Week Links: 5/24/26
The best student film I’ve ever seen:
"This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes," Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. Trump's attorneys suggested in their court filing seeking to dismiss the case that the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. But a group of 93 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a challenge. Justice Department announces a $1.7 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ fund to compensate Trump allies.”
Less mentioned is that the award aount is actually 1.776 billion — cute huh?
This absurdity (click for a link to the CRS report)
quickly became
Price tag? The CBO estimates 1.2 TRILLION.
The so-called “defense” industry is doing very well. Consider how much we are currently spending on destroying our expensive missile systems and aicraft in Iran. From Stars and Stripes:
At least 42 U.S. military aircraft have been lost or damaged since the start of the war with Iran, according to a recent analysis that compiled news reports and officials’ statements to tally losses. The Congressional Research Service report comes as lawmakers push Pentagon leaders for more clarity on timelines, costs and outcomes pertaining to Operation Epic Fury. Pentagon acting comptroller Jules Hurst testified to Congress this month that the estimated cost of military operations in Iran had reached $29 billion.
All while Ben Gvir oversees the torture and assault of international humanitarians, in acts so heinous even the craven “diplomat” Huckabee condemned it. The way the story is reported in here is that France has banned him. Listen to the testimony of the survivors:
AI Watch
A diptych:
"As A Doctor, I Can Understand the Allure of ChatGPT,” NYTimes:
It’s a grim fact of American medicine today that doctors can’t come close to a chatbot’s availability. And when the health care system can’t reliably offer time, attentiveness and compassion, patients will go searching for them somewhere else, even from a machine we assumed could never feel human. A.I. may not replace doctors, but it will change what patients expect from us. Doctors need to adapt.
Before I used a chatbot for my own health concerns, the thought of telling a patient to “ask ChatGPT” was inconceivable — or at least something I considered terrible care. Now I’m not so sure. In certain situations, A.I. offers something patients clearly need and medicine has trouble fulfilling.
Consider also how the NYTimes captioned this image:
But doing the White House Easter Egg Hunt under the White House Golden Dome? Priceless.