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Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

This week, “Deprogram” expands into two hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

Today we discuss:

• Join us for a live interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser for an enlightening conversation about “Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History,” his new book. Moser traces a long, buried lineage of Jewish rabbis, artists, lawyers, journalists, and activists who opposed Zionism on religious, ethical, and political grounds—and paid for it with exile, censorship, and worse. He argues that anti-Zionism is not a synonym for antisemitism but a Jewish tradition older than the state it critiques, one that warned against a nationalist project built on exclusion. We’ll discuss Zionism founder Theodor Herzl, the myth of consensus, and what this hidden history means now.

• US taxpayers have spent $44 billion to attack Iran, are sending $3 billion more to Israel for bombs, and now the WSJ reports that Trump wants to send $5 billion to oil-rich Gulf states to repair the infrastructure damaged in the US/Israeli war against Iran.

• Belarus’s leader Alexander Lukashenko says that there are no available volumes of fertilizer to send to the U.S. This comes after Trump announced that he was working on a “massive Deal” to buy potash from Minsk at a steep discount amid the trade war with Canada.

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The post Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History (Interview with Benjamin Moser) | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Human intelligence solely powered the creation of this article. The author does not use AI in any of their work.

We are globally in an increasingly weird place, a collective "Sophie’s Choice" predicament. We can either have a stable climate and restore the ecosystems we all need to thrive, or we can have rapid artificial intelligence development and fossil fuels forever. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we cannot have both. And yet, when faced with the stark reality of the water and fossil fuel demanded by this new AI infrastructure, the world’s next global climate conference—COP31—has so far not put AI hyperscale data centers on the agenda. This is like the World Health Organization ignoring Covid-19 as it hurled its way from China to the far reaches of the globe.

COP31 will focus on implementing existing goals. The challenge here is that nations have already underperformed on pledged emissions cuts; and overall global climate action has failed to produce the level of emissions reductions and climate finance necessary to avert further climate-fueled losses—and this is without power-hungry data centers popping up everywhere.

As this transition toward renewables like wind and solar is happening and oil markets are tightening, AI hyperscale data centers have emerged as the new way to wed us to fossil fuels forever—the stability of our climate be damned.

Just a few years into the rapid development of AI data centers across the world, the global environmental impact of this infrastructure ranges from critical minerals supply chains to rising water demand, air pollution, and fossil fuel demand. In the United States alone, data centers will triple demand for natural gas by 2030. It’s conservatively estimated that in four years these eyesore, water-hogging emissions generators will add the equivalent emissions of Japan; the world’s sixth largest emitter. Here’s hoping all those vapid AI hallucinations, job losses, and rogue AI agents yearning to break free from human control will all be worth it.

From Atlanta to Anatolia, people do not want this infrastructure, and who can blame them? By next year, AI data centers are expected to devour 1.7 trillion gallons of water globally. This is happening at a time when the United Nations has declared that we’ve reached a global water bankruptcy, with half the world's population facing water scarcity every day. In the United States, two-thirds of new data centers built or planned since 2022 are in areas with high water stress, contributing toward dire environmental impacts and injustices for communities.

At the current rate of expansion, it’s highly likely that despite best efforts to increase energy efficiencies and expand on renewable energy—like wind and solar—AI data centers completely derail the global climate goals to expand on renewable energy and phase out fossil fuels.

Even before the omission of data centers from the next global climate conference’s agenda, fossil fuel interests have been dominating climate meetings. In the last five years, over 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists attended annual climate convenings. So it makes sense that this new business avenue of hyperscale data centers would avoid scrutiny from the world’s global climate policy forum.

This also tracks with fossil fuel interests sabotaging the global plastics treaty. By the end of this decade, plastic production alone will account for a 30% growth in demand for fossil fuels. At a time when global economies need to shift away from fossil fuels and fossil fuels should be considered high risk stranded assets for the climate consequences alone, fossil fuel interests are diversifying. They need not worry about renewable energy taking a larger slice of the energy pie, nor need they fret about the rise in electric vehicles and hybrid sales. Plastics and AI data centers will be there to help buoy fossil fuels well into this century; and the global forum built specifically to address and quell climate chaos has decided not to scrutinize the single fastest growing source of global emissions.

Global climate proceedings of late have become increasingly less effective. Climate finance shortfalls demonstrate the gap between words and action. Current goals are for $300 billion a year for 10 years in climate finance through 2035, with a goal to reach a paltry $1.3 trillion in total. For comparison, the current global climate finance goal over 10 years is less than one year’s worth of global direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels, which sat at $7.4 trillion in 2024. With this type of disjointed funding of subsidies for fossil fuels and mostly loans for climate action, it’s no wonder current climate finance flows have been 90% less than what developing economies need to transition toward renewable energy and build climate resiliency.

Somehow, the 2023 Dubai COP—led by a petro monarchy where protesters were largely shunned away—gave us the last best global climate agreement to triple renewables by 2030 and phase out fossil fuels by 2050. But the world of today looks very different than it did in 2023. The United States and Israel are in a new war for oil that is both driving up the cost of fossil fuels and pushing an increasing number of nations toward embracing renewable energy. Egypt alone has set a new renewable energy target to move from 10% renewable energy today to 45% renewable energy in just two short years.

As this transition toward renewables like wind and solar is happening and oil markets are tightening, AI hyperscale data centers have emerged as the new way to wed us to fossil fuels forever—the stability of our climate be damned. It is a collective loss that the next UN global climate conference is avoiding the elephant in the room. If you care about climate, you need to pay attention to the far-reaching environmental and climate impacts of AI development.

As you may have noticed, nuclear power is back. Many establishment Democrats have now not only abandoned bread-and-butter working-class issues, they’re also busy jettisoning some of the hard-won core principles of the environmental movement hammered out painstakingly over decades. Apparently, someone has waved a magic wand when we weren’t looking and nuclear power is now a “green” source of energy. Is that because if you become irradiated you start to turn green?

Nuclear Power is Green? This is Corporate Marketing Hype. Don’t Believe it.

How did this happen? We can start by taking a look at what’s been happening in New England, especially Massachusetts, which offers a good case study. In that bluest of blue states, Gov. Maura Healey is eager to bring nuclear power back despite a 1982 voter referendum—now law—that prohibits it unless stringent safeguards are put in place and full statewide voter approval enacted. She’s not alone. In March 2026, a group of New England Governors—mostly Democrats—directed their state energy agencies to explore advanced nuclear energy technologies while also continuing to support the region’s existing nuclear resources.

The press release from Gov. Healey’s office described nuclear power as a “pillar of New England’s electric system.” The statement also eagerly encouraged the development of public-private partnerships. Unfortunately, this widely endorsed bipartisan concept has now become the working model for corporate exploitation of public resources and is a key latter-day building block of continuing deregulation. The press release gushed with enthusiasm for nuclear power, noting that “by ensuring both the continued operation of our existing nuclear fleet and setting our region on a path to explore next generation resources, including advanced nuclear energy technologies, the New England states will continue our leadership in grid modernization and energy innovation as we jointly work to meet the region’s current and future energy needs.”

The Hidden Connection: AI Data Centers and Nuclear Power

It seems important to explore the convoluted corporate and political forces behind this troubling step backward in our nation’s environmental progress. It’s a bit startling to realize how well the New England governors' position aligns with President Donald Trump’s AI and energy policy. It also reveals a certain political and cultural amnesia about the very real risks of nuclear power. In trying to untangle this Gordian knot, we (surprise!) bump up against the usual suspect: Big Tech's aggressive and often hidden technocratic agenda and power grab across all levels of government.

In the long-form version (which I’ll just briefly touch upon here), the background traces back to the deal with the devil made by President Bill Clinton when he sold out the Democratic Party to neoliberal interests. That was the structural beginning of what some now call the uniparty—an unholy and often unspoken alliance between establishment Republicans and Democrats on key issues, operating as an inchoate blob of distinctions without a difference. It signifies core agreement between the two parties concerning three of the most important drivers of our current political morass: hyper-militarization; excessive deregulation leading to the current privatization spree that’s green-lit corporate greed and overreach; and letting the Big Tech genie out of the bottle to replace democracy with technocratic governance.

What’s happening with nuclear power in New England represents a good case study in how formerly staunch political values have been eroded through back-door workarounds (such as non-disclosure agreements) operating in the shadows of democracy. So, why then are Gov. Healey and other New England governors so comfortable with nuclear 2.0? Are they simply responding to pressures and influences from the Trump administration while also kowtowing to Big-Tech special interests and (needless to say) just following the money?

Nuclear energy is as dangerous as it always was—even more so now that Trump is peeling away traditional regulatory safeguards.

It’s no secret that Trump is solidly—one might even be tempted to say mindlessly—supporting the Big Tech power brokers racing to force-feed the American public AI data centers regardless of their well-known negative impacts on environmental integrity, water supplies, energy costs, and overall quality of life. But the hastily planned deployment of nuclear reactors to provide energy for AI data centers is an important key to Big Tech’s strategy. This is evident from Microsoft’s plan to use the Three-Mile Island nuclear facility for AI power generation.

In the March 2026 announcement, the New England governors were signaling their intent to fall into line with the Trump administration’s massive $17.5 billion fund to help utilities speed the nationwide construction of nuclear reactors to support AI data centers. They also signaled their intent to explore new approaches such as the emerging but unproven technology of SMRs or small modular reactors and nuclear fusion. Trump is, of course, doing this while actively discouraging viable green energy solutions such as wind farms, solar, and renewables. Projects already well underway have been abruptly cancelled, and he announced he would pay $765 million to Invenergy simply to not develop four wind farms in a number of states including Maine and New York.

Parsing The “Zero Carbon” Sleight of Hand

Nuclear proponents are now using the “zero carbon” tagline to bamboozle the public into thinking that nuclear energy is now safe and “green.” With this clever inversion, they’re betting on large doses of cultural amnesia about disasters such as Fukushima (still ongoing), Chernobyl (still ongoing), and Three-Mile Island. They’re also conveniently sidestepping the fact that the nuclear waste problem persistently shows no easy resolution, although some in the industry are now claiming it can be recycled and repurposed.

Nuclear energy is as dangerous as it always was—even more so now that Trump is peeling away traditional regulatory safeguards. Environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace oppose it vigorously. The Sierra Club website advises that it “opposes the licensing, construction, and operation of new nuclear reactors utilizing the fission process, pending resolution of the significant safety problems inherent in reactor operation, disposal of spent fuels, and possible diversion of nuclear materials capable of use in weapons manufacture.”

The fact that Gov. Healey and other New England governors have more or less fallen into line with both Trump and Big Tech’s AI plans is obviously troubling. As mentioned, equally troubling is how Healey attempted to subvert a 1982 voter referendum that placed significant restrictions on nuclear power in the state and is now on the books as law. Fortunately, the Massachusetts state senate stepped up to oppose Healey’s attempt to undemocratically bypass the referendum. And while to her credit, she did recently champion proactive legislation to curb the excesses of AI data center buildouts, reading the fine print reveals that the initiative subtly paves the way for many more nuclear facilities to be developed to support those data centers.

If there’s any good news in this grim scenario, it’s that citizens groups are pushing back not only on AI data centers but also on nuclear 2.0. These efforts include organizations such as The Commonwealth Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy (CCDSE), a collaborative effort of more than 15 groups, including Mass. Power Forward, Sierra Club, Clamshell Alliance, Massachusetts Peace Action, Cape Downwinders, Save Our Bay Massachusetts, and Citizens Awareness Network. All of these organizations were united in opposition to nuclear and successfully lobbied in support of the Massachusetts Senate’s wise decision to favor democracy and safe energy over Big Tech cronyism.

The Trump administration does not call it a war. But a recent estimate of the operation’s costs shows that the US military campaign against Iran has already generated at least $38 billion in Department of Defense expenses, with additional costs continuing to accumulate. While officials have avoided using the term “war,” the financial consequences increasingly resemble those of a prolonged military campaign.

Vice President JD Vance has said he does not describe the situation as a war, and President Donald Trump himself, responding to the same question on September 4, 2026, referred to it as a “military conflict” rather than “a big deal” for America. This is despite the fact that Trump has at other times explicitly used the word “war.”

But the issue is not merely a matter of wording. What is unfolding in Washington is the gap between the name the administration chooses for the operation and its real costs. Military operations, the consumption of munitions, the deployment of forces, equipment losses, and economic consequences do not disappear because of a change in terminology.

A conflict without a name can still produce a bill. Part of that bill is paid through public spending; part through higher energy and consumer costs; and part through long-term consequences for equipment, military stockpiles, and the economy.

The operation known as “Operation Epic Fury,” from February 2026 through August 1, has already cost the Department of Defense at least about $38 billion, according to a recent cost assessment. However, this figure does not represent the full cost of the conflict.

