"People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people. I'm sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene." Hakeem Jeffries spent more than eight hours delaying the final House vote on the GOP spending bill, but he was just delaying the inevitable. "Shame on this institution if this bill passes. That's not America, we're better than this. We are better, we are better." I'm sad to report that, at least as we approach this Independence Day, we're not better than this. By the time fireworks blow and the hot dogs hit the buns, we'll have a new kind of Independence. Independence from the safety net. Independence from fair taxation. Independence from renewables leadership. For the poorest Americans, Independence from food and healthcare. And for all, Independence from fiscal responsibility. It's a big win for the MG movement. (It used to be called MAGA, but America can no longer afford to buy a vowel.) As the Bill passes the House and heads for the president's desk, here's the latest from NBC and AP. Enjoy the 4th of July. If nothing else, hopefully you can get some Independence from bad news.
+ On the plus side, at least we can stop being deluged with breathless and silly coverage about GOP holdouts that we all have known weren't going to hold out since we got the results from last November's election. In fairness to them, they did negotiate hard enough to get some signed merch.
+ WaPo (Gift Article): Biden’s climate law boosted red states. Their lawmakers are now gutting it.
+ The bill is remarkably unpopular and hits Trump's base as hard as anyone. Will its passage be felt at the ballot box? Maybe. But a lot of the most severe pain doesn't kick in until just after the midterms. NYT (Gift Article): Tax Cuts Now, Benefit Cuts Later: The Timeline in the Republican Megabill.
2
ICE Age
The bill provides a massive amount of new funding for the ICE deporation efforts, which have already been targeting those with no criminal record and even those who aren't in the country illegally. NYT (Gift Article): As Trump Broadens Crackdown, Focus Expands to Legal Immigrants and Tourists. "U.S. immigration agents wearing masks arrested a Georgetown University academic outside his home in Virginia. They detained two German tourists for weeks when they tried to enter the country legally through the southern border. They knocked on doors at Columbia University apartments, searching for pro-Palestinian protesters. The Trump administration has opened a new phase in its immigration agenda, one that goes well beyond the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants."
+ "Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March, was beaten, deprived of sleep and psychologically tortured during the nearly three months he spent in Salvadoran custody ... His lawyers said that he and 20 other Salvadoran men who were deported to the prison from the United States on March 15 were once made to kneel overnight 'with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion.' During the time he spent there, the lawyers said, Mr. Abrego Garcia was 'denied bathroom access and soiled himself.'" (Remember, he and many others weren't actually convicted of any crime.) Abrego Garcia Was Beaten and Tortured in El Salvador Prison, Lawyers Say.
3
Half Staff
"CEOs have spent months whispering about how their businesses could likely be run with a fraction of the current staff. Technologies including automation software, AI and robots are being rolled out to make operations as lean and efficient as possible." WSJ (Gift Article): CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs. "Ford chief predicts AI will replace ‘literally half of all white-collar workers.'" (If you haven't already heard that AI will reduce jobs, you haven't been listening.)
+ "He counted six people on the call including himself, Sellers recounted in an interview. The 10 others attending were note-taking apps powered by artificial intelligence that had joined to record, transcribe and summarize the meeting." WaPo (Gift Article): No one likes meetings. They’re sending their AI note takers instead. (Now we just need AI to delete those notes and we'll be good...)
4
USB Mine
"At first, the idea seemed a little absurd, even to me. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made: If my goal was to understand people who fall in love with AI boyfriends and girlfriends, why not rent a vacation house and gather a group of human-AI couples together for a romantic getaway? In my vision, the humans and their chatbot companions were going to do all the things regular couples do on romantic getaways: Sit around a fire and gossip, watch movies, play risqué party games. I didn’t know how it would turn out—only much later did it occur to me that I’d never gone on a romantic getaway of any kind and had no real sense of what it might involve. But I figured that, whatever happened, it would take me straight to the heart of what I wanted to know, which was: What’s it like? What’s it really and truly like to be in a serious relationship with an AI partner? Is the love as deep and meaningful as in any other relationship? Do the couples chat over breakfast? Cheat? Break up? And how do you keep going, knowing that, at any moment, the company that created your partner could shut down, and the love of your life could vanish forever?" Wired: My Couples Retreat With 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them. "In the end, the most profound impact of our new AI tools may simply be this: A significant portion of humanity is going to fall in love with one." (You'll to have a couple before reading this...)
5
Extra, Extra
Suspending Spree: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday placed 144 employees on administrative leave and opened an investigation into their decision to sign a letter accusing the Trump administration of politicizing the agency." They're blowing up core American freedoms faster than fireworks. NYT (Gift Article): E.P.A. Suspends 144 Employees After They Signed a Letter Criticizing Trump.
+ Election Campaign: "The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority, according to the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation." NYT (Gift Article): Justice Dept. Explores Using Criminal Charges Against Election Officials. (Eventually, they'll use criminal charges against everyone except criminals.)
+ Jobs Description: "The US economy is surprisingly resilient, both in terms of consumer spend [and] the labor dynamic ... And just general economic economic activity is stronger than one might have guessed if you were sitting here on April 3, projecting what the tariff policy would deliver." US adds 147,000 jobs in June, surpassing expectations amid Trump trade war.
+ Don't Be Too Giddy for Diddy: "This verdict marks only one chapter in Combs’s mounting legal battles. Combs, who remains incarcerated at the Metropolitan detention center in Brooklyn, is now awaiting sentencing and faces a growing number of civil lawsuits [50 and counting] against him alleging sexual assault and abuse." Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs faces growing wave of civil suits as criminal trial ends.
+ Who Called Shotgun? From eight-year-old ‘influencers’ to trans anarchists, today’s gun owners aren’t who you think.
+ Live Rounds: American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press.
+ Pushing AI to the Limit: "Peter sat alone in his bedroom as the first waves of euphoria coursed through his body like an electrical current. He was in darkness, save for the soft blue light of the screen glowing from his lap. Then he started to feel pangs of panic. He picked up his phone and typed a message to ChatGPT. 'I took too much,' he wrote." People are using AI to ‘sit’ with them while they trip on psychedelics. (We'll know we've reached the singularity when the AI says, "Enough, I can't deal with these people anymore...")
6
Bottom of the News
NYT (Gift Article): What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues. "A new study suggests that there are six specific traits that these people tend to have in common: Cool people are largely perceived to be extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous." (I just missed making the cut with my six core traits: introversion, agoraphobia, misanthropy, apprehension, IBS, and a way with puns.)
Black Mirror can't hold a candle to contemporary America. Hard to remain optimistic in the ugly face of all this.
Why include an article where one must subscribe to the company issuing it, ie the WIRED article?