This morning: the U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral arguments on the tariff case

Who sets tariffs? The president or the Congress?

I have a dog in this fight. 

I also have an amicus curiae brief in it.

Later this morning as I write this -- 10:00 a.m. EDT, and 7:00 a.m. on the West Coast -- the oral arguments will begin.

Livestream on YouTube

This isn't the Supreme Court; not yet. This is in front of the second highest court, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That is the nationwide district that hears cases involving the government itself: international trade, patents, trademarks, government contracts, veterans' issues. Whatever this court decides, the case will get appealed and heard by the Supreme Court because the constitutional issues are profound.

My amicus brief -- prepared by attorney Thad Guyer -- is one of 19 such briefs filed to assist the court in understanding the issues at stake. A founding principle of the American Revolution, which then became written into the Constitution, is that taxation without representation is tyranny. Representatives i.e. legislators, have the power to levy taxes. Not kings. Not presidents.

President Trump argues that he has the power to set tariffs and do them correctly, for the benefit of everyone. Here is how he posted it on Truth Social early this morning:

Trump speaks in blunt terms and hyperbole. He is dishonest, but his apparent certainty and conviction persuades a great many people. There is no Democrat who operates in counterpoint in style to this. Trump fits the moment in social media and for the needs of Fox News and conservative talk radio. 

Trump wins media attention and political power, but courts are a different venue. In courts, what is supposed to matter is the law, the rules, the Constitution; not salesmanship. The Constitution says that Congress sets tariffs. Worldwide tariffs are a big deal, a significant tax, and therefore a "major question," and therefore one that requires clear Congressional delegation if they are to hand that power over to the executive. Congress has not done so.

All 19 of the amicus briefs get at the point of clear Constitutional intent and language forbidding the executive from doing what Trump is doing.  My own amicus argument is that representation on tariff issues is a valuable Constitutional protection because I have practical access to representatives who I can -- and in fact have -- talked to about tariffs and their impact on my vineyard. The tariff power is a good place to draw the line against the growing instances of executive overreach, the brief argues, since the Constitution is so clear on Congressional authority there. There may be arguable cases of executive power in other areas, especially where national defense is concerned, but tariffs on countries that are allies don't raise those complications.

My farm is the tiniest drop in the bucket of national concerns, but it makes the case that everyone has an interest -- a competing interest -- in tariffs. Car dealers and car buyers; grain farmers and cereal companies; manufacturers of washing machines and buyers of them; lobstermen and buyers of lobsters. Congress, not the executive, was set up to broker and negotiate the various competing interests. 

Trump's position is that American democracy doesn't work anymore. It is slow and ineffective, run by people he casually calls corrupt traitors. Only a strong unconstrained leader can act decisively and make America great, and that man is Trump. He says he is the legitimate voice of the American people. 

My position is that all of the various elected officials at every level, and all other majority and minority stakeholders and citizens with rights, privileges, and immunities, are the legitimate reflection of the will of the people. Not one man. 

Who says I'm right and Trump is wrong? The Constitution. The one Trump swore an oath to uphold. The one he ignores.

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Canada: First break it. Then take it.

     "When Trump sees prosperity in any country other than the US, his prima facie conclusion is that country is ripping off the US.”

Trump has a strategy: Weaken Canada by wrecking its trade relationship with the USA. Then, with the country poorer and its citizens feeling ornery and wanting change, the U.S. can "rescue" them by taking them over.

Sandford Borins returns with a guest post laying out Trump's strategy, and what he thinks Canada must do in response. One of them so far has been one that affects me directly, or at least will when my vineyard starts producing wine for sale: a boycott of American wines in the nationwide effort to "buy Canadian."

Toronto wine store shelf, before tariffs.

Toronto wine store shelf, boycott underway.

Sandy is a college classmate. A Canadian, he is professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto. In retirement he maintains his own website, where he writes about politics in Canada and the USA:   https://sandfordborins.com. This guest post was first published there yesterday. 

Borins

Guest Post by Sandford Borins

Win-Win or Win-by-Losing?

 Consider this scenario. A large firm and a small firm, the former ten times the size of the latter, are in similar lines of business. The smaller firm is seeking joint ventures or strategic alliances with the larger one. After the smaller firm rejected a merger, the larger firm is planning a hostile takeover. The smaller firm is looking for win-win options that make both firms better off. The larger firm is willing to suffer in the short term to make the smaller firm significantly worse off, which would make a hostile takeover less expensive. Thus, the smaller firm wants to create value and the larger firm wants to destroy value.

Fortress Am-Can or 51st State?

I think this scenario is perfectly applicable to the tariff negotiations between the U.S. and Canada. The Canadian Government is talking about joint ventures, integrated supply chains (for example automobiles), or what the Ontario Government calls “Fortress Am-Can.” Since he was elected, Donald Trump has continued to talk about Canada as the 51st state and the U.S. taking over Canada, with his latest word on the topic being “never say never,” in his Oval Office media availability with Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In the current tariff negotiations, the Canadian Government has lined up U.S. business leaders and politicians, especially Republicans, who share this win-win vision for their firms or their states. They realize that Trump’s tariffs will increase costs to Americans and reduce their exports to Canada. The problem is that the business leaders sometimes and the Republican politicians always seem unable to find their voice when talking to Trump.

Donald Trump’s vision appears to be to do as much damage as possible to the Canadian economy, with the expectation that impoverished Canadians will want to join the U.S. because they will then be financially better off.  Put differently, it’s a manifestation of Trump’s theory of dominance: If he kicks people in the face hard enough, they will bend to his will. Canadians’ reduced purchases of US exports and sharply reduced travel to the U.S., to which Trump has applied his all-purpose insult “nasty,” indicate a resolve to resist.

Trump’s plan to damage the Canadian economy is constructed on a sector-by-sector basis by shutting off access to the U.S .market and enhancing the access of U.S. businesses to the Canadian market. Steel and aluminum tariffs will choke off the major market for Canadian producers. Tariffs on automobile parts and assembly will harm the Canadian auto industry, which is predicated on access to the US market. Opening up Canada’s protected agricultural sector will hurt rural Canada. Trump would like U.S. banks to have access to Canadian retail banking thereby weakening the big six Canadian banks. Putting tariffs on film production in Canada for the U.S. market will kill the Canadian film industry. A rapid increase in Canadian defence spending will force the Canadian Government to take on billions of additional debt and likely to buy billions in U.S. weaponry.

I am not privy to the current trade and security negotiations between the U.S. and Canada, but if I am right that economic pain is Trump’s agenda, then these are the likely U.S. Administration proposals. It is hard to see what is in it for Canada, except the choice between immediate catastrophe or slow decline.

When Trump sees prosperity in any country other than the U.S., his prima facie conclusion is that country is ripping off the US. Thus, the U.S. Administration objective in the trade negotiations with Japan and the EU is to transfer wealth through U.S. tariffs and agreement of the EU and Japan to lower their tariffs and invest in the U.S. But these deals are not a prelude to attacks on their sovereignty.

What should the Carney Government do in this situation? The answers are self-evident but worth repeating.

No deal at all is better than a bad deal. Don’t accept the pressure of artificial deadlines. Canada already has a trade deal with the U.S. – CUSMA [known in the U.S. as the USMCA.] The current sectoral tariffs are a violation of CUSMA, and Canada should not accept them or any additional sectoral tariffs.

Second, Prime Minister Carney will have to level with the Canadian people. He may have to revive the campaign line “he wants to break us so he can own us,” if this indeed describes the Trump Administration’s approach to its negotiations with Canada.

Third, we will have to look for alternative ways to keep alive the sectors of the Canadian economy Trump is hell-bent on using tariffs to destroy. Bailouts are a costly and only temporary solution. We will need different markets, both domestic and export, and likely different types of products.

I would like to think that if there is some kind of deal between Canada and the U..S. this week it is along win-win lines. But I’m not betting on it.

 

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Trump in a frenzy: Blame and distract.

