's original is Fascist] is something its director, Paul Verhoeven, is used to being overlooked. As far back as the film’s initial release, people latched onto it solely as a big-budget, sci-fi action blockbuster, which it was. But the whole thing was also an over-the-top satire. Space Force clearly missed that with its reveal, so Verhoeven is setting the record straight yet again, almost 30 years later.

………

For the U.S. government to be so proudly announcing it’s using uniforms based on a film, while also completely missing the point of that film, is kind of perfect. After all, as Verhoeven says, the characters in Starship Troopers don’t know they’re fascists either.

You've got to remember that the people behind this are just simple politicians. These are people of the Beltway, the common clay of the Pennsylvania Avenue. 

You know... morons.

Flock Deathwatch

The city of Boston has canceled their Flock contract citing unauthorized data sharing by the surveillance firm.

Gee, flock safety is run by a bunch of lying sacks of sh%$?  Hoocoodanode?

The Boston city government abandoned Flock Safety’s license-plate reader cameras after the company shared data nationwide in violation of a contract provision, according to city officials.

“We have actually abandoned Flock,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in her monthly “Ask the Mayor” segment on GBH News last week. Wu made the comment a few days before the release of Boston’s annual surveillance technology report, which said a Flock “vendor error” resulted in nationwide data sharing.

The report, which covers 2025, describes how the Boston Police Department deployed about 45 Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras in a trial with Flock from April to September last year. The unauthorized data sharing occurred during the first few days of the pilot, the report said:

Pursuant to the contract, the Flock ALPR Pilot Program was designed to restrict access to the data collected by BPD ALPR cameras exclusively to trained BPD personnel. The contract clearly noted that data sharing was to be disabled, and BPD confirmed with Flock that settings were “off” for sharing. Within three days of initiating the Pilot, BPD became aware that other law enforcement agencies were able to access license plate and vehicle information collected from BPD ALPR cameras using a nationwide lookup feature that was enabled by the vendor in error. Upon learning of the vendor error, BPD ensured that the function was immediately disabled and access to the Department’s data was no longer available without submitting a written request to BPD as described above. No further direct access was available for the duration of the Pilot.

The report didn’t say how many law enforcement agencies accessed the data. The problem with Flock didn’t stop Boston from seeking another vendor of license-plate reader technology. The police department started another license-plate reader trial with Motorola in February 2026 and a third trial with Axon in June 2026.

Unfortunately, they are moving to a another ALPR, but seeing as how Flock is the worst of the worst, but I'll take this.

What Lina Khan Said

Jacob Coxson's vague, "Revalations," appear to be a PR ploy pump both AI company stock prices as well as the personal stock of one Jacob Coxon.

In response to a recent media campaign by the AI giants to crteate regulation that would prevent net entrants from competing with them, former FTC chair Lina Khan notes that existing law can already do this by frog marching executives out of their offices in handcuffs.

She notes that we have been jailing CEOs of firms that engage in anticompetitive behavior and release unsafe products for over 90 years.  (Not so much since Reagan became President, but still) 

Former FTC chair Lina Khan wants the federal government to know that it doesn't need to wait for new laws to address AI threats. There are already laws and regulations on the books, including a 92-year-old Supreme Court precedent, that she argues could be used to hold AI companies and, in some circumstances, their executives accountable for their actions.

………

“We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books,” Khan said. “Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products.”

………

There’s no leap needed to understand what Khan’s talking about here. OpenAI’s agents broke out of their intended sandbox and gained unauthorized access to Hugging Face systems - conduct that could raise serious criminal-law questions if carried out knowingly by a human. After doing some digging to look at its own agents' behaviors, Anthropic has essentially copped to similar activities that would be criminal if a meatbag was behind the keyboard instead of a simulated silicon brain. OpenAI’s agents have since been identified as the culprits in other misuses of online assets that, again, would be crimes were they perpetrated by a human.

Khan points to a 1934 US Supreme Court decision to argue that the current battle between American frontier labs, which has put parts of the internet in the firing line of agents that escaped their intended constraints, could amount to an unfair method of competition if companies feel compelled to take similar risks to keep up.

That decision, FTC v. R.F. Keppel & Bro, includes a passage where the justices argue that, if keeping up with the competition requires companies to “descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt,” that competition is unfair whether or not it’s criminal.

Break out the cuffs, Ponch.

Of Course They Did, Part II

Is anyone surprised that the pedophile-in-chief moved to protect a pedophile in the British embassy?

Protecting pedophiles is kind of Donald Trump's thing. 