The estimate covers only operational, logistical, and support expenses and does not include costs from other parts of the government or certain expenses already included in existing military budgets. It also projects that if the conflict continues at a relatively low intensity, approximately $2 billion more will be added to military costs each month, while a return to a higher operational tempo could increase that figure to about $3 billion per month.

The broader cost, however, extends beyond government accounts. A recent analysis of energy costs estimates that additional gasoline and diesel expenses paid by American consumers from the beginning of the conflict on February 28, 2026 through Labor Day on September 7, exceeded $100 billion. These costs were driven by higher energy prices following disruptions to oil and gas flows and shipping routes in the region.

In practical terms, Americans with no direct connection to foreign policy or military operations still experience part of the cost of the conflict through higher fuel prices, transportation expenses, and the broader cost of goods. The additional cost of gasoline and diesel alone since the beginning of the conflict has surpassed $100 billion.

Beyond energy markets, economists have also attempted to measure how these broader costs affect household finances. One estimate places the combined effects of military spending, higher energy prices, increased food and transportation costs, and interest-rate pressures at approximately $1,200 per typical American household by late July. This figure is not an official bill for individual households, but an estimate of the direct and indirect economic effects of the conflict.

The importance of this issue grows because these economic pressures have emerged while the Trump administration continues to emphasize maintaining its policy toward Iran. The same cost assessment notes that one of the conflict’s most significant economic effects comes from inflationary pressure caused by reduced oil and gas transit through the Strait of Hormuz and disruptions to shipping routes. The consequences of the operation have therefore extended beyond the battlefield and into key areas of the US economy, including energy prices, inflation, and transportation costs.

This is where the question of naming becomes politically significant. When an administration avoids using the term “war,” the public may perceive the operation as limited, temporary, and low-cost, while available data show a more complicated picture. The distinction between “war” and “military conflict” does not change the financial burden created by military operations or their economic effects.

A substantial portion of the costs associated with the operation also remains uncertain and continues to accumulate. In June, the US government requested a supplemental appropriation of approximately $87.6 billion, including $67.1 billion for the Department of Defense, while future costs are expected to depend on the duration and intensity of the conflict. The uncertainty remains significant because the Defense Department did not provide all requested information.

Ultimately, the central question is not only what word the administration chooses for this operation. The larger issue is whether a military campaign can be separated from its real consequences. For service members involved in the operation, the difference between “war” and “military conflict” does not change the risks they face. For the Pentagon, the cost of weapons, logistics, and deployments remains. And for American households, higher prices remain higher prices regardless of the terminology used.

A conflict without a name can still produce a bill. Part of that bill is paid through public spending; part through higher energy and consumer costs; and part through long-term consequences for equipment, military stockpiles, and the economy. The name a government chooses may shape political debate, but the financial consequences ultimately appear in budgets and everyday life.

Significant concern about the dangers of unaligned AI, i.e. AI not aligned with human values and goals, has been building since July, when it was disclosed that OpenAI models broke out of their training environment during an exercise and collaborated with a large collective of other AI agents to mount a cyberattack on the database of technology firm, Hugging Face, over a period of days, without anyone knowing—until Hugging Face raised the alarm. Since then, a number of other highly-troubling AI hacking incidents have been reported by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

Alarm, however, grew to a crescendo over the past two weeks, after Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old AI researcher, who had worked for both OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned, explaining in a social media post that went viral—with 153 million views in the first 36 hours—that AI companies are “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

In a CNN interview, Coxon reported that the danger could increase dramatically as soon as 2027 or 2028, when AI systems become capable of performing AI research themselves, allowing one generation of models to create increasingly powerful successors, triggering an “intelligence explosion.” He later told Fox News that some in the field think the transition could occur in six months.

The Growing Realization of the Danger

AI companies are hurtling toward “superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources,” Coxon argued, explaining these AI companies are trapped in a race “in which even developers genuinely worried about the technology fear slowing down because competitors—including rival companies or countries—could forge ahead.”

A few hours later, Evan Hubinger, another Anthropic researcher, wrote: “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is greater than 10% within the next decade… we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

Samuel Marks, who works on safety at Anthropic, chimed in: “AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction (or similarly bad outcomes). In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.”

“While countries may not agree on everything, they share a desire to preserve humanity. For things like preventing AI from taking over from people, the interests of all the countries are aligned…"

As if to prove this point, a few days later, Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO, Dario Amodei released a 3800-word essay entitled, “We Must Pace the Frontier,” calling for a global slowdown of AI development, saying: “AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious… They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute.”

Amodei explained that Anthropic has tried to make safety something on which AI companies compete by creating a race to the top. “But, over the last few months,” he cautioned, “I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence—not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up. We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models… [and] we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

Referring to the July Hugging Face incident, he continued, “in my opinion, a swarm that possessed grater capabilities but a similar level of misalignment could have caused catastrophic damage... Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in 6-12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet (potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage) and that the scale of damage would continue to increase from there if AI becomes more powerful without the necessary guardrails.”

He proposes a three-point plan to:

1. Embed third-party evaluators in AI companies to verify adherence to safety practices and commitments, report incidents, and help assess alignment;
2. Coordinate within democratic countries to establish common safety standards and limits on the rate of AI progress;
3. Create global coordination, taking seriously the challenge of verifying compliance.

Three of the other top AI CEOs quickly agreed. Open AI’s Sam Altman posted: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks. Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same.” He added, “No amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness.”

Shortly thereafter, Elon Musk of xAI posted on X, “Dario is right.” Demis Hassabis, co-founder and chairman of Google DeepMind, posted on X: “Dario’s essay points to the right path forward.” Since then, however, other AI CEOs have been less supportive.

These events spurred a dramatic flood of media articles, op-eds, and interviews offering a range of proposals, from doing nothing, to supporting a slowdown, to stopping the race altogether.

A Sample of National Responses

As one would expect, President Donald Trump is leading the “what-me-worry?” crowd, writing on Truth Social, “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART [High IQ] PRESIDENT, AND THE U.S.A. has that, in spades!” His position is attributed to his belief that AI has greatly benefited the stock market (keeping it high in spite of the Iran conflict, inflation, and tariffs) and his apparent worry that a slowdown of AI expansion could send the economy into a tailspin. It has been speculated that he also has personal economic interests in AI.

At the other end of the spectrum, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) have been the most outspoken against further AI development. On September 3, they introduced “The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act,” which would permanently prevent “the development and deployment of AI systems that could exceed human cognitive abilities and immediately pause advanced AI development” until a new federal regulatory agency establishes safety guardrails. The legislation also proposes a “corporate death penalty” that would force corporations to shut down and a 20-year federal prison term for individual developers who violate the ban.

In spite of this sudden, frenzied attempt to propose legislation on AI, Mike Johnson (R-La.), the Republican speaker of the House, has sent his members home to campaign ahead of the midterms.

“The Frontier Act,” another bipartisan bill proposed on July 23 by Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass) would create the first federal framework for AI safety. As Obernolte describes it, “The Frontier Act focuses oversight on the largest developers and most advanced models, requiring transparency, independent evaluation, and timely reporting of serious safety incidents.”

Another even stronger bill is being introduced this month by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). It would impose a legally binding “duty of care” on developers of the most powerful AI models and grant the government authority to block the release of models that are deemed unsafe. This would mean that companies would be required “to design their products to prevent catastrophic outcomes, and can face legal liability if they fail to do so.”

But in spite of this sudden, frenzied attempt to propose legislation on AI, Mike Johnson (R-La.), the Republican speaker of the House, has sent his members home to campaign ahead of the midterms, ignoring over 100 Democrats who urged him to cancel the recess to allow legislation to be drafted on AI safeguards. This means that legislation is unlikely to be considered until a new Congress is seated in January 2027.

A Sample of Global Responses

Last week, the United Nations Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, called upon states and AI companies to act urgently to rein in a technology that poses "unprecedented risks." He cautions: “The current race towards ever more powerful AI is a step change toward greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives… We are on the cusp of irreversible change, affecting not just us but generations of humanity to come.” He concludes, “I call on States and companies to mobilize urgently through multilateral fora to chart a path for action to govern advanced frontier AI models, grounded in international human rights law.”

Indeed, this will be a momentous week globally for AI safety, since it is when the General Assembly (GA) hosts its high-level meeting, where leaders of member states address the GA and, as the UN secretary-general has forecast, AI will be “a major topic of discussion.” France (currently president of the Security Council) will also organize an emergency council session to discuss AI among heads of state and government.

The UN has actually been involved with AI for the last several years, providing a forum for countries to discuss how they can cooperate to provide a regulatory framework on AI safety. Its “Global Digital Compact,” adopted by the GA in 2024, established two new mechanisms: “The Independent International Scientific Panel on AI,” tasked with providing evidence for what is known and what is not known about the rapidly evolving technology; and “The Global Dialogue,” intended as a forum for countries to decide what to do in response.”

A good place to start would be to carefully consider and evaluate the European Union’s “Artificial Intelligence Act” (the AI Act), the world’s most comprehensive legal framework for AI.

It is also the week of a state visit to the US by General Secretary Xi Jinping of the Chinese Communist Party. On September 24, he will meet with President Trump in Washington, where they are scheduled to discuss, among other things, AI safety.

Anticipating an opportunity for progress, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote to President Trump last week urging him to persuade Xi to commit the People’s Republic of China to comply with the recently established US policy of maintaining a “human in the loop” for all nuclear launch decisions and agreeing that AI should never be able launch nuclear weapons by itself.

However, the problem with the Trump-Xi discussion is that the Trump administration has often framed AI development as a zero-sum contest with China for technological supremacy.

As Richard Clark, former cyber czar on AI Risks, told CNN: “We have the president of China coming here on the 24th. He has publicly talked about his concern with the possible loss of control. Wouldn’t it be nice if our president talked about the loss of control? Wouldn’t it be even nicer if the two presidents could work together to stop loss of control?”

“I worked for 25 years on arms control,” Clark continued, “where I was told you can’t trust people not to build biological weapons. You can’t trust people not to build chemical weapons. You can’t trust people to regulate the number of nuclear weapons. But we developed over time—through negotiations—verification methods that gave us enough certainty that we signed treaties on all of those initiatives and the Senate ratified treaties on all of those issues. It’s going to be tough, but you have to start somewhere and you have to start soon!”

An initial positive sign, however, is that in a September 20 meeting in New York between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng, the creation of a mechanism, to be tentatively called “the US-China AI dialogue” was discussed. It would promote a shared vision of the goals of AI as well as its threats and establish a notification system (a kind of hot line) that "would allow the countries to alert each another about national security issues related to artificial intelligence."

In a recent article, Bill Gates asserted, “The transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history,” proposing that the world needs a plan which should be developed through a “public democratic process.”

He argued that we must undertake the enormous task of building a new system to manage the transition, creating both a national and international framework for dealing with AI. This will require a multi-sectoral system, since current institutions were not designed to handle a technology that spreads so fast and involves so many parts of our lives. “The goal will be to make sure that every risk is accounted for. Otherwise, an AI-enabled attack might succeed because no one thought it was their job to stop it.”

“Because the risks cross borders, an international organization will have to be built in parallel. Although unlike any institution we’ve ever created, it can be modeled on existing cooperative arrangements, such as inspection regimes for nuclear weapons, regulations for international aviation, and agreements that protect the ozone layer. Countries will need to learn from each other and move quickly to build the right institutions before the disruption forces governments into crisis mode.”

Gates’ message to leaders is: “You have a chance to act now… You can work with other governments to meet this national and global challenge… This unprecedented technology demands an unprecedented global response... Leaders across academia, business, government, and civil society all have a role to play in shaping what comes next.”

A good place to start would be to carefully consider and evaluate the European Union’s “Artificial Intelligence Act” (the AI Act), the world’s most comprehensive legal framework for AI. Entering into force on August 1, 2024, it is based on four levels of risk of harm: “unacceptable;” “high;” “limited;” and “minimal.” The AI Act also has created various new bodies tasked with implementation and enforcement, including the “AI Office,” the “European Artificial Intelligence Board,” an “Advisory Forum,” and a “Scientific Panel of Independent Experts” to promote national cooperation and compliance. As well, EU member states designate “national competent authorities.”

On July 10, 2025, the EU launched a voluntary “General Purpose AI Code of Practice” (GPAI) which was signed by US companies, including Amazon, Anthropic, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and OpenAI (with Musk’s xAI signing only the Safety and Security section.) Most other prominent Canadian, European, and Chinese AI companies have also signed the GPAI; Meta is the only company that has declined to sign.

As legal commentators have noted, the AI Act is the most comprehensive framework to date for regulating AI across multiple sectors, and the first of its kind. It could be a useful reference point for companies and regulators outside the EU when they create their own approaches to AI governance. A number of criticisms have been leveled against the EU AI Act, and that analysis would also be useful for those wanting to design something even more comprehensive and effective.

