American
Facts - Did you know Benjamin
Franklin left school at just 10 years old? Or that at 16, he secretly wrote
newspaper columns under a woman’s name? And what about the fact that he was a
vegetarian? We all know Franklin as a Founding Father, inventor, and statesman,
but his life was filled with odd habits, surprising choices, and stories that
sound almost too eccentric to be true. From his unusual "air baths"
to the invention of a musical instrument that captivated Mozart, here
are 10 things you may not know about the unique life of Benjamin Franklin.
October 22, 2026
What you didn’t know about Benjamin Franklin
Donald Trump
Politico - ABC programs are already tempering their election coverage ahead of the midterms to avoid angering President Donald Trump,” as Trump’s Federal Communications Commission threatens to revoke ABC’s broadcast licenses.
October 21, 2026
Hooked to YouTube
NBC
News - A sixth grader in Wisconsin
viewed 2,204 YouTube videos last school year. In Pennsylvania, an eighth grader
viewed more than 4,700.
Over the past decade, YouTube has become ubiquitous in the
American classroom. Many school districts give students their own laptops and
encourage them to watch educational videos on the platform. But districts often
struggle to effectively restrict what else students can watch, and YouTube,
which has become ingrained in class curricula, does not give schools a way to
disable addictive features like autoplay and TikTok-style YouTube Shorts unless
they block the website entirely. Google says it's up to schools to decide
whether to allow YouTube access and that administrators must obtain parents'
permission annually before enabling YouTube.
Still, millions of students have access to billions of
videos, leaving some endlessly scrolling through targeted recommendations that
have nothing to do with school.
Donald Trump
Newsweek-
President Donald Trump has renewed
calls for New Mexico to be rebranded "New America," claiming that the
name change would "add great value and prestige" to the state and
increase home values and incomes.
"New Mexico should
immediately change its name to New America," Trump wrote in a post on
Truth Social on Monday. "We are not Mexico, we are the United States of
America! The name would add great value and prestige to the State! Home Values
and Incomes would rise, and you would be even prouder while saluting our
beautiful American Flag! Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is
known for, would become honest again!"
….The suggestion fits into
Trump’s efforts to rebrand geographic landmarks and places with a patriotic
twist, including the Gulf of Mexico—which he renamed "Gulf of
America"—and Lake Ontario, which he has designated "Lake
America."
Alternet America - Trump warned a Kansas rally crowd that America would burn like France if Republicans lose the midterms.
Independent - President Donald Trump can’t stop gushing about Ohio Senator Jon Husted’s body during his attempts to boost the Republican candidate ahead of the midterms — even when he’s campaigning in a completely different state.
Trump first raved about Husted’s physical features, namely
his butt, during a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, last week after learning that the
senator is a former All-American defensive back at the University of Dayton.
“I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining
[Husted’s] body because I didn’t know he was a great athlete, and I looked, and
I watched up and down,” Trump told supporters last week. “I looked at his ass,
and I looked at the whole, and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands.
He’s got these like claws.”….
“So he’s over here. I’m over here, and I’m studying his
body. I’ve never studied the body of a man before. It’s not my thing. Nothing
wrong with it, of course,” Trump said with a chuckle. “I always precede it by
saying, ‘Nothing wrong,’ but it’s never been my thing, to be honest with you.”
Trump continued: “But I looked at his ass, and then I looked
at his legs. I said, ‘His ass, s***, it’s like, it’s like a pile of muscle.
Then I looked at his legs, and I said, ‘Man, his feet are big.’ Then I looked
at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and it actually hurt my
hand.”
The president then added: “He’s like a piece of steel. I
said, ‘This guy’s a monster!’”
Meanwhile. . .
Washington
Post - A small group of U.S. national security officials has been
discreetly advising state governments and congressional lawmakers on how to
prepare for the possibility that the Trump administration will attempt to
interfere in November’s midterm elections, according to people involved in the
effort. The group includes about 10 current and former officials with
experience in the Defense Department, some of whom have previously focused on
countering authoritarianism abroad.
Prime Chronicle - France has arrested thousands and shut hundreds of schools, yet leaders still refuse a national emergency. About 5,000 people were detained amid nationwide student protests, most of them minors. Authorities reported 256,000 demonstrators, with many marches peaceful alongside pockets of violence. Hundreds of schools closed due to safety risks and damage, with reported student injuries.
The
Congressional Insider - A nonprofit’s review of local 2026 counts
points to an 8.2% national decline in veteran homelessness. The estimate
suggests the number of homeless veterans could fall below 30,000 for the first
time since 2009…. Veteran homelessness has fallen about 56% since 2010.
Polls
PopularResistance - Comprehensive global polls show Israel
is now the most unpopular country on Earth, following its thoroughly documented
genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. The organization the Alliance
of Democracies conducts a comprehensive study every year called the Democracy
Perception Index.
This group is by no means biased
against Israel; it is in fact funded by Israel’s closest allies, including the
European Union, US government-financed organizations, Ukraine, Taiwan, and
major US corporations like Microsoft and Palantir.
….For its 2026 survey, the
Alliance of Democracies interviewed tens of thousands of people in 85
countries, and asked them for their opinion on 132 foreign states and
international organizations.The comprehensive study found that Israel is the
most disliked country on Earth — with an even lower approval rating than North
Korea and Afghanistan.
The United States, the main sponsor of Israel, is the
fifth-most hated country.
Most Americans support democracy
Jennifer
Rubin - As
the recently-released 17th American Values survey (a mammoth sampling of 5200
adults) reveals, we have a pro-democracy, reality-based 65 percent (or so)
majority, and a discrete radical minority — mostly white Christian nationalists
— that holds views the rest of the country find abhorrent. Unfortunately, the
latter group dominates one major party and holds disproportionate political
power.
….Two-thirds of Americans (68%)
say empathy is a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society,
while 27% say it can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a
society guided by God’s truth. The vast majority of Democrats (84%) and
independents (70%) agree that empathy helps build a healthy society, compared
with 54% of Republicans.
White evangelical Protestants are
the only religious group in which a majority does not agree that empathy is a
foundational moral value (42%). Instead, a majority (54%) say empathy can be
dangerous.
How carbon emissions need to be cut
The
Guardian - The world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a
fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid
overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin.
Although the “window has closed”
on holding temperature rises to 1.5C, in line with scientific advice, limiting
the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN
Environment Programme (Unep).
But countries are failing to
translate their long-term targets on reducing emissions into short-term
actions, a report on the “emissions gap” between climate goals and policies has
found.
Global carbon output appears to
have stalled: the emission levels in 2025 were broadly similar to those of the
previous year. But Unep analysts were wary of calling it a peak or plateau,
given the vast uncertainties of geopolitics and an increased reliance on fossil
fuels, despite strong growth in renewable energy.
Cutting greenhouse gases by 18%
by 2030, and by 45% by 2035, would yield a good chance of limiting temperature
rises to 1.7C above preindustrial levels. This would still allow events such as
the record heatwaves of the last few months to become frequent and common, but
could help prevent them from getting drastically worse.
Governments were warned for years that time was running out, said Inger Andersen, the executive director of Unep. “[We used to say] there’s still an opportunity if we make this herculean effort [to stay within the 1.5C limit],” she said. “It’s now clear the herculean effort was not made. We procrastinated, and now we are saying this window has closed.”
Ukraine
The
Hlll - President Trump’s warming
relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which may lead to a
trilateral summit of the United States, Russia and China to resolve the fate of
Ukraine, is getting strong pushback from Republicans in Congress.
Several Republicans have panned
the idea that Trump would huddle with Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, two
foreign leaders largely viewed in Congress as adversaries to American
interests, to cut a peace deal that Ukraine would be forced to accept.
….Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)
called a potential summit with Putin and Xi to decide Ukraine’s fate
“foolhardy” and “morally wrong.”
“To not include Ukraine is
nonsense,” he told Sirius XM’s “The Julie Mason Show.”
“Ukrainians have got to be part
of any peace deal. It’s not only essential because otherwise we won’t have
peace, but it’s also the right thing to do,” he added. “Russia is trying to
kill Americans around the world, covertly and overtly.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)
declared in a CNN interview that “Putin is playing President Trump like a
fiddle” and warned “history is not going to look good on an America that failed
to rise up and defend the Western world if Putin actually gets his way.”
The Guardian - Vladimir Putin ordered the release of an American from a Russian jail as he met Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday for fresh talks on ending the war in Ukraine, amid increasingly close relations between Moscow and Washington.
Trump had previously asked Putin to free Stephen Hubbard, a
74-year-old former teacher who had spent more than four years in Russian jails
on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.
His release appeared to be Moscow’s latest calculated move
to bring Trump further into line with Putin’s position on Ukraine, while
offering the US president a diplomatic victory before the midterm elections.
Trump Pushes to Evict the Press From the White House
NY Times - In late August, during one of Karoline Leavitt’s final meetings with President Trump in the Oval Office, he pitched her on an idea in front of several senior aides. He told her to move reporters out of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, which would effectively remove news organizations from the White House. It would be, he told her, her “last legacy.”
But the proposal never moved
forward while she was there. The president had put the request to her several
times over months, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions
who were not authorized to speak publicly. Ms. Leavitt officially stepped down
as White House press secretary on Aug. 27.
Mr. Trump has told aides he would
prefer to bring back the indoor pool President Franklin D. Roosevelt added in
1933 as therapy for his polio-afflicted legs; President Richard Nixon later
covered it over to make room for the news media. Journalists who are
credentialed to cover the White House work out of a small office space
connected to the press briefing room.
While moving the media out of the
White House may be a relatively small debate considering Mr. Trump’s attacks on
journalists more broadly, it would be highly symbolic. The proximity of the
media to the seat of U.S. executive power has long been an acknowledgment of
the importance of a free press in a constitutional democracy.
Trump is empowering Putin, abandoning Ukraine, and preparing to bargain with dictators over the future of the world. The Republicans are doing nothing...
Thom
Hartmann - What the hell is going on in the Republican Party?
Trump gutted his own Russia
sanctions law, cut a diesel deal with Putin, and is now talking about carving
up the world with Putin and Xi. Congress has the power to stop him right now:
why are Thune and Johnson still on vacation?
Yesterday Donald Trump told
reporters he’s ready to sit down with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Shenzhen
next month — apparently, a modern-day Yalta conference to carve up the world —
and that Ukraine’s president may not be invited to the meeting that will decide
Ukraine’s fate.
That came just three days after
he spit on the grave of Lindsey Graham by signing an executive order waiving
every operative section of the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act
that both houses of Congress had passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.
Gone are the 500 percent tariffs
on Russian goods, the secondary sanctions on Putin’s oil customers, and the
requirement that the sanctions stay in place until Russia made peace on terms
Ukraine accepted. All destroyed on a Friday night while Congress was out of
town. And now he’s publicly, shamelessly defending it and essentially daring
Republicans in Congress to do anything about it.
This all came a week after one of
Trump’s roughly every-two-weeks-since-he-was-sworn-in phone calls with Putin,
presumably to get his instructions on how to destroy American democracy, gut
our government, and hand Europe over to the revived USSR that Putin fantasizes
about.
Putin apparently ordered Trump to
end diesel sanctions and thus send him billions of dollars to build more drones
and glide bombs to kill more Ukrainian children, and Trump said, “Sir, yes
sir!”
…..While Democrats and average
Americans are furious, a tiny handful of Republicans have timidly objected.
October 20, 2026
5 hottest midterm battlegrounds
The
Hill - Here’s the five biggest battleground states to watch down the
home stretch.
Suspicious letters to members of Congress
Roll
Call - A wave of suspicious letters
mailed to members of Congress is likely to continue, House officials warned
Monday, describing a white powder in the envelopes.
So far, “none of the letters
received by Congressional offices have been determined to contain hazardous
substances,” according to a memo sent to members and staff and obtained by CQ
Roll Call.
But more offices may receive
similar letters “in the coming days,” House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland
wrote in the memo.
At least a few dozen House
Democrats have already spoken out about receiving suspicious mailings,
according to a review of social media posts and statements from lawmakers.
On Monday morning, Rep. Suhas
Subramanyam, D-Va., said his district office in Leesburg was evacuated after
receiving a suspicious envelope. “These acts of political intimidation have no
place in our country,” he said in a statement.
The FBI confirmed Thursday it was
working alongside the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to investigate “a series
of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including
Secretary of State offices and their related election offices.”
Donald Trump
Blue Book - And now,
the Trump administration is holding up the transfer of interceptors to Ukraine.
Many of the Patriot missiles are held by third-party countries that
want to send them to Ukraine, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has
to sign off on the transfer and has not so far. The missiles are key to
defending against drone attacks. It’s the latest in a series of moves that have
put the United States more unambiguously on Russia’s side than
ever before. Donald Trump yesterday: "Russia, frankly, has been fine on
Ukraine."
Alternet - President Donald Trump continues to show "highly concerning" signs of confusion and "seizure-like episodes" during public events, according to a psychologist who has been tracking his apparent symptoms, and things are not getting better.
Dr. John Paul Garrison is a
clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in body language cues, who also
produces numerous YouTube videos in which he uses his professional insights to
examine the behavior of public figures. Many of his recent videos have
concerned Trump, with Garrison suggesting that the president is suffering from
unavoidable physical and cognitive decline, based on several recurring
symptoms.
In his latest video, Garrison
examined some of Trump's recent appearances, pointing out "more highly
concerning behaviors" exhibited during them that tie into his
"apparent neurological decline." He began with Trump's White House
event related to an executive order on
women's health, in which he appeared to suffer another of his seizure-like
episodes, something that Garrison has noticed in an increasing number of his
public addresses.
"I've shown something very
similar a couple of times before where we saw activity go from his right arm to
his eyes to his mouth to his left arm," Garrison explained.
"Now, I've shown a wide variety of... neurological glitches, but this is
the one that appears to be most seizure-like."
He added later: "Now,
obviously, I have not personally evaluated President Trump, but what we are
observing certainly appears like seizure activity. We're seeing it
spread from one side of his body to his face to the other side. There are
many different reasons that people can experience this kind of neurological
dysfunction. A couple of examples being the effects
of a stroke or vascular dementia."
California climate change
NY
Times - In just a few decades,
summers in California will not only be much hotter, but will also stretch for
months longer. Floods will become more widespread and extreme. Exposure to
wildfire smoke will kill thousands more people every year.
Those are the dire projections of
California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment, a report produced by California
every few years that analyzes the impacts of changing weather patterns on the
nation’s most-populous state.
The future laid out in the
report, which was published on Monday, touches on familiar warnings: more
wildfires, bigger storms, longer droughts. But it illustrates in unsettling
detail just how quickly the climate is being reshaped, and reveals what is likely
to be major upheaval to long-established ways of life in California.
According to the report, average
temperatures are likely to increase in California by about 4 degrees Fahrenheit
by the middle of the century. Current warming in California is unprecedented
compared with the past century and estimates for the past millennium, the
report shows.
More and more, warm weather will
arrive in California earlier in the year and persist later, with summer
conditions lasting for 135 days on average by the middle of the century,
compared with an average of 90 days between 1981 and 2010, according to the report.
That prolonged summer will have widespread impacts, including on fire risk,
tourism, agriculture and wildlife.
The warmer conditions will also
mean a 40 percent reduction by midcentury in California’s snowpack in the
Sierra Nevada, which feeds the state’s reservoirs. What once fell as snow will
instead fall as rain and immediately become runoff. This will lead to more
severe droughts, according to the report.
Agriculture
Axios - The Iran war and
the Ukraine-Russia conflict are creating a "multidirectional
squeeze on world agriculture" that could spiral into a crisis, a new report finds.
Wars and extreme weather are
colliding to threaten global food supplies and drive up prices, especially in
vulnerable economies….
- The report explores how the El Niño phenomenon could
compound the problems of restricted supplies of key fertilizer
ingredients, higher fuel costs on the farm and more.
