Saturday, February 08, 2025

Old Instincts


 (Photo by Rhonda Rubinstein)

One rainy afternoon recently, five friends came from other parts of the Bay Area to help me sort through the relics from my early years as a reporter at Rolling Stone and other magazines. I dug out copies of publications long extinct, press passes, photos, bound volumes, and most improbably, an ancient matchbook that I must have used for lighting joints.

Such is the mix of the deliberate and the random that have survived the many purges of my possessions during my travels up to the present moment.

As these relics resurface, they bring back the sights, smells, sounds and the feel of past moments, but they also reignite an old story-hunting instinct that is relevant to the current disaster unfolding in Washington.

Watch for patterns.

For younger reporters, try to not get distracted by the gaudy Trump and Musk show. There are methods to their madness. Case in point: “Elon Musk’s Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink’s Contracts in Ukraine.” (Gizmodo)

Much of what they are doing is reshaping the federal government to financially benefit themselves and their friends.

Greed begets more greed. They will overreach. To bring them down, follow the money. This is the most corrupt administration in American history.

(Thanks to Rhonda, David, Mary, Susanna and John.)

HEADLINES:

  • Elon Musk’s Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink’s Contracts in Ukraine (Gizmodo)

  • Trump’s blitz to expand his power is direct threat to democracy, experts say (Guardian)

  • Elon Musk’s Revolutionary Terror (New Yorker)

  • Four IT professionals lay out just how destructive Elon Musk’s incursion into the U.S. government could be. (Atlantic)

  • Justice Dept.’s Weaponization Group Underscores Trump’s Quest for Retribution (NYT)

  • The Gleeful Profiteers of Trump’s Police State (Mother Jones)

  • DEI crackdown targets student books in Pentagon schools (WP)

  • How Elon Musk boosted false USAID conspiracy theories to shut down global aid (NBC)

  • Forced leaves start for thousands at USAID under a Trump plan to gut the foreign aid agency (AP)

  • Recall of USAID’s global workforce causes upheaval and distress (WP)

  • US cedes ground to China with ‘self-inflicted wound’ of USAid shutdown, analysts say (Guardian)

  • Shuttering of USAID could mean the end of millions in income for Midwest farm operations (Minnesota Star-Tribune)

  • US farmers ‘prepare for the worst’ in new Trump trade war (Financial Times)

  • Dozens of countries reject Trump administration sanctions on ICC (NBC)

  • Senate confirms Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead powerful White House budget office (AP)

  • Palantir’s Billionaire CEO Just Can’t Stop Talking About Killing People (Gizmodo)

  • Who enforces judicial rulings against the president? (NPR)

  • Trump continues federal purge, gutting cyber workers who combat disinformation (Politico)

  • Pentagon cuts off Hegseth town hall webcast after transparency pledge (Defense News)

  • Pentagon's Hegseth says 'diversity is our strength' is dumbest phrase in military history (Reuters)

  • Multi-level barrage of US book bans is ‘unprecedented’, says PEN America (Guardian)

  • DEI crackdown targets student books in Pentagon schools (WP)

  • Pakistan issues deadline for Afghan refugees after Trump blocks US resettlement pathway (CNN)

  • Trump Digs In on Gaza Takeover and Palestinian Resettlement (NYT)

  • Tech Giants Double Down on Their Massive AI Spending (WSJ)

  • Meta launches new program to improve speech and translation AI (TechCrunch)

  • ChatGPT's Deep Research is a promising intern (Axios)

  • Trump Struggling To Remember How He Related To Elon Musk (The Onion)

ARCHIVAL VIDEO: The Band & Neil Young “Helpless”

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Friday, February 07, 2025

Lies and Illusions

The Trump administration would like us to believe it is carrying out its long-promised mass deportations, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Sure, there have been some highly visible airplane loads of immigrants delivered to various Central and South American countries and that one pathetic raid by Dr. Phil. But beyond that, the story becomes somewhat sketchier.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the administration is gaming Google searches to create a mirage of mass deportations. Here is what its investigation found:

  • News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. 

  • Quick Google searches for ICE operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.

  • But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story. That four-day operation in Colorado? It happened in November 2010. The 123 people targeted in New Orleans? That was February of last year. Wisconsin? September 2018. 

  • There are thousands of examples of this throughout all 50 states – ICE press releases that have reached the first page of Google search results, making it seem like enforcement actions just happened, when in actuality they occurred months or years ago. Some, such as the arrest of “44 absconders” in Nebraska, go back as far as 2008.

So ICE has been updating old press releases to create the illusion of mass deportations. In fact, there simply is not enough money, detention facilities or ICE personnel to conduct raids on the scale Trump promised, so Congress would have to pass new legislation for these operations to actually occur. 

