Nailing It

Joe Biden had to give a forceful State of the Union speech and he did it. He isn’t a great orator, but last night’s speech was successful in content and delivery.

The visuals were significant, especially with the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson looking so obviously uncomfortable sitting behind him.

Johnson will never win an award for having a poker face. He could not help exhibiting his discomfort as Biden score political point after point.

I look forward to the SNL version.

One other point — Biden did not look like a tired old man, as his critics like to portray him. He was strong, vigorous, at times contentious and full of energy. He made many of us proud to be old guys.

Whether this speech changes anything in Biden’s election prospects against Trump is another matter. Too many unknowns remain between now and November. But I do have one prediction.

While I do not think Biden can win on what are supposedly the biggest issues — the economy, immigration or crime, I do think he can win on an issue he emphasized last night, which is women’s health.

I’ll explain why in a future essay.

Hopefully, he can win also on the issue of democracy.

So it’s fair to say that the President has gotten off to a good start.

HEADLINES:

• Democrats pin 2024 hopes and fears on Biden's State of the Union (Axios)

• Parents of Russian-Held Evan Gershkovich Attend Biden’s State of the Union (WSJ)

• Bernie Sanders’s private warning to Biden about the 2024 campaign (WP)

• Biden to announce US will build port on Gaza shore for large-scale aid delivery (Guardian)

• No Gaza cease-fire agreement likely before Ramadan as latest negotiations end (ABC)

• Fani Willis Hit by Court Filing Alleging Multiple Conflicts of Interest (Newsweek)

• In a newly unearthed video, North Carolina’s GOP nominee for governor, Mark Robinson, said he would “absolutely” return to the days in America when women were denied the right to vote “because in those days, we had people who fought for real social change, and they were called Republicans.” [HuffPost]

• Trump is ordered to pay legal fees after failed lawsuit over the Steele dossier (AP)

• US Supreme Court sets April 25 Trump criminal immunity argument (Reuters)

• A major homelessness case will be going to the U.S. Supreme Court (AP)

• Amid explosive demand, America is running out of electricity (WP)

• Is journalism disappearing? These top educators have a lot to say about that (NPR)

• Elon Musk is lashing out at MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex, for donating billions to charities for women and minorities (Business Insider)

• MH370 Disappeared a Decade Ago. Here’s What We Know Today. (NYT)

• Using generative AI to improve software testing (MIT News)

• The Lifeblood of the AI Boom (Atlantic)

• Let AI remake the whole U.S. government (oh, and save the country) (WP)

• Study Finds Humans Cannot Accurately Interpret Cat Behavior (The Onion?)

 

Biden's Moment

 An FBI agent I once interviewed for Rolling Stone said something that I’ve never forgotten. “Maybe this one will be my career case.”

I’d never heard that phrase — career case — before. We were in a fairly obscure place, windswept Rapid City, South Dakota, with the Black Hills in the distance. We were talking about the unsolved murder of an American Indian Movement activist named Anna Mae Aquash.

This came to mind as I was thinking about the State of the Union speech Joe Biden has to give tonight. He isn’t known as a great speaker but the may have to find the way to deliver his career speech on this occasion.

It’s the official kickoff of his 2024 race against Trump, which polls indicate will be another election decided by the thinnest of margins.

Thus it’s a career moment for a career politician. And of course much more is riding on his victory than simply Biden’s career.

Democracy, for starters.

HEADLINES:

• Trump’s grim visions of an American apocalypse (Guardian)

• Joe Biden’s Last Campaign (New Yorker)

• It’s Not Just That Biden Is Old (Atlantic)

• Trump slams Haley as she drops out, while Biden calls for ‘common ground’ (Politico)

• Who will Nikki Haley’s supporters vote for now that she dropped out? (WP)

• Do Americans Have a ‘Collective Amnesia’ About Donald Trump? (NYT)

• ‘Rust’ armorer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in fatal shooting by Alec Baldwin on movie set (AP)

• Schiff and Garvey will advance to California Senate general election (CNN)

• Israel is pillaging not just Gaza’s cities but also its waters (Al Jazeera)

• Israel approves plans for 3,400 new homes in West Bank settlements (BBC)

• Russian missile strike hits near Zelensky motorcade in Odessa (WP)

• Media companies cut thousands of jobs so far this year. They're not coming back. (Yahoo)

• Bill Gates-backed startup confident it can unearth more buried treasure after a historic copper find (CNBC)

• Google is changing its search results to weed out SEO spam (Engadget)

• OpenAI Hits Back at Elon Musk’s Lