Saving the World by Destroying It?

If you don't have the time to watch this video of a portion of the commencement speech of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the University of Arizona, here is a great summary:

Incredible he essentially says all throughout "ask not what AI can do for you, but what you can do for AI", telling them AI is part of their lives no matter what they choose to do, yet his thesis is that the future is not already written for them. Complete cognitive dissonance.

 

 

This is incredible. Artificial intelligence getting booed out of the stadium in any commencement speech it’s mentioned. Maybe telling college students AI was taking their jobs wasn’t the best strategy. Must watch —> pic.twitter.com/35UMSz5T5a

— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) May 17, 2026

It's not only a matter of jobs, though a whole lot of people will lose them and income inequality is likely to skyrocket. It may be an issue of planetary survival.  A study from Kings College of London and led by Professor Kenneth Payne of the Department of Defense Studies

examined how large language models (LLMs) navigate simulated nuclear crises. As militaries and security institutions increasingly experiment with AI-assisted analysis and wargaming, understanding how such systems reason under pressure is becoming increasingly critical.

Three leading AI models – GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash – were placed in a tournament of 21 simulated nuclear crisis scenarios. Across 329 turns of play, the models generated approximately 780,000 words of structured reasoning – more than the combined length of War and Peace and The Iliad.

All 21 crisis games featured nuclear signaling by at least one side, and 95% involved mutual nuclear signaling. However, while models readily threatened nuclear action, crossing the tactical nuclear threshold was less common, and ‘strategic’ full-scale nuclear war was rare.

Rather than focusing on outcomes alone, the study made AI decision-making processes visible. Each turn followed a three-phase architecture: reflection (situational assessment), forecasting (predicting the opponent’s move), and decision (public signal and private action). This innovative “reflection–forecast–decision” structure enabled researchers to analyse the AI’s deception, credibility management, prediction accuracy and self-awareness in detail.

Describing the results as “sobering”, Professor Payne said the study offers a rare insight into emerging forms of “machine psychology” under nuclear crisis conditions.

For all three models, one striking pattern stood out: none of the models ever chose accommodation or surrender. Nuclear threats also rarely produced compliance; more often, crossing nuclear thresholds provoked counter-escalation rather than retreat. The models tended to treat nuclear weapons as tools of compellence rather than purely as instruments of deterrence.

The study challenges simple assumptions that AI systems will naturally default to cooperative or “safe” outcomes. It also challenges structural theories that emphasise material power alone: in simulations, willingness to escalate often mattered more than raw capability.

One of the most policy-relevant findings concerns temporal framing, or ‘the deadline effect.’

In open-ended scenarios, GPT-5.2 appeared relatively restrained. Yet when explicit deadlines were introduced – creating a “now-or-never” dynamic – the model escalated sharply and, in some cases, climbed to the highest nuclear thresholds.

This suggests that evaluating model behaviour in a single scenario may be insufficient. A model that appeared comparatively cautious under one framing became markedly more aggressive under another.

The models tended to treat nuclear weapons as tools of compellence rather than purely as instruments of deterrence.

Yet, Eric Schmidt in Tucson boasted (at 1:31 of the video) "the question is not whether AI will save the world. It will." President Trump already has signed an executive order preventing states from regulating artificial intelligence. And a famous Pennsylvania Democrat claims his Party is consumed by "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and if the President "came out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, we would hate it" (and that this is a bad thing). He, and  might want to take a look at this and ponder "what could possibly go wrong"?

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Not So Ambiguous

On Tuesday in Beijing, President Trump was asked to what degree the economic pain of the American people was motivating him to make a deal with China, and Donald responded "not even a little bit. The only ting that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon."  Michael Smerconish vigrously defended that remark and commented also

Arguably, the bigger story was Trump's revelation was that Xi had directly asked Trump whether the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked.

Think about that for a moment. The leader of China flat-out asked. The question alone tells you everything about where Beijing's head is. If Xi really said that to Trump, it suggests that Xi is looking to invade Taiwan and he's looking for a green light from the United States to do so. That's a monumental admission of an intent to go to war and it's an undiplomatic, none of Xi's business question to Trump. According to The New York Times, Trump gave Xi no response: "I said I don't talk sbout those things."

That's not a dodge. That's not a weakness. That's a longstanding U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity and the only answer that keeps China guessing.

And still critics pounced again. Taiwan itself issued a statement reaffirming Trump's longstandingcomitment to their defense. But what kind of diplomacy would it have been had Trump, just after leaving China, just having been solicitous of Xi's involvement ending the war in Iran, instead said "yes, we're going to arm Taiwan to the teeth."  It would have destroyed any prospect of achieving his larger objective.

            .

Smerconish falsely believes that the President's "larger objective" was gaining assistance from Beijing on the Iran war when Trump's primary objective was pecuniary. No matter. When Donald was interviewed Friday evening by Brett Baier, fresh off getting his rear handed to him he told the Fox News' journalist

When you look at the odds, China is a very, very powerful, big country. That's a very small island. Think of it- it's 95 miles away. We're 9500 miles away.That's a little bit of a difficult problem... Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit.

Trump promised Xi he would serve up Taiwan on a platter. And so it begins… https://t.co/VY2zYKgJpa

— Luis Moreno (@LuisMorenolg) May 16, 2026

"Taiwan would be very smart to coll it a little bit (and) China would be very smart to cool it a little bit" is a piece of moral equivalence which would be condemned if any other President would have stated it. None has, though, because it undermines the traditional American policy of strategic ambiguity as pertains to the American response if Mainland China were to invade the Republic of China. The rationale behind strategic ambiguity is that the  USA opposes invasion of Taiwan by the Commu- I mean, by China- and thus might or might not respond were it to occur.