- The S&P Global Institute report is an unusually
holistic look at the topic.
The analysis comes
alongside new warnings about food from the International Monetary Fund.
- Its World Economic Outlook last week sees an overall
10% increase in fertilizer prices this year and food costs rising by 5% in
2026 and 2.4% in 2027, though it depends on the region.
- "Higher energy and food prices could have severe
effects on poverty and food security" and threaten political
stability in vulnerable economies, the IMF warned.
Food producers need steady
supplies of natural gas and sulfur for fertilizer, diesel for farm machinery
and food transport, and open sea lanes for trade, S&P notes.
- "Conflict is now testing all of them at once,
just as El Niño tests the harvest," states the report from the
research and consulting firm.
- "The risk is increasing, especially for
low-income countries, where food costs amount to about half of household
spending," it states…
A few stats via S&P
illustrate the overlapping threats.
- Middle Eastern prices for exported sulfur, a
fertilizer ingredient, reached a record $1,000 per metric ton in July,
after starting the year at a historically high $500 per metric ton.
- 47% of the global sulfur trade normally goes through
the Strait of Hormuz.
- In Indonesia, industrial use of palm oil, largely for
biodiesel, is expected to be roughly five times its 2015-16 level.
A global food crisis is by no
means certain.
- But if wars keep disrupting energy and fertilizer
supplies, and weather cuts harvests in key regions, "the elements of
such a crisis will be falling into place," S&P warns.
How does Musk get away with spending so much money on a political campaign?
Musk gets away with it because of the complexity and faults
in the national campaign spend laws. Here’s a Google description:
Google
- Elon Musk is able to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaigns because U.S. campaign
finance laws legally permit individuals to make unlimited independent political
expenditures, primarily through Super PACs. While direct donations to a
candidate's official campaign committee are strictly capped by federal law,
billionaires can legally bypass these limits by funding outside groups.
Elon Musk is able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars
on political campaigns because U.S. campaign finance laws legally permit
individuals to make unlimited independent political expenditures, primarily
through Super PACs. While direct donations to a candidate's official campaign
committee are strictly capped by federal law, billionaires can legally bypass
these limits by funding outside groups.
The legality of Musk’s massive political spending—which has
reached an estimated $366 million for the 2026 midterm election cycle
alone—stems from landmark legal precedents:
- Under
U.S. constitutional law, political spending is protected as a form of free
speech. The courts rule that every American has the right to spend as much
of their own money as they want on independent election communications.
- The
Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision allowed
individuals and corporations to give unlimited sums of money to
independent political action committees, commonly known as Super PACs.
The primary legal constraint on
Super PACs is that they are technically prohibited from coordinating directly
with a candidate’s official campaign. However, in practice, this restriction
has major gaps:
Outsourced Campaigns: Candidates
routinely rely on Super PACs to handle massive portions of their campaign
workload—such as funding door-to-door canvassing, voter turnout operations, and
local television or digital ads.
- Federal
law strictly prohibits companies with government contracts from donating
to federal campaigns or Super PACs. However, a major loophole allows the
individual executives of those companies (like Musk, whose companies
SpaceX and Tesla hold billions in government contracts) to spend personal
funds via Super PACs freely.
Even where restrictions exist on
paper, critics point out that the federal government lacks the teeth to step in.
- Federal
Election Commission (FEC), the primary agency tasked with enforcing
campaign finance laws, has historically failed to meaningfully intervene
in Super PAC coordination.
- Legal
experts from organizations like the Brennan Center for
Justice note that partisan deadlocks and periods without an active
quorum leave the FEC functionally unable to police the remaining rules
effectively.
Because his donations are routed
through independent entities like his own America PAC or established groups
like the Senate Leadership Fund, Musk's historic spending spree remains
entirely legal under current American law
October 19, 2026
The safest and most hazardous cities
Wallet Hub - To determine where Americans can feel most protected from life’s hazards, including nonphysical forms of danger, WalletHub compared more than 180 U.S. cities across 41 key metrics. The data set covers factors ranging from traffic fatalities and assaults per capita to the unemployment rate and the percentage of the population that is uninsured.