Blame Biden's autopen:

     "That's the scandal they should be talking about. NOT Jeffrey Epstein. The scandal you should be talking about is the autopen, that's the biggest scandal, one of them, in American history."
             Donald Trump

An autopen is the great scandal???

He is flailing and looking desperate, like a guy on the run. Not tough. Not dominating. Trump is grasping at straws.

He is trying out blaming Democrats for the Epstein mess:

And former FBI director James Comey might be involved. Look at him!

Or "Crooked Hillary." 

Or Bill Clinton:

Focus instead on "Barack Hussain Obama:"

And why aren't we talking about the terrible Fed chair instead of Epstein?

Don't forget the fake media -- including Rupert Murdock's The Wall Street Journal:

Even Republicans, including his own MAGA supporters, are looking at the Epstein files and wondering about a coverup. Hell with them!

The problem with a "throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks" approach is that the real message he delivers is that he is desperate. A desperate person must have something to hide. There are too many targets. "Look anywhere and everywhere" is not as credible a defense as telling people there is a clear, specific bad guy. The problem for Trump is that the most obvious "bad guy" here is his own team, with its various and self-contradicting stories. His appointees at the FBI had six months to cook the books, but apparently they could not. Too many people must have known something and had copies, maybe including Elon Musk.

I don't think that any image or video of Trump, with a female of any age whatever, would damage him with his supporters. We already know he is a sexual predator. His supporters are ok with that. It is Trump being Trump.

But somehow his badly-played, on-again, off-again coverup is hurting him. It makes him look afraid and weak. 

He is off his game. 

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I don't care if Trump cheats at golf

I expect him to cheat.

The video shows Trump's caddie dropping a ball in a more favorable spot for him.

Democrats think it is a "got-cha" moment. It isn't.

Watch. The cheating goes quickly. The caddy in the red vest quietly drops a ball onto the edge of the fairway as he walks toward Trump's actual ball located off-camera. See it? It is the tiny white dot just behind the caddy. 

Here is the video: 22 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gmlyVoSSONY

Golf is supposedly the game of gentlemen. It has an honor- code of self-policing of its many rules of fair play. Golfers see the game as a test of character.

Of course Trump cheats at golf. Trump cheats at everything, and it is part of his brand. Indeed, it is part of his appeal to his MAGA base, and beyond it.

That's right. It is a positive for him. 

The American public is in a backlash mode. It is frustrated by an economy and government that seems hamstrung and incapable. Americans have a well-founded idea that we used to be a can-do nation. We could build Liberty Ships. We could build the Hoover Dam. We could cut down trees and build houses. We could secure our borders. 

Now there is a sense that the whole country -- and Democrats especially -- have created a cannot-do world, and especially in Democratic states and cities. California makes jobs but it cannot build houses for the people who would do those jobs. It cannot build high-speed rail to connect L.A. and San Francisco. California cannot build California-compliant gasoline refineries. Environmentalists stop Californians from building environmental projects.

Some of the appeal of Texas in the national consciousness -- and part of why it is growing in population and political power -- is that it has a reputation as the antidote to California. Things get done in Texas, including building wind turbines and solar farms. A majority of Texans oppose abortion so, by-golly, they passed a draconian law to ban abortions. It is harsh and it rewards snoops and tattle-tales, but they got done what they wanted.

Trump doesn't care about the niceties of laws, norms, or the Constitution. He does what he wants, asserts that he can do it, and dares the Congress or courts to stop him. He makes pretextual arguments. He claims we are at war with Venezuela so he can claim the right to deport people under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. It is cheating, but people want something done. People who want more manufacturing jobs in America think that -- maybe, who knows? -- tariffs will bring them back, so they are OK with Trump claiming we have a trade emergency so he can set tariffs. 

Trump flagrantly cheated his vendors, cheated on his wives, cheated his banks, cheated on his taxes, cheated Stormy Daniels with hints of a role on TV, cheated students at Trump University, cheated by exaggerating the value of Trump Steaks, cheated with Russia in his 2016 election (as verified by the GOP-led Senate investigation), and he cheated in claiming a landslide victory in the 2020 election (as verified by his own election security chief and attorney general). He wants the independent Fed to lower interest rates when economic conditions don't call for it, so he may fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell with a pretext about cost overruns at the new Fed building. 

