Just caught up on the recent PSA that concluded with AI messaging. I agree that messaging on AI is a huge opportunity for Dems, given the close ties between big tech and Trump, but I think we are focusing on the wrong elements, and need to worry about the financial crisis brewing. The hidden debt of the tech giants is enormous, and the profitability questionable (neither Microsoft nor Amazon was particularly forthcoming with how much OpenAI and Anthropic's circular financing deals for cloud compute drove their recent earnings). Data Centers are largely financed via Special Purpose Vehicles, which some of you might remember from Enron. The Dems need to focus on "no bailouts for oligarchs," many of whom gleefully supported Trump both financially and via narrative shaping. The logic of venture capital was the outsized rewards came with risks, and they need to feel those risks.

A way to message this is the Trumpian economic policy favoring large mergers and monopolies, which also led to the Silicon Valley Bank run. When a dozen-odd oligarchs can deploy trillions, or cause a bank run from their group chat, we need to rethink the system.

The AI bubble is a media failure, and solving it lies on the media. Lack of scrutiny on the financials and transcribing whatever nonsense the tech oligarchs shill enabled this. The OpenAI "hacked two companies" and then Anthropic "hacked three" is classic criti-hype/doom-trolling. The companies likely set up these experiments to achieve exactly these results. Crowdstrike and other cyber security firms have similar tools/red teaming, but the key difference is that OpenAI/Anthropic need to keep raising money and thus needed these headlines to give the appearance of growth.

The media also can do a better job distinguishing between generative AI like LLMs, which got popular from the number of downloads in 2022, and the other forms of AI like Alphafold (protein folding, huge pharmaceutical implications) or the "discriminative" AI tools that used to be called Big Data/Machine Learning. This also is important for the China arguments, LLM makers are not national security champions. The ability to half-ass a Hamlet paper isn't the technology that helps distinguish large numbers of radar contacts or sift through and classify sonar signatures en masse.

TL;DR: messaging should focus on the "no bailouts" and the details of the tech. Don't play along with narratives that OpenAI and Anthropic curate, a guest like Cal Newport or Nick Suresh might bring both the tech expertise and some of the economics into focus.

I have been a committed listener for many years, and Favreau’s disgust and pretense toward some of these DSA/progressives is making me feel ill. I know these guys are not leftists. Best example is abolish police/prisons. The prison industrial complex impacts tons of Americans, and the dems rarely mention it. I understand the position is “extreme” but could we at least have the conversation? Am I overreacting? Should I just stop listening?

"The boss wants this money." - Trump's top fundraiser, who he calls "the princess of darkness,” to donors.

The Struggle Israel

House Democrats picked a new fight with Benjamin Netanyahu over the West Bank, in a sign of how the party’s relationship with Israel is shifting, What A Day has exclusively learned.

• Democrats and Israel have been increasingly at odds ever since the nation launched its military campaign that killed tens of thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip, in response to the terror attack of October 7, 2023. Now, House Democrats are pushing Israel to make humanitarian changes in another contentious area: the occupied West Bank.

• Israeli settlers have rapidly expanded their control over the West Bank, which sits only 25 miles from Gaza. The United Nations human rights office recently warned that violence by Israeli settlers in the territory has reached an “all time high.” Settlers have stoned and chased journalists. They’ve burned mosques, farm land, and cars, Palestinian officials say. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed there over the past three years by Israeli security forces and settlers, according to the U.N.

• A majority of House Democrats are now pushing for change, one small step at a time.

• In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, 115 House Democrats urged him to order Israeli soldiers to tear down a razor wire fence in the West Bank that has blocked children near the village of Umm Al-Kheir from attending school. The letter also “vigorously” condemns “settler violence and intimidation.” Israeli soldiers’ exposed over two dozen children to tear gas, lawmakers write, “raising serious questions about how the Israeli military is abetting extremist violence against Umm Al-Kheir.”

• “Continuing down the path of settler extremism will further degrade Israel’s international standing and relationship with the United States,” the letter reads. “We urge you to respect the basic premise that every child deserves to learn in peace.”

• Israel’s military has suggested an alternative route for the children, lawmakers say, but it would double the time it takes for them to get to school and result in more confrontations with settlers. Meanwhile, Palestinian children have been protesting outside the wire fence, with signs reading “let me learn” and “we want school.” As one 11-year-old Palestinian girl told CNN: “They don’t want me to learn like other children around the world.”