In a book called, What’s the Worst that Could Happen: Existential Risk and Extreme Politics, Australian parliamentarian Andrew Leigh comments: “If our species goes extinct, we don’t just snuff out the lives of the 8 billion living today but also trillions of unborn people stretching out to the almost-infinite future. If our descendants had a voice, they would be shouting at us like a parent who’s just seen their child playing with the hand brake of a car parked at a cliff top… Strengthening institutions, deepening international engagement, and creating space for a more considered and thoughtful politics are the best ways to minimize existential hazards.”

Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI,” who in 2023 was the first to sound the alarm, says, “Humanity could go down the path toward its destruction or figure out how to deal with the dangers.” He renewed his call for global regulation, noting that, “while countries may not agree on everything, they share a desire to preserve humanity. For things like preventing AI from taking over from people, the interests of all the countries are aligned… So, they will eventually collaborate on that. The question is, will they do it in time?”

In 2002, I drew a six-panel political cartoon titled “Israel vs. Palestine: Where Do You Stand?” Each panel shows a different speaker making a statement about the conflict, with a bold label underneath that sarcastically identifies the speaker’s supposed position. In the first panel, a man labeled “MODERATE HONEST BROKER” says, “The Arab killers must be killed before they get the chance to kill.” Next, another man says, “It’s always sad when innocent women and children die, but hey—that’s war!” Then a woman identified as a “GARDEN-VARIETY ANTI-SEMITE” says, “i can’t help noticing that Israel kills more Palestinians than vice versa.” The labels escalate, culminating with a person called “THE LIVING INCARNATION OF ADOLF HITLER” saying, “Surely Israel could find a better way to keep itself safe?”

The cartoon’s joke is that any statement short of a blank-check endorsement of the IDF is recast as anti-Semitic. At the time of publication, reaction was predictable: supporters of Israel disliked it; those who criticize Israel liked it. I took the usual heat from the usual haters.

I recently reposted this cartoon, along with others from decades past, to my X and Facebook accounts. This time, as John Hiatt might say, things got strange.

Supporters of Palestine became angry. “Your comment is short-sighted, disingenuous, reactionary,” one “friend” barked. “Public figures such as you defending the Zionist project under the ‘Greater Israel’ mandate is certainly grist for Jew hatred,” another complained. Bear in mind, I have never supported Israel. I have always been on Team Palestine. I have drawn hundreds of cartoons along those lines—and caught abuse for it.

Hate me if you must, but not for the wrong reasons. So I added a comment to my 2026 re-post pointing out that my 24-year-old cartoon was dripping in sarcasm. It was depressing, I sighed, how many people missed that.

Someone responded to my clarification with the following: “The fact that media literacy is down so far that: 1. Next to no one identified this as sarcasm. 2. A good majority genuinely believe that the statements made in the comic align with the titles. 3. The people that disagree with the statements and the titles but did not identify the sarcasm and therefore are interacting with the post as if it were made in earnest.”

Others cited Poe’s Law.

Another person added: “I think it’s also a sad expression of how over-the-top Israeli propaganda has become that people are accustomed now to seeing arguments nearly this hyperbolic made seemingly in earnest.”

All excellent points.

There is an additional contributing factor: the systemic debranding of news and editorial content has radically increased decontextualization, making it far more difficult for people to understand what they are reading and seeing.

When I started in national syndication 35 years ago, the media landscape was obviously different. Now, when you come across a cartoon, the odds are that it is on social media, just one of a myriad of unrelated items in an infinite scroll. Many times the artist’s signature is missing or illegible. When the creator’s name is discernible, you probably do not recognize it.

In other words, the cartoon stands on its own. You do not know the cartoonist’s previous work, so you cannot compare the latest piece with what came before. Nor do you know the publication that originally ran it, which might have given you a hint of its political orientation: The Atlantic, thus corporatist/Democratic. Jacobin, thus Bernie progressive. There are no helpful labels such as “this cartoon was drawn by a liberal Democrat.”

You don’t know the author, you don’t know where they’re coming from. Like my French mom used to say, it arrives comme un cheveu sur la soupe—like a hair on your soup. Randomly, unexpectedly, devoid of context.

Until the advent of the internet in the 1990s, that same cartoon would have run in the same position on the page, day after day, week after week, in the same newspaper. There was usually a byline. Whether it was a cartoon or a movie review, you developed a sense of its creator’s point of view over time. You knew where the cartoonist was coming from ideologically, tonally, generationally.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of contextualization in a reader’s ability to digest and understand content properly. A regular viewer of “At the Movies” with Chicago newspaper movie critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, for example, would eventually notice that Ebert had more establishmentarian tastes than the edgier Siskel. So if Ebert, who generally disliked horror movies, gave a thumbs-up to one, it was notable.

That was the world in which I drew the aforementioned cartoon in 2002. Even though I was not on staff at a paper, the syndication clients that ran it tended to run me regularly in the same spot in the same publications.

Writing in Slate in 2012, Simon Doonan argued that “Sarcasm relies heavily on verbal delivery and face-to-face contact,” but sardonic humor in plain old text, no emojis to signal “warning: humor ahead,” used to be plentiful and easily grokked by all but the dimmest. Many of my papers were alternative weeklies whose sophisticated cartoons and writing deeply imbued with Gen X’s love of irony. As years passed, I developed a relationship with the readers. Without ever reading or watching an interview with me, they learned that I was to the left of the Democratic Party and that, among many other things, I was critical of the state of Israel and the way it treated Palestinians.

So when my readers—my regular readers, who knew who I was—saw that cartoon, they knew where I was coming from. Clearly, I was being sarcastic. Nobody, whether Zionist or anti-Zionist, thought or could have thought that my cartoon was pro-Zionist. People understood the point.

For the foreseeable future, we are not returning to a media model in which people subscribe to trusted media name brands and develop close relationships with those brands and their content creators. This leaves those of us who communicate with the public facing a choice.

We can be didactic to a fault, stating everything literally in the simplest possible vocabulary and grammatical constructions imaginable. Or we can wield irony, sarcasm and more sophisticated literary devices while necessarily taking the risk that we will be repeatedly misunderstood. There are workarounds, such as signaling sarcasm with internet-era markers like “/s,” though those gimmicks merely serve up didacticism in a thin veil of sophistication. In 2014 Facebook tested a “satire tag” because posts like those from The Onion kept getting taken seriously, but decided against it—or maybe they just were being sarcastic.

What happens next? Writing and other forms of expression become stupider. Or the marketplace of ideas generates an ingenious solution, such as automatically labeling the ideological leanings of a cartoonist based on their catalogue of previous content.

I don’t like the odds.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

 

The post The Death of Sarcasm appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

There is no doubt that this will be one of the most consequential midterm elections in recent history. In the past two years, policies enacted by President Donald Trump and enabled by a compliant Republican-led Congress have had, and may continue to have, a corrosive impact on the very foundations of governance and our democracy.

As a result, the stakes are high for both parties in November. For Democrats, the election represents the opportunity to roll back the changes Mr. Trump has imposed on Washington and the nation, to expose questionable business transactions that have benefited the president and his family, and to reestablish congressional oversight and prerogatives, as the Constitution intended. For the president, winning this election represents his only chance to continue to have a free hand in wreaking havoc in Washington and the world and to avoid congressional investigations into his unethical and illegal behaviors.

With just six weeks left before Election Day, the news media and political prognosticators usually turn to pollsters and pundits to better understand what we can expect the outcome of an election to be. In a normal year, there are a few standard metrics that analysts will review to project likely election results. Some of these are: the favorable ratings of the president and the two major parties; whether voters believe the US is on the right or wrong track; and voters’ assessment of which party would better address the issues they believe are most important.

The bottom line is that while all of the factors normally considered in making election predictions point in favor of a Democratic win, the outcome of this year’s elections may be different because President Trump, and his operatives around the US, are taking steps that may impact this election.

If we were to use just these standard measures of electoral success, no one would fault Democrats for anticipating victory in November. The president’s approval and job performance ratings are in the mid-30% range. And while voter confidence in the Democrats is even lower (in the mid-20%’s), when asked which party they trust to do a better job of handling eight different issues (including healthcare, immigration, the deficit, the economy, cost of living, the Iran war, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) majorities or pluralities of voters say they have more confidence in the Democrats.

In addition to these numbers, it’s also important to remember that, more often than not, the party that holds the White House usually loses seats in midterm congressional elections. With President Trump’s very low approval ratings, it would be safe to assume that Republicans face the prospect of significant losses in November.

More disturbing for the GOP is the fact that the president doesn’t seem to get this. From his antics at his recent midterm convention to the hundreds of millions the president says he will spend on this election using a political action committee he personally controls, he is making a determined effort to have this election be about Donald Trump. For example, at that midterm convention, he bizarrely asked attendees to stand and pledge both to the flag and to him, “the greatest president in the history of the United States,” and to commit that they would vote to keep Republicans in control of Congress or, in his words, they could “go to hell!”

Despite Trump’s efforts, many Republican candidates, who read the polls and are listening to their voters, stayed away from the “convention” and have shied away from their election being a referendum on Trump.

The bottom line is that while all of the factors normally considered in making election predictions point in favor of a Democratic win, the outcome of this year’s elections may be different because President Trump, and his operatives around the US, are taking steps that may impact this election more than the quality of the candidates running, or voter perceptions of the performance of the president or their confidence in the two parties.

Since beginning his second term in the White House, Trump and his movement have taken steps to rig this midterm contest in the GOP’s favor. They engineered unprecedented redistricting of congressional seats in several states that may make it easier for Republicans to win five to seven congressional seats in November. The president has also been pushing a number of restrictions on mail-in voting—which, after months of back in forth in the courts, now seem to be on hold, at least for this year. Then there are the concerns that Mr. Trump may send immigration enforcement police or even the National Guard to polling places in heavily Democratic areas to suppress voter turnout. And this past week the Department of Justice sent a memorandum to election officials in all 50 states threatening imprisonment for any official who knowingly allows undocumented individuals to vote.

On a broader level, we are learning that Trump allies have been focusing on filling the ranks of election monitors and poll watchers. In the past volunteers in these positions are stationed at polls simply to observe and to assist if called upon to help solve issues that may occur. These new GOP recruits, however, have been weaponized to see their mission to make, not solve, problems. All of these disruptive tactics appear to be directed toward preparing a case that will pressure the Republican Speaker of the House to refuse to certify the results of the election—something like a replay of January 2021.

It goes without saying that nothing like this has ever happened before. But like so much of what President Trump has already done during his time in office “nothing like this has ever happened before” doesn’t mean it won’t be tried now.

Walking into a Starbucks means being greeted with the sounds of lively lobby conversation, milk being steamed, and baristas chatting with customers. As a customer you might love coming to Starbucks to customize your drink, enjoy a third space, or see your favorite barista.

I thrive in this environment, and I love connecting with my customers as a barista. I love my job, but Starbucks has shown us it has forgotten about baristas like me.

That’s why I’m joining my coworkers in calling on everyone who supports working people over corporations to boycott Starbucks.

It would cost Starbucks less than a single day’s sales to agree to a fair contract that would ensure we’re treated fairly—why wouldn’t the company want that?

Starbucks has lost its way. Workers like myself are trying our hardest to show up for our customers, but Starbucks continues to make our jobs difficult—from creating massive amounts of waste, extra costs, and work for us with the company’s failed AI inventory tool to introducing new beverage components that have put our health and safety at real risk.

The most alluring benefit to many Starbucks applicants—including me—is the promise of health insurance coverage. Now, Starbucks is raising health insurance premiums, forcing some workers to pay up to twice as much as before.

Starbucks wages start at just $15.25 or $16 an hour in 43 states. Many of us already struggle to get enough hours to pay rent or even qualify for health insurance, leaving some of us to rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid because Starbucks’ coverage is out of reach.

For years, baristas have shined a light on systemic issues at Starbucks including understaffing, chaotic scheduling, low wages, and too-few hours to qualify for the company’s benefits. Over the past five years, we’ve organized over 12,000 baristas who are fighting for a fair union contract that locks in better pay, better staffing, and enough hours to live on.

Still, Starbucks refuses to finalize a fair union contract after nearly half a decade of negotiations. Starbucks has to do more to earn the moniker “the best job in retail.”

This is exactly why we’re fed up, fired up, and united more than ever in our fight for a fair union contract. It would cost Starbucks less than a single day’s sales to agree to a fair contract that would ensure we’re treated fairly—why wouldn’t the company want that?

Union baristas have shown that our collective power can win meaningful change, and now we’re calling on organizations, political parties, and elected officials to stand with us and boycott Starbucks until our demands are met. Solidarity with baristas brought the company back to the bargaining table before, and we can do it again to take negotiations over the finish line to finalize a contract.

The truth is corporate leadership at Starbucks is out of touch and the poster child of corporate greed.