Safest vs. Least Safe
| Safest Cities in America | Least Safe Cities in America | |
| 1. Juneau, AK | 173. St. Louis, MO | |
| 2. Warwick, RI | 174. Cleveland, OH | |
| 3. Overland Park, KS | 175. Houston, TX | |
| 4. Burlington, VT | 176. Jacksonville, FL | |
| 5. South Burlington, VT | 177. Detroit, MI | |
| 6. Virginia Beach, VA | 178. Philadelphia, PA | |
| 7. Cedar Rapids, IA | 179. Memphis, TN | |
| 8. Casper, WY | 180. Baltimore, MD | |
| 9. Boise, ID | 181. Baton Rouge, LA | |
| 10. Yonkers, NY | 182. New Orleans, LA |
Safest vs. Least Safe
- Pembroke Pines, Florida, has the fewest aggravated assault incidents (per 100,000 residents), which is 51.7 times fewer than in Memphis, Tennessee, the city with the most.
- Port St. Lucie, Florida, has the fewest thefts (per 1,000 residents), which is 9.2 times fewer than in Dover, Delaware, the city with the most.
- New York City, has the most law-enforcement employees (per 100,000 residents), which is 4.9 times more than in Irvine, California, the city with the fewest.
- Plano, Texas, has among the fewest pedestrian fatalities (per 100,000 residents), which is 25.4 times fewer than in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the city with the most.
Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused
Donald Trump of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering to Russia,
escalating a week-long row with the US president. Zelenskyy also offered a new
proposal to accede to Trump’s request to stop targeting Russian refineries in
exchange for deliveries of more Patriot air-defense missiles. Meanwhile,
Vladimir Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and China’s Xi Jinping next month
to discuss
ending the war in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Donald Trump
Alternet
- One of the many ways that
President Donald Trump has been able to dodge paying his taxes is by using an
"environmental easement" for his Trump National Golf Course in
Florida. It's saved him $825 million, Forbes reported Monday, "give or take
a couple hundred million."
The bombshell expose recalls past
reports that Trump was using what's called a "conservation easement,"
which is an agreement that stops any future development unless it complies with
certain strict environmental standards. Typically, the restrictions can be so
tight that hardly anything can be built. Keeping the land is a tax write-off.
It gives a deduction that reduces taxable income, though it isn't a
dollar-for-dollar reduction in your tax bill. For Trump, that means a golf
course can remain a functioning, revenue-generating business while becoming a
major tax write-off.
Early voting
Daily
Kos - Early voting has begun in half of the country, and there may
be warning signs for Republicans in areas they need to win if they have any
shot of maintaining their House and Senate majorities.
Across 10 Senate battlegrounds, 53% of early and mail-in
votes have been cast by registered Democrats, while only 34% has been cast by
registered Republicans, according to data from NBC News. And in none of those
10 battlegrounds, which range from Kansas to Maine, have more votes been cast
by Republicans than Democrats.
Trump's Doctor Not Allowed to Leave His Side
Alternet America - Trump’s personal physician must remain within three minutes of him at all times, according to a new report. Trump’s primary physician, Navy captain Sean Barbabella, or a backup colleague, must be within three minutes of the president at all times, according to The Wall Street Journal. …Barbabella’s May 2026 health report said that AI-enhanced electrocardiogram analysis shows Trump’s cardiac age is about 14 years younger than his actual age. The military doctor said Trump was in excellent health and fit for duty, but advised him to reduce his aspirin intake, exercise more and change his diet.
What’s happened to the past?
Sam Smith - In a few weeks I will turn 89 which has led to some pondering about the end of life. One thing that has struck me is that when I pass so will most of what I remember. This is contrary to what many far more prominent figures think, assuming instead that they have not only made history but won’t lose it.
To test this, I recently thought
of what I had heard recently about Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. My
sum: very little. In fact, the New Deal and Great Society have largely disappeared
not only from the daily media but from our memories and actions as well.
This has led me to redefine my
past as a series of good or bad events and ideas that will largely fade away.