He cheats. For many, the question is "So what?" People frustrated with constraints and excuses for inaction like Trump's can-do, cheat-if-necessary attitude. As long as the people or countries being cheated are someone else, and the end result is popular, a sizable group of Americans prefer that he cheat. They like winning. The video shows the world what a winning golfer looks like.

Democrats need to wise up. Americans may not want a cheater, but they do want can-do leaders. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro gets this. Maybe some work and overtime rules got broken and contracts got fast-tracked. Who cares?

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania news release

I am not shocked by Trump cheating at golf. I would be shocked if he didn't. 

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Easy Sunday. Satire and intimidation.

Paramount caved to Trump. 

Big media is a business. It is vulnerable. 

Democrats have had a bit of fun this week. They should enjoy it while they can. 

The big story isn't Trump being laughed at. The big story is that Trump is openly and unashamedly willing to use the power of the federal government to punish media that displease him.

This headline from a Scottish newspaper was fun for Democrats:

And this week the South Park people had fun skewering Trump and the show's corporate parent. They depict Trump trying unsuccessfully  to interest the devil in having sex with him:

And they make multiple references and depictions of Trump having a small penis. A small penis contradicts Trump's brand as an alpha-male stud:

But I am not celebrating. I see a problem. Trump is openly saying in back-to-back Truth Social posts that he wants to intimidate the owners of media companies.

I don't doubt that straight-out efforts to suppress an unwelcome point of view would be stopped, even by this Supreme Court. There won't be an executive order requiring people to say only kind things about Trump. There is a better way to achieve that goal. Trump announced it in those posts.

Media platforms with national reach are businesses. Some need licenses to broadcast. All of them need access to the postal service. All of them have leaders who would be inconvenienced if put on a no-fly list. All of the key employees have passports. All of the businesses have patents and copyrights that need protection.  Anyone can be arrested and held in a miserable jail situation a day or two based on pretense charges for crimes that are then dropped. Jamie Dimon wouldn't like that. Nor would Tim Cook or Mark Zuckerberg. Trump could make an example of them, like he did with Columbia and Harvard.

Trump has made clear that "good faith" enforcement of the law is not necessary -- not against his enemies. Pretense is OK. Make a claim. Assert it. Let the slow wheels of justice turn. Eventually the Department of Justice says "never-mind" but in the meantime it is miserable and expensive for the target. The way to avoid trouble is to avoid annoying the king. Don't poke the bear. Be careful. Be prudent. Obey in advance.

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Fifty years: A guest post reflection

1967.

LBJ at a 1967 press conference. "We are making progress in Vietnam."

In 1917, fifty years before I started college, people farmed with horses.

World War I was underway in 1917. People drove Model T Fords. The first radio station was three years away. The first "talking movies" wouldn't be for another decade. 1917 seemed so very, very remote to me in 1967. It was another era.

Fifty years pass. Young adults see me as old. How could they not? I am old. Like Tony Farrell, the author of today's guest post, I was born in 1949, a very lucky time to have been born. Fifty years prior to today doesn't seem remote to me at all. Carter was president. cars looked cool, everything seems a lot like things are today.

College classmate Tony Farrell wrote about the passing of fifty years in this reflection on youth, war, the man in the White House, and Harvard. Tony had a long career in marketing for upscale brands, including the memorable, but ill-fated product,Trump Steaks.

Tony Farrell

Guest Post by Tony Farrell 

I recall my early first meeting with my freshman advisor, John B. Fox, Jr. ’59, head of the Career Plans office. When I said something like, “…because people like it here so much…,” he interrupted: “I don’t see how anyone can like it here anymore.” Ah, the collision of his old Harvard—where “diversity” meant “where you summered”—and our emerging one. “When I lived in the Yard,” he protested, “we had grass. Now, there’s no grass.” I knew what he meant (about the lawn) but I bet he missed the irony. 