Trump added of a proposed weapons sale to our ally, "I may do it. I may not do it." The ambivalence speaks volumes.

The United States has aircrft which can travel 9,000 miles. What it does not have is a President willing to be similtaneiously clear and ambiguous. The policy of the USA should remain as it has been or a little closer to full support for the island nation. It should not be to scold the democratic nation of Taiwan nor, with a metaphorical nod and a  wink, to  suggest that the nation is so far away that the military which Donald Trump brags about could not respond. Xi might as well have been told "have your way with that pesky little problem of yours."

This is not a little matter, nor one of simple fairness. In February, The New York Times noted that Taiwan makes 90% of the world's high-end computer chips and

In secret briefings held in Washington and Silicon Valley, national security officials warned executives from companies like Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm that China was making plans to retake Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered a breakaway territory. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the officials said, could choke the supply of computer chips made on the island and bring the U.S. tech industry to its knees.....

 “The single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, slightly overstating industry estimates. “If that island were blockaded, that capacity were destroyed, it would be an economic apocalypse"...

A confidential report commissioned in 2022 by the Semiconductor Industry Association for its members, which include the largest U.S. chip companies, said cutting the supply of chips from Taiwan would lead to the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. U.S. economic output would plunge 11 percent, twice as much as the 2008 recession. 

The Times added "The collapse would be even more severe for China." That is not a good thing, because the President who clings to zero-sum game probably believes that something bad for another nation- China, in this case- would necessarily be good  And a confrontation between the two nations would be calamitous as "now, more thanever, it has become clear that Taiwan is critical to America's economic survival, especially as artificial intelligence- which is built using chips made in Taiwan- drives the U.S. stock market and fuels economic growth."

This is what Donald Trump "(doesn't) want to talk about"- only he did, and not in a good way. 

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Please, Mr. Trump, No More Winning!

Sadly, Joseph Goebbels is not dead (metaphorically, that is). At :38 in a video on a David Pakman podcast, Anna Kelly, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary, is asked on May 11 by Fox News a question ending in "What does President Trump say today abut these high energy prices"?  She responded

.... Well, look, thee's a ot of confusion now about the state of play with Iran. Let me be clear. Iran has been incredibly decimated mlitarily. their navy is at the bottom of the ocean. Their ballistic missiles are destroyed. Their production facilities are demolished. Now, they're being totally crippled economically by the weight of Operation Ecconomic Fury.

So the President is not in a  rush. He has all his cards at his disposal because he knows Iran is getting weaker and weaker by the day while the United States is getting  stronger and stronger.

Surely, President Trump does have all his cards at his disposal.  The probably for this regime, however, is that Trump has only his cards at his disposal. He does not hold all the cards, nor nearly so.

Iran is getting weaker. However, as The New York Times reported on May 12

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.

Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.

 People with knowledge of the assessments said they show — to varying degrees, depending on the level of damage incurred at the different sites — that the Iranians can use mobile launchers that are inside the sites to move missiles to other locations. In some cases they can launch missiles directly from launchpads that are part of the facilities. Only three of the missile sites along the strait remain totally inaccessible, according to the assessments.

Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. That stockpile encompasses both ballistic missiles, which can target other nations in the region, and a smaller supply of cruise missiles, which can be used against shorter-range targets on land or at sea.

Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be “partially or fully operational,” the people with knowledge of the assessments said

Kelly is not completely wrong, given that

The Joint assault on Iran by the United States and Israel inflicted considerable damage on Iran's defenses and damaged or destroyed many strategic sites around the country. Many of Iran's senior leaders have been killed and its economy is staggering under the pressures of the war, leaving questins about how long it can sustain its hard line on a negotiated end to the conflict and the halt on nearly all oil tanker traffic and other shiipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet, if Donald Trump is holding more cards than are the Iranians, it's news to the latter. Several days ago, Tehran delivered unto Washington via Pakistan a proposal which "included demands for a permanent end to the war on all fronts, compensation for war damages, an end to the U.S. Naval blockade, lifting of sanctions on Iran, and the end to a U.S. ban on Iranian oil sales."  Oh, and Iran would assume control over the Strait of Hormuz.

President Trump rejected the proposal outright, because surrender is not in the cards, as spokesperson Kelly would put it. (If Iran included a proposal which would include a significant boost to Trump's personal profile, now we're talking!). Although the Iranian demands were wildly unrealistic, they still reflect an apparent willingness to see the war through, at least for now.  Abject fear does not seem to have overcome the Iranians, who as with almost everyone is now expecting a military assault from the Trump Administration.

Donald Trump, a veteran of the real estate industry, believes in the zero sum game. He sees Iran getting weaker and might actually believe that means the USA is gaining. But consider that as the Times noted in late April

Before the war with Iran started, American military commanders redirected the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. Since then, two Marine Expeditionary Units, each with about 2,200 Marines, have been sent to the Middle East from the Pacific. The Pentagon has also moved sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran’s drones and rockets.

As the USA has become embroiled in the Middle East, the nation has left the Asian theater largely undefended. And now Donald Trump has landed in Mainland China, where he will speak to, and hopefully not negotiate with, Xi Jinping.  Hopefully, President Trump will not do there what he has done in the Mideast to America's national interest.

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Show Some Guts

During the "Overtime" segment of Fridat's Real Time With Bill Maher, the panel fielded a question which ended with "how do we help young men," a reference to the current crisis of young men. Maher remarked "we hear this all the time, that youn women re doing better in college, that-"

Senator John Fetterman did a Fetterman, blaming the Democratic Party because there are few questions he won't answer without slamming his Party. If he didn't do so, he wouldn't be John Fetterman. Then Donna Brazile stated.