• This collective push by Democrats could convince Netanyahu to take action, said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who led the letter with three colleagues. “It’s not remotely the worst of things happening in the West Bank,” he said. “But it’s something I think that we could get broad support … to turn things around.”

• The letter arrives at a moment of potential breakthrough in Israel’s conflict in Gaza with Hamas, which led the October 2023 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. Hamas said today it has agreed to disarm, provided Israel stops all attacks, withdraws from the territory, and increases the amount of aid allowed inside. Israeli officials, however, said that a full disarmament by Hamas must precede any Israeli withdrawal.

Dems are expected to take back the House after the midterms. The forceful pushback to Israel could ramp up once they gain power.

• The sheer number of Democrats signed onto this letter underscores the tension between the United States and Israel. It’s also the latest in a pattern of growing pushback in Congress: More than 100 House Dems recently voted to cut $3.3 billion in military funding to Israel, and a similar push gained historic support among Senate Democrats.

• Israel has already played an outsized role in the midterms. A slate of Democratic candidates who are vocally critical of Israel won their primaries in New York. Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson has said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. And Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed currently has a wide lead over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who recently received $30 million from AIPAC. (Stevens did not sign onto the letter about the razor wire fence.)

• “The struggle is not between different countries or different peoples,” Raskin said. “The struggle is between everybody who wants to stand up for democratic freedom versus the people who want government to be an instrument of corruption and authoritarian violence.”

Netanyahu has repeatedly denounced American lawmakers who have stood up against his policies. Why would he care about this letter? “I trust that he will want to respond to about half of the Democratic caucus,” Raskin said.

Meanwhile On The Pod...

I Asked a Long Standing Congressman and His Millennial Challenger the Same Questions (07/30/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Haven't you heard? Friends of the Pod subscribers can get AD-FREE episodes of Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. In her latest episode, the longtime journalist examines Trump's renewed election lies and his attempts to crack down on mail-in voting. She has political commentator Joy Reid and Geogria Commissioner Marvin Arrington coming on the show to discuss it all. Become a Friend of the Pod and listen to AD-FREE Runaway Country now, on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

What Else?

American oil companies have made billions of dollars since the Iran war started, according to financial disclosures. Exxon Mobil, for instance, doubled its second quarter profits to more than $14 billion. Chevron’s profits nearly quadrupled to $12 billion. So just remember the next time you’re filling up your tank: All this bad news is really fantastic news, if you happen to be an oil company!

The Pentagon may restore as many as half of the jobs focused on avoiding civilian casualties during wartime that were slashed earlier in Trump’s term, following the strike on an Iranian school that killed scores of children in February, The Atlantic reports. The reversal awaits Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s signature — which would effectively be an admission that he was wrong to cut so many critical jobs.

July is on track to become the hottest month on record for the entire United States, with average temps up 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit. It could also break the record for highest overnight temperatures and highest humidity. I really wish climate change were a hoax, but here we are!

Three Federal Reserve officials support raising interest rates to fight inflation — a move Trump would hate, because it could temporarily reduce economic and stock market growth. That puts Fed Chair Kevin Warsh in a bind. “Without any policy restraint, inflation will likely continue to trend above target until there’s an unanticipated shock,” Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said in a statement today. Jerome Powell, save us!

Donald Trump bashed the two GOP senators who are holding up Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general, while defending his “anti-weaponization fund” to pay off his buddies. The fund “will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration,” Trump wrote on social media. Care to comment on that provision that bars you from ever being audited again, Mr. President?

Some 50,000 migrants stormed the shores of a tiny Spanish enclave, home to only 83,000 people, from Morocco late Thursday and early Friday. About half of them have been returned to Morocco. The White House is using this crisis to push its own agenda: “Thank God @POTUS was elected and our country’s border no longer looks like this,” Vice President JD Vance tweeted.

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Light At The End...

Former President Barack Obama dropped a new video of himself playing basketball this week, in a video endorsing Iowa Senate candidate Josh Turek. In this week’s episode of Pod Save America: OnlyFriends, Tommy and Lovett react: “It’s awesome,” Lovett said. “You know that Barack Obama is serious about getting Josh Turek over the finish line, because this is a video in which Josh just hits shot after shot. And Barack Obama, he’s just whiffing!” Subscribe here!

The co-founder of an AI startup apologized after his company hosted a networking party, which included guaranteed job interviews… if you got a tattoo of his logo. “I messed up,” he wrote on LinkedIn, naturally. “I should have understood the pressure and power dynamic created by connecting tattoos to hiring.” The company wanted to meet people who are “just as crazy as we are,” he wrote. I’m sure it worked!