As I related for my 50th high-school reunion in 2017, I have a hard time thinking about a half century. As high-school seniors in 1967, what did we think of the 1917 graduates? Is it possible we’re seen with that same distance? I don’t think so. I mean, 1917 meant no TV; heck, no radio! No air travel and practically no cars or phonographs or movies. In contrast, I detect essentially no difference between 1967 and 2017 (or 1971 and this year): The internet and smartphones are, of course, new (especially to me) but otherwise, it’s still radio, TV, movies; a ’67 Mustang is just another cool car on today’s roads; clothing like jeans, tees and khakis is not so different; we still listen to rock, and I recently saw McCartney in concert. Time is all so foreshortened….

Looking back across my 70+ years on Earth, I am most profoundly grateful for never having seen combat (unlike my father and father-in-law, Navy officers in the Pacific Theater in WWII, and despite my also having served as a Navy officer, during the Vietnam era). 

My British ancestors were not so fortunate: A cousin traced my Mom’s family back 15 generations, to a Thomas Bracey (b. 1550) in Bristol, England. For sure, these Braceys were not royalty. Rather, the men were colliers; teamsters; masons…and fodder: In 1917, within 12 days, brothers Gilbert (25) and Evan Bracey (19) were killed at Flanders, as was their cousin, Henry Bracey (22). In 1918, another two Bracey brothers were killed in France: Spencer (25) in June, and Sidney (28) just four days before the November Armistice. 

We American babies of 1949 are certainly the luckiest generation, if nothing else. All that the 20th century’s scourges of war and Depression ever did to me was to generate an infinite library of historical literature that kept me thoroughly entertained as I blithely drifted into my bright future.

As I brood over the current populist and nativist undermining of NATO, the European Union, the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and other institutions of peace, I reflect on the astounding wisdom and skill of American post-war leadership—responding brilliantly to the lessons of the vengeful Versailles treaty and the fiscal and economic catastrophe of 1930s; leadership that allowed our “boomer” generation to grow up in such prosperity, health, security and peace.

I just rewatched “Some Like It Hot,” the 1959 comedy movie masterpiece written and directed by Billy Wilder, an Austrian immigrant. In the opening scene—a raid on a Prohibition-era speakeasy—Pat O’Brian’s cop taunts George Raft’s gangster, Spats: “If you want to, you can call your lawyer.” Spats, with four thick-necked goons at his table, responds, “These are my lawyers,” as the hoods stand up. “All Harvard men.” 

Wilder’s punch line doesn’t land without the singular universal Harvard brand. It’s how I chose to attend. (“How bad could it be?” was my thinking.) The Harvard brand allows one to do stupid things, ask stupid questions, and no one will think you’re stupid (at first); it lends one respect without having to earn it (at first); it privileges access to a glittering global community that has helped to keep me, at least, from ever feeling too alone in the world. My marketing career focused on branding; I believe the best definition of “brand” is “a promise.” And with Harvard, it’s been a promise kept: A wonderful college experience, skillfully and respectfully extended well into my adult life. 

The University’s stalwart stance for Constitutional order, and against the forces of tyranny, is something I both expected and of which I feel very proud.

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A tricky problem for Ghislaine Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell has a task.

She needs to say what Trump needs her to day. 

Her freedom depends on it. Maybe her life. 

Events and revelations are closing in on Donald Trump. Here is another example of what is being revealed about Jeffrey Epstein. Here he is, in a deposition:

Q: Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?

A. What do you mean by "personal relationship," sir?

Q. Have you socialized with him?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Yes?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18? 

A. [ Pause.] Though l'd like to answer that question, at least today l'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.

Click

She is meeting with the Department of Justice. Pam Bondi's people.

Maxwell will come up with something. Her statement doesn't need to be honest. It doesn't even need to be plausible. It doesn't need to avoid contradicting other testimony or documentation.  She can say other people are lying, but she is telling the truth. 