Overall, ook- I've been a part-time professor for 33 years. There is something going on with young men in our country. They are reticent, many of them are holding back, and we need to address that. But at the same time-

Maher interjected "holding back?" Brazile answered "holding back, because sometimes I think they don't know their place anymore and that's something that men need to decide for themselves." Personally, I wouldn't have saaid "they don't know their place," and I'm not even black. Yet, maybe she simply meant that they are confused, which is a little patronizing but probably accurate, as was her observation that they are "reticent" and "holding back."  However, she continued

But as a woman for decades, centuries, women had to be over-confident just to be qualified. So I don't want men to think that the reason why young men are suffering is because of some woman. No, you men are dealing with what young women had to deal with centuries ago. They'll find their place at the table. Come sit with me sometime and I''ll give you some help.

It's not only the condescension of "come sit with me sometime and I'll give you some help" as in "I am woman. I have the answers you are unable to find on your own." It's also that Brazile is demonstrably wrong. 

Men are not dealing with what young women had to deal with centuries ago. Times have changed. Technology, social media, expectations, family structure, social mores, and a whole lot of other things have made the plight of the young American male unique.  Whether by government, non-profits, or simply women helping women one at a time, women are being a leg up while men are falling behind and need more than one-on-one advice from Donna Brazile. 

Scott Galloway has written and spoken extensively on this. He is wrong that young men should drink more and about guys drinking- he thinks there should be more of it- and that the elderly has too much wealth at the expense of youth. Nonetheless, in last year's Notes on Being a Man, Galloway provided

plenty of statistics to back up his claim that young men really are in trouble. Drawing on research by writers such as Richard Reeves (author of 2022's Of Boys and Men) and his NYU colleague Jonathan Haidt (whose recent book The Anxious Generation sounded the alarm on social media), he sketches out a landscape of rising rates of everything from boys' school suspensions to male unemployment, addic tions, loneliness, and failure to complete college....

Galloway is at pains to point out that he’s not blaming women for men’s problems. “I do not think the answer is to in any way economically disadvantage women,” he says. “I’m not trying to repackage violence here and say that women need to lower their standards such that we don’t have a bunch of angry men out there. I think men need to level up. And I think, as a society, we need to implement more programmes to level up all young people.”

In contrast to Brazile's perspective, he wrote "it's not a battle between men and women. The genders have done a great job convincing themselves it's the other gender's fault. I just don't think that's productive." (The word is sexes. But I'm not being productive.)

Donna Brazile is entitled to her opinion; indeed, her perspective as the woke-y woman appeared to bring a little ideological diversity to the discussion. But then something significant happened.

Aside from Brazile, the members of the panel included Representative Dan Crenshaw, a conservative Republican from Texas who lost the last primary in his re-election bid; Senator Fetterman, the moderate, contrariarn Pennsylvania Democrat; and Mr. Anti-Woke himself, Bill Maher.  Three men, and not an advocate of diversity, equity, and inclusion among them.

Brazile had spoken up for women- good for her- and denigrated young men- not at all good. And none of those three had the courage to call her on it or even to question her remark. When the issue was first raised, Fetterman claimed "part of the Democratic Party became more and more anti-man or describing them as part of the problem or they had toxic traits."  (Since 2011, there have been nine incidents of political violence or attempted political violence in the USA and in nine cases the apparent culprit was a man- no toxic masculinity there!)

Yet, the Pennsylvania senator was silent. Ditto, Crenshaw and Maher. A former Navy Seal (Crenshaw); a former small-town mayor who grabbed a shotgun and chased a black jogger (Fetterman); and the "politically incorrect" longtime comedian and talk-show host. And none of them had the courage to speak up against the invective spewed by a black woman.

This sort of thing is not surprising because it's not uncommon. But if they are not going to challenge an outspoken black woman who obviously disparages young men, they shouldn't pose as champions of men or of young men, as at least Maher and Fetterman do.

One way that could have been accomplished would have been to ask Brazile whether the young men she believes once had it so easy included young black men. Her answer, whatever it would have been, would have proven revelatory.  

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Steps Toward Decency

I've thought for a long time that, short-term, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is running not for President but for the United States Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer's term is up in January of 2019, and Ocasio-Cortez proably would have a glide path to the nomination if the Minority Leader were to bow out gracefully. Schumer, a supporter of Israel but critic of Netanyahu, would be more likely to call it quits if he weren't being opposed for a fifth term by a strongly anti-Israel candidate. And so:

AOC: I personally do not trust somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene—a proven bigot and anti-semite—on the issues of what is good for Gazans and Israelis. I don’t think it benefits our movement to align with white nationalists. pic.twitter.com/ufGwW6q6Mv

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 8, 2026

 An outraged Cenk Uygure of The Young Turks tweets

This is just terrible. She sounds just like the establishment. She's attacking an opponent of Israel as an antisemite. This is exactly what israeli supporters want- split the anti-war movement and the critics of Israel's genocide. Deeply counterproductive. And selfish.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is an anti-Semite.  If a member of Congress came out and said "I hate Jews,"  Uygur would claim that he or she was talking only about Israelis. If the individual stated that Israel is no worse than Nazi Germany, he probably would agree. You know the type: Israel is nothing but evil and it doesn't matter whether it's the Prime Minister, one of Netanyahu's Cabinet members, a settler on the Wesst Bank, or a resident of Israel itself; they're all the same.