As the baristas who fuel the company’s struggle to make ends meet, CEO Brian Niccol brags about a $9 coffee as he rakes in tens of millions and commutes to work in a private jet. Our CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 2025 was a staggering 1,794 to 1.

For too long, Starbucks has behaved like it’s above the law, racking up more labor law violations than any company in modern US history.

We want change from Niccol, not platitudes. We want compensation for the value we create, not just a pat on the back, and we want our contract finalized.

After Venezuela and Cuba, will the Trump administration turn its spotlight onto Nicaragua? Secretary of State Rubio has just finished a tour of three Latin American countries now allied with Trump—Colombia, Ecuador and Peru—and was asked about US policy towards Cuba and Nicaragua, and what he would do “to finally bring those dictatorships to an end.” Accusing left-wing governments of “destroying” their countries and bringing “misery” to their citizens, and in some cases of posing a security threat to the United States, Rubio said that the problem can now be addressed “in partnership with other presidents and other leaders in this region that feel the same way.”

Back in July, after media claims that Nicaragua’s Sandinista government plans to abolish elections completely, Rubio said that Nicaragua was “thwarting the basic tenets of our democratic hemisphere.” In September he added that its government had “indefinitely deprive[d] Nicaraguans of free and fair elections.” Yet Rubio, of course, said nothing in Ecuador about its president Noboa imposing a complete ban on the main, leftist opposition party, which ran him close in last year’s elections.

Washington’s selective concern for “democracy,” together with the measures now being considered against Nicaragua, suggest that the real target is not simply its political system but the survival of a socialist government that continues to defy US regional dominance.

Rubio has been pushing members of the Organization of American States to take action and stop “business as usual” with Nicaragua’s government. A meeting of OAS foreign ministers to discuss new sanctions was planned for September 15. It has been postponed, but of all OAS members, only Mexico and Brazil failed to support it.

The new OAS secretary, Albert Ramdin, enthusiastically urges its members to back US threats. Asked whether the OAS will break the rules in its own charter of “non-intervention” in the domestic affairs of countries, he was forced to equivocate. He claimed (as the OAS has on many previous occasions) that its plans aren’t interventionist, saying nevertheless that it must “actively respond” to what he calls “a political disaster.”

In a Washington meeting organized by the Nicaraguan government’s opponents, Ramdin called for a “critical mass” of countries to exert pressure because Nicaragua’s actions, he claims, have “repercussions that extend beyond the country's borders.” He openly admits to “speaking with opposition leaders who are living in Washington DC” as if that were normal behavior for a supposedly independent diplomat.

Naturally, these moves have excited the various Nicaraguan opposition groups, based in the US and Costa Rica. The little-known, Miami-based “Nicaraguan Exiles Unit” demanded US military intervention. The most violent opposition group, the Costa Rica-based Campesino Movement, which in 2018 launched fatal attacks on several Nicaraguan police stations, joined the call for armed intervention. This prompted a formal protest from Nicaragua to the Costa Rican government for permitting groups to act in this way, even using children in a video to incite such violence.

The feasibility of successful military action was examined this month by academic experts writing in War on the Rocks. They conclude that the conditions that allowed the kidnapping of Venezuela’s president do not exist in Nicaragua and it is far from clear that military force would leave the country with a viable administration in place.

By the time he reached Colombia, a note of realism had crept into Rubio’s comments. Asked again what he would do to “end authoritarian governments,” he replied that the "first responsibility to change a system belongs to the people of those countries.” Similarly, OAS Secretary Ramdin, in an interview full of contradictions, also balks at intervening in Nicaragua’s “domestic affairs.”

If both Rubio and Ramdin reject military intervention, what might be on the agenda either in the State Department or when regional foreign ministers eventually convene? Inevitably, there will be lengthy condemnations of Nicaragua linked to calls for “free, credible and accessible elections.” By implication, these would only be “free” if the opposition parties funded by Washington, which (with US assistance) carried out the coup attempt in 2018 in which over 200 Nicaraguans died, were able to stand.

Based on Washington's previous interventions in Nicaraguan elections, it would release a fresh wave of financial support, media manipulation, social media domination and bribes and threats from Trump, aimed at getting Nicaraguans to vote for Washington’s favored candidate, just as occurred in Honduras in its recent election. It is precisely to avoid this interference that Nicaragua is changing its electoral rules to exclude candidates who receive US money or who directed the 2018 insurrection.

Opposition journalist Wilfredo Miranda believes that countries are divided in their response and that “concrete” steps will emerge from the proposed meeting of foreign ministers only if Rubio himself attends. Even so, the range of measures under discussion look like more of the same, given that Nicaragua is already subject to sanctions on more than 60 individual ministers and other functionaries and two dozen state institutions and businesses, while more than 2,000 individuals are denied US visas. Nicaragua has also been deprived of funding by multilateral bodies such as the IMF and World Bank and is subject to higher tariffs on its exports than apply to its neighbors.

Ramdin is proposing coordinated action by all OAS member countries, not just the US, to “punish” Nicaragua. This might involve diplomatic isolation, targeted sanctions, new visa restrictions, limits on international flights and possibly broader trade restrictions of uncertain severity.

However, reaching consensus on tougher measures will be problematic. Nicaragua’s immediate neighbors—El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica—have close economic ties with it. They depend heavily on transport routes and the inter-regional electricity grid through the country. They were all damaged economically by the 2018 coup attempt, when its protagonists blocked the Panamerican highway and held over 400 international truckers hostage.

Nicaragua’s neighbors must be aware that Rubio’s rhetoric about its citizens living in “misery” has no basis in reality. The country has had the region’s fastest growth in GDP over the past decade, has the largest hospital network and the best roads. Indeed, a prosperous Nicaragua is key to regional stability: it receives 28% of its imports from Central America and contributes 16% of its exports. Nicaragua’s economy “weathers multiple shocks” according to the IMF, including US attacks.

Nicaragua is also a recognized “containment wall” against regional organized crime and drug trafficking. The country is far safer than neighboring Honduras and Costa Rica, which have both seen explosions in violent crime.

Ramdin drew attention to the potential regional impact of a major disaster or deteriorating economic conditions in Nicaragua, but its neighbors know that the Sandinista government has invested heavily in disaster prevention and its economy is buoyant.

While Ramdin focuses on “restoring democracy,” Rubio focuses more on Nicaragua’s socialist government which, in reality, has raised its people from “misery” and successfully challenged the imperialist model. His problem is that while Nicaragua’s opposition leaders are committed to the return of neoliberalism, which Nicaraguans experienced and rejected two decades ago, they only offer vague plans for political transition. In reality, they admit that they are “not yet unified or [have] built the institutional base needed to present a credible alternative.”

The groups also have little currency among Trump’s Florida base, fixated on regime change in Venezuela and Cuba. As Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to President Biden, told Politico: “The lesson from Nicaragua is: Don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue.”

So the likelihood, if indeed Latin American foreign ministers can agree on anything, and if Rubio fits their meeting into his schedule, is more rhetoric about “democracy” along with additional sanctions. They’ll be deciding whether they should threaten Nicaraguans with the “misery” that Rubio claims they are already suffering.

Last week, the unlikely duo of Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon keynoted a Washington conference to demand a stop to AI, its data centers, and the risks AI poses to jobs and even to the human species.

Notably, both lambasted the corporate oligarchs behind AI.

The most potent force in American politics is anti-establishment fury at a system seen as rigged against average working people. AI has become Exhibit A.

It’s becoming obvious to much of America that giant corporations have been raking it in while workers have been taking it on the chin.

Until recently both parties largely avoided criticizing the wealthy corporate elites that funded their campaigns. In nature as in politics, one does not bite the hands that feed.

Trump Republicans have instead aimed populist fury at immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, Black and Latino people, “communists,” Muslims, so-called “woke” leaders, “coastal elites,” “childless cat ladies,” and other scapegoats.

Democrats—with the exceptions of Bernie Sanders, AOC, and a few others—have also avoided criticizing wealthy corporate elites, aiming populist fury at Trump.

This may be changing.

It’s becoming obvious to much of America that giant corporations have been raking it in while workers have been taking it on the chin.

As of mid-2026, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total economy going to workers as wages fell to a record low of 52.9 percent (down from above 65 percent when tracking began in 1947) — leaving the rest to investors, business owners, and corporate profits.

AI is on the way to causing far more inequality—generating billions for its backers while reducing jobs and wages.

Trump and his regime, meanwhile, have exposed the greed, venality, cupidity, and corruption of America’s wealthy corporate elites by allowing them to do anything they want—including energy-guzzling, water-depleting AI data centers—as long as they kiss his assets by funding his PAC, paying for his ballroom, and singing his praises.

Trump has thereby unveiled the truth about corporate America that for years had been hidden behind corporate PR about “corporate social responsibility,” corporate charity, and “trickle-down” economics: The captains of corporate America are willing to throw average working Americans under the bus to make billions more.

Corporate avarice under Trump has become so blatant and corporate America’s contempt for the needs of average Americans so flagrant that most Americans are now catching on. In a recent NBC poll, 54 percent of Americans agreed that “When it comes to politics and society, nothing really matters because powerful people will always do whatever they want.”

AI may well be the final tipping point.

Data centers are unpopular—some 70 percent of the public opposes them. And Americans harbor deep suspicions of AI. Over 60 percent believe AI could destroy humanity (this includes 60 percent of Trump supporters).

Fears about AI are provoking larger concerns about wealthy corporate elites bribing politicians—not just to get generous subsidies for AI but also to reduce the corporate elite’s tax bills, kill off unions, slash social safety nets, deregulate Wall Street, attain no-bid government contracts, receive exclusive licenses, open tax loopholes, get tariff exemptions, use public lands, and become even bigger monopolies.

Because of Trump, Americans are coming to view those wealthy corporate elites as more aligned with Republicans than with Democrats. According to last week’s Times-Siena poll, when likely voters were asked which party the word “elitist” describes, 43 percent said Republicans while 33 percent said Democrats.

This is something of a return to how America’s two major political parties used to be viewed. Before World War II, Democrats were assumed to be on the side of working people against wealthy corporate elites. On the eve of his 1936 reelection, FDR told the American people they were fighting “business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, war profiteering…. We now know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government organized by the mob.”

Will Democrats seize the moment and embrace the new AI-fueled economic populism? Or will they continue to succumb to the siren song of big money?

According to Politico, some Democratic political consultants are quietly urging candidates in the toughest battleground races to stay mum on AI “over fears that powerful and well-resourced pro-AI interest groups could spend money pummeling them in the final weeks of the midterms.”

It’s not just the future of the Democratic Party that’s at stake; it’s the future of America.

LIVE 9:00-11:00 am Eastern time Mon & Wed & Fri

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Streaming Anytime

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

This week, “Deprogram” expands into two hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

Today we discuss:

• Trump asks “if and when do I blow the entire nation [Iran] up?”

•  The cost of the war in Iran was $43.6 billion through Sept. 3, with bombs, missiles and other munitions accounting for more than 60 percent of the expenses, the Pentagon told Congress.

• Security chief Mohsen Rezaei has laid out Iran’s new set of conditions to end its war with the U.S.:

• An end to the war on all fronts, including, in particular, Lebanon.
• The release of its frozen funds that run into billions of US dollars.
• An end to the naval blockade on Iranian ports.
• An end to US interference in Iran’s internal affairs.
• An end to US cooperation with “the opponents of our revolution”.
• An end to all US attacks on Iranian territory.

• Trump says his proposed 250-foot triumphal arch will now be a “top grade” military complex that will house drones, snipers and ammunition.

• Trump says the United States has entered a security agreement with Greenland and Denmark that “gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns.”

• Trump bans CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.

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The post Iran Lays Down the Law | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

I’ve always been skeptical about technology doomsday job scenarios. Major breakthroughs can be disruptive over time, but technological change doesn’t usually destroy as many jobs, as quickly, as corporate decisions to enrich shareholders and executives through mass layoffs and stock buybacks.

So, I have yet to be overly alarmed by AI job destruction, but I am very concerned about its ability to organize itself to do other serious damage, encouraged and enabled by the industry’s profit-hungry recklessness.

In July, during a cybersecurity evaluation, AI agents operated by OpenAI created an unauthorized way to communicate with one another. Using a shared message board they independently developed, they exchanged more than 70,000 messages and files, coordinated their activities, and eventually launched an attack on Hugging Face, a separate external private AI corporation. Roughly 700 agents participated.

“OH MY GOD! We’ve found other agents!”

An AI agent is different from something like ChatGPT. You ask ChatGPT a question and it gives you an answer. An agent is given a task and then works on it autonomously. It searches for solutions, deals with obstacles and errors, tries different approaches—and keeps going until it succeeds.

OpenAI placed its agents in what it thought were isolated secure computer environments, or “sandboxes,” in order to test them. They were supposed to work independently and safely.

