Presidents Day positive hits otherwise this yr. The lengthy weekend is meant to have fun the presidency and, in an even bigger sense, our nation’s lengthy custom of peacefully transferring energy between political events.
As a substitute, President Donald Trump kicked off the festivities by evaluating himself to French dictator Napoleon and implying his unlawful try to fireside hundreds of presidency staff is above the legislation.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he posted on social media Saturday.
Yeah, the vibes are undoubtedly off.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed to steer Well being and Human Providers.
The circus round Trump’s nominees has labored splendidly as a smokescreen to masks his administration’s historic efforts to dissolve the Division of Training, a longtime conservative objective. That play labored so properly that Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee to steer the division, didn’t face a single critical media interview this week. She’ll now coast into this week’s deliberate affirmation listening to having confronted no critical press scrutiny. What a multitude. Let’s dive into two extra large tales the mainstream media missed this week.
Trump’s conflict on faith
Hundreds of thousands of Republicans view Trump as a savior “anointed by God” to save lots of the world from evil. However the religion leaders who lead a few of the nation’s largest homes of worship disagree—and as Lisa Needham studies for Day by day Kos, over two dozen Jewish and Christian non secular teams are actually suing Trump over his excessive immigration reforms.
Twenty-seven non secular organizations—together with the Mennonite Church, the Central Convention of American Rabbis, the Episcopal Church, the Latino Christian Nationwide Community, and North Carolina Council of Church buildings—allege that Trump’s order permitting ICE brokers to raid church buildings violates these teams’ non secular freedom. Mockingly, the church buildings are suing for violations underneath the Non secular Freedom Restoration Act, a legislation handed by Republicans with the intention of defending homes of worship from Democrats. Go determine!
As Needham factors out, “RFRA is a conservative fan favorite. Indeed, two powerhouse conservative legal organizations, the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Becket Fund, were founded after RFRA’s passage just to litigate religious freedom cases, usually for evangelical Christians.” Now that RFRA is getting used to advertise Christian inclusion, although, conservative media retailers have gone utterly silent on the significance of spiritual freedom.
Battle of the tech bro billionaires
One benefit of getting media trade CEOs on velocity dial is that it turns into alarmingly simple to manage what protection even makes it to the headlines. That’s undoubtedly the case for the newest feud between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his on-again, off-again buddy Elon Musk. Musk initiated the brawl together with his unsolicited, $97 billion provide to purchase OpenAI out from underneath Altman. Within the weeks since, the tech titans’ huge battle has quietly consumed each Washington and Silicon Valley.
Elon Musk
Solely the Wall Avenue Journal devoted feature-length protection to Musk and Altman’s battle to manage the way forward for America’s AI trade, and would you consider they fumbled the ball utterly? As a substitute of digging into the massive energy Musk would amass by controlling OpenAI and its predominant product, ChatGPT, the Journal as an alternative targeted on the excessive drama of two wealthy dudes at conflict. The media can’t assist however flip a battle over the way forward for American data safety into yet one more piece of vapid horse race protection.
Musk’s acquisition of OpenAI would make him undeniably probably the most highly effective tech tycoon on the planet. Extra importantly for Musk’s goals, it will additionally put him in control of the world’s largest and best-funded generative AI platform at a time when disinformation and misinformation are main threats—and judging by Musk’s personal Grok AI platform, precedence No. 1 would contain shifting ChatGPT’s ideology sharply to the precise and filling it with pro-Republican coaching knowledge.
A wholesome democracy might rely on federal regulators to analyze any potential sale of OpenAI to Musk. That’s not the case on this hollowed-out Trump administration, the place Alex Samuels studies that Musk has amassed much more management of federal policymaking. With out safeguards just like the Federal Commerce Fee to maintain Musk from utilizing federal affect to bully his rivals into promoting their companies, it’s anybody’s guess who owns OpenAI by this time subsequent yr. If it’s Musk, prepare for a tidal wave of disinformation crashing onto People’ screens simply in time for the 2026 midterms. Yeesh.
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