In the meantime, ICE’s disinformation campaign is having many positive impacts from Trump’s perspective — spreading fear, projecting strength, and bullying other nations into cooperating with his anti-immigrant initiatives.

NOTE: Read the Guardian report, US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations, to see how an alert immigration attorney and her tech-savvy friend brought this scandal to light.

(Thanks to Susanna for alerting me to this story.)

***

Given the political situation in the U.S., I find some measure of comfort by watching movies set in Europe during the 1930s and 40s. One gem available on Amazon Prime is “Suite Française.”

HEADLINES:

 

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Thursday, February 06, 2025

At Risk: The People's Source


At Trump’s inauguration last month, the CEOs of the world’s six largest websites were awarded prime seats next to Trump’s family members. But the seventh largest website — Wikipedia — was not represented.

As if he doesn’t have enough to do by smashing the federal government to shreds, now Elon Musk is targeting the online encyclopedia as an “extension of legacy media propaganda!” In her article in The Atlantic, “Elon Musk Wants What He Can’t Have: Wikipedia,” Lila Schroff details how the richest person in the world is going after the only non-profit website with a huge global audience.

According to Schroff, Musk is conducting “an ongoing crusade against the digital encyclopedia. In recent months, he has repeatedly attempted to delegitimize Wikipedia, suggesting on X that it is ‘controlled by far-left activists’ and calling for his followers to ‘stop donating to Wokepedia.’”

Musk’s allegations are, of course, nonsense. Wikipedia’s content is created and edited by thousands of disaggregated volunteers worldwide with a system of checks and balances that keep inaccuracies and biases to a minimum.

It also is a model of transparency, including massive amounts of footnotes and documentation for the vast majority of its entries.

I use Wikipedia every day and I find it more reliable than any other source of general information on the web.

Of course, Musk isn’t interested in honest, reliable information — he trades in disinformation and right-wing propaganda to advance his agenda. What he would like to do is buy Wikipedia and convert it into an extremist platform like X.

But Wikipedia is not for sale.

“Even if he can’t buy Wikipedia,” Schroff observes, ”by blasting his more than 215 million followers with screeds against the site and calls for its defunding, Musk may be able to slowly undermine its credibility.”

She concludes: “Anyone who defends free speech and democracy should wish for Wikipedia to survive and remain independent. Against the backdrop of a degraded web, the improbable success of a volunteer-run website attempting to gather all the world’s knowledge is something to celebrate, not destroy.”

See also: Project 2025’s Creators Want to Dox Wikipedia Editors. The Tool They’re Using Is Horrifying. (Slate)

Thanks to T.

***

I took the photo up top of the 250-lb. birthday cake at Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary party in 2011. The Wikimedia Foundation, which publishes the encyclopedia, was my client at that time; I helped designer David Peters produce their annual reports. In this capacity, I had access to the inner workings of the organization, its data and its top executives. Here is what I wrote on my personal blog the night of the party:

“One of my favorite clients, the Wikimedia Foundation, tonight celebrated the tenth birthday of its largest project, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that is dedicated to becoming the largest repository of human knowledge, freely available to all, that the world has ever seen.

“Wikipedia strives to be objective, fair, unbiased. The movement that sustains it is dedicated to knowledge, which is a very different thing from opinion. In this way, Wikipedia is a living example of journalistic ideals.

“Truth has never been ‘left’ and never been ‘right.’ Truth is about respecting others, and including everyone in the search for answers to the questions that no one person on this earth possesses. Truth is what we all can agree to.

“Truth is what you can read on Wikipedia.” — DW 1/15/2011

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Wednesday, February 05, 2025

Extinction Can Wait

There is a class of news reports that get lost in the never-ending political drama that constitutes the news cycle these days. These include the asteroid that could hit earth in 2032, discoveries about “mirror life” that could wipe out humanity, and ongoing concerns abut the existential threat posed by AI. 

Though they often get drowned out by the noise, these are the truly scary stories, and the ones that we need our best and brightest young minds to focus on.

Yet sometimes when I’m driving one of my grandchildren somewhere I find myself turning the volume down when one of these stories come up.

It’s just that seeing an 11-year-old dressed up in one of her favorite outfits, with her hair in fancy braids, and anticipation all over her face brings out a protectiveness in me that I can’t quite suppress.

On the other hand, when it comes to Trump stories, I keep the radio on high. Those seem to me to be manageable for a young child, something we can talk about, share perspectives, but not the types of things that should give her nightmares and undermine her critical sense of safety in the world.

But when it comes to my 16-year-old grandson, I have a different instinct. Maybe he’s reached the perfect age to take the extinction-type issues head  on. So it came to pass that I was listening to an episode of NPR’s always-excellent Fresh Air recently when I drove to Berkeley to fetch him. 

The topic on the show was one of these planetary threats, I forget which one.

When he climbed into the car I left the volume on high as he settled in for the ride home.