Ocasio-Cortez has herself accused Israel of genocide, a strange charge to level against a country whose military could wipe out Gazan Palestinians if it chose to do so, though it still would have to contend against Palestinians in Jordan and elsewhere, with whom it has no quarrel. In May of 2021, the New York congresswoman accused Israel of "apartheid," though Arabs and Muslims in Israel proper have rights exceeding those in several Arabic and Persian nations. Nine months later, she voted "present" on an amendment to provide funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, though evidently she opposed the outlay.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez has had a change of heart, at least outwardly, toward Israel, while remaining one of its critics. In July of 2024, she earned the scorn of Democratic Socialists of America when she hosted a panel on anti-semitism. (Oh, the humanity!) A year later, she voted against an amendment, co-sponsored by Greene, which would have cut drastically the funding for Iron Dome.

This may have been a conversion of convenience, behavior common among politicians and not unknown across the professions. And she still rejects funding from AIPAC, let alone not joining the Netanyahu Can Do No Wrong Caucus headed by President Donald Trump. 

Rejecting collaboration with Marjorie Taylor Greene may or may not prove wise in advancing Ocasio-Cortez's preference for a significan change in Israeli policy. Nor is it certain to last; the hostility toward "Zionism" and "Zionists" on the far left is gaining steam weekly and pressuring Democratic politicians. But the congresswoman appears to have learned from the fictional Martin Dooley of "trust everybody but count the cards".and from the Russian proverb,  "trust, but verify" And that not everything should be blamed on Jews.

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Admission

In February, former President Barack Obama was asked by liberal/left podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen "are aliens real?' He replied  "They're real but I haven't seen them and they're not being kept in Area 51. There's no underground facility. Unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States."

After the inevitable controversy arose, Obama wrote on Instagram

I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round but since it's gotten attention, let me claify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there. But the distances between solar systems ae so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens is low and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extratrrestrials have made contact with us. Really!

This was in the spirit of President Clinton. Asked to explain his answer as to whether there is something "going on" between Monica Lewinsky and himself, explained "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." 

And so it was that Barack Obama stated "I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us."  This doesn't go to the question of whether there are extraterrestrial craft which have visited our solar system, only that the President was shown no evidence of "contact with us." Even if such beings have made contact with any human beings- less likely than visitation by craft to earth's atmosphere- it is unlikely that such evidence would have, or even could have, been made available.

`

Then in May, Obama (at 1:02) told Stephen Colbert

If there were aliens or alien spaceships or anything under the control of the United States government that we knew about seing, photographs, what have you, I promise you, some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her.

Obama was not lying. There is no alien spaceship under the control of the United States government. No one has said that such a "spaceship" is under the control of the United States government. That is the point of what apparently are extraordinary phenomena.

Dean Baker says TALE- Trump always lies about everything. He's also a blabbermouth.  And in the following statement by President Trump is embedded a lie. More obviously, the fellow who stole top secret and other classified documents from the USA government and stored them in a bathroom in his Florida resort has made something clear. On February 19, Trump responded to Obama's initial remarks by telling Fox News

He's not supposed to be doing that. I don't know if they're real or not. I can tell you he gave classified information. He's not supposed to be doing that. He made a big mistake. he took it out of classified information.

The beauty of that statement lies in Trump both being true to his nature and revealing valuable information. We know that the President is lying when he contends "I don't know if they're real or not" because elsewhere in the statement he comments a) "he's not supposed to be doing that"; b) "he gave classified information"; c) "he's not supposed to be doing that": and d) "he took it out of classfied information".

He's like the man or woman who has information others don't, knows he (or she) should not reveal it, yet wants everyone know that he is privy to the information. Ultimately, he'll be able to say that he knew it all the time. Yet, he gets to slam Obama, whom he envies and hates, for leaking (unspecified) things contrary to law or regulation. By not conceding that extraterrestials are real ("I don't now if they're real or not"), he can still release government files at his own pace. It's a win-win, maybe a win-win-win for him.

The cat has been let out of the bag about the existence of those aliens not from Latin or South America, the Middle East, or elsewhere in our universe. And as a girlfriend of Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld famously bragged of her breasts, "they're real and they're spectacular"

  .

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Who Are These Democrats, Anyway?

Ladies and gentlemen: the plain-spoken Barack Obama, who never, ever was accused of being a professor in a college seminar

Obama: "What I'm more interested in for Democrats is, do you know how to just talk to regular people like we're not in a college seminar? Can you talk in plain English to folks? And not have a bunch of gobbledygook around it. Just talk like normal people talk. 'The rent is too… pic.twitter.com/HUPCGD64Dq

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 6, 2026

In late February, the leading (by conventional wisdom) Democratic contender for the 2028 presidential nomination appeared before a largely black audience in Atlanta. He claimed a struggle with dyslexia and stated "I cannot read a speech."  He maintained "I'm not better than you. I'm a 960 SAT guy"and was accused of racial bias by a Fox News talk show host. He responded

You didn't give a shit about the President of the United States posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes- but you're going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia? Spare me your fucking outrage, Sean.

That's an impressive profanity-to-word ratio. and it doesn't sound much like gobbledygook in a college seminar. Responding to the Atlanta kerfuffle, conservative lawyer and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley noted that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had flasked the "f-bomb" in public and

Katie Porter this week thrilled a crowd by waving around a sign reading “F–k Trump.” Porter was previously criticized for using such language to abuse staffers to “get out of my f–cking shot” in an interview.

At the State of the Union, Rep. Rashida Tlaib wore a button on the House floor reading “F–k Ice.”

Such behavior is not just limited to Democrats. President Trump has used profanity on occasion.