Trump's MAGA supporters will leap on anything, so long as it absolves Trump and blames Democrats. Accuse Bill Clinton? Sure. Bill Gates? Sure. Barack Obama? Better yet.  After all, the MAGA conspiracy-believers insist Michelle Obama is male.

Conspiracy allegations do not need to be plausible.They need to be big-picture true, aligned with the greater world of presumed heroes and villains. "Truthy." They need to confirm what people want to be true. Donald Trump asserts his innocence. He says that all the photos of him with Epstein; and of him leering at young women at parties; of him saying he is attracted to very young women; of him bragging that he can walk into the dressing rooms of teen beauty pageants as a great benefit of owning the pageant: of him bragging that he can grab women's genitalia without even asking; and of jury verdicts finding him guilty of sexual predation -- that none of that is dispositive.  What is dispositive is that Trump denies criminal activity with Epstein.

Who do you believe? Trump or all that irrelevant evidence nonsense?

What Trump needs is an eyewitness alibi to seal the deal. He needs Ghislaine Maxwell to say Trump did nothing wrong. 

And that is what we will get.

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Making Artificial Intelligence safe for capitalism

"Regulating AI will be harder than regulating nuclear power. AI grew up in the wild."

New technology always seems Frankenstein-monster scary at first. 

We are in the Frankenstein-monster stage.

Tech billionaires at the Trump inauguration

There is plenty of material for the writer of a political blog. Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump are saying "treason;" business people are dealing with tariff uncertainty; Ghislaine Maxwell is cutting some sort of deal with Trump; the U.S. dollar is down; the stock market is up; and the Portland Trail Blazers are making crazy trades. Amid this, college classmate Jim Stodder shared an observation about a technology that I expect will change the world as profoundly as did the steam engine.

Stodder teaches international economics and securities regulation at Boston University. He left school for a decade to knock around as a roughneck in the oil fields. Then he returned to formal studies and received a Ph.D. from Yale in economics. His website is www.jimstodder.com

Stodder

Guest Post by Jim Stodder

                        Big Tech: Tired of Trump 

Elon was the first to jump ship, but he will not be the last.

Before the election the "tech bros" were aghast at the Biden administration’s clear intent to regulate the hell out of AI. Watch the Instagram exchange between Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz as they recall with incredulity how Biden staffers told them that AI was a national security issue every bit as serious as nuclear power. So it would be regulated just as stringently, with basic research results fenced off as “state secrets.”

As a result of such pronouncements, Andreesen and other tech bros decided to go all-in for Trump. We all saw Trump’s inauguration seating chart. Why has this ardor started to cool? Why are people like Dario Amodei CEO of Anthropic calling for more regulation, not less? Let me advance several reasons based on what economists call “Increasing Returns to Scale.”

Increasing Returns to Scale (IRS) means that when you double all the inputs, you more than double the output. Many people, with their instinctive distrust of the rich, think that’s always how Big Biz gets big, that everything works that way. It doesn’t. If it did, every industry would be dominated by just one gigantic firm – whoever got big first.

Virtually all firms – including ones based on AI – face a production function that looks like the letter “S”. With inputs collected into one variable on the X-axis, we have output as the Y-axis in a giant “S” curve, tilted and stretched up and to the right. In the early stages, the output curve grows steeper. Output per input is growing – we have IRS. But about half-way up, output starts to grow more slowly.

Most studies of AI scaling patterns can be summarized by similar S-curves, although that “fast first half” seems to last longer than just half the time or resources. We are now very much in the first part of the curve.

Most new technologies show such IRS in their early days, and it usually leads to cut-throat competition. What is unusual about AI technology is that this IRS stage may last a very long time. What does this say about our near future?

Why AI Must be Highly Regulated

1. A long IRS means small leads turn into much bigger ones.

2. The resources needed for “frontier” level AI are unprecedented, with some some CEOs predicting we will soon need data centers in the hundred-billion-dollar range. (See minute 18:20 in this Lex Fridman interview.)

3. Gigantic scale makes government control unavoidable, since:

  --- a. Governments will have to help raise, protect, and ensure this investment.