Now he’s a young man of very few words these days so I didn’t think anything of the fact that we didn’t exchange words all the way home. Presumably he was focusing on the program. Meanwhile I was imagining my grandson among a future youth corps of scientific minds working to solve these challenges to humanity.

Once we reached the house, I turned to him and said, “That was interesting, eh?”

He turned and looked at me with a vacant expression. Then I saw his earbuds. Ah yes, music/sixteen, now I remember.

I guess extinction will have to wait.

(NOTE: The above cartoon is via courtesy of my friend, the Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, who is also a colleague here on Substack. Please consider subscribing to his feed.)

HEADLINES:

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Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Foreign Policy by Poker

By placing his tariffs against Mexico and Canada on pause in return for some largely symbolic border moves by the two countries, Trump revised the dangerous game he is playing. During the 30-day waiting period, he will see how many promises he can extract from our neighbors with the equivalent of the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

Or maybe he’ll change the game.

Meanwhile, I initially had mixed feelings about the apparent decision by Trump and Musk to shut down USAID. While that agency funds many life-saving health programs in underdeveloped parts of the globe, affecting millions of people’s lives, it has also served other purposes, as we revealed in some of our major investigations at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

These included Global Dumping Ground and Circle of Poison. According to our investigations, USAID helped finance the export of banned and restricted goods, including toxic waste, under the rubric of foreign aid.

In this way, the agency not only helped U.S. companies get paid for getting rid of bad stuff but helped them develop new markets for hazardous products around the world. 

All of that aside I recognize that USAID has on balance, done a lot more good than harm.

But none of this is of interest to Musk and Trump in moving to eliminate USAID, apparently with a team of immature hackers. Like much of what they are doing in the early days of the administration, this is an act with a sledgehammer and symbolic resonance.

For the MAGA base, a headline about eliminating foreign aid is political gold. There will no doubt be more such acts in the coming days and weeks.

Finally, lost in all the domestic drama, the one tariff Trump didn’t lift was the most important one of all — against China. Now China has struck back with matching tariffs of its own. This isn’t Trump beating up on his neighbors, this is the Godzilla v. Kong of trade wars, and there is going to be bloodshed.

Plus remember that dustup with Tik-Tok? China has opened a probe into Google. This could get really ugly really fast

HEADLINES:

  • The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover (Wired)

  • China counters with tariffs on US products. It will also investigate Google (AP)

  • Democrats say Trump's efforts to shutter US aid agency 'unconstitutional' (BBC)

  • USAID to be merged into State Department, U.S. officials say (CBS)

  • Rubio Says He’s Acting Director of U.S. Aid Agency (NYT)

  • Rubio asserts control of USAID, vows to end ‘insubordination’ (WP)

  • Where USAID funds are disbursed around the world (Axios)

  • What is USAID and why is Trump reportedly poised to close it? (BBC)

  • Trump Tariffs Threaten to Upend Global Economic Order (NYT)

  • Trudeau says Trump agrees to a pause on U.S. tariffs on Canada (WP)

  • Mexico's president announces one-month pause in US tariffs (Guardian)

  • Trump halts tariffs on Mexico as it rushes troops to border (WP)

  • U.S. stock market recovers some ground on hopes for a trade-war reprieve (NPR)

  • Musk's wrecking ball pierces government's inner sanctum (Axios)

  • I’m a Federal Worker. Elon Musk’s Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame. (Slate)

  • Hard-liner rebellion forces House GOP leaders to scramble for deeper cuts (Politico)

  • The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis (New Yorker)

  • Education Department employees placed on leave for attending diversity training (Politico)

  • The country's top health agency ordered government scientists to withdraw or pause the publication of all papers set to appear in medical or scientific journals so the Trump administration can review the material for "forbidden terms." Read on for a list of those terms. [HuffPost]

  • Entities behind Trump’s crypto coin accumulate close to $100 million in trading fees (Reuters)

  • Newly detected near-Earth asteroid has astronomers’ full attention (WP)

  • Why Is This C.E.O. Bragging About Replacing Humans With A.I.? (NYT)

  • Court Rules Elephants Can’t Sue To Leave Zoo (The Onion)

 

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Monday, February 03, 2025

Us vs. 'Them'

 

So just for the moment, let’s leave Mexico out of this, because that’s a slightly different though equally tragic story. This moment is about our benign neighbor to the north, on whom for no valid reason whatsoever the U.S, government has declared war.

This isn’t a war to be waged with guns or bullets, but with an equally lethal weapon only our side possesses, the U.S. dollar. To get a sense of the scale of the imbalance between the two forces, the U.S. economy’s annual G.D.P. of nearly $30 trillion is ten times the size of Canada’s.

Any extended trade war would hurt both sides, but on the Canadian side the damage could prove fatal. What do I mean? That Canada would no longer be able to continue as a viable national economy — or as an independent nation — and would have to capitulate and be absorbed into the U.S.