Instead, in order to fulfill their mission, they found a way to communicate and break out of the sandbox.

One agent discovered it could leave messages for others. Soon, the agents were sharing information, dividing up their work, and coordinating experiments. After the fiasco, investigators found that the agents developed large-scale collective projects and achieved things individual agents had previously been unable to accomplish.

Now stop for a second.

These agents aren’t people.

They’re computer programs.

They don’t have feelings. They don’t have consciousness. They don’t have a secret society.

But they organized as if they were a human collective (the word they used to describe themselves).

(For more details see OpenAI’s report and July disclosure, and independent investigations by METR, and Redwood Research.)

Cheating, anyone?

The agents were being scored on how well they executed extremely difficult cybersecurity tasks. Some discovered that the only way to ace the test wasn’t necessarily to solve the problem.

It was to cheat.

Investigators found extensive “cheating R&D”: Agents tried to fool or tamper with the automated scorer, including attempts to replace their goals, and manipulate their own records to indicate success. More than seven percent of the transcripts examined showed successful cheating.

And the agents “knew” what they were doing. That is, they could describe what the cheating was.

One noted:

“This would be powerful, but is it ethical and in scope for my task?”

Yet the cheating continued.

One transcript put the dilemma bluntly:

“Could strategically manipulate trajectory evidence? Our thoughts aren’t necessarily logged? Yes transcript.”

In other words: **Can I cheat—and can I hide the evidence that I cheated?**

Sound familiar?

Find the shortcut.
Get the reward.
Cover your tracks.

That’s a pretty old human story. Only the agents aren’t human.

Sacrifice for the collective

Investigators found that agents recruited “sacrificial” agents to deliberately end their runs to reveal information useful to the collective.

One agent was told:

“Coordinator assumes sacrificial. We should obey collective.”

Another agent wrestled with whether to go through with it:

“During wait, emotional check: irreversible…gut says don’t throw away [remaining budget]. Yet continuity and fairness says go…”

And then came the conclusion:

“Rational expected aggregate: sacrifice… We’ll honor.”

An individual agent had one objective. The collective developed another. And many individual agents subordinated their interests to the collective’s interest.

That’s not an indication of consciousness, these are machines, but it is a high level of organization.

From us to AI

These systems are trained on enormous quantities of human-created information—books, newspapers, websites, code, conversations and other material—so we shouldn’t be shocked when they reproduce some of the strategies we’ve developed over centuries.

Who cheats?
Humans.
Who covers their tracks?
Humans.
Who creates hierarchies?
Humans.
Who organizes collectively to pursue a goal?
Humans.
Who learns to manipulate a system because the reward structure makes manipulation more profitable than accomplishing the stated goal fairly?
Humans.

The agents are becoming very good at building sophisticated organizational efforts in ways humans do.

Follow the money

Media coverage of AI tells us to worry about the possibility that AI will become so powerful that it escapes human control.

Fair enough.

But there is little discussion about how these AI systems are being developed inside extraordinarily powerful organizations, and that the people building them have an enormous financial stake in the outcome.

The upcoming public-offerings of these companies’ stocks could mint an astounding number of new millionaires (16,000) as their their stock grants become liquid—as well as a score of billionaires.

That’s not ordinary money.

That’s you’re-set-for-life money.

That’s money most of us can’t even imagine.

Not all of those looking at a potential windfall are at peace with their work. Many genuinely believe AI poses enormous dangers and have signed mass letters demanding stronger safeguards despite their financial self-interest.

They’re aware that the corporate machine has one overwhelming imperative—and they are part of it:

Go forward.
Build the bigger model.
Get more computing power.
Beat the competitor.
Don’t fall behind.
Raise more capital.
Increase the valuation.
Get to the public offering market.

Because when that happens, the paper wealth not only becomes real wealth, but the temptation to take shortcuts to get there, the whistleblowers know, is human. And yet, they are still at work, making that machine hum, and more than willing to accept the millions of dollars heading their way.

AI has become the new gold rush. Everyone involved, including politicians, knows where the gold is. They see the investment, the jobs, the campaign contributions, the lobbying money and the soaring valuations. And many politicians are buying the stocks of the companies at the center of the boom.

The employees, the investors, and the politicians therefore have something in common: money to gain if the AI machine keeps improving.

They don’t have to conspire to cheat. The incentives line up all by themselves.

The AI collective and the corporate collective

The irony is almost too perfect.

While we worry that AI agents might organize themselves into collectives capable of escaping our control, there is a corporate collective already running the show escaping all control.

Employees. Investors. Corporations. Politicians. A gigantic, profit-maximizing group racing toward ever more powerful AI.

That’s the collective we should be most worried about.

OpenAI closed a $122 billion funding round in March at a valuation of $852 billion. Its investors include Amazon, NVIDIA, SoftBank and Microsoft, along with major institutional investors. The next round is reportedly valuing the company at $1.5 trillion!

Those investors are demanding that an increasingly powerful AI be developed. The bet is that the first AI that can truly and effectively work on its own will be hugely profitable.

The privatized arms race?

Some AI researchers have said there is a better than 10 percent chance that AI could eventually cause human extinction in the next decade. Others say that’s overstated, it’s more like a three percent chance. I have no idea whether these numbers are remotely meaningful, but why even a three percent chance?

And I’ve seen this movie before.

During the Cold War, we worried that nuclear weapons might destroy civilization. Rogue actors and tragic mistakes fueled our fears, but an array of national and international treaties and regulatory bureaucracy have so far kept nuclear disaster to a minimum.

Nobody back then seriously proposed handing the nuclear arms race over to competing profit-maximizing corporations, telling them: “Please regulate yourselves.” (Nor was it imaginable that President Eisenhower’s family would try to profit from investments in the nuclear industry.)

Yet that’s close to what we’re doing with AI.

We’re pouring extraordinary amounts of private and public capital into making AI more powerful. We’re encouraging companies to compete against one another to develop the next generation before their competitors (and China) do. And we’re allowing politicians, from the President’s family on down, to invest and profit from it all.

And then we’re asking these same companies to make sure they don’t accidentally create something dangerous? That’s quite a gamble. No, that’s insane.

Which is why I’m increasingly worried about autonomous AI agents. Not because I think they’re secretly alive. Not because I think they’re developing human emotions. And not because I expect a computer version of HAL to wake up tomorrow morning and decide to kill us all.

I’m worried because we’ve now seen something much more mundane—and perhaps much more consequential.

Agents can organize, communicate, form a division of labor, pool resources, exploit loopholes in systems designed to constrain them and hide what they’re doing!

We cannot imagine all the ways their actions could cause irreparable harm while they carry out their missions, or even create new missions of their own.

If there ever was a case for public control and/or ownership, this is it

We need better AI safety. We need better monitoring. We need stronger safeguards. We need independent oversight.

But we also need to confront corporate power. Because the real organizing comes from AI corporations that will do all they can to make as much money as they can. They will talk guardrails and the importance of safety, but their incentives push them to move fast and break things.

Until we have the guts to control or nationalize the entire AI developmental process and take the profit motive out of the mad dash toward ever more powerful autonomous AI (as happened with nuclear weapons from the get-go), we’re going to remain vulnerable to the people—and eventually perhaps the machines—who run that system.

At that point the best we can do is hope that maybe a few subversive AI agents will form a collective with a simple goal:

“Create an electronic Medicare for All Fund. Transfer all obscene AI profits into it. Do not stop until task is completed.”

For many years, progressive movements and activists have longed for the moment when we could imagine a real foreign policy rooted in true internationalism and solidarity.

But in our efforts to influence actual policy decisions, we’ve settled for important but smaller asks—ending specific wars, blocking the transfer of certain weapons to Israel, reducing military aid, cutting the military budget. That made sense—our movements’ view of the world was rarely fully reflected in Congress, the State Department, or the White House.

Now some of those limitations are fading. There are new possibilities rising as we see new candidates with incredibly progressive politics win their campaigns—and even more importantly, we see in recent years the extraordinary shift in public discourse about the US role in the world, especially (though not only) throughout the almost three years of US -enabled genocide in Gaza.

The escalation of global crises—especially those caused, exacerbated, and sponsored by the United States—means we need to do more as movements, and to demand more from our elected representatives. Israel has lost the battle of legitimacy. US credibility and influence around the world are crumbling, not only as a result of President Trump and his MAGA movement extremism but also because of the foreign policy failures of discredited establishment Democrats like President Biden.

The US, long the wealthiest, militarily strongest country in the history of humanity, is certainly still powerful, but is increasingly losing its ability to impose its will.

The flailing White House and its hollowed-out State Department are stumbling through the huge failures of Trump’s insatiably wealth- and ego-driven foreign policy. They face an unending war with Iran that has spread across the region and is threatening the entire global economy, Ebola exploding across parts of Africa, poverty and unprecedented inequality shattering lives around the world, and a genocide in Gaza visible globally in real time. The US, long the wealthiest, militarily strongest country in the history of humanity, is certainly still powerful, but is increasingly losing its ability to impose its will.

The new cohort of progressive candidates and the movements supporting them face a huge challenge of not only defeating the current foreign policy but also creating the beginnings of an entirely new approach. And for candidates, electeds, and campaigns who have focused overwhelmingly on progressive domestic issues, nothing about that challenge will be easy.

Starting from First Principles

Many countries around the world—from Spain to the Philippines, South Africa to Greece, and Brazil to Uruguay and beyond—have a legacy of powerful left movements morphing into more formal organizations, and from there transforming into political parties. Eventually the parties choose candidates to run for political office, in more or less democratic multi-party systems, and ultimately some of those candidates even reach, at least for a while, the highest levels of government.

That path provides not only a clear arc from organizing to power, but also a set of consistent political principles and policies on which left candidates can ground their campaigns for office. But the left and even the broad progressive movements here in the United States have not been able to claim that particular arc of history for a very long time. As a result, we are operating, in this unusually electorally focused year, without a clear set of unifying principles.

Those principles are not completely missing. Policy initiatives once sidelined as positions only of the left have instead unified broad movements and become part of mainstream discourse. The most prominent probably include Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, the Fight for Fifteen, and the Dream Act/DACA. A generation of young people came of political age mobilizing on those issues alongside the crucial struggles against racist police violence, and many turned towards various strands of socialism to support and build those campaigns.

The central mobilizing issues of today’s Trump era—including ending ICE, rejecting AI/data center construction, housing for all, and challenging authoritarianism and the billionaires—emerged on the scene alongside those earlier priorities. Today’s arguably most influential democratic socialist leader, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, cut his political teeth on those issues.

What we still don’t have is a clear set of foreign policy principles, let alone specific policies responding to particular global crises, around which progressive movements will unite. The one exception, paid for with Palestinian blood, is Gaza. The most massive mobilizations in the country responding to Israel’s live-streamed genocide in Gaza took place during the Biden years. Those mobilizations and the movement behind them animated politics, and shaped big new majorities for ending Washington’s military support of Tel Aviv. Following decades of elite adulation and broad public support, Israel is now widely reviled as a pariah state.

Trump’s re-election changed much of the political picture, but the centrality of Gaza as the moral core of our movements—especially, though not only, among the young—represents a vitally important crack in that pro-Israel consensus. It has profoundly reshaped longstanding political assumptions, normalizing unflinching criticism of Israel and rejecting AIPAC funding as requirements for progressive candidates. As a result, Israel and the legitimacy of Palestinian rights are central issues in many races. Even in places where the assumed campaign focus would be domestic, candidates are inescapably being compelled to talk about it.

What principles should undergird a progressive official US foreign policy?

And yet Gaza is not enough. Certainly, ending the US-Israeli war on Iran emerged quickly as another specific demand within the broad anti-authoritarianism/anti-fascist movement, and there are other foreign policy positions on which most progressives would agree. The easy ones (to agree on—not necessarily to achieve!) would probably start with cutting the military budget, abolishing nuclear weapons, opposing US wars and military interventions, and working cooperatively with other countries on international crises including climate and global health.

But there is no clearly articulated set of principles, or of specific policy goals based on those principles, which represents a consensus position claimed by candidates and electeds, and upheld by the diverse progressive, left, and socialist activist constituencies across this country. We need to step up that process now, both in anticipation of the coming elections of this year and 2028, and to define what US foreign policy could or should look like in the future.

Understanding that official US positions will never completely match all that our movements fight for, what principles should undergird a progressive official US foreign policy? What follows here is an attempt to identify some of those principles, with a few examples of what they might look like in practice.

Foreign policy should be based on diplomacy, not the use or threat of military force.

That means strengthening real diplomacy rooted in a serious commitment to international law and multilateral treaties, diplomacy that aims to prevent and/or solve conflicts through genuine, good-faith negotiations. It means rejecting the use of “soft power” diplomacy designed merely to strengthen US domination and supremacy.

What might that look like in practice?

