Russia going out of its way to remind the world it's terrible across the board...
Enlarge / Amina Abakarova allegedly spreading mercury on her rival's chess board.
Russia is no stranger to unique poisonings. State agents have been known to use everything from polonium-laced tea to the deadly nerve agent "novichok" when making assassination attempts against both defectors in the UK and internal political rivals like Alexei Navalny. But a new "first" in the long history of poisonings was opened this month in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where a 40-something chess player named Amina Abakarova attempted to poison a rival by depositing liquid mercury on and around her chess board.
Malcolm Pein, the English Chess Federation's director of international chess, told the UK's Telegraph that he had “never seen anything like this before... This is the first recorded case of somebody using a toxic substance, to my knowledge, in the history of the game of chess." Usually, he said, chess rivals confine themselves to "psychological" tactics.
Oliver Carroll, a Ukraine war correspondent for The Economist, summed up the situation with some social media snark: "I know that on the standards of Russian doping it's perhaps only a 7 out of 10. But still..."
On Wednesday, researchers at Google DeepMind revealed the first AI-powered robotic table tennis player capable of competing at an amateur human level. The system combines an industrial robot arm called the ABB IRB 1100 and custom AI software from DeepMind. While an expert human player can still defeat the bot, the system demonstrates the potential for machines to master complex physical tasks that require split-second decision-making and adaptability.
"This is the first robot agent capable of playing a sport with humans at human level," the researchers wrote in a preprint paper listed on arXiv. "It represents a milestone in robot learning and control."
The unnamed robot agent (we suggest "AlphaPong"), developed by a team that includes David B. D'Ambrosio, Saminda Abeyruwan, and Laura Graesser, showed notable performance in a series of matches against human players of varying skill levels. In a study involving 29 participants, the AI-powered robot won 45 percent of its matches, demonstrating solid amateur-level play. Most notably, it achieved a 100 percent win rate against beginners and a 55 percent win rate against intermediate players, though it struggled against advanced opponents.
An advertising industry initiative targeted by an Elon Musk lawsuit is "discontinuing" its activities and has deleted the member list from its website.
On Tuesday, Musk's X Corp. sued the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) over what X claims is an illegal boycott spearheaded by a WFA initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The WFA isn't disbanding but is halting GARM's activities, and the GARM member page now produces a 404 error. An archived version of the page from yesterday shows the initiative members, including X.
X's antitrust lawsuit has drawn skeptical responses from law professors, who say it will be difficult to prove that companies violated antitrust laws by stopping advertisements. But while X may never obtain financial damages from the advertising group or corporations like CVS and Unilever that it also named as defendants, fighting the lawsuit could be costly.
An anonymous reader shares a report: I'm not sure I knew of anyone, Borderlands fan or not, who believed that the movie adaptation of the game was going to be good, based on everything from casting to trailers. Now as reviews come in ahead of its release tomorrow, those fears have been validated. And then some. As I write this, the Borderlands movie has a flat 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. No positive reviews whatsoever, and the ones that are in are not just negative, but brutal.
Enlarge / A scene from Secret Invasion, a Disney+ exclusive. (credit: Marvel)
Yesterday, The Walt Disney company announced it will soon raise prices for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Today, it revealed that its streaming business has become profitable for the first time.
So if Disney is starting to make money, why has it decided to jack up prices... again?
Disney says it has “earned” higher prices
On October 17, pricing for ad and ad-free subscriptions to Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ will increase by as much as 25 percent, depending on the plan (you can see a breakdown of pricing changes here). The pending price hikes follow price increases for the platforms issued in October 2023 and August 2022.
Enlarge / Polio victim Larry Montoya is at the airport for the arrival of cases of vaccine, which were distributed as part of the KO Polio campaign, September 5, 1962. (credit: Getty | John McBride)
Public sentiment on the importance of safe, lifesaving childhood vaccines has significantly declined in the US since the pandemic—which appears to be solely due to a nosedive in support from people who are Republican or those who lean Republican, according to new polling data from Gallup.
In 2019, 52 percent of Republican-aligned Americans said it was "extremely important" for parents to get their children vaccinated. Now, that figure is 26 percent, falling by half in just five years. In comparison, 63 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said it was "extremely important" this year, down slightly from 67 percent in 2019.
Overall, only 40 percent of Americans now say it is extremely important for parents to vaccinate their children, down from 58 percent in 2019 and 64 percent in 2001.
After US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google has a monopoly in two markets—general search services and general text advertising—everybody is wondering how Google might be forced to change its search business.
Specifically, the judge ruled that Google's exclusive deals with browser and device developers secured Google's monopoly. These so-called default agreements funneled the majority of online searches to Google search engine result pages (SERPs), where results could be found among text ads that have long generated the bulk of Google's revenue.
At trial, Mehta's ruling noted, it was estimated that if Google lost its most important default deal with Apple, Google "would lose around 65 percent of its revenue, even assuming that it could retain some users without the Safari default."
It's a useful proving ground and an impressive effort
A single major sports event can generate up to 40 tons of trash. That’s the weight of two loaded charter buses being added to a landfill — and that waste doesn’t even take into account the energy used to power the stadium, or the gasoline-fueled cars so many fans drove to get there.
That’s why Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena — the first large-scale live events space named for a cause, not for a company — is leading the way on a greener alternative with a host of initiatives around energy, waste, transit, and beyond. In fact, Climate Pledge Arena and its resident teams, the Seattle Kraken and the Seattle Storm, are among the signatories of The Climate Pledge, a coalition of companies that are committed to reaching an ambitious goal: achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. This September marks the fifth anniversary of the Pledge, which was co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism in 2019. Over 500 signatory companies have signed on since.
As the growing movement to fight climate change focuses around the need for massive, cross-industry collaboration, signatories in the entertainment and sports industries are coming together to address their environmental impact collectively. In the case of Climate Pledge Arena, that means devising innovative solutions to make the future of live events more sustainable.
Oak View Group, which operates Climate Pledge Arena and 400 other venues worldwide is also a signatory of the Pledge. Kristen Fulmer, head of sustainability for Oak View Group, says the arena’s environmental achievements also have a broader impact: helping inspire other signatories and venues globally. Fulmer also serves as director of GOAL, or Green Operations & Advanced Leadership, Oak View Group’s sustainability working group that pulls together leaders from 40 event spaces in the U.S., U.K., and Canada.