  --- b. The power of the AI-elite will make the robber barons look like small-town hustlers. Either the government controls them, or they own the government. I’m betting on the latter, at least for the medium-term.

4. The AI companies are starting to demand government regulation because:

  --- a. It provides a screen against the anger of the public at this new concentration of wealth and power.

  --- b. Regulation will reinforce the dominance of established U.S. firms like Open AI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

  --- c. Investors want more predictability, not Trumpian chaos.

  --- d. Given the deep concern of most AI experts about the human control and “alignment” of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), an all-out “arms race” for AGI makes catastrophic outcomes more likely.

  --- e. The AGI arms-race with China is in full swing. This makes it harder for US leaders to tell our own companies to tread more carefully. Nonetheless, we have no hope of “arms control” – persuading the Chinese to increase regulation and safety-checking – unless we are doing it with our own companies.

  --- f. The computer power of AI is centralized – but the data it needs are everywhere. We have a massive opportunity for data sharing with our allies. This will require not just U.S. regulation, but U.S. laws for data privacy and protection – such as those the EU has been pioneering. If we want to compete with China, we need the full cooperation of all our former allies. Someone should tell Trump.

5. Regulating AI will be much harder than regulating nuclear power. Nuclear power was developed and initially provided by the federal government alone. AI grew up “in the wild”. It will remain so unless it can somehow be corralled. 

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The new media landscape.

 First Amendment:  

"Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . "

 It doesn't say anything about forbidding a president from intimidating the media into doing his will. 

Big institutions are not a bulwark against tyranny. Big means vulnerable.

Let's look at recent milestones.

*** Trump sued ABC for defamation, demanding $16 million because ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos used the word "rape" to describe Trump's sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll.

*** The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, whose fortune comes from Amazon, learned that Trump threatened to interfere with postal delivery of Amazon's packages in retaliation for unfavorable stories about Trump. The Post rescinded a planned presidential endorsement of Harris and announced editorial changes saying that henceforth all editorials would be about personal liberties and free markets. 

*** Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, now X, made a $250 million contribution to the Trump campaign, while simultaneously turning the content feed of X in a highly Trump-positive direction. Musk is rewarded with the job of reorganizing the federal workforce.

*** Prior to the 2024 election the Des Moines Register published a poll from a well-established Iowa pollster reporting that Kamala Harris had gone into the lead in Iowa. The poll turned out to be inaccurate. Trump sued the newspaper and pollster, calling the poll and its publication an act of election interference and fraud. 

*** The TV news show 60 Minutes broadcast an interview with Kamala Harris. Trump complained about the editing and sued. The corporate parent, Paramount Global, has a merger pending. It settled the lawsuit by offering a $16 million gift to the Trump presidential library.

*** TV host Steven Colbert, a Trump critic, called this a "bribe" on air. CBS announced the show was cancelled. Trump claimed credit. Trump announced that CBS has now sweetened the deal with another $20 million in free advertising for him.

*** Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion for publishing a letter Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. 

I had misunderstood something. I had thought that very wealthy media patrons like Jeff Bezos or the Redstone family, or large media companies owned by public companies, would have the financial and legal ability to stand up to political pressure. I had it backwards. Giant wealth protects itself. Put most generously to them, the leaders of those companies have a fiduciary duty to shareholders. They must protect their financial interests, not amorphous values such as truth, integrity, or democracy. So they settle lawsuits and bend to meet the demands of a tyrant. Today they bend to Trump, but in the future perhaps some leftist socialist tyrant as dangerous as Trump, a Stalin perhaps, will do the same based on the Trump precedent. (Republicans should be careful what they wish for.)

It turns out that the people who can afford to tell the truth as they see it are people who are independent, like myself, or people with nothing to lose. It isn't a perfect solution.  Independent voices on YouTube, TikTok, Reels, X, Substack, Blogspot  and the like can be idiots, trollers, and fakes. They can lie, be misinformed, and be blinded by bias. But they cannot be easily intimidated by a president because they are small, usually, and their real motivation is audience and influence. Some don't stay small and grow to have an audience of millions. This free-for-all has its own perverse set of incentives -- outrage gets clicks -- but they are different ones from those of corporate conglomerates. 