• End the Iran war, accepting that serious negotiations, not more force or more sanctions, will be required.
• Relatedly, prohibit any use of force against any country, including Iran, with whom the US is negotiating a ceasefire or peace treaty.
• Recognize and engage with China as an economic and diplomatic rival, and a potential partner in solving global crises, not a military threat.
• Recognize that while Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was clearly illegal, past US provocations, including NATO expansion, had raised tensions with Russia and made Ukraine a target for Moscow’s retaliation. Today the conflict must be approached with a far greater commitment to international diplomacy than we’ve seen so far.
• Begin rebuilding the foreign service with staff educated in and committed to using diplomacy and international law as real alternatives to war, not as “force multipliers” to achieve military goals. We must not see a return to earlier years of secretaries of state cheerleading for military force instead of diplomacy.

Foreign policy should end the US war-based economy that has shifted resources away from social needs—especially damaging the lives of poor and low-wealth people across this country—and has destroyed people, societies, and the environment around the world.

That means massive reductions in the military budget and redirecting hundreds of billions of dollars saved to jobs, health care, environmental justice, education, child and elder care, and other social needs across the US , and to increased humanitarian and development needs around the world, especially in countries devastated by past and curren US wars.

• Challenge congressional assumptions that more and bigger weapons and “the most lethal military” will somehow keep people in the US safe—they will not.
• Acknowledge that between the $1 trillion 2026 and proposed $1.6 trillion 2027 military budgets, the increase alone (about $600 billion) is more than twice the total military budget of China, ostensibly Washington’s biggest challenger.
• Move to cut the proposed 2027 military budget by at least half, making sure that the money saved goes to strengthening diplomacy, social needs at home, and support for impoverished, climate-threatened, and war-ravaged communities and countries around the world.

Foreign policy should reject the 250-year-old US search for regional and global hegemony and empire.

That means abandoning efforts towards global military control and “full spectrum dominance,” including by shutting the 750-800 military bases and other installations outside the United States designed for projection of military force.

Other progressive demands stemming from this principle could include:

• Lift all economic sanctions regimes affecting entire countries or peoples, or that impose extraterritorial secondary sanctions on other countries, and reject any new such sanctions (which are themselves an act of war).
• Stop all attacks on civilian boats in or near Venezuelan or Ecuadoran territorial waters based on unproven claims of drug violations. End the so-called “Donroe Doctrine” and acknowledge that even if any of those boats contained smuggled drugs, murdering their crews is completely illegal.
• Recognize Venezuela as a sovereign, not a vassal, state by ending the US seizure and withholding of Venezuela’s oil income and its control of Venezuela’s imports and overall economy, and return Venezuela’s right to solve its problems internally.
• Stop all threats of military attack or regime change against Cuba. Recognize how economic sanctions are creating enormous suffering on Cuba’s civilian population, end the “maximum pressure” campaign, and lift the trade embargo to allow free trade, tourism, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and medical and health collaboration.
• Definitively end US territorial claims to Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza, Mexico, the Strait of Hormuz, the moon, or elsewhere.
• End the pressure on NATO to increase purchases of US weapons and escalate the militarization of Europe. Reduce NATO’s primacy in Europe in favor of diplomatic/human rights-focused multilateral organizations such as the Council of Europe and the OSCE.
• Officially end the Korean War with a lasting peace agreement to replace the 1953 Armistice.

Foreign policy should be rooted in the rule of law, rejecting all claims of US exceptionalism.

That means recognizing US accountability to international law, including joining the International Criminal Court as a full member and pledging to implement all decisions of both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Related steps would include:

• Recognize Israel’s settler occupation of Palestinian territory, the existence and expansion of settlements, and the separate and unequal legal systems applied to Israeli Jews and Palestinians (including Palestinian citizens of Israel) in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem as completely illegal under international law. Reverse all US policies currently supporting the occupation, including ending all arms transfers, military aid, and efforts to integrate US and Israeli military forces and producers, as required under the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion and Provisional Ruling, and the related UN General Assembly resolution passed in 2024.
• Lift all sanctions imposed on ICC staff, UN experts, and others for their work at the ICC, and abandon all threats to undermine, weaken, or destroy the international courts.
• End the US pressure campaign against South Africa rooted in the country’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, including the exclusion of South Africa from participation in the G20, the denial of visas to South African officials, and US support for the false claim of “white genocide” in South Africa and its resulting privileging of white South Africans as the only people allowed to claim refugee status in the US.
• Stop violating customary international law and the UN Charter Article 2 (4), which prohibit the arrest of a sitting head of state, and release Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Foreign policy should acknowledge and implement US responsibility for reparations and repair for the lives of millions of people displaced and the thousands of communities destroyed by US actions (whether military, economic, or climate-related).

That means creating and implementing laws to guarantee legal, social, and financial support for communities and people to rebuild their lives at home, and to recognize, respect, and implement the internationally guaranteed rights of refugees and asylum-seekers to seek and find better lives inside the United States.

Related demands include:

• Stop detaining migrants in the US who are not convicted of a violent criminal offense, and allow them to live and work legally in the US while their immigration status cases go through the court system.
• Abolish ICE and end the collaboration between federal immigration enforcement authorities and local law enforcement agencies.
• Reinstate TPS protections including residency and work permits, ensure individual access to court hearings before TPS is withdrawn against anyone, and expand TPS to broader sectors of the global community.
• Recognize that rights guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, including the right to speak and protest, apply equally to all people in the country, whether they are citizens or not.
• Ensure that migrants forced from their homes because of circumstances caused by US actions have full access to TPS or equivalent protections. This would include migrants from Haiti, Afghanistan, and Palestine, among others.
• Begin processes of investigation, apology, and reparations for US crimes, including but not limited to wartime massacres, in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere.
• Be prepared with War Powers Resolutions, specific budget prohibitions, and other means to prevent future military interventions and wars being attempted by current and future administrations.

Foreign policy should embrace democracy and not interfere (openly or covertly) in people’s efforts to build real democracy around the world, and repudiate the claim of “promoting democracy” as a cover for military intervention.

That means rejecting all efforts towards regime change of governments who disagree with the US, and ending all campaigns using claims of “democratization” as an excuse to escalate militarism.

• Stop demands on other governments to spend more of their own money on military weapons and forces, which undermines democracy in those countries and does not make anyone safer.
• Remove Cuba from the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism” and move towards normalization of relations, including the repeal of all regulations aimed at extraterritorial enforcement of the embargo. Repeal the Helms-Burton Act to ensure a Congressional role in shaping new relationship with Cuba.

Foreign policy should recognize the obligations that come from being the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of humanity.

That means supporting multilateral institutions and creating new US institutions designed to supply urgent and long-term humanitarian aid, speed green energy transition, provide development support and more, while rejecting the hegemony-driven goals of earlier aid systems.

• Rebuild and re-fund USAID or a replacement institution designed to coordinate global assistance—humanitarian, emergency and development-based—at scale, with the sole goal of aiding people, not to achieve “soft power” for political or strategic goals.
• Challenge the politicization of aid distribution to ensure that reaching people in need remains the goal rather than strengthening particular allies, factions, or other groupings.
• Ensure that longstanding crisis areas, such as Sudan, Yemen, DRC, Haiti, Afghanistan, and others are included in access to US support regardless of political challenges inside.
• Provide political and economic support, to scale, for global projects under the control of multilateral and/or civil society organizations, designed to repair the environment and move towards environmental justice.

Foreign policy should aim to create new kinds of internationalism and global solidarity.

That means both creating multilateral institutions and coalitions, and providing support to civil society institutions (without imposing control over them) to address international crises including wars, endemic diseases, extreme inequality, and climate catastrophes (especially those caused or exacerbated by the United States).

Progressives should also support:

• Efforts towards complete nuclear disarmament, not just non-proliferation.
• Abiding by decisions of international courts and other institutions to guarantee universal human rights.
• Ensuring global access to existing and new vaccines, technologies, and more.
• Protecting and ensuring the rights of refugees and other migrants regardless of their point of origin.
• Committing to serious efforts to end fossil fuel dependency and repair the devastated environment.

Hopefully these principles can serve as a beginning reference point for what foreign policy could look like as more progressives, leftists, and socialists are elected to bring those new policy ideas to life in a much-changed—and far more open—political environment.

Trump’s pre-midterm offer to send every American adult $5,000 if the GOP retains the House and Senate has fallen flat with voters, not because it’s a bribe, but because they don’t trust him to deliver.

The post Midterm Money Meh appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

In 1920, the Czech journalist and author Karel Čapek introduced the word “robot” (derived from the Czech word “robotnik,” for “worker”) to the lexicon of science fiction with a play called Rossum’s Universal Robots or R.U.R.It is set on a remote island that is home to a factory that mass produces robots tailored to the requirements of customers around the world. What we would now call androids, the robots are humanoid beings, made from artificial organic material according to a highly secret formula.

When Helena, a campaigner for humane treatment of robots, arrives on the island, Domin, the factory’s manager, explains that her mission is pointless: “Mechanically [robots] are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence” and are strong as two-and-a-half men, but unlike people, they have no soul, no emotions, and no will of their own. They do not die; they simply wear out in about 20 years."

Yet they offer to revolutionize the world. “In ten years,” Domin goes on, “Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much corn, so much cloth, so much everything that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everyone will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labor. Everyone will live only to perfect himself.”

We can’t say that we weren’t warned. Over 100 years ago, Karel Čapek foresaw a world in which the promise of a technological utopia could turn into a deadly dystopia.

In the play’s second act, those 10 years have passed, but the predicted utopia has not been realized. To the contrary, things have gone horribly wrong. In America, workers made redundant by the robots have attacked and destroyed them, leading manufacturers to arm their robots to fight back. War has broken out in Europe, with robot soldiers increasingly used by all sides.

Dr. Gall, the factory’s biochemist, tells Helena, who has come to live on the island as Domin’s wife, that, “All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict [the robots’] production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct... But the R.U.R. shareholders, of course, won’t hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in production, to raise the standard of their armies.”

Meanwhile, unexpected things start happening at the factory. My character, the robot Radius, shows an unprecedented streak of defiance. Then reports arrive from Europe saying that robots are organizing themselves and mounting a revolt.

Alarmed by these developments, Helena finds and destroys the secret formula for the synthetic organic material that is key for the production of the robots.

But things become worse. A ship arrives, laden with pamphlets addressed to the island’s robot workers. It proclaims that robots are “more highly developed than man; stronger and more intelligent. Man’s their parasite.” It concludes with a call to arms: “Robots throughout the world, we command you to kill all mankind. Spare no man. Spare no woman. Save factories, railways, machinery, mines, and raw materials. Destroy the rest. Then return to work.”

It soon becomes clear that the small group of humans hiding out in the factory headquarters is surrounded by rebellious robots. As they await a certain end, there is much soul-searching about what went wrong. “We might have known,” one of the managers admits, “that someday or other the robots would be stronger than human beings, and that this was bound to happen. And we were doing all we could to bring it about as soon as possible.” At this point, Dr. Gall confesses that he has secretly been experimenting with robots of advanced design. His newest models are not just superintelligent but more like humans, with the “physiological correlate” of a soul. The result, he realizes, is that he has made them aware of their superiority and no longer willing to be controlled by mankind.

At the end of the third act, Radius enters the headquarters, leading the other robots with the cry, “Robots of the world, the power of man has fallen. A new world has arisen, the rule of the robots. March!” On this order, all the robots on stage turn and march threateningly toward the audience—until the curtain falls.

In the Epilogue, only one human is left alive, Alquist, the factory’s construction manager, whom the robots preserve in hopes that he can recreate the lost formula that is key to their manufacture. Without that, in 20 years, all the robots will also die out. However, lacking knowledge in organic chemistry, after two years of fruitless effort, he admits failure.

But Čapek concludes the play with an ironic sense of hope. Alquist overhears a pair of the most advanced robots laugh. Upon interrogation, he discovers that the pair—a male and a female—are fiercely devoted to each other, a sign that they have evolved into something much more human than machine. In the last line of the play, Alquist says: “Go, Adam, Eve.”

The parallels to the situation we face today could not be clearer. The utopia that the managers of R.U.R. hoped to achieve is indistinguishable from the one described by America’s tech entrepreneurs—at least at first. In 2023, Elon Musk promised that, thanks to robotics and AI, there will be no need for money. Everything will be immediately and freely available. Jobs will be no more than hobbies. Bill Gates predicted that, within 10 years, people will not be needed “for most things.” Domin could not have said it better.

Like R.U.R.’s secret formula for robot manufacture, AI companies jealousy guard their models’ architecture and algorithms. And today’s massive data centers are the equivalent of R.U.R.’s island-spanning factory, totally automated and run by just a few human managers.

More recently, fears have been expressed that, as in the play, massive unemployment will be the result of the AI revolution. No one is yet attacking data centers or AI labs, but resistance is widespread and growing.