“Sustainability doesn’t just show up in [new] venues,” Fulmer said. “We’re pushing out goals and minimum standards to all of our venue operations teams, and providing them with support and resources to make sure that they know what sustainability looks like for the Iowa Events Center just as much as it does [for] the Climate Pledge Arena.”
Climate Pledge Arena’s success story demonstrates some of the tangible actions that Pledge signatories can take, starting with energy. Everything in the arena, from the heat that warms attendees to the machines that resurface the hockey rink ice, runs on electric power. Currently, one percent of that power is provided by on-site solar panels, and the rest comes from other renewable sources, according to Rob Johnson, senior vice president of sustainability and transportation for the Climate Pledge Arena and the Seattle Kraken.
Siemens, a fellow Climate Pledge signatory, has been helping with further energy-reduction methods for the 18,100-seat arena, “starting with tracking and sub-metering to understand exactly where the building energy systems are using the most power, and what we can really do to reduce those emissions,” Johnson said.
“To see the number of venues … jumping on calls to ask questions about how we’re doing it has been powerful.”
And the environmental sustainability initiatives go beyond traditional “green” building operations. The arena also offers free local public transit with every ticket to encourage fans to choose options like light rail or the bus over driving to events. Rainwater collected from all those rainy Seattle days is even used to make the hockey rink’s ice, which Johnson said has already saved more than 400,000 gallons of water over the past three seasons. The food program prioritizes local sourcing, with a goal to source 75 percent of ingredients from within a 300-mile radius of the arena.
Plus, its 22,000-ton roof (which was built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and has official historical landmark designation) was preserved while the new arena was built under it. That significantly reduced the 41,000 metric tons of carbon emissions associated with construction, according to Johnson.
The arena’s approach is inspiring groups worldwide — from Eastern European hockey clubs to Japanese arena developers — who regularly request more info about its initiatives, Johnson said. “To see the number of venues who … are asking us for tours or jumping on calls to ask questions about how we’re doing it has been powerful,” he said.
Getting to zero-waste
One of Climate Pledge Arena’s most talked-about recent achievements has been its TRUE Platinum certification for operating as a functionally zero-waste facility. To achieve that, the venue diverts more than 90 percent of its waste from the landfill to recycling and compost.
Hitting that zero-waste target took a three-pronged approach, said Brianna Treat, director of sustainability for the arena and the Seattle Kraken. The first step was simplifying procurement, which involved shifting the products for sale. Only products with compostable food contents and recyclable packaging can now be purchased. Single-use plastics have also been eliminated. The Arena achieved this milestone in October 2023, well ahead of the 2024 goal.
“Even just small, incremental changes can really help reduce big numbers.”
Finally, the team overhauled how the cleaning staff does the “bowl sweep” to collect trash after events. Instead of having crews collect all items in one bag and then sort them later into separate bags for landfill, recycling, and compost, the cleaners started sorting as they did the bowl sweep. “We saved so much time that we actually went from needing 10 housekeepers to four to six every event just because of that very simple approach to our operations,” Treat said. “The bowl sweep was huge for us, because it saved us money on the back-of-house front, but it also saved us a lot of time on the sorting front. It takes 10 hours to sort through 10 tons of waste.
Then, there was fan education. Signs at each disposal station, for instance, show the 30 most-sold items in the stadium and specify where each should be tossed so there’s no guessing. The team has even strapped a camera to a soda bottle to show where it goes after being binned.
Climate Pledge Arena’s zero-waste performance is well beyond the average landfill diversion rate for GOAL network members (90 percent vs. 32 percent). But to Fulmer, it’s more about appreciating the overall progress. “That’s over one-third of their waste not going to landfill or being incinerated,” she said. “If we total that up across the number of events that these venues host and then across the whole portfolio, that’s substantial. Even just small, incremental changes can really help reduce big numbers.”
snydeq writes: CSO Online's Evan Schuman reports on a design flaw in Microsoft Authenticator that causes it to often overwrite authentication accounts when a user adds a new one via QR scan. "But because of the way the resulting lockout happens, the user is not likely to realize the issue resides with Microsoft Authenticator. Instead, the company issuing the authentication is considered the culprit, resulting in wasted corporate helpdesk hours trying to fix an issue not of that company's making."
Schuman writes: "The core of the problem? Microsoft Authenticator will overwrite an account with the same username. Given the prominent use of email addresses for usernames, most users' apps share the same username. Google Authenticator and just about every other authenticator app add the name of the issuer -- such as a bank or a car company -- to avoid this issue. Microsoft only uses the username."
The flaw appears to have been in place since Authenticator was released in 2016. Users have complained about this issue in the past to no avail. In its two correspondences with Schuman, Microsoft first laid blame on users, then on issuers. Several IT experts confirmed the flaw, with one saying, "It's possible that this problem occurs more often than anyone realizes because [users] don't realize what the cause is. If you haven't picked an authentication app, why would you pick Microsoft?"
This election is on. And the Democratic ticket is showing no mercy.
Vice President Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, to America on Tuesday, where they had a blast swinging at Donald Trump and his running mate, fake hillbilly JD Vance.
“In fact, when you compare his resume to Trump’s running mate,” Harris said of Walz, “well, some might say it's like a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad.”
Gee, you mean bundling and consolidation harms consumers? No shit
Enlarge / A scene from the new season of Doctor Who, which is streaming on Disney+. (credit: Disney+)
Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ will get more expensive as of October 17, whether users have a subscription with or without ads. After most recently jacking up streaming prices in October 2023, The Walt Disney Company is raising subscription fees by as much as 25 percent, depending on the streaming service and plan.
Here's how pricing will look in October compared to now:
Now
As of October 17
Disney+ with ads
$8/month
$10/month
Disney+ without ads
$14/month
$140/year
$16/month
$160/year
Hulu with ads
$8/year
$80/year
$10/month
$100/year
Hulu without ads
$18/month
$19/month
Hulu and Live TV with ads
$77/month
$83/month
Hulu and Live TV without ads
$90/month
$96/month
Disney+ and Hulu with ads
$10/month
$11/month
Disney+ and Hulu without ads
$20/month
No change
ESPN+
$11/month
$110/year
$12/month
$120/year
Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ with ads
$15
No change
Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ without ads
$25
No change
Disney didn't announce any pricing changes for the bundle that contains Disney+, sister streaming service Hulu, and Warner Bros. Discovery's rival streaming platform, Max.