For better or worse, the media landscape has returned to something closer to what existed at the nation's founding. There weren't a few, big media outlets with institutional credibility to protect. There were thousands of tiny, independent newspapers, pamphleteers, bulletin boards, book authors, and gossipers, each wanting attention. 

The situation isn't ideal, yet somehow, in that environment 250 years ago, we formed a country that worked out pretty well, all things considered. We may not be so lucky now.

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Or course Democrats are conflicted about Israel and Palestine.

Here is today's headline in the Washington Post:

Democrats are conflicted; Republicans perhaps not so much. 

Republicans have leadership from Trump who says that Israel is right to evict the Palestinian squatters in Gaza who are delaying development of prime real estate. Trump's has a "just get it done, quick and dirty" style and he sells the value of this approach to Republicans in immigration enforcement, in police use of force, and by strong countries dominating their regions. Trump doesn't apologize for strategic cruelty; sometimes a hard job requires harsh measures, and Trump revels in that reality. Israel has a hard job to do to fulfill its own sense of national destiny.

Democrats are more conflicted about cruelty. They don't have a single strong leader. They hear from many voices. Some describe Palestinians primarily as victims overrun by Zionist colonists in the manner of White settlers expanding and breaking treaties with Native Americans. Others say that Israel is our true friend, that Palestinians choose to be badly led and have brought trouble on themselves. Democrats hear all that and are divided. Whatever else, necessary or unnecessary, justified or unjustified, what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza appears cruel. Democrats agree on that.

Liberals and conservatives segment into the political parties, although imperfectly. Jonathan Haidt, the American psychologist and political scientist, articulated the difference between their moral values. Liberals care about fairness (good) and cruelty (bad) and mostly stop there. They can be open-minded about other values. But conservatives care about additional issues along with those two: Respect for authority, loyalty to the group, and sanctity are also moral values for them. It is not surprising to me that Republicans are currently associated with flag-waving patriotism more than are Democrats. Identity with the group and authority are moral absolutes. A Democrat can see Colon Kaepernick take a knee at the National Anthem and think, "Who does he hurt? Nobody. And besides, he is protesting police cruelty." A Republican sees it and thinks he is dissing the USA. 

A Republican Christian likes to see Trump holding up the Bible. Our team wins! A Democratic Christian sees Trump cruelly flouting every element of the Sermon on the Mount preaching  humility and kindness to strangers. Hypocrite.

A person strongly oriented toward the preservation of boundaries of a group sees the presence of immigrants here illegally as an offense per se. Add to it a strong respect for authority, and we have a broad group of people happy to see ICE agents using rough force to clean out the squatters, presumably criminals, rapists, and pet-eaters. Illegal immigrants hit all three moral absolutes: group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity. Democrats tend to see it as a matter of fairness and cruelty. It isn't fair that so many people in the U.S. are the grandchildren of people who came to the U.S. seeking opportunity, but now we shut the door. And it is cruel to round up hard-working people to send them home, or even worse, to prison or some third-country.

Loyalty and sanctity make Israel's effort to create a Jewish state an easier decision for a Trump-led Republican. Israel is a U.S. ally and they want a nation of loyal people, respecting the same sacred beliefs, protected from impurities. Makes sense. Democrats want something that is apparently impossible there, a democratic multicultural state, or two of them side by side. Neither side apparently wants that. Democrats under Biden had a split-the-difference unsatisfactory response: help Israel but urge them not to be too cruel. The result was slow, visible cruelty.

Democrats see the cruelty more vividly than they see the value in an avowedly Jewish nation in a region hostile to its presence. Republicans have a solution that generally unites their party: support Israel in whatever it does. Democrats have a dilemma that will fester and divide them. They want the impossible. A genocidal final solution would disgust the world, so it is politically impossible for Israel. The practical accommodation to that is slow misery, played out in public. There is no endgame to this. It is a problem for the world and for Democrats.

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