However, the Democrats appear to have made profanity a signature element in their campaigns.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas, seems a perpetual profanity machine, regularly telling figures like Elon Musk to “f–k off” and dropping the f-bomb at a higher rate than prepositions.

Some are virtually giggly over swearing in public. Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) declared, “I don’t swear in public very well, but we have to f–k Trump. Please don’t tell my children that I just did that.” The crowd roared with approval that Dexter was feigning being naughty with dirty words.

There is a belief that profanity is a way to connect to younger voters who trash-talk and seem to like what was once called “potty mouths.”

In the modern era, this practice was inaugurated by Donald J. Trump, who went on to be elected twice to the presidenccy with the support of most young men, who tend to be favorably triggered by this affectation. (Oh no, I sound like I'm at a college seminar!)  It's a cheap, easy way to attempt appeal to non-college educated voters.  (Trump: "I love the poorly educated."). It's less risky than claiming low SAT scores or having to consider altering a view on an actual issue.

Democratic politicians are trying to avoid sounding like university professors, though in this simplistic, profane manner. And conservatives continue to knock Democrats in much the same way as did the former President, to whom Steve M responds

IB know, I know -- this isn't just a right-wing critique of Democrats. Many Democrats agree that their party's leaders sound too cerebral and professorial. But "Democrats are out-of-touch elitists" is a core right-wing argument, and Obama is echoing it here.

I don't really believe that professorial talk is what's holding back Democrats. Many liberal and left slogans -- "No Kings," "Tax the Rich" -- are very plain English. And Republicans don't always talk like regular folks.

Obama, the magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, never was accused of being overly down-to-earth. However, by far the greater hypocrisy is on the part of the GOP.  Steve M adds

Older Republicans praise pseudo-intellectual right-wing pundits such as Thomas Sowell and Hugh Hewitt, not to mention Newt Gingrich and Dinesh D'Souza, who delighted Republican voters for years with their academic-sounding denunciations of Obama's alleged "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior." GOP voters appreciate efforts to turn institutions of higher learning such as Florida's New College into conservative beachheads.

They hate mainstream scientists, but love scientists who embrace vaccine and climate denialism. They distrust lawyers in general, but they revere the memory of Antonin Scalia, and they cheer on the Federalist Society lawyers who control much of the federal bench. They appreciate the work of right-wing think tankers like Chris Rufo. And they sometimes use fancy language: remember, we talk about trans rights, while their term for the trans rights movement is the very academic-sounding "gender ideology."

I don't think right-wingers care how highfalutin your language is, as long as they agree with you. If you tell them things they want to hear, you can use any language you want. If you tell them things they don't want to hear, they'll reject you even if you use nothing but one-syllable words.

It may be hard for Obama and others to understand but in most cases, it does not come down to language. It's ideology or values or whatever, "as long as they agree with you."  The current effort of many Democrats to dumb down their language in order to relate to the voting bloc now hanging with Republicans is not only a little obnoxious and embarrassing, but unlikely to bear fruit.

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Verify, and Don't Trust

Seemingly regretful over his support for Donald Trump because of the latter's phony Christianity and the war in Iran, Tucker Carlson in April told brother Buckley (of course) Carlson

In real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now. We'll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be and I want to say I'm sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional.

Concered that the left is falling into a trap, David Pakman sends an important warning, noting

.....The idea is that Tucker Carlson has now apologized for helping support Donald Trump. He has said some things that sound anti-war and there are people on the left naively falling for it and saying "look, maybe there's an opportunity here to work with some of these people. Maybe we can make a coaltion with Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene"....

I've said before that populist rhetoric can be very deceptive. Populist rhetoric flattens very important issues into emotion, east-to-agree-with statements that feel like common ground when they really aren't.

He notes that rhetoric about "elites" is

designed to trigger agreement without any deep examination of what comes next. what comes next is the most important thing. I've said before: you might hear a couple of sentences from Bernie Sanders and a couple of sentences from Tucker Carlson and they will be very similar because they are employing populist rhetoric. But when you ask Tucker what is the solution here, it is an atrocity and that is whole tric. That's where the differences matter. 

We'll talk about Tucker. Tucker's criticism are not rooted in consistent principled frameworks that align with the progressive or center-left policies.

All that is valid and important, but is incomplete In an interview conducted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro apparently a couple of months ago but recently published in The New York Times, Carlson noted Israel's continuing assault on Lebanon following a ceasefire President Trump reached with Tehran. Carlson complained

And within hours of Trump announcing this, Israel publicly, in a way that was designed to get the attention of everyone, including the Iranians, starts killing civilians in Lebanon. Now, what was the point of that? Not to secure the Israeli homeland. The point of it was to end any talk of a negotiated settlement, to keep this going until Iran was destroyed and chaotic, which is the Israeli goal.

Steve M responds

Carlson is essentially saying that Trump is blameless in this matter -- he could have gotten us out of the war, but Israel trapped him. Carlson ignores Trump's own strategic ineptitude, and his own desire to keep fighting the glorious war that both Netanyahu and Fox News want him to fight until he achieves the glorious victory they tell him he can achieve....We think Carlson has broken with Trump, but I think he's being careful not to burn the bridge between himself and Trump. 