Anti-abortion activists were in hysterics Tuesday after Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America released a statement declaring that "Kamala Harris and Tim Walz make up the most pro-abortion presidential ticket America has ever seen."
As if that’s a bad thing. In fact, it’s by design.
Yes, Vice President Harris is unabashedly pro-choice. She’s been the Biden administration’s envoy on reproductive rights issues for the past year—and her message couldn’t be clearer.
I do believe when you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for. We stand for the freedom of every American, including the freedom of every person everywhere to make decisions—about their own body, their own health care and their own doctor. So we fight for reproductive rights and legislation that restores the protections of Roe v. Wade. And here’s the thing. The majority of Americans are with us, they agree.
Americans believe in freedom. And we will not allow you to destroy our most basic rights and principles.
Harris’ vice presidential pick Walz is right there with her. As Minnesota governor, he signed a sweeping reproductive rights bill into law in January 2023, ensuring that the state’s existing protections remain in place and out of the reach of future court decisions.
“After last year’s landmark election across this country, we’re the first state to take legislative action to put these protections in place,” Walz proudly announced at the bill signing.
He followed that up in April 2023 by signing three more bills into law, making Minnesota a safe haven for people from other states seeking abortions and gender-affirming care, as well as banning anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy in the state.
“Today, we’re protecting the rights of Minnesotans and making sure our state remains a place where people have the freedom to get the care they need to live their fullest lives,” Walz said at the time.
When the Alabama Supreme Court put access to fertility treatments in jeopardy earlier this year, Walz briefly shared his family’s experience with in vitro fertilization—that’s how he and his wife were able to conceive their children, Hope and Gus—in his state of the state address.
"If you have never personally gone through the hell of infertility, I guarantee you someone you know has," Walz said during the speech.
In an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he talked about that hell and recalled the day his wife called him, crying.
“I said, ‘Not again,’” Walz recalled. “She said, ‘No, I’m pregnant.’ It’s not by chance that we named our daughter Hope.”
Harris has already put Donald Trump’s anti-abortion extremism in the spotlight by calling red-state bans on the procedure “Trump abortion bans.” She has also highlighted the GOP nominees’ hard-line line stances on the issue, from Trump’s openness to prosecuting women who have had abortions to his running mate JD Vance’s opposition to rape and incest exceptions in abortion bans.
Trump and Vance might be trying to run away from their abortion stances, but neither side—the anti-abortion extremists or the Democrats—will be letting that happen. The hard right won’t stop until they get a national abortion ban and the Democrats won’t stop until abortion rights are the law of the land again.
Because that’s what voters want. America is pro-choice, and that will be a crucial issue in this election.
The newly minted Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wasted no time in releasing its first campaign ad. The video introduces Harris’ new running mate to the American voter, and it is excellent.
Walz leaned on his small-town background, saying that his community taught him “to be generous toward my neighbors, compromise without compromising my values, and to work for the common good.”
“And so when I went into government, that's what I carried with me. I worked with Republicans to pass an infrastructure bill, cut taxes for working families, signed paid leave into law. I codified abortion rights after Roe [v. Wade] got overturned,” he continued.
He ended with a powerful pitch to recenter the election on how the Harris-Walz ticket will help American people:
But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Because that’s what this election is about. It’s about your future. It’s about your family. And Vice President Harris knows that. She, too, grew up in a middle-class family. She, too, goes to work every day, making sure families cannot just get by but get ahead.
We believe in the promise of America, in those values I learned in Nebraska. And we’re ready to fight for them, because, as Kamala Harris says, "When we fight, we win.”
Growing up, I learned to be generous toward my neighbors, compromise without compromising my values, and to work for the common good.@KamalaHarris and I both believe in that common good – in that fundamental promise of America. We’re ready to fight for it. And like she says:… pic.twitter.com/5SfrDRqx7C
Enlarge / It's a tale as old as, well, time. (credit: Aurich Lawson)
Google's story over the last two decades has been a tale as old as time: enshittification for growth. The once-beloved startup—with its unofficial "Don't Be Evil" motto—has instead become a major Internet monopolist, as a federal judge ruled on Monday, dominating the market for online search. Google is also well-known for its data-harvesting practices, for constantly killing off products, and for facilitating the rise of brain-cell-destroying YouTubers who make me Fear for Today's Youth. (Maybe that last one is just me?)
Google's rapid rise from "scrappy search engine with doodles" to "dystopic mega-corporation" has been remarkable in many ways, especially when you consider just how much goodwill the company squandered so quickly. Along the way, though, Google has achieved one unexpected result: In a divided America, it offers just about everyone something to hate.
Here are just a few of the players hating Google today.
Vice President Kamala Harris has decided on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in her bid for the White House, according to people familiar with the choice. The 60-year-old Democrat and military veteran rose to the forefront with a series of plain-spoken television appearances in the days after President Joe Biden decided not to seek a second term. He has made his state a bastion of liberal policy and, this year, one of the few states to protect fans buying tickets online for Taylor Swift concerts and other live events.
Her choice of Walz was confirmed by three people familiar with the decision who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because it had not been made public.
Some things to know about Walz:
WALZ COMES FROM RURAL AMERICA
It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz. Born in West Point, Nebraska, a community of about 3,500 people northwest of Omaha, Walz joined the Army National Guard and became a teacher in Nebraska.
He and his wife moved to Mankato in southern Minnesota in the 1990s. That's where he taught social studies and coached football at Mankato West High School, including for the 1999 team that won the first of the school's four state championships. He still points to his union membership there.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring from a field artillery battalion in 2005 as a command sergeant major, one of the military's highest enlisted ranks.
HE HAS A PROVEN ABILITY TO CONNECT WITH CONSERVATIVE VOTERS
In his first race for Congress, Walz upset a Republican incumbent. That was in 2006, when he won in a largely rural, southern Minnesota congressional district against six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht. Walz capitalized on voter anger with then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
During six terms in the U.S. House, Walz championed veterans' issues.
He’s also shown a down-to-earth side, partly through social media video posts with his daughter, Hope. One last fall showed them trying a Minnesota State Fair ride, “The Slingshot,” after they bantered about fair food and her being a vegetarian.