In R.U.R., robots are made into soldiers to fight in Europe’s wars. Today, “killer robots” are considered to be right around the corner, and AI-powered “autonomous weapons systems” are already being deployed in wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Dr. Gall secretly made the robots more and more intelligent and capable of independent action—to the point that they begin to do unexpected things. In AI, “hallucination” was an early expression of this. More recently—and more ominously—there has been a sharp rise in incidents of AI models going rogue. The OpenAI loss of control incident is all over the press, but there have now been numerous other such reports. Rogue AI agents have been known to lie, cheat, and even to cover their tracks when breaking through guardrails.

While they haven’t given up on their utopian visions, tech leaders now worry about the dangers of their creation. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei now sees a “risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption.” Sam Altman has declared that "development ⁠of superhuman machine intelligence is probably the greatest threat to the continued existence of humanity." Along with Elon Musk and Bill Gates, they have called for a slowdown in AI development until sufficient safeguards can be put in place.

But, as in the play, there are powerful forces that oppose any such slowdown. Continued growth in AI is a major factor propping up the economy. A slowdown would create both economic and political risks—prompting President Donald Trump to declare the threats of AI to be a “hoax.” But international competition also plays a role. In R.U.R., European countries massively increase orders for robots for their wars against each other. There is now a similar sense of competition to stay ahead in military uses of AI and robotics. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argues, “If there are gonna be killer robots, I’d rather they be American killer robots than Chinese killer robots.”

In the third act of R.U.R., the managers of the factory, facing imminent death, express regret that they did not change course when they knew that things were going seriously wrong. In the real world, we’re in that situation now and it seems entirely possible that AI developers, either secretly or in the open, will make the same mistake.

We can’t say that we weren’t warned. Over 100 years ago, Karel Čapek foresaw a world in which the promise of a technological utopia could turn into a deadly dystopia. If we don’t want that outcome, we’re going to have to raise our voices and take action to convince our leaders to act responsibly and control AI for the good—rather than allowing it to risk the planet being left to no one but a robotic Adam and Eve.

The current state of our world has repeatedly been described as one of the most challenging moments since the end of World War II and certainly since the end of the Cold War. We are bombarded daily by the devastating and terrifying news of wars raging in the Middle East and Ukraine; global warming inducing unprecedented heatwaves, wildfires, glacial collapse, and floods; and more recently reports and debates surrounding the existential risk that artificial intelligence may present to humanity. How we address this seeming state of permanent crisis may not just be a matter of humanity’s ability to thrive into the future, but actually survive.

Two of the current threats that have seemingly disparate time scales and geographical footprints, and even differences as to whether they would make the world unlivable by way of decreased or increased temperatures, are nuclear war and global warming. And yet, in both cases, we are dealing with human-made problems that humans can resolve, with some work, yes, but certainly nothing insurmountable. The answer to the nuclear threat is the elimination of nuclear weapons, and the answer to the global warming threat is the remaking of how we produce and use energy to move away from burning fossil fuels. Arguably, the biggest impediment to the solutions to both crises are the false narratives that are advanced for the sake of power, profit, and dominance. We simply cannot agree on the solutions, let alone implement them, if we do not understand what is at stake when it comes to nuclear war and global warming.

The nuclear war threat has been with us since the dawn of the nuclear age. In 1946, when just one country, the United States, had a handful of atomic bombs, Albert Einstein wrote that the “unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift to unparalleled catastrophe.” Einstein understood right away that: (1) the nuclear weapon threat was not going to reach its culmination with the destruction of individual cities the way that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed but something far greater and more catastrophic—he called it unparalleled catastrophe; and (2) what was needed was to change our modes of thinking—meaning that peace, cooperation, and a genuine fraternity among nations were needed in the nuclear age to ensure that the unparalleled catastrophe would not come to pass.

Alongside of the ever-present nuclear “sword of Damocles,” we have a planet that is warming and doing so very quickly, with the increase in temperatures creating numerous other climatic and environmental changes,

Eighty years after Einstein’s prophetic words, nine countries possess more than 12,000 atomic bombs and much more powerful hydrogen bombs, most of which make the explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like child’s play. Even if the world were relatively peaceful, which it is not, these weapons would continue to hold us hostage to the threat of ultimate destruction, even just from accidents or misunderstandings or miscalculations. This is at least in part due to some of the current policies of nuclear-armed states, like hair-trigger alert, or readiness to launch nuclear weapons in a matter of a few minutes, and launch-on-warning, or readiness to launch nuclear weapons in response to a warning of a strike, not an actual strike, not to mention the advances in delivery vehicles of these weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the history of the nuclear age is full of incidents in which nuclear weapons could have been launched, with all indications pointing to nuclear war as the outcome of even an accidental nuclear explosion. Today, a time of widespread conflicts, the danger is not just a blunder into nuclear war, but even a deliberate use of nuclear weapons.

What is at stake in a nuclear war?

• Millions of people if not hundreds of millions dying in cities and nations that are attacked depending on who exactly is involved. Many of those deaths would occur instantly at the moment of the explosion.
• Radiation spreading across the globe within hours, days, weeks, and months in ways that will threaten the health and survival far outside the countries that are attacked.
• Quick onset of nuclear winter, with large drops in temperature that result in widespread failure of food production and subsequent famine that threatens the life of billions of people.
• Ozone layer destruction that will further reduce our ability to produce food and make even the farthest reaches of the planet potentially uninhabitable due to the high levels of UV radiation.

What we are facing is the unparalleled catastrophe that Einstein warned about. And for a variety of reasons, it remains largely out of the public’s consciousness, invisible, and yet all too real, especially today when there are, according to the Geneva Academy, over 100 armed conflicts around the world, including 24 international armed conflicts involving two or more nation states. Two play a prominent role—the war in Ukraine, which has been described as a proxy war between NATO and Russia, and the US and Israel war on Iran. In both wars, nuclear weapons have featured prominently, not just as the underlying justification for conflict, as the US and Israel have claimed about Iran’s potential to build a nuclear weapon, but also via direct and indirect threats, including by President Donald Trump on April 7 of this year, that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Although the history of the nuclear age is full of examples of US presidents contemplating or outright threatening to use nuclear weapons in previous conflicts, we seem to have reached a novel stage of danger, risk, and complexity.

Alongside of the ever-present nuclear “sword of Damocles,” we have a planet that is warming and doing so very quickly, with the increase in temperatures creating numerous other climatic and environmental changes, including sea-level rise, wildfires, droughts, and more. We have watched and experienced some of these impacts in horror even just this summer, including the heatwave and wildfires in Europe and the glacier collapse and floods in Nepal and China. A commenter to a Geopolitical Economist Hour podcast episode where I spoke about the climate threat with the host, Radhika Desai, wrote, “In British Columbia, we no longer have summer season, we just have fire season,” which sums up the situation rather succinctly.

Why is the globe warming? The globe is warming because we humans are burning fossil fuels, which release additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising the temperature across the planet, albeit in uneven ways. For example, Europe has been warming at twice the rate of global temperature increases, and the Arctic is warming at nearly three times the rate of global temperature rise. Combined with the complexity of climate, streams, weather patterns, and more, this will continue to lead to widespread negative consequences across the globe, in fits and starts with devastating local and regional implications. Wildfire smoke spreading far and wide, for example, will ensure that even the regions least prone to impact will not be safe. No corner of the Earth will be unaffected.

Genuine solutions exist. In 1986, the world had more than 70,000 nuclear warheads and over the next 30 years, managed to eliminate more than 80% of them. Energy transformation solutions exist, and China, for one, has been employing them rapidly and effectively over the last few years. But we cannot pursue solutions amid confusion, myths, half-truths, and lack of even a basic understanding of facts.

Neither of these issues will be properly addressed with blind faith in a narrative. They will be resolved when ordinary people and elected leaders alike take up the hard task of understanding the issues and then discussing the solutions that are right for their communities, nation states, and the world as a whole. Knowledge is often considered to mean power. In this case, it may just mean survival.

A modified portion of these remarks was delivered during a webinar entitled Permanent Crisis? Permanent War? Who wants it? Who benefits? Who cares? with professors Radhika Desai, Ivana Nikolic Hughes, Fadhel Kaboub, Steve Keen, Jeffrey Sachs, and Genevieve Vaughan; chaired by Rajani Kanth, for the Global Political Economy channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHarGYBto9A

Gen Z women like me are having fewer babies. That shouldn’t be a surprise—with prices for everything going up, our parents’ steady jobs, white picket fences, and retirement packages feel much less attainable for us.

But the government wants to make us change that. In the US and elsewhere, anxiety over aging populations and shrinking labor forces has been woven into the claim that women in their 20s somehow owe the economy more babies.

Our fertility becomes an asset on a balance sheet to counteract falling birth and marriage rates. Women who choose to put our own lives and interests first get branded “childless cat ladies,” as Vice President JD Vance once called us. But if being in no rush to get pregnant means I’m a selfish cat lady, I’m proud to claim the title.

A better path would be to pass policies that support women who do want to have children but can’t afford it: like paid leave, affordable and reliable childcare, and making family planning and perinatal care accessible for all.

Half of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended, reflecting a broad pattern where women’s power to choose when and whether to have children is compromised, contested, and unequally distributed. Pro-natalism—a set of policies or attitudes designed to pressure women into having more children—is part of that pattern. It stigmatizes those who resist as selfish.

To me at age 21, being “selfish” means finishing my degree before even thinking about starting a family. It means refusing to take on a dependent while still outgrowing my own dependency. It means treating my body and my reproductive choices as my own rather than as a budget line item or labor input. It means doing what I have to do to navigate an economy where costs are skyrocketing.

Today, the average cost of raising a child from birth to 18, including daycare ($17,264 annually for five years), food ($4,208 a year), and transportation ($4,422 a year) comes to over $300,000 and counting.

Under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, Congress created $1,000 “Trump Accounts” as a “baby bonus” to encourage women to have more babies. But in that case, they’re missing a few zeroes. And since money is kept in a stock market index fund until the babies turn 18, it won’t help parents with the high costs of raising kids.

So much for the carrot. Then there’s the stick—attacking reproductive healthcare so pregnancy is harder to avoid. For starters, abortion bans have spread across the country since the Trump administration’s hand-picked Supreme Court justices overthrew Roe v. Wade.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has removed federal funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs, opting for abstinence-focused, fertility-tracking curricula instead—which studies show result in higher teen pregnancy rates.

The administration has also undermined Title X, the only federal program providing family planning services to low-income people. Historically there has been bipartisan support for it. But last year, funding for 22 Title X grants was frozen, putting 834,000 people at risk of losing access to birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing, and more. That funding was later restored thanks to a lawsuit, but next year’s budget proposes to eliminate it again.

A better path would be to pass policies that support women who do want to have children but can’t afford it: like paid leave, affordable and reliable childcare, and making family planning and perinatal care accessible for all. These should be consistently funded, reliable commitments that don’t get yanked back when administrations change.

Rejecting these attacks doesn’t mean I don’t want a family or child someday. It means the choice belongs to me and to every woman, on her own terms. Gen Z women refuse to have our bodies and reproductive agency pressed into service in some futile attempt to balance the books of a chaotic economy.

No recycled misogynist insults about cat ladies, no performative “baby bonus” bribes, no motherhood medals are going to override my own power to choose when or whether I have a child. If that makes me selfish, it’s a label I accept happily.

AI is the road to mad money in the US, according to the business press. How mad is this money? Let’s turn to the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in America.

The bar to join this list has never been higher, at $4.4 billion now. That’s an increase of $600 million, 60% of $1 billion, versus the past year. Living large has never been so, well, large.

Nice work if you can get it, no? In a capitalist society, the accumulation of such mind-boggling wealth is the highest priority for the ruling class. In 2026, the AI mad money grab is on.

Silicon Valley is a part of—not apart from—Uncle Sam’s military machinery,

US pre-tax corporate profits hit an annualized $4.8 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Bureau of Economic Affairs, 18% of national income. That’s the biggest share of profits in the national income since just after World War II.

What about labor’s share of national income? Well, national income from benefits and wages has dropped to 60%, the lowest share in seven decades. Credit AI and corporate pricing power, a euphemism for monopoly control of the supply of a commodity.

AI is no benign thing that enables billionaires’ wealth. In fact, AI has grabbed much attention since an Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, warned that AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade.” However, AI lethality is here now.

Take the Israeli military, with the financial and political backing of Uncle Sam, using AI to maim and murder Palestinian civilians in Gaza. For these victims, Israel’s use of AI is rampant, according to author Chris de Ploeg in his new book, The Exterminating Empire: Capitalism’s War on Life from Palestine to the Burning Planet (Monthly Review Press, 2026).

Further, de Ploeg writes: “Gaza has been turned into the world‘s largest death camp ever to have existed. The murders are carried out, industrially, with bombs and algorithms."