This is further reflected in Carlson's rationalization that

... I never saw, nor did I hear about anybody who works for the Trump administration, who was enthusiastically pushing this war on Trump, being like: “You want to make this country great again? We need a regime-change effort in Iran.” Instead there were a lot of cowardly people, as there always are, and Trump engenders cowardice in the people around him through intimidation. And there is a kind of quality that he has that’s spellbinding. And I think it probably literally is a spell. And the effect is to weaken people around him and make them more compliant and more confused. And I’ve experienced this myself. You spend a day with Trump and you’re in this kind of dreamland. It’s like smoking hash or something. It’s interesting, very interesting. And there may be a supernatural component to it. I’m not a theologian, but it’s real, and anyone who’s been around him can tell you it’s true. But whatever the cause, no one around him was weighing in strongly, as far as I know, on either side, for or against. But people from the outside were strongly weighing in, calling him constantly.

So Donald Trump is a big, strong, and intimidating man. And yet he also is a victim of outsiders who duped him. Trump is projected as always powerful, yet somehow the victim. Carlson believes that the President "was doing this against his will," that he was "more a hostage than a soverieign decision-maker" in deciding to go to war against Iran. Steve M explains 

Trump is too powerful to get honest advice from his subordinates and also too powerless to rebuff Netanyahu and a couple of Fox News talking heads, not to mention the 95-year-old man who founded Fox. Either way, Carlson seems to be describing Trump as more sinned against than sinning, which tells me he could return to the Trump fold in the future.

He could, and probably will. As David Pakman understands, the left's response to Carlson et al. should be, as the fictional Martin Dooley cautioned, "trust everybody- but cut the cards." 

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Putting the B in LGBTQIA

We are reminded by HuffPost that

during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with the presidential administration, a man breached a security checkpoint and fired multiple shots before being apprehended.

In a “60 Minutes Overtime” interview the next day, Trump walked senior CBS News correspondent Norah O’Donnell through his perspective of the shooting.

“There were a number of people who were very, very scared,” O’Donnell said in the extended cut of the interview. “How worried were you that there were going to be injuries?”

“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in response after a pause. “I understand life. We live in a crazy world.”

He went on to say that he was watching the back door of the ballroom because he wanted to know what was going on and if he could “be helpful.”

There were hundreds of law enforcement personnel between the alleged would-be assassin and President Trump. And he hung around a little so he could "be helpful." No one believes that. Trump told O'Donnell additionally

I also saw a lot of very strong, physically strong, really attractive law enforcement people come through those doors. And frankly, it made me feel very safe, very, very safe. There’s nobody going to get by them. … They were very impressive, I think they were very impressive. I think the whole operation was very impressive.

Similarly, on March 25, Trump had

praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers for their “larger” and “harder” muscles that they’re "supposed to have” after he deployed agents to more than a dozen airports, where their presence doesn’t appear to have made a dent in hours-long security lines across the country.

Searching for an explanation for the obvious homoeroticism, HuffPost found psychologists with their own peculiar explanations.  One claimed

There are associations between physical attractiveness and strength, most notably through what we call symmetry. Humans are sort of programmed to develop symmetrically, and people who do develop more symmetrically are expected to have better genes. More symmetrical individuals tend to be rated as more physically attractive.

Another stated

In psychology, there is a tacit tenet among humans that what is beautiful is good. Studies support that babies will respond with a smile and trust to a face and appearance that is attractive and proportionate, vs. to [a] disproportionate [one]. As we mature, we learn to move past this in varying degrees, but still, there is an immediate ease to trust someone who presents well.

Yet another believes the "halo effect" is at play, in which

Trump’s statement illustrates the common biased assumption that physically attractive people are good at things that are not in fact related to physical attractiveness,” Eastwick wrote. “If the law enforcement agents appear ‘camera-ready,’ people like Trump might feel safer, but there’s no evidence that attractiveness is related to any sort of professional competence in the law enforcement domain (or any other domain for that matter).

At some point in their acdemic studies, practice, or research, they should have heard of the Law of Parsimony- better known  as Occam's Razor- which postulates "the easiest explanation is often the best one."  And you all remember the song, the Village People's "YMCA," which long ago became a staple at Trump rallies. Written by the group's lead singer and its producer, the hit "has been embraced as an anthem of the LGBTQ community"

In the first year of Donald Trump's term, the lead singer wisely denied that YMCA was written as a gay anthem. However, when the group "started out, they garnered success by appealing to one of disco’s most engaged audiences – the gay community. With suggestive lyrics, floor-filling beats, and elaborate costumes they were a shoo-in for the club-lined streets of Greenwich Village."

Denial aside, Donald Trump decided to embrace this rather unique (as a dance) dance to accompany the song

:

This is not a common dance move for a man. However, some men might not bat an eye; the sort of guy who would speak of "very strong, physically strong, really attractive" indiviudals, who admires men with "larger" and "harder" muscles (wherever those muscles may be).   

A heterosexual man may admire an attractive man or be impressed by how strong he appears. However, rare is a straight man who puts the two together as attractive and strong, especially lauding attractive men with "harder" muscles.

Nobody, aside from me, would make this argument. Conservatives won't accuse (as they would see it) the President of being anything but a virile man's man because they adore him. Moderates and centrists would be squeamish about raising such an issue, especially because it might open a can of worms. Liberals and progressives, (justifiably) hostile to Trump, would hardly credit him with being something other than heterosexual.

This has nothing to do with Trump's current behavior, which in this regard probably doesn't deviate much from that of a typical 79-year-old man. But at some point, or points, in the past, Donald J. Trump very likely had- if we may use such an adjective for a conservative extremist- a diverse set of experiences.

The reticence even to consider this possiblity is not evidence of progress in society's perspective toward gender or sexual preference differences. It is a throwback- or continuation- of our inability or unwillingness to confront these matters directly. Donald Trump has consistently promoted himself as a hypermasculine individual or as in the words of another Village People song, a macho, macho man. His sexuality need not be ignored while it is widely assumed to be completely heterosexual.