HE COULD HELP THE TICKET IN KEY MIDWESTERN STATES
While Walz isn't from one of the crucial “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where both sides believe they need to win, he's right next door. He also could ensure that Minnesota stays in the hands of Democrats.
That's important because former President Donald Trump has portrayed Minnesota as being in play this year, even though the state hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. A GOP presidential candidate hasn't carried the state since President Richard Nixon's landslide in 1972, but Trump has already campaigned there.
When Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decided not to seek a third term in 2018, Walz campaigned and won the office on a “One Minnesota” theme.
Walz also speaks comfortably about issues that matter to voters in the Rust Belt. He's been a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers' rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.
HE HAS EXPERIENCE WITH DIVIDED GOVERNMENT
In his first term as governor, Walz faced a Legislature split between a Democratic-led House and a Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, health care, and roads. But he and lawmakers brokered compromises that made the state's divided government still seem productive.
Bipartisan cooperation became tougher during his second year as he used the governor's emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools. Republicans pushed back and forced out some agency heads. Republicans also remain critical of Walz over what they see as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Things got easier for Walz in his second term, after he defeated Republican Scott Jensen, a physician known nationally as a vaccine skeptic. Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, clearing the way for a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus.
Rejecting Republican pleas that the state budget surplus be used to cut taxes, Democrats funded free school meals for children, free tuition at public colleges for students in families earning under $80,000 a year, a paid family and medical leave program and health insurance coverage regardless of a person's immigration status.
HE HAS AN EAR FOR SOUND-BITE POLITICS
Walz called Republican nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance “just weird” in an MSNBC interview last month and the Democratic Governors Association—which Walz chairs—amplified the point in a post on X. Walz later reiterated the characterization on CNN, citing Trump’s repeated mentions of the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.
The word quickly morphed into a theme for Harris and other Democrats, and has a chance to be a watchword of the undoubtably weird 2024 election.
The stock market took a hit Monday, with the Dow Jones Index closing 612 points lower on the heels of an unexpected jump in the unemployment rate and rising fear of a recession. The unfortunate news was met with glee from the GOP. The gloating started at the top of the Republican ticket, with Donald Trump attempting to pin the blame for the drop on Vice President Kamala Harris, proclaiming a “KAMALA CRASH” on his struggling social media site.
Conservative media and pundits predictably jumped on the fearmongering bandwagon to predict that Monday’s stock market numbers are a harbinger of recessions to come. But one Fox News personality bucked the trend.
“The Donald Trump thing in the market amazes me,” Fox News’ Neil Cavuto said on his show, Monday. “When they're up, it's all because of him, and looking forward to him. When they're down, it's all because [of] the Democrats, and how horrific they are. Some of our biggest point falloffs, three of the biggest of the top 10, occurred during his administration.”
While Cavuto has been a target of the MAGA faithful, that didn’t stop him from calling out the confusing and contradictory messaging from the right.
“You either own the markets or you don’t,” Cavuto said. “It does confuse me.”
The Senate has one big job in the remaining months of President Joe Biden’s term: getting his judges confirmed and balancing out Donald Trump’s court packing. Republicans are doing what they do best—obstructing—but there’s a fix for that if Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin will use it.
Biden’s behind in getting his judicial nominations through the Senate, especially on district judges, according to Brookings. Biden will need “19 more district confirmations to match Trump’s 177,” by the end of his term. But Republicans aren’t playing, and Durbin is still honoring the blue slip courtesy for these district court nominations.
Blue slips are the pesky, and archaic, tradition of honoring home state senators’ wishes in picking judges. They are literally the blue pieces of paper senators provide to the committee to show they’re in agreement with the administration on nominees from their home states. Blue slips have always been a courtesy, never a constitutional requirement or even a Senate rule. Durbin has lifted the requirement for appeals court judges, but kept it in place for district courts.
True to form, Republicans have weaponized the process, just like they did during President Barack Obama’s tenure.
The most recent example is in North Carolina, where Sen. Thom Tillis is fighting the administration over two district appointees because he disagrees with Biden on an appellate nominee. Appellate courts review procedures and trial court decisions to make sure things are fair and proper laws are applied. Not filling these vacancies means the Middle District of North Carolina “will face some substantial challenges,” Chief Judge Catherine Eagles told Bloomberg, due to very large judge caseloads.
“While our efforts will slow down the development of a civil backlog, the longer the vacancies last, the harder it will be,” Eagles said. In other words, justice will be delayed—and thus denied—for North Carolinians.
In Mississippi, GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith held up Biden’s nomination of Scott Colom from the day it was announced on Oct. 14, 2022. Colom’s nomination expired in January of this year, and he hasn’t been renominated. The vacancy he was intended to fill has been open for more than 1,000 days thanks to Hyde-Smith. Her reason for opposing the nomination was that Colom had support from progressive organizations. The state’s other senator, Roger Wicker, returned his blue slip and supported the nomination.
Even the least conservative of the GOP senators—Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski—is resisting approving district judges. The state was recently rocked by the resignation of one of its three district judges—Joshua Kindred, a Trump appointee—over sexual misconduct allegations. Another of the three seats has been vacant since 2021, leaving just one active judge and five “senior” judges who are semi-retired for the state.
Murkowski and her colleague Sen. Dan Sullivan told the Anchorage Daily News that they are “moving cautiously to fill both open seats.”
These vacancies in Alaska and Mississippi have created a judicial emergency in district courts in those states according to the Judicial Conference. The conference defines an emergency as where a combination of caseload and length of vacancy puts a strain on the courts, and where there is only one active judge.
Among the nine states that have judicial emergencies, seven of them are in states with Republican senators: Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas. Few of these vacancies have nominees at this point.
Biden and the Democratic Senate can solve that in his remaining months. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the New York Times he has a goal: “Putting more judges in before Dec. 31, even though we think we’re going to win the election, is a very high priority. … I’m going to do everything I can.”
And, of course, put an end to those pesky blue slips.
Enlarge / Federal Communication Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, then a commissioner, rallies against repeal of net neutrality rules in December 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla)
The Federal Communications Commission's hopes of enforcing net neutrality rules was dealt a major setback last week. A panel of appeals court judges blocked the regulations on Thursday in a ruling that said broadband providers are likely to win the case on the merits.
The US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit previously issued an administrative stay that delayed enforcement of the rules for a few weeks, which didn't necessarily indicate much about the judges' view of the lawsuit. But on Thursday, the judges issued an order that stays the net neutrality rules until the court makes a final ruling, and judges made it clear they believe the Internet service providers have a stronger case than the FCC.