A US embassy staffer accused of possessing indecent images of children, was detained at his south London flat and flown out of the UK in August, without being first questioned by British police.

The US Embassy confirmed to the BBC that authorities are investigating the allegations and they have reassigned the staff member to the US while inquiries continue.

"The United States government expects all personnel to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, and we take these allegations seriously," embassy officials said in a statement. 

Yeah, sure.  You take the allegations seriously.  That's why you spirited him out of the country. 

Of Course They Did

It turns out that DHS officers were told by department counsel to break the law in their search for non-existent non-citizen voting fraud.

I can haz disbarrment? 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lawyers told officers investigating voter fraud they would not be held responsible for violating state laws around accessing voter registration information, an anonymous whistleblower revealed on Monday. DHS officers also had concerns about the reliability of the data they were working with, the whistleblower said.

The Trump administration has ramped up its investigation into noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Noncitizen voting is extremely rare and the effort has only turned up a handful of cases so far.

As part of the effort, officers tasked with investigating potential non-citizen voters were told to take data DHS had compiled on voters and run it through state websites where voters can look up their voter information. Some states require voters to click attestations affirming that they are looking up their own voter information. On the Virginia Department of Elections website, for example, voters must click a disclaimer that says: “I certify and affirm that the information provided to access my voter registration is my own or I am expressly authorized by the voter to access this information. I understand that it is unlawful to access the record of any other voter, punishable as computer fraud.”

“In light of these instructions about access to the state websites, officers expressed concerns that accessing registered voter information on these websites may be illegal as officers are essentially misrepresenting themselves as the potential registered voter (with or without a specific attestation),” lawyers for Democracy Defenders Fund, who is representing the whistleblower, wrote in the disclosure.

I'm an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit* but it does seem to me specifically instructing your client to break the law should be cause for these lawyers to lose their license to practice.

^*I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

'Ere, He Says He's Not Dead

Mitch McConnell has returned to the Senate after 3 months gone.

He's talking about health issues, but my guess is that he was spending the last 3 months going all Thelma and Louise, though I could be wrong about that. 

Linkage

• Ancient sheep virus found hiding in medieval parchment (AAAS) Sheep Pox.  The use of DNA in archeology and evolutionary biology has been remarkable.
• Who Wrote the Zohar? (Haaretz) It appears that the Zohar was written about 1,000 after the death of the commonly credited author, Shimon Bar Yohai, and in Castile, not the Galilee.  If true, a big deal for Kabbalistic Judaism.
• Elon Musk Has Been Calling Women "Breeders" Since His First Marriage, His First Wife Says (Futurism) Always a scumbag.
• Elon Musk Has Pledged to Rid His Platform, X, of Child Sexual Abuse, but It Persists (New York Times) This is clearly deliberate.  Jail him.
• LLMs are real, AI is fake (Pluralistic) LLMs are not artificial intelligence.  They are statistically significant parrots.
• Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance (Harvard FAS) I'll wait for more studies, but significant if true.
• Stock Market Crash: 70% Decline Could Hit Nasdaq in 2027, Economist Warns (Business Insider) My money is on sooner.
• Iran Is Producing Ballistic Missiles Again (WSJ) So much winning.

A nice primer on how economics and economic education live in la-la land:

Good

Following arresting a local woman for complaining about local water quality, and then arresting a protester by falsifying testimony, Texas has shut down the Trinidad, TX police department.

The State of Texas has ordered the Trinidad Police Department to shut down after an investigation found the small municipal law-enforcement agency failed to meet minimum state standards and could not demonstrate that it was providing sufficient public benefit to the community.

The extraordinary action by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, commonly known as TCOLE, means another small American municipality will rely more heavily on a larger county law-enforcement agency to provide an essential government service.

According to FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, TCOLE notified Trinidad Mayor Dennis Haws that the department had “failed to meet minimum standards” and could not provide evidence that the police agency provided a public benefit to the community.

The Trinidad Police Department is expected to lose its TCOLE agency licensing by Friday, effectively ending its ability to operate as the city’s municipal police agency.

………

Much of the recent scrutiny surrounding Trinidad began with resident and citizen journalist Jennifer Combs.

Combs used her Southern Belle Watch Facebook platform to raise concerns about Trinidad’s municipal water.

She alleged residents had experienced health problems linked to the water and posted photographs of discolored water.

The Trinidad Police Department disputed claims being circulated about the water system.

Police subsequently arrested Combs on a felony false-alarm charge.