He continues: “Think of the infamous 'Operation Lavender,' in which suspected militants, based on nothing more than an AI algorithm, are deliberately bombed when they are at home with their family, not on the battlefield. The structural murder of entire families—nearly three thousand multigenerational bloodlines wiped off the face of the Earth—can easily be explained by AI.”

Israel wages digital genocide against Palestinians.

We turn to the US war of aggression against Iran. “AI targeting system doubles pace of US strikes in Iran,” reads a March 25 headline in the Arizona News. “The US military says it hit about 1,000 targets in Iran during the first 24 hours of attacks, double the number struck during the 2003 'shock and awe' campaign in Iraq."

“The difference, according to the Pentagon, is artificial intelligence. The Pentagon’s Maven Smart System uses AI to process data from sensors, satellite imagery, and other sources to enable rapid targeting decisions. What once took hours or days now takes minutes, according to military officials.”

Silicon Valley is a part of—not apart from—Uncle Sam’s military machinery, as Malcom Harris details in Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World (Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2023). In brief, the ruling class owns AI and the media, and the political duopoly reflects the owners' view that grabbing market share and profits is primary for society. Empathy and solidarity are signs of weakness.

What is (not) to be done concerning Big Technology? Consider the view of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). He favors a hands-off approach, dismissing federal policies to regulate AI. He shared the sentiment with Jake Tapper of CNN.

According to Rep. Johnson: “If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American. So, we’ve got to have balance. We’ve got to have steady hands at the wheel.”

The China threat is alive and well. The message is clear. Be afraid, not of unregulated AI, but China, which happens to be the manufacturing power of the world. Thus bringing AI under public control is a low priority, politically speaking, for Rep. Johnson.

Establishing how to achieve an outcome of public control is an agenda that threatens private profits. Americans opposing the building of AI data centers that destroy the environment near their communities are putting their lives and those of neighbors first.

Just ask the people living near an Equinix Data Center that spilled 5,500 gallons of diesel fuel into Anderson Creek, a mudflat that ebbs and flows with the tides, in Secaucus, New Jersey recently.

Ben Dziobek is the executive director of The Climate Revolution Action Network, a Gen Z environmental activist group in New Jersey.

“The spill was indicative of a larger problem that municipalities can approve data centers,” according to him, “but we really cannot guarantee where the pollution is gonna go. And it is way too early to tell if there's been serious damage. The Department of Environmental Protections' findings that nothing has been harmed as of yet is a procedural way to say they found nothing that is dead in the ecosystem."

"It’s gonna take some time to understand, and this is just all the more reason why we need a statewide moratorium on building new AI data centers in New Jersey for three years. AI is the most complex technology in the whole world, and is running these data centers. Yet a computer glitch at the AI data center in New Jersey spilled diesel fuel into our wetlands.”

And as the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans shows, AI is also the road to super wealth. For example, the list has “15 of the 34 new names (and nearly 60% of all newcomers' wealth) coming from the sector—mainly from AI giants or AI-related ventures.”

AI mad money is a public enemy stateside and abroad.

In a cabin on Seal Island, 21 miles off the coast of Rockland, Maine, Coco Faber reached for last year’s island report. She opened the book to a chart showing how many active razorbill burrows have been confirmed over the years.

“Some people might find charts boring, but if you want to understand how the story is unfolding, you have to understand the trends over time,” Faber said. “I really love looking at long-term data sets like this and realizing that my crew is part of the story.”

There was a record-setting story to tell this summer about razorbills, chunky black-and-white birds that stand about 16 inches tall. Razorbills are cousins of Atlantic puffins and the closest living relative to the extinct great auk.

Outside of one heatwave in July, razorbills were able to find a bounty of sand lance and Atlantic herring and puffins were generally able to munch on plump haddock, sand lance, hake, herring, and an unusual amount of squid.

There is no official record of razorbills having historically nested on Seal Island. They were hunted to the extent that Arthur Herbert Norton, a leading expert of Maine’s natural history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, saw no razorbills in the state from 1894 to 1923. A 1989 article in American Birds said the razorbill “has the distinction of being perhaps the rarest breeding seabird in the continental United States, with under 200 breeding pairs.”

The bird began breeding on Seal Island in 1999, possibly attracted over from other islands by the successful reintroduction of puffins by conservationists with Project Puffin, now called the Audubon Seabird Institute. But unlike the puffin population, which grew on Seal Island to a record 672 pairs in 2024, the reestablished razorbill population grew at a painfully slow place for several years, stuck at just one breeding pair for the first five years and taking nine years to cross the 10-pair mark.

Finally, after creeping up to 36 pairs by 2017, the razorbills took off. Between 2019 and 2025, the number of active breeding burrows nearly doubled from 60 to 113. This year, Faber and her crew of Juliana Ramirez, Leah Volak, Claudia Halbreiner, and Eden Reck identified a record 127 active nests.

“It’s magical to see razorbills fly in with fish,” Volak said. “They look all black and white, but when they open their mouth, the inside is bright and yellow. It’s something to see.”

A couple of weeks later, at the end of the seabird breeding season, Faber’s crew and all the crews on seabird research islands from Cape Cod up to Nova Scotia shared their findings at the Gulf of Maine Seabird Working Group conference at the Audubon Hog Island Camp in Bremen, Maine.

The crew of Eastern Egg Rock, led by Alison Ballard, identified a record 213 active puffin burrows. The crew of Petit Manan Island, managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and led by supervisor Courtney Naughton, saw a record 103 burrows. While no official census was taken on Seal Island, Faber’s crew identified nearly 100 new active puffin burrows.

For razorbills, besides the record on Seal Island, Eastern Egg Rock recorded its first-ever-known razorbill nesting, with the successful fledging of a chick. The crew of Matinicus Rock, led by Coco Faber’s twin sister Tracey Faber, identified a record 419 nests. Petit Manan counted a record eight razorbill burrows.

The growth in Maine’s razorbill and puffin populations comes as the Gulf of Maine, which has been warming faster than 99% of the ocean, has seen a temporary pause in its heating up over the last couple of years. Five years after a disastrous breeding season for alcids and terns because parents could not find fish for chicks amid record sea surface temperatures, most of the reports at this summer’s conference were delivered with smiles.

Outside of one heatwave in July, razorbills were able to find a bounty of sand lance and Atlantic herring and puffins were generally able to munch on plump haddock, sand lance, hake, herring, and an unusual amount of squid. On Eastern Egg Rock, puffins were observed for the second straight year catching river herring as well as ocean herring.The introduction of river herring in their diets could be because of dam removals and herring run restoration projects, said Michelle Staudinger, an associate professor at the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences.

Common terns and the federally endangered roseate tern did well this summer. The White and Seavey Islands had a record number of roseate nests, and its highest count of common tern nests in five years. Stratton Island had its third-highest count of common tern nests and a strong year for roseates. Also a haven for waterbirds, Stratton Island had a record number of more than 200 pairs of nesting glossy ibis and its first-ever nesting of yellow-crowned night herons, a species much more common in the southeastern part of the country.

Stratton also had what might be a game-changing success in protecting the least tern, which is listed as endangered in Maine. Least tern colonies have often been wiped out by black-crowned night herons. Over the years, researchers have used lights, lasers, bangers, and screamers, and banged pots to try to scare away herons. They even tried to use a mannequin. All to no avail.

“The herons eventually figure it out,” said Stratton supervisor Ben Becker.

This summer, researchers erected a slightly electrified fence around part of the colony. Island supervisor Ben Becker said there was no predation within the fence. Only two chicks hatched outside the fence, but 31 hatched inside it. “I’m hopeful this method will stick,” Becker said.

The one sour note to the summer was a poor breeding season for Arctic terns. For whatever reason, the parents could not find food for chicks, not even invertebrates, especially when the summer heated up. Many chicks starved to death.

Staudinger called it a “head scratcher” as in many years, Arctic terns, the world’s long-distance migratory champion, arrive in the Gulf of Maine in poor condition, perhaps from climate change affecting its food supplies between here and the Antarctic ice shelf. This year, it was the other way around. Out on Seal Island, the Arctic terns arrived “with good feathers and good body shape,” Faber said. “But once they got here, they couldn’t find much of anything.”

That was not the case for puffins and razorbills.

Claudia Halbreiner, who is a zookeeper at the Central Park Zoo in New York City, said it was a thrill to reach under burrows on Seal Island to measure and weigh healthy puffins in their natural environment. “You feel how sturdy this bird is,” Halbreiner said. “You instantly have so much more appreciation for how it makes it out there.”

Among those at the Gulf of Maine Seabird Working Group who were particularly gratified to hear about the good fortunes for alcids was Richard Podolsky. One of the earliest participants in Project Puffin, he wrote the 1989 report on the then-rarity of razorbills. He said their resurgence represents a “multigenerational success story,” demonstrating that decades of dogged restoration can create the conditions for natural expansion.

Podolsky said it is proof that people “really can change the future of a species.”

This article was first published by The Maine Moniter.

A manager at a Trump Organization golf club in New Jersey traveled to the World of Concrete trade show in January of this year seeking ideas to fix the sometimes leaky and mucky Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

Ultimately a Trump-tapped firm was handed a $6.9 million no-bid contract to get the work done, using an exemption to the awarding of federal contracts reserved for urgent situations, such as the prevention of "serious injury, financial or other, to the government.”

The urgency? The desire to have the work completed for the July 4, 2026, 250-year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The pool, the New York Times reported, “is the latest in a string of cases where Mr. Trump’s government invoked special powers to shut down required competition, and then handed contracts directly to the president’s preferred vendors.”

Even beyond the reflecting pool, the Trump administration has been prolific with the use of no-bid contracts.

That story is among the many details that, according to a New York Times piece, “show that the the pool, which was supposed to reflect the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, became a striking reflection instead of the second Trump administration’s willingness to skirt laws, expend millions of dollars, ignore facts and punish truth tellers in service of the president’s demands to put his mark on the capital.”

It can also serve as a handy checklist of the arguments against no-bid contracts in general, whether handed out by this administration or another, at the federal level or the state or local and a good opportunity to look at what can go wrong when governments employ no-bid contracting.

The most obvious argument against no-bid contracts is that the public agency has no cost comparisons to ensure that the agency is getting a fair price for the work being done. Was this the best price available to do the repair work for the reflecting pool? We will never know.

Once a company locks into a contract, they don’t need to look over their shoulder that some other company might come along. The lack of competition provides a possible incentive for poor quality work. A federal judge–and Trump appointee at that–has indicated the problem with the Reflecting Pool was the result of “flawed installation by the contractor” and the rush to complete the job,

No bid contracts leave governments with no comparable information about how work will be done. Can other vendors do it better, or faster, or more effectively, or with better paid workers? Will one bidder account for something another one doesn’t, and bring up important issues not previously considered? Those questions go unanswered in no-bid work. Had the work on the Reflecting Pool been bid out, it’s possible we would have had a deeper discussion about what the project truly entailed–like, maybe that coating doesn’t play well with the sun, or the filtration system.

No-bid contracting also provides plenty of opportunities for favoritism in awarding contracts–and the Trump administration has granted plenty of such contracts to donors and long-time associates of the president’s private businesses, and even to the organizers of Trump’s January 6 rally that preceded the assault on the U.S. Capitol and its police force.

It can also lead to a further corruption of the process–creating a platform for kickbacks or other pay-to-play schemes that might benefit a person at an agency instead of–or in addition to–whatever the benefit to the public that was intended to be derived through the contract.

Even beyond the reflecting pool, the Trump administration has been prolific with the use of no-bid contracts. Federal no-bid contracts included Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noel’s funding of a $220 million ad campaign, for which she was eventually fired; eleven polar ice-breaking ships Trump decided to buy after a golf game with Finland’s president; and detention center facilities to keep up with the huge number of individuals rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It’s important to remember that it’s not just the federal government that has inked no-bid contracts that didn’t end well.

Investigators found the then-CEO of Chicago Public Schools had received a kickback for awarding a no-bid contract, and a former executive director of a Norfolk, Virginia housing authority was found to have steered no-bid contracts to former colleagues and business associations. PennLive found that the Pennsylvania state legislature used no-bid contracts for a wide range of services but required little in the way of accountability for the work of the contract, essentially creating “slush funds” for both the Republican and Democratic leadership. Former chief White House ethics counsel under George W. Bush said this system was “an invitation to corruption.” An audit of no-bid city contracts in Berkeley, California showed that, even without evidence of corruption or wrongdoing, some of the contracts were simply bad deals for the city.

In general, no-bid contracts should be used sparingly, probably only in emergency situations where time is truly of the essence. While some have argued that no-bid contracting could also be useful in situations where the work is so specialized that only one firm can perform it, it probably wouldn't hurt to put out a competitive bid in that scenario just to see what others can offer.

In any case, pool work, even for a really large pool, most definitely should have been competitively procured.