"Because the broadband providers have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits and that the equities support them, we grant the stay," a panel of three judges wrote in the unanimous ruling.
Google's payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing a key victory to the Justice Department. From a report: Judge Amit Mehta in Washington said that the Alphabet unit's $26 billion in payments effectively blocked any other competitor from succeeding in the market. Antitrust enforcers alleged that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly over online search and related advertising. The government said that Google has paid Apple, Samsung and others billions over decades for prime placement on smartphones and web browsers. This default position has allowed Google to build up the most-used search engine in the world, and fueled more than $300 billion in annual revenue largely generated by search ads.
So, let me get this right: Musk is suing because OpenAI didn't open source everything so he could lock it all down for his private profit with Tesla? Go fuck yourself Elon.
After withdrawing his lawsuit in June for unknown reasons, Elon Musk has revived a complaint accusing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of fraudulently inducing Musk to contribute $44 million in seed funding by promising that OpenAI would always open-source its technology and prioritize serving the public good over profits as a permanent nonprofit.
Instead, Musk alleged that Altman and his co-conspirators—"preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence"—always intended to "betray" these promises in pursuit of personal gains.
As OpenAI's technology advanced toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) and strove to surpass human capabilities, "Altman set the bait and hooked Musk with sham altruism then flipped the script as the non-profit’s technology approached AGI and profits neared, mobilizing Defendants to turn OpenAI, Inc. into their personal piggy bank and OpenAI into a moneymaking bonanza, worth billions," Musk's complaint said.
Great, now how toxic is it to humans? I keep hearing about the antibiotic itself but never how we'll tolerate it
A new type of antibiotic "targets bacteria in two ways," writes SciTechDaily, which "could make it 100 million times harder for bacteria to develop resistance, according to recent research from the University of Illinois Chicago."
Their experiments demonstrate that [a class of synthetic drugs called] macrolones can work two different ways — either by interfering with protein production or corrupting DNA structure. Because bacteria would need to implement defenses to both attacks simultaneously, the researchers calculated that drug resistance is nearly impossible. "The beauty of this antibiotic is that it kills through two different targets in bacteria," said Alexander Mankin, distinguished professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UIC. "If the antibiotic hits both targets at the same concentration, then the bacteria lose their ability to become resistant via the acquisition of random mutations in any of the two targets."
Macrolones are synthetic antibiotics that combine the structures of two widely used antibiotics with different mechanisms. Macrolides, such as erythromycin, block the ribosome, the protein manufacturing factories of the cell. Fluoroquinolones, such as ciprofloxacin, target a bacteria-specific enzyme called DNA gyrase.... "The main outcome from all of this work is the understanding of how we need to go forward," Mankin said. "And the understanding that we're giving to chemists is that you need to optimize these macrolones to hit both targets."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
More ways the Boomers fucked everyone who came after them
"Generation X and millennials are at an increased risk of developing certain cancers compared with older generations," reports the Washington Post, "a shift that is probably due to generational changes in diet, lifestyle and environmental exposures, a large new study suggests."
Researchers from the American Cancer analyzed data from more than 23.5 million patients who had been diagnosed with 34 types of cancer from 2000 to 2019 — and also studied mortality data that included 7 million deaths in the U.S. from 25 types of cancer among people ages 25 to 84.
[The researchers reported] that cancer rates for 17 of the 34 most common cancers are increasing in progressively younger generations. The findings included:
- Cancers with the most significant increased risk are kidney, pancreatic and small intestine, which are two to three times as high for millennial men and women as baby boomers.
- Millennial women also are at higher risk of liver and bile duct cancers compared with baby boomers.
- Although the risk of getting cancer is rising, for most cancers, the risk of dying of the disease stabilized or declined among younger people. But mortality rates increased for gallbladder, colorectal, testicular and uterine cancers, as well as for liver cancer among younger women.
"It is a concern," said Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president of the American Cancer Society's surveillance and health equity science department, who was the senior author of the study. If the current trend continues, the increased cancer and mortality rates among younger people may "halt or even reverse the progress that we have made in reducing cancer mortality over the past several decades," he added.
While there is no clear explanation for the increased cancer rates among younger people, the researchers suggest that there may be several contributing factors, including rising obesity rates; altered microbiomes from unhealthy diets high in saturated fats, red meat and ultra-processed foods or antibiotic use; poor sleep; sedentary lifestyles; and environmental factors, including exposure to pollutants and carcinogenic chemicals.
Susie Wiles, a top adviser to Donald Trump’s campaign, told surrogates on Wednesday morning that hammering their latest talking points — hitting Kamala Harris as “weak, failed, and dangerously liberal” — would be their messaging priority until advised otherwise.
Trump's upcoming appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago came up only briefly, said a person with knowledge of the discussion.
Hours later their messaging plan was in disarray, with Trump’s remarks in Chicago questioning Harris’s racial identity — “She happened to turn Black,” he said — jolting the race and upending the news cycle.
It was perhaps the most vivid illustration yet of how, for all of its sophistication compared to Trump’s 2016 and 2020 operations, even a more professionalized Trump campaign is no match for the impulses of the candidate himself.
Within hours of the disastrous NABJ interview, Trump pushed his own narrative further at a Pennsylvania rally, displaying an old article proclaiming Harris as the “first Indian-American US senator.” The next day, Trump posted on Truth Social that Harris’ “warmth, friendship and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated,” showing an old photo of Harris with family members wearing traditional Indian clothing. Echoing the birtherism of his first campaign, Trump also reposted a purported copy of her birth certificate listing her mother and father’s respective birthplaces as India and Jamaica.
After scrambling since Harris entered the race to find a way to stop her climb, the Trump operation before Wednesday had settled on a policy-focused attack centered on immigration.
Trump stepped all over it.
It wasn’t an entirely new line of attack. In 2019, Donald Trump Jr. shared and then deleted a Twitter post calling Harris “not an American Black.” But his remarks came as he has courted Black voters aggressively since leaving the White House, seeming to make some inroads with the traditionally-Democratic constituency, especially among men. The former president’s remarks on Wednesday threatened to undercut his outreach to those voters.
Trump’s appearance at the NABJ conference almost didn’t happen. Weeks ago, the association invited Trump to come to its convention in Chicago. The final plans, according to a person familiar with the event, including who would moderate a special panel with the former president, were not pieced together until the weekend.