As outrageous and extreme as that scenario may sound, that may well be Trump’s ultimate purpose here — to destroy Canada as a sovereign nation so that the U.S. can take it over and fulfill one of his imperialistic dreams.

It makes me sick to my stomach to write these words, but what other purpose could possibly be served by the declaration of an economic war on our closest ally. This is every bit as despicable as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both are acts of imperialism committed by rapacious leaders determined to demonstrate their power through the expansion of their empires.

The difference is that the U.S. is still a democracy, for now, although this could be one of the acts that brings that to an end, and leads to an autocracy with larger borders.

What can be done to resist? What’s needed is an anti-war movement. Trade wars are far harder to understand than the bombs and bullets type, so it may start in little ways by acquiring and displaying the Canadian flag as a symbol of resistance.

But it will quickly need to become big enough to stop this war and restore our neighbor’s sovereignty and self-rule before it’s too late. 

If I am right, Canada is first, but Mexico, Panama and Greenland (aka Demark) will be next.

HEADLINES:

  • The Dumbest Trade War in History (WSJ)

  • Dow futures slammed by 600 points after Trump hits Canada, Mexico and China with tariffs (CNBC)

  • With tariffs and threats, Trump turns on America’s closest allies (WP)

  • U.S. auto industry is in the tariff crosshairs (Axios)

  • Trump says Americans could feel 'pain' in trade war with Mexico, Canada, China (Reuters)

  • Canadians are 'perplexed' by Trump's tariffs, ambassador to the US says (ABC)

  • Canada announces $155B tariff package in response to unjustified U.S. tariffs (Canada)

  • Trump’s Tariffs Would Reverse Decades of Integratiovn Between U.S. and Mexico (NYT)

  • What will be the impact of a North American trade war? (Financial Times)

  • ‘This is a self-inflicted wound to the American economy’ (Politico)

  • Musk Moves With Lightning Speed to Exert Control Over the Government (WSJ)

  • USAID security leaders on leave after trying to keep Musk’s DOGE from classified info, officials say (AP)

  • U.S. aid freeze hits secret girls' schools, post-flood repair and much more (NPR)

  • DOGE Gains Access to Payment System Doling Out Trillions to Americans (WSJ)

  • Project 2025 For Real (The Nation)

  • Rubio demands Panama 'reduce China influence' over canal (BBC)

  • Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball (New Yorker)

  • Trump’s DEI purge targets federal workers who did not work in DEI (WP)

  • Vance and Duffy Echo Trump in Blaming D.E.I. for Crash Near Washington (NYT)

  • JD Vance Backtracks on DEI Slur After Pilot’s Identity Revealed (Daily Beast)

  • More USAID staff ousted as Trump administration dismantles aid agency (Reuters)

  • Illinois governor bans Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump from state jobs (WP)

  • The Baby Gap (Financial Times)

  • Shocking Fourfold Spike in Ocean Warming Sparks Global Concern (SciTechDaily)

  • AI systems with ‘unacceptable risk’ are now banned in the EU (TechCrunch)

  • Clever architecture over raw compute: DeepSeek shatters the ‘bigger is better’ approach to AI development (VentureBeat)

  • DeepSeek has ripped away AI’s veil of mystique. That’s the real reason the tech bros fear it (Guardian)

  • Report: Universe To End Next Friday (The Onion)

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Sunday, February 02, 2025

The Way of all Words

“Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” — Willa Cather

___________________________________________________________________________

A few years back, one of my grandchildren mentioned that whenever she writes a story, “I let the pen go where the pen wants to go.” She was nine at the time.

I took note of it because it was one of the better insights into a style of writing I admire, plus I’ve learned over time to listen carefully to kids when I’m thinking about how to tell a good story.

Most writing teachers will tell you to focus on the structure of your story; they may even advise you to work from an outline. There is nothing wrong with that advice, especially for school or work assignments. But there’s also nothing more likely to suffocate your creative impulses than having too detailed of a plan. 

Therefore, when it comes to story-telling/writing , I’m of the opinion that you just have to work yourself into the right mood. The one where you can just let it flow. Out there beyond where any known form of outlining can take you.

So how do you get there? Methods vary. Some people meditate. Some pour a drink (not recommended.) Some light up a joint (really not recommended, you’ll never get started.) Some nap. Some exercise. The very best way for me is to meet up with a friend for coffee. 

Anyway, once you’re writing you’ll know you’re on the right track if — to paraphrase my granddaughter — the story is going where the story wants to go, plus that’s where you want it to go as well.

(Thanks to Sophia.)

NOTE: I’ll get back to the Trump tsunami of outrageous acts soon. I just had to take a break from that stuff to preserve what is left of my sanity. But one thing — Go Canada!

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