It’s more like a movie we go to, experience strongly, and then move on to other
thoughts and matters. The amount of my own past that has disappeared in my mind
supports this feeling.
As a journalist I became used to this early. One
covered a story and wrote it and then in a few days forgot about it. As a
musician, I experienced something similar. While I remembered tunes and played
them I soon forgot the gigs where I had done so.
This is not something one can
reform but it helps credit one’s thoughts and actions in a more accurate
fashion. We are much better at doing things than remembering them. Which helps
to explain why important matters – like ending ethnic bias – often don’t last
as long as we expect.
So in my remaining time, I will
continue to approach life as I have as a journalist: finding new ways to help
revive good causes, beliefs, and behavior, partially with the hope that this
time it will work better. And we won’t forget about it.
October 18, 2026
Donald Trump
NY
Times - President Trump said on
Sunday that his administration finalized plans to transform East Potomac Golf
Links in Washington into a “world class championship golf course,” saying the
municipal course would close within four weeks and that its replacement would
be playable in about 15 months.
The announcement set up another
frantic legal clash over the site. A federal judge ordered the administration
in July to present her with any long-term plans for the course and not to carry
out a surprise overhaul as the president had with the East Wing of the White
House and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The Interior Department appeared
to have done just that earlier this month, taking down hundreds of trees over a
holiday weekend and giving the court and a group suing to stop ay changes to
the course less than a day to react.
In a post on social media on
Sunday morning, Mr. Trump appeared to affirm what a historical-preservation
group and two Washington residents had warned of in a federal lawsuit: that the
administration might move to seize the existing course before they had a real
chance to oppose the plan.
Middle East
The
Guardian - Israeli settler militants have attacked European diplomats,
a French mayor and the archbishop of Cambrai in Taybeh, in the occupied West
Bank, injuring three people and damaging a car, in the latest violent attempt
to prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives on their own land. Bernard
Baudoux, mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries, was wearing his red, white and blue sash of
office and attempting to enter a vehicle with diplomatic plates when he was
assaulted and knocked to the ground on Saturday. The masked militant shouted
“Vive la France” as he launched the attack, a witness said. Badoux’s wife, and
Vincent Dollmann, archbishop of Cambrai, were also threatened by the group of
seven men, some armed with clubs….
Settlers first attacked a group working on the lower slopes
of hills near Taybeh. As well as stealing olives, they kicked, abused and
assaulted a Palestinian woman in her 70s and beat a man so badly he needed six
stitches for a head injury.
Should human beings remain in control of planet Earth?
Bernard Sanders, The Atlantic - Should human beings remain in control of planet Earth? Or should we be replaced as the dominant species? As absurd as these questions may sound, and as obvious as the answers may seem, the Big Tech oligarchs funding the artificial-intelligence revolution have responded in ways that should alarm all of us.
In Silicon Valley, some of the wealthiest people on Earth
believe that they have the power to create a superior species. Sam Altman, the
head of OpenAI, wrote in 2017 that AI would allow humans to become “the first
species ever to design our own descendants.” What this means for humans,
however, remains unclear. According to Altman, we will either jump-start
digital intelligence “and then fade into an evolutionary tree branch, or we can
figure out what a successful merge looks like.” In other words, humans have a
choice: face extinction or merge with machines. “I believe the merge has
already started,” Altman added, and is “probably our best-case scenario.”
Similarly, Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, has opened
up the possibility of rights for AI models. “We don’t know if the models are
conscious,” he explained, and added, “But we’re open to the idea that it could
be.”
Earlier this month, Elon Musk, the head of SpaceXAI and the
richest man on Earth, posted on X, “Propagating super intelligence to the stars
is a great success condition for a biological bootloader,” likening humans to
the programming that launches a computer’s operating system. Put simply, Musk
is saying that humans are merely a step toward digital superintelligence. Peter
Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Palantir and a major AI investor, was
asked last year if he would prefer that the human race endure. His response?
“Uh … Well, I don’t know. I would—I would … There’s so many questions implicit
in this,” he stammered, before reluctantly conceding that humans should
survive.
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