The appearance got off to a rocky start within minutes of Trump’s arrival. Technical issues with the microphones delayed the start, and Trump’s advisers became upset when they were informed the Q&A would feature a live fact check online by Politifact, which had partnered with the convention for the event, according to the person familiar with the event. Trump’s advisers were concerned he was being treated differently than previous guests, the person said.
Backstage, top aides to Trump got on the phone to come to an understanding, and NABJ prepared for the possibility that the former president might back out at the last minute.
The decision to go to Chicago confused some Trump allies, who didn’t think he would get fair treatment. But Trump has shown an eagerness to appear on — and provoke the audiences — of adversarial platforms, like CNN last year and the Libertarian National Convention in May. Trump was “trying to show strength,” said a person with knowledge of the situation, when he decided to go to the NABJ.
The plan was for Trump to do the one-hour long live interview and then fly to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he was holding an evening rally. But the interview was cut short and Trump left the convention fending off criticisms over his answers to the moderators.
The interview was moderated by three journalists the Trump campaign knew: ABC News’ Rachel Scott, who covers him on the campaign trail, Semafor’s Kadia Goba who interviewed him at Mar-a-lago about Black America, and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, who interviewed him on the morning of the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
But the event soured quickly after Scott asked Trump directly about race-related controversies and noted internal debate at the NABJ about his invitation.
He drew jeers from the crowd when he attacked Harris over her race and accused her of embracing her Indian or Black ethnicity only when it was politically convenient.
Afterward, Trump privately expressed surprise at the tone of the questions, given the NABJ’s invitation, according to a person familiar with his thinking and granted anonymity to speak freely.
Senior Trump campaign adviser Lynne Patton, who is Black, directed her ire at the media in a statement, deriding what she called “unhinged and unprofessional commentary” about Trump while maintaining that he “has continually said that unlike Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, he’s running to be President for ALL Americans, and if you’re running to unite the entire Country, you have to back it up with action like President Trump did today at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago.”
Even before he had walked off the stage in Chicago — just over halfway into what was originally billed as a one-hour interview — the fallout was already severe. Trump’s team ahead of the event had already lined up Black surrogates to go on television, but was “looking for help,” said a person with knowledge of the requests, and began reaching out asking them to publicly defend him online.
They did. A series of elected officials, including GOP Reps. Wesley Hunt, Byron Donalds and Sen. Tim Scott, took to social media to praise Trump for showing up for the event. Within 20 minutes, as the interview was still going, entertainer and Trump supporter Amber Rose and conservative commentator Leo Terrell posted nearly identical messages on X: “President Trump is absolutely crushing this interview with @NABJ,” Rose said, with fire emojis. “President Trump is crushing this NABJ interview!” followed Terrell.
Trump’s team quickly reposted the supportive messages from the surrogates on his Truth Social feed.
One adviser to Trump’s campaign, granted anonymity to speak freely, downplayed the effect of the NABJ incident, noting that news coverage by Thursday had mostly moved on to other topics.
Since the spring, Trump has appeared at the Black Conservative Federation Gala in South Carolina, took part in a panel discussion at a Black congregation in Detroit, and held a rally in New York City’s South Bronx, where he appeared onstage with rappers and announced his “Black Americans for Trump” coalition. At each event, he has touted his administration’s economic record, claimed illegal immigration is hurting Black workers, and has tried to equate his mugshot and criminal convictions with discrimination faced by Black Americans — a provocative appeal some critics have described as racist.
Following Trump’s remarks on Wednesday, the Trump campaign adviser who downplayed the effect of the NABJ incident nevertheless conceded that talk of Harris’ race was a “trap he fell into.”
“There’s no upside for having that kind of discussion. They baited the trap,” the adviser said. “We need to stay out of traps.”
After months of back and forth, Intel has finally agreed to extend the warranty on all affected 13th- and 14th-generation desktop CPUs by an additional two years. This extension increases the warranty period for new boxed Intel CPUs from three to five years. For CPUs pre-installed in systems, Intel directs users to contact their PC's manufacturer for support, maintaining its established channels for warranty claims. The Verge adds: Intel has said that a primary cause of the instability issues for the desktop CPUs was due to an "elevated operating voltage" and that it was working on a patch for mid-August that addresses the root cause of that. But the patch apparently won't fix any damage that's already happened, meaning the best way to fix a damaged chip is to replace it.
Hint: the "it's ok to rape prisoners" is the set that's SUPER excited about Trump.
Far-right Israelis demonstrate at Sde Teman military base on July 29, 2024. | Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images
As the Gaza war escalates in Lebanon and Tehran, Israel has been thrown into a new domestic crisis: a collapse of the rule of law that threatens to tear Israeli society apart.
Shortly after the raid, far-right demonstrators — including some reserve soldiers and sitting parliamentarians from Israel’s current government — began rioting against the arrest.
The rioters tore down Sde Teiman’s exterior fence and entered its premises, hoping to free the detained soldiers by force. Footage showed Zvi Sukkot, a far-right member of the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament), amid the mob assailing the base. When they failed to find the soldiers, a mob attacked another military base — one that houses the headquarters of Israel’s military court system.
Eventually, Israeli authorities restored order without surrendering any soldiers to the mob (two were later released without charges). Yet multiple right-wing parties in the current ruling coalition issued statements condemning the soldiers’ arrest and even defending participation in the mob.
Even now, as a wider war with Hezbollah and Iran looms, Israel remains deeply divided over an incident that feels a lot like the US torture abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib and the January 6 riot rolled into one. Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Knesset (MK) from an Arab political party, asked during a parliamentary debate over the abuses at Sde Teiman if “inserting an explosive into the rectum of a person [is] legitimate.” In response, Hanoch Milvetsky — a member from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party — said that when it came to Hamas commandos, “everything is legitimate.”
It’s a situation that reflects Israel’s basic bifurcation: a country that is simultaneously a democracy within its recognized borders and a lawless authoritarian state in the Palestinian territory it controls. It is an unbearable tension, one that has increasingly led the domestic democracy Israel is so proud of to begin resembling its authoritarian shadow.
The riot at Sde Teiman shows exactly how this process works — and why it has led even some sober Israeli analysts to begin fretting about civil war.