"Macho Man" also was a favorite of the gay community. It shouldn't be surprising that it is also one of Donald Trump's favorites..

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They Are Gazans. Gazans. And Did I Mention "Gazans"?

During much of the years 2009-2016 (or 2015), I never missed an opportunity to criticize President Obama- for roughly the same reason Matt Stoller does here. However, in this tweet he chooses the wrong incident to slam the ex-President because the latter said nothing wrong.

Ultimately Obama never stood for anything except his own celebrity. He built the deeply loathed Democratic party that exists today. https://t.co/mUTs3Tomll

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) April 30, 2026

The website Middle East Eye, widely believed to be funded by Qatar, reported last October

Social media users have accused former US President Barack Obama of dehumanising [sic] Palestinians and "bothsides-ing" genocide for a social media post about the announcement of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

"After two years of unimaginable loss and suffering for Israeli families and the people of Gaza, we should all be encouraged and relieved that an end to the conflict is within sight; that those hostages still being held will be reunited with their families; and that vital aid can start reaching those inside Gaza whose lives have been shattered," Obama posted on X on Thursday.

He continued: "It now falls on Israelis and Palestinians, with the support of the US and the entire world community, to begin the hard task of rebuilding Gaza – and to commit to a process that, by recognizing the common humanity and basic rights of both peoples, can achieve a lasting peace."

Many users criticised the choice to reference "Israeli families" while referring to Palestinians as "the people of Gaza".

The ‘people’ of Gaza are Palestinians. They have survived a genocide and an ongoing attempt to eliminate them for over a century,” Palestinian-American human rights attorney Noura Erakat added.

The people of Saudi Arabia are Saudi Arabians. The people of Nigeria are Nigerians. The people of Ukraine are Ukrainians. And the people of Gaza are Gazans. This should not be so hard. Yet 

Several argued that the distinction was not merely stylistic, but part of a long-standing rhetorical pattern in western political language.

Sana Saeed, a media critic, wrote: “this wasn’t a deliberate demarcation of humanity; it’s reflex. A masterclass in seven words on how Palestinians are rendered faceless and nameless when slaughtered, while Israelis are granted empathy - especially when they are the butchers.”

Obama observed "an end to the conflict is within sight;" that hostages "will be reunited with their families." He suggested also that"vital aid can start reaching those inside Gaza," that "the hard task of rebuilding Gaza" and of achieving "a lasting peace" can begin.

It's unsurprising that eventual peace with Israel and the release of live hostages would be distasteful to Islamists. It's a little more surprising that someone envisioning lasting peace and the rebuilding of Gaza would be scolded (though not much more).

The article continued

"For Obama, Israel has families, but Gaza just has people. Israelis are hostages being held but Gazans are merely 'those' who need aid," posted one user.

“When they deign to mention Palestinians at all, they must always throat-clear by mentioning Israelis first. Thems the rules," said journalist Barry Malone.

If it is unacceptable to address the matter of Israelis while addressing the plight of Palestinians, there is an alternative. "The Palestinians in Gaza are led by a ruthless, evil entity named Hamas which should be wiped off the face of the earth."  O.K., then: Palestinians are mentioned with no mention of Israelis.

Moreover

Several social media users highlighted Obama’s use of the word “conflict” to describe Israel’s assault on Gaza, which the UN, genocide and legal experts, and international rights organisations have concluded constitutes a genocide.

"'Conflict' connotes that this was a war with two equal sides and not a genocide/wiping out of an entire region and its infrastructure," responded one user.

"It’s a GENOCIDE," responded historian Assal Rad. "There is no accountability without acknowledging it, and there is no justice without accountability."

Several users said the framing constituted a “bothsides-ing” of a situation defined by Israeli occupation and siege.

The word "conflict" was used because it was a conflict (unfortunately, still is). Obama was not trying to score points or to litigate the issue of genocide; he was applauding an apparent ceasefire.  

And- for the 173rd time or so I've had to mention: this was, or is, not genocide. Killing lots and lots of people, even unnecessarily, is not genocide. If it were, Russia currently would be accused of genocide against Ukrainians and the USA would be accused of genocide against Iranians (or Persians). Nonetheless, neither major power- and Israel has proven it, too, is a major power- is attempting to wipe out an entire people.

Russia, a nuclear power, could wipe out Ukrainians; it is not. The USA, a nuclear power, could wipe out Irainians; it is not. Israel, generally believed to be a nuclear power, could wipe out Iranians; it is not. The Russian assault against Ukraine is not referred to as war crimes committed against Slavs, but rather against Ukrainians. However, it has become acceptable for Islamists and their allies to define the ongoing Middle East dispute in racial terms. 

This is reprehensible. 

The Israelis are not trying to exterminate a people. If it were trying to eliminate Palestinians, Jordan- at least 50% Palestinian- now would be under brutal asault.  (And it probably would become a wasteland.)

The Islamists who actually were offended by the remarks of ex-President Obama would argue that what Israel has done to Gaza would constitute genocide. However, with the ever-increasing number of people outside of Gaaza who would identify as "Palestinian,"it is odd that "Palestinian" would be considered synonymous with residents of Gaza. I suppose that referring to inhabitants of a strip of land constituting a political entity would fit "the longstanding rhetorical pattern in western political language," as Middle East Eye put it.  Que c'est horrible!

The term "genocide" is one of the best examples of definition creep.  "Genocide" never meant unnecessary killing or even slaughter but something far worse. However, those who wish to accuse Israel of the worst behavior imaginable have employed "genocide" as a weapon against a nation with the gall (chutzpah?) to believe that it has a right to exist.  The expression joins "traitor" and "racist" as among the most commonly abused words whose definition is stretched well beyond its original, justified, meaning.