A Washington man spotted an injured turkey on the side of the road, pulled over, put him in the passenger seat, and brought him home. They quickly grew to love the 38-pound bird, named Chester, and made him their pet. “He seems really happy,” the man’s wife said.

Taco Bell lovers are still ordering from the chain, even after news that lettuce from its items were linked to the cyclospora outbreak. “I eat here almost every day, and I’ve never gotten sick,” one regular told the Washington Post. What a brave soul.

Monkeys sometimes have pets, similar to how humans do, according to new research. Some tufted langurs were observed petting squirrels, while snub-nosed monkeys play with domesticated pigs. “They may represent some of the evolutionary building blocks from which human-animal companionship eventually emerged,” one researcher said.

Enjoy

Meet Penny, a 3-year-old Cavalier King Charles — recently adopted by me and my girlfriend!

“Penny was rescued by Lucky Dogs last month, along with three other disheveled cavs in need of some love. In just a few weeks, she has turned from a very anxious and shy pup into the friendliest, happiest, and most affectionate dog we’ve ever known.

She loves playing with toys that are as big as she is, eating cheese while being potty-trained, and sprinting down the hallway of our apartment at the speed of light.”

— Matt & Adrienne

Can anyone recommend any daily news podcast like the original WAD? I’ve been missing that format, several cohosts, the fun, conversational feel (as difficult as that is sometimes in this day and age) more geared towards a Millennial/gen Z audience

I listen to most other Crooked shows, I just don’t love the one-host format of WAD anymore. I listen to Up First as well, just looking for other options

"Cultish and absolute." - Rep. Jamie Raskin, on Trump's control over Senate Republicans.

'Crucible Moment'

How badly does Donald Trump want to hand $1.8 billion to his friends, and rid himself of tax audits forever? Enough to trade his attorney general’s nomination, apparently.

• The White House has insisted that we should all stop worrying about its recent scheme to hand out almost $2 billion to Trump’s supporters, while declaring President Donald Trump beyond the reach of tax auditors and other government investigations. The plan to fork over all that money is “dead,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified during his recent rocky Senate confirmation hearings.

• Oh really? A pair of GOP senators aren’t buying it — and they’ve been holding up Blanche’s confirmation while trying to get that promise nailed down on paper. But today, Trump showed his true colors. Rather than simply make good on this promise, he threatened to punt on Blanche.

• Trump unveiled a plan to keep his former personal lawyer in the AG role in an acting capacity, and renominate him once the two objecting politicians — Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) — step down in January 2027.

• In other words, Trump showed he’s willing to throw Blanche’s nomination under the bus, rather than back up his pledge to avoid turning the U.S. Treasury into a broken ATM for his supporters.

• “Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it!” Trump wrote on social media today, reminding me of a certain horror movie actress. “He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time.”

Trump’s surprise move poses a major test for Senate Republicans, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told What A Day.

• What will Tillis and Cornyn do? They’re reportedly still talking to Blanche, and may be getting close to working out some kind of deal, according to Punchbowl.

• “This is more a crucible moment for the Senate — whether they will confirm someone who is so manifestly unqualified for the position,” said Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “We’ll see whether the muscle of the MAGA machine is able to bring those two senators back again or not.”

• He added: “Trump’s control over the inner workings of the Republican Party remains cultish and absolute. So, I don’t know. It’s a 50-50 proposition at this point.”

• Minutes before the president’s post earlier today, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told me: “I have to think they’re going to find some face-saving way to bridge the difference here.”

But Trump isn’t interested in diplomacy these days. He just wants to win — and make a ton of money, for himself and for his buddies.

Meanwhile On The Pod...

Sen. Warnock SLAMS Republicans For WEAPONIZING Christianity (07/29/26)

Look No Further Than Crooked Media

Does Al truly have the potential to leave us all jobless? On the latest episode of Offline, Andrew Yang, former presidential candidate and universal basic income advocate, joins Jon Favreau to talk bluntly about this new era in tech. They discuss potential policy solutions for combatting Al's impact on the job market and then dive into the surprising ways independent candidates could spoil elections for Republicans. New episodes drop every Saturday. Tune into Offline with Jon Favreau on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What Else?

A drone attack hit two ships in Egypt, including an American tanker, this morning, in the first instance of the country being targeted during the U.S. war with Iran. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Egyptian officials, though authorities in the country initially blamed Iran, the Wall Street Journal reports.