How the chaos at Sde Teiman happened
What happened at Sde Teiman this week is the consequence of two opposing legal systems crashing into each other.
After Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, it faced a classic conqueror’s dilemma: How do you administer land where the majority of people who live there oppose your presence?
Israel’s solution was to forgo formally annexing the territories and instead set up a military regime that would “temporarily” govern until a more permanent solution could be found. A special department of the Israeli military called the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, was charged with managing the governing tasks necessary for Palestinian civilian life to function. The Israeli general in charge of COGAT was in essence the governor of the West Bank: the head of a military regime whose legal system differed fundamentally from the one at work inside Israel.
Inside Israel proper, political leaders are determined by elections and citizens of all religions have basic rights, like freedom of speech and rights to due process. In Israeli-occupied Palestine, the leader is an unelected general who affords few basic rights to Palestinian civilians. Things that would be scandals if done to citizens in Israel, like torture of suspects in custody, are fairly common in the West Bank and have been so before the current war.
That doesn’t apply to the settlers, Israeli Jews who live in the West Bank. They are legally entitled to all the privileges attendant with Israeli citizenship, yet their interactions with Palestinians typically take place in land controlled by the military. While soldiers are empowered to arrest settlers who commit violence, the IDF prefers to delegate such tasks to the police.The result is that soldiers frequently turn a blind eye when extremist settlers bully, assault, and even kill Palestinians. Sometimes, they even join in.
Sde Teiman is not in the Palestinian territories; it’s in Israel proper, meaning domestic Israeli rules should apply. But it is a military base used to house Palestinians detained in Gaza, who seemed as though they’re being treated by West Bank standards — or potentially even worse. A UN investigation found that thousands of Palestinians have been detained since October 7 and kept in awful conditions.
“Detainees said they were held in cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers. Their testimonies told of prolonged blindfolding, deprivation of food, sleep and water, and being subjected to electric shocks and being burnt with cigarettes,” the UN investigators write. “Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence.”
In effect, the lawlessness of the West Bank and the Gaza war had moved into Israel. When reports of the abuse came to light, both in the American and Israeli press, the Israeli government decided that it needed to start applying Israeli domestic law on Israeli territory. Hence the raid that detained Israeli soldiers suspected of inflicting severe torture, including rape, of a Palestinian detainee.
This dynamic also explains the subsequent riot. The Israelis who attacked the base are hardline supporters of the Israeli settlement movement; Zvi Sukkot, the MK who broke into the base, is himself a settler who has been repeatedly arrested in connection with violence against West Bank Palestinians. They believe that Gazan detainees should be treated according to Occupation standards, not Israeli ones. If the law was going to accord them rights, then the law, not the abuse, was the problem.
This also may explain why the violence managed to spread to another base and continue for roughly 12 hours.
The Israeli police are controlled by the Ministry of National Security, which is currently led by Itamar Ben-Gvir — a far-right settler who has been convicted of crimes eight separate times. There are widespread suspicions that Ben-Gvir, who has been out front supporting the soldiers who allegedly tortured the Gazan detainee, intentionally obstructed the police response to the riots (not unlike Donald Trump’s reluctance to call in the National Guard on January 6). It’s serious enough that Yoav Gallant, the current minister of defense, has called for an inquiry into Ben-Gvir’s conduct.
What happened at Sde Teiman, in short, is what happens when Israel’s two legal systems are forced into conflict. When people like Sukkot and Ben-Gvir ascend to positions of power in the Israeli government, they expect the Israeli legal political system to change accordingly — to begin adopting the norms and procedures of the West Bank occupation. When it doesn’t, they try to make the system accommodate their lawlessness.
Typically, they do so through legal channels. But at Sde Teiman, they crossed the line into violence, helping lead a kind of minor insurrection against the Israeli state.
In my new book The Reactionary Spirit, I argue that Israel today resembles Abraham Lincoln’s description of the United States before the Civil War: “A house divided cannot stand.”
By this, Lincoln didn’t just mean that the United States was divided over slavery. He meant that slavery created two sets of laws, one for slave states and one for free ones, that would inevitably contradict each other. This tension, embodied by things like the Fugitive Slave Act, created a situation where one side would ultimately need to triumph over the other — bringing the citizens of the North and South into direct conflict over what the laws for the country should be. Which is precisely what happened.
Sde Teiman shows how Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians creates similar tensions. They were at the root of the fight over the judiciary that mobilized the largest protests in the country’s history prior to October 7, and they’ve only become more acute since the Gaza war began.
Rather than unifying Israel, the conflict has only shown where its fault lines lie.
After the riot, Yair Lapid — a centrist politician and current leader of the opposition — argued that it revealed an “existential” threat to Israel from within.
“The incursion into Sde Teiman is a despicable and dangerous crime by lawmakers who weaken and dismantle the IDF, weaken and dismantle the State of Israel, gnawing away at the foundations of our power,” he said. “The politicians who abandoned the hostages, abandoned security and destroyed Israeli society are now destroying the chain of command. The country is in existential danger if these people do not leave power and get out of our lives.”
But while politicians like Lapid are willing to condemn the excesses of people like Ben-Gvir, they are less willing to forthrightly pinpoint the root of the problem: Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land. Without a serious move toward both an end to the Gaza war and a two-state solution, the root causes of incidents like Sde Teiman will stay in place. And the struggle between the two Israels will intensify accordingly.
Where that ultimately leads is, at this point, anyone’s guess. But the chances are that it isn’t good.
Announcing the brand new Tom the Dancing Bug book: Volume 8 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug book program is IT'S THE GREAT STORM, TOM THE DANCING BUG! Order yours right HERE!
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Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan bill from the House on Thursday, ending for now the hope of much-needed financial relief for low-income families. This House of Representatives—the House of Chaos—managed to pass this bipartisan bill with a majority of GOP votes, but Senate Republicans wouldn’t let it happen.
After the House passed the bill, the Senate GOP made it very clear why they wouldn’t allow it to get any further. In January, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley admitted that “passing a tax bill that makes the president look good mailing out checks before the election, means he could be reelected and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” referring to the tax cuts that passed under President Trump and benefited the rich.
True to form, Republicans wouldn’t give the Democrats and low-income households this win.