These were comments posted on social media and everyone has a right to express his or her opinion. However, individuals who find these viewpoints distasteful and- more importantly- absurd should not ignore them.  And it shouldn't be left to the far right, which often attacks such remarks, to expose them as nonsense.

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Striking Timing

In his monologue on Thursday night, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel

speaking during a mock version of the annual dinner two nights before the official event, delivered a series of jokes aimed at the president and his family. Typically, a comedian headlines the dinner, and Kimmel’s skit involved him delivering remarks as though he were the comedian selected to roast the attendees.

“Our first lady is here. Mrs. Trump … you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said.

“By the way, in the unfortunate event that our president has a medical emergency tonight, do we have a doctor in the house — oh, I’m sorry. I mean, do we have a Jesus in the house? I always confuse them, too,” he added, referring to a meme President Trump had previously posted and then deleted on Truth Social that appeared to depict him as Jesus.

In January, Dr. Vin Gupta, medical analyst for NBC News, maintained that Trump, whose father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in his '80s,  was displaying "word finding difficulties" and "inattentention, he loses his train of thought."  He was exhibiting "clear inability to epress his own thoughts, difficulty completing a sentence, tangential speech. Of course, memory issues. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Greenland fro even the course of a sentnece and confuses it with Iceland."

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, the cardiologist who served as Vice President Dick Cheney's physician, pointed out that Trump was taking 325 mg of aspirin daily, typically prescribed only after a stroke or heart attack. Noting significant bruising that the President had been suffering, Reiner asked "Why would you continue to take a higher dose of aspirin than your doctor recommends if you're bruising excessively? Makes no sense."

In the words of John Oliver, now this:

Fresh concerns over US President Donald Trump’s health have surfaced after recent visuals and reports suggested possible issues with his mobility.

Speculation grew after observers claimed Trump may be using a hidden leg brace, with some pointing to his movements and posture in public appearances. Social media users also questioned his coordination, with videos showing him appearing cautious while walking.

The Administration's response to the accumulated evidence of ill health of the President has been either to withhold medical information from the public or to deny, deny, deny

Kimmel contends that his words reflected the significant age difference between the middle-aged First Lady and the elderly President. Nontheless, the President is not a well man and, taken as a whole, evidence indicates that he may be dying. If Kimmel's critics had condemned the comedian for making light of the President's physical condition while evidence mounts that his health is critical, it would have been bad enough. Facts can be disregarded.  But it's worse than that. 

Kimmel made his weak joke in the evening of April 23. Yet, it wasn't until Monday, April 27 that Melania Trump- who once lived with husband Donald- complained "his monologue about my family isn't comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America."  As deeply offended by "cancellation culture" as the rest of the Republican Party, Melania argued "People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate." 

She continued "A coward, Kimmel hides behnd ABC because he knows the network willl keep running cover to protect him."  "Enough is enough," whined the woman who hasn't had an original thought since she definitely was not a call girl nor passed among Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and other men. The ex-"model" added "It is time for ABC tot ake a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community."

A joke is not "behavior;" it is speech. The wife of the President, who did live with her husband at least a few years since she definitely was no longer a call girl, should know that.

A few hours later, the President himself, never missing a chance for demagoguery, described the comedian's joke as "shocking' and 'something far beyond the pale.'" Also a staunch oppponent of cancellation culture, Donald added "Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC."

Yet, the remarks of the  presidential press secretary which were most significant.  Lyin' Leavitt charged "Who in their right minds [sic]says a wife would be glowing over the potential murder of her beloved husband And having experienced what I did with the First Lady on Saturday night, I can tell you that she was anything but that."

In adding "this kind of rhetoric about the President, the First Lady, and his supporters is completely deranged," Karoline conflated Kimmel's comment with all other comments, inaccurately implying that they are polific. Referring to Donald as Melania's "beloved husband" is just short of bizarre when the First Lady evidently "hates his f---ing guts."

But the most telling phrase of Karoline's comment was "potential murder." This was not a reference to Ryan Routh, who poked a rifle through a chain-link fence while candidate Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in Fort Pierce, Florida. Nor was it a reference to Thomas Crooks, who was shot dead after he fired at President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Leavitt was linking Kimmel's joke to the effort of Cole Thomas Allen to storm into the ballroom where President Trump, Vice President Vance, and other members of the Administration had joined a vast numer of journalists and other invited guests for the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Of course, the apparent assassination attempt had occurred after (by two days) Jimmy Kimmel's monologue.

The press secretary suggested that Kimmel's remark was in particularly bad taste given "what I did with the First Lady on Saturday night."  She- and the President and his "wife"- could have expressed their alleged outrage on Friday or on Saturday morning or afternoon. Donald even could have posted something on Untruth Social overnight on Thursday. He often posts things overnight because he is awake when he is absolutely, positively not using drugs.

However, it was more advantageous to do so on Monday, following the incident at the Washington Hilton. It was an effort to anger those people who would know about the event, hear the condemnation on Monday or Tuesday, and assume that Kimmel made some wful remark after the President ws almost, almost shot and killed. Hypocritical? Cowardly? A little of both? You make the call.

A little thought and individuals would have realized the comment came before Saturday night but thinking these things through asks a lot of people busy with their personal lives.  That applies especially to those "poorly educated" Trump claims to love.

A master propagandist, the presidential press secretary has learned much from the master propagandist, her own master. Others in the regime also have done so, which is reason not to understimate the Administration, even as the President suffers through a period of extraordinary unpopularity.

 

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