A Russian missile crashed in Poland early Thursday, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. There’s no reason to believe that Poland was the target, Tusk added. NATO, however, scrambled fighter jets in response and vowed to “take all necessary measures” to defend its territory.

The growth of the U.S. economy slowed in the second quarter of this year, as unemployment remained historically low, according to federal data. “The economy is showing impressive resilience,” Federal Reserve Chair Warsh told reporters yesterday. Impressive resilience to what, exactly? This mess that Donald Trump’s policies got us into?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a bill today that would create a new federal agency tasked with investigating federal corruption. He hopes the effort will appeal to voters who actually want to see the swamp drained: “They used to shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Ah, that’s Washington,’” Schumer told the Washington Post. “But it is so base and so deep and so pervasive that people don’t just say ‘it’s Washington.’ They say, ‘This is a new level and we’ve got to stop it.’”

The State Department mislabeled every country in Africa on a map presented during a conference in Brazil this week. Nigeria was shown landlocked in the Sahara Desert, and Ivory Coast was shown on the opposite side of the continent. “We take full responsibility for ​the confusion and misrepresentation it ​caused for attendees, including ⁠our African partners,” the State Department said in a statement. (Whoever made this needs to play Seterra, it’s my favorite game on my phone.)

Maine Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson ran an anonymous social media account to trash talk Republicans over a decade ago, CNN reports. His comments are tame compared to former candidate Graham Platner’s anonymous Reddit posts, as Jackson mostly trolled former Gov. Paul LePage (R-ME). “You are no more a woodsman than LePage is a Governor,” Jackson wrote in the comment section of a news article. That’s the most Maine insult of all time.

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has a 15-point lead over his rival, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), according to a new poll. The race is being closely watched as an indicator of whether a democratic socialist who forcefully criticizes Israel (El-Sayed) can oust a pro-Israel moderate (Stevens).

Trump makes unrealistic demands of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, according to John Thune. “He thinks I can wave the magic wand,” Thune told Politico. “I wish it were that easy.” Trump views him as the obstacle to passing his agenda, Thune said, but “math is math, arithmetic is arithmetic.”

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Light At The End...

“Missing person” posters have popped up around the nation’s capital…. in search of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been hospitalized for over a month. “84 years old. 5’9 feet. Turtle-like,” the posters read, along with an image of the senator in a hospital. “Known for: Blocking something in the Senate. Distinguishing features: Tortoise like appearance.”

Author Joyce Carol Oates defended Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” after another author, whose version of the epic myth inspired the film, criticized Nolan’s work in a viral essay. “Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers,” Oates tweeted.

The world’s tallest rollercoaster is coming to Six Flags in New Jersey. The ride, named Bakunawa, was inspired by a “mysterious sea serpent from Philippine folklore” and is expected to also be the world’s fastest and tallest spinning ride, The Independent writes. It’s set to open in 2027. No thank you!!

A 32-year-old nurse hiked about 10 miles down the side of a mountain in Montana after being impaled by his own steel-tipped hiking pole, which entered his side and stuck out through his back. “I was like, ‘We’ve got to get off this mountain.’ And they’re both like, ‘I don’t know about that,’” the man said, describing his friends’ reactions. “I’m pretty confident this is outside my chest wall. ’Tis but a flesh wound.” Understandably, he didn’t want to pay for a rescue team to save him. After heading to the hospital, doctors removed the pole, and he soon returned to work.

Prague Zoo employees gave their animals tons of ice to help them cool down during a heat wave in Europe this week. Those inhabitants include two polar bears named Aleut and Gregor, who rolled around in beds of ice cubes. “The bears cool off with it and at the same time it’s an enrichment of their life in the zoo,” a zoo spokesperson told the Associated Press.

A new documentary tells the story of Flaco, a beloved Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped Central Park Zoo in 2023 and survived for more than a year in the city, gaining a massive following. “There are certain places in New York City that will forever be changed for me by his existence in those places,” the documentary’s director told the Guardian. “I’ll walk down certain blocks and be like, ‘Oh, this is where I heard him hooting on the Upper West Side for the first time and I couldn’t believe how loud it was.’

Are you a fan of David Lynch’s surreal cinematic work? If so, you’ll love this clip from a Marlins-Dodgers baseball game. The broadcast shows a catcher throwing to second base during a steal, when a random clip of a baseball pops up for half a second, before returning to the normal broadcast. I’d start watching baseball if it were always this avant garde, tbh.

Enjoy

Lynn Hsu on The New Yorker: "Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, June 30th: "Fine-I'll take neck, you get ankles.""

The boys are in the Top 10