The bill would have expanded the child tax credit and allowed low-income families who don’t now get the full credit to claim it, helping about 16 million children. About half of children’s families would receive $630 or more, according to an analysis by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank. The bill also included a temporary extension of a handful of business tax benefits from the Republicans’ 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are set to expire, as well as disaster relief for recent hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, and the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Following the vote on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted his GOP colleagues.
“Senate Republicans love to talk about how they are the party of family and business. So it’s very odd to see them come out so aggressively against expanding the child tax credit and rewarding business with the [research and development] tax credit,” Schumer said.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who negotiated the bill with GOP House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith of Missouri, hit a brick wall in the Senate Finance Committee while trying to negotiate a compromise bill with ranking Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho.
“[Republicans] just haven’t been willing, as I said, to actually follow through with their kind of rhetoric,” Wyden said. “The rhetoric is that they care so much about kids and family. But then when you look at what happened in February, in March, in April, in May, in June—you just go on and on—they haven’t been there,” Wyden said.
For his part, Crapo complained about the bill helping poorer families too much. “[M]ore than $30 billion of the cost to expand the child tax credit in this bill … would go to individuals who pay no federal income tax. That isn’t tax relief—it’s a subsidy,” he said.
That was indeed the intent of the bill: to help the people who make too little to owe income taxes. Incidentally, it would aid a lot of families in Crapo’s home state of Idaho, which still has a $7.25/hour minimum wage.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance was not there, as expected, since he was too busy campaigning as Trump’s running mate. This could have been a good vote for him, showing that he cares more about helping children than punishing people who are childless. Despite general Republican opposition to the bill, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, and Rick Scott of Florida all broke with their colleagues and voted for it.
But the supposedly pro-family Republican Senate is still led by Mitch McConnell and his rules: Don’t let Democrats win, even if it means lifting children out of poverty
Donald Trump speaks during the National Association of Black Journalists convention on July 31 in Chicago. | Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The conversation went off the rails within the first few minutes.
Speaking Wednesday to three Black female reporters at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention, former President Donald Trump was expected to make an appeal to Black voters, contrast his appearance with Vice President Kamala Harris’s absence from the event, and, of course, face some tough questions.
Instead of using the interview to present a positive case for the audiences that a roomful of Black journalists cover and inform, he immediately slid into the vindictive, petty, and confrontational persona that first shocked many Americans during the 2016 campaign, came to dominate daily life during Trump’s presidency, and which many Americans may have forgotten about since.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. … I think it’s a very rude introduction. I don’t know exactly why you would do something like that,” Trump told ABC News’ Rachel Scott after she asked Trump about his history of making offensive statements about Black politicians and journalists. “I think it’s a very nasty question. … I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”
The rest of the Q&A went about as well, with Trump taking swipes at the reporters interviewing him, complaining about the sound system and equipment, doubling down on pardoning January 6 rioters, and most shockingly, questioning Harris’s racial and ethnic background.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said of Harris while answering a question about Republicans calling Harris a “DEI hire.” “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Donald Trump claims he didn’t know Kamala Harris was Black while being interviewed at NABJ convention:
“She was always of Indian heritage […] I didn’t know she was Black until years ago when she happened to turn Black. Is she Indian or Black?”
Since leaving office as the most unpopular president (until Biden) and at a low point in favorability, Trump has managed to repair his reputation with significant chunks of the American electorate. His net negative favorability rating has nearly halved since January 2021; he has grown more popular with younger voters, voters of color, and lower-income voters since his presidency ended.
He has managed to do so as he consolidates support among the Republican base with more blatantly violent and negative rhetoric since his first campaign in 2016. An NBC News analysis of Trump’s public statements since leaving office, for example, found the former president’s rhetoric taking a “dark and aggressive” turn that ramped up in fall 2023, while other academic work has found his usage of “violent vocabulary” increasing in recent years.
So how has Trump simultaneously fired up his base while appealing to voters outside of it?
I’ve previously combed through a few theories for how Trump pulled this off, but Wednesday’s appearance at the NABJ conference brings to mind one in particular: The less people see of Trump, the more they like him. And for the past few years, people have simply seen less of Trump.
Attention to political news has dropped, people have tuned out of national politics, and Biden became the target of the public’s anger and dissatisfaction with a variety of international, economic, and political crises. Facing Biden, he could run a quieter campaign, receive muted attention, and speak to his base while the rest of the public remained tuned out.
(It also helped that many of the newest voters entering the electorate also did not remember a lot of the most offensive things he said while rising to the White House. In polling conducted by the Democratic firm Blueprint, most voters under 30 had never heard of him advocating for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” or saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally.)
But Trump can’t stop himself from just being Trump, and given a chance, he can’t help but remind voters of who and how he is. On Wednesday, that meant putting forward an array of false, racist attacks.
After lying about Harris’s Blackness, Trump repeated a go-to falsehood about Democrats supporting “partial-birth” abortions, that “they are radical on abortion … they are allowing the death of a baby even after it is born.” Scott and Semafor reporter Kadia Goba pushed back, pointing out this is illegal.
Since the event, Trump, his campaign, and conservative allies have not just dug in but trumpeted the event. Trump repeated his attack of Harris on Truth Social, saying, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” A clip of a headline describing Harris as the first Indian-American senator from California was projected at his rally in Pennsylvania.
The Trump campaign is projecting this on the screen above the stage at his rally in Harrisburg PA: pic.twitter.com/ZsGHAZaruk
The NABJ’s decision to invite Trump was controversial within the organization’s membership and caused public rifts among its leadership and membership. Some contended that the benefits of scrutinizing the former president’s record in a journalistically sound fashion outweighed the downsides. Others objected to handing the mic to someone with a long history of anti-Black and misogynistic rhetoric.
There are strong arguments for and against interviewing Trump, but wherever you land on that, it was evident Wednesday that giving Trump a platform isn’t the same as giving him an advantage.
“People should see this! A grumpy, cruel, hard-of-hearing, race-baiting, asshole having to actually answer for his track record in an environment outside of his comfort zone,” the “never-Trump” Republican strategist Tim Miller posted on X after the Trump interview.
That all is the more significant now that the race has reset, with Harris in and Biden out. With Trump out of the White House and off Twitter (now known as X), Americans could be forgiven for not remembering just how much they disliked Trump and how much he remains the same man who ran for office in 2016 and 2020.
The campaign is in full swing and the spotlight is back on Trump, and this much is clear: Give Trump the opportunity to show the public who he is, and he’ll gladly do it.