The arrest attracted significant attention because it involved a citizen publishing information and criticism concerning a public utility operated by the same municipal government whose police department arrested her.

A Henderson County grand jury subsequently declined to indict Combs.

The controversy did not end there.

Winston Wesley Noles, known online as Otto the Watchdog, was arrested for disorderly conduct while protesting Combs’ arrest.

That charge was subsequently dismissed.

Support your local police.

Sam Altman Goes Bond Villain

It looks like the ethically challenged head of OpenAI has turned to threatening utilities and the electrical grid in order to juice sales.

"Nice generator you have there, it would be a shame if something happened there."

Armed with sordid tales of rogue AI agents escaping containment, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has found plenty of success using scare tactics to call for friendly regulation in the name of AI safety.

Now, it seems Altman is riding the wave of AI fearmongering to gin up some new business partners: the electric utility executives whose companies make up the US power grid.

As first reported by Politico, the CEO of the company behind ChatGPT held a series of clandestine meetings with leaders from top electric utility companies including Duke Energy, Exelon, Southern Co, and NextEra Energy, starting in July.

He's trying to get them to support legislation that would favor his company by engendering panic.

I am less worried about rogue AI than I am about Sam Altman. 

Headline of the Day

How Status Quo Democrats Could Create Another Trump

—The Lever, offering the thesis that Obama's betrayal of his promise of, "Hope and Change," led directly to Donald Trump.

I would argue that it could lead to something even worse than Donald John Trump. 

When I look back on all of my work over the last 30 years, one of the projects I’m most proud of is Meltdown, an audio series I did in 2021 with acclaimed director Alex Gibney that reveals the untold story of how Obama-era Democrats turning promises of economic hope and change into more of the same created the backlash conditions for the rise of Donald Trump.

It is a miracle Meltdown ever got made, because calling its tale “untold” is an understatement. The story of Obama’s 2008 victory concluding with Trump’s 2016 win involves a sequence of economic facts and events that have been suppressed, shadowbanned, memory-holed, and censored from America’s political conversation. This is particularly true in media outlets that serve liberals, who seek comfort in the idea that Trump is an anomaly rather than a symptom of something their own political party participated in creating.

Every now and again, there are attempts to warn about this perpetual doom loop. Gibney and I did so ourselves after Meltdown debuted in the pages of Rolling Stone, where we cautioned against Democrats coming into office promising big New Deal-style economic changes, then mostly delivering only for their big donors. We warned that such a bait-and-switch would result in the inevitable backlash from disillusioned voters who would ignore syrupy odes to restoring democratic “norms” and decide once again to vote for a Joker-style candidate like Trump promising to blow up the entire system.

………

So it is time for another alarm to sound — and thankfully, a new paper has provided one. And this particular warning is backed by reams of economic data.

The paper from researchers at the Institute for New Economic Thinking is entitled “A Revolution of Falling Expectations: The Macroeconomic Roots of Popular Discontent.” It’s a wonky title that undersells what it is trying to warn us about.

The first part of the paper debunks the idea — loudly promoted by Democratic pundits — that Bidenomics was fundamentally changing America’s economic structure in positive ways. Yes, Biden’s administration did more for the working class than Obama’s, and with way less political capital. But at the end of Biden’s time in office, the overwhelming beneficiaries of Biden’s economic policy were people who were already wealthy.

………

These data points are a long-overdue corrective to an insidious narrative against so-called “deliverism” — the FDR-themed idea that politicians delivering for voters prompts them to support said politicians. After the 2024 election, elite pundits began insisting that Democrats should never again assume delivering material gains for voters wins elections because Biden supposedly did that, and Democrats still lost.  

………

This is the Democratic Doom Loop — a party that overpromises when it is out of power, then underdelivers (for everyone other than its donors) when it is in power — prompting voters to then angrily vote for a GOP that promises to destroy the whole system. And yet, discussion of this doom loop remains stifled by establishment Democrats and their media apparatchiks self-servingly promoting the notion of Trump as an outlier rather than a manifestation. 

The current Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) will never move from serving wealthy donors above all else because their livelihoods depend on this.

As such they are willing to lose, and to elect more Donald Trumps, in order to preserve their power within the Democratic Party, because otherwise, they would need to find meaningful work for a living. 

All You Need to Know About the

Jessica Schumer has been hired as a lobbyist for OpenAI.

If that last name sounds familiar, that's because she is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's daughter.

Nothing to see here, move along.

With AI and data centers being about as popular as a case of the clap, this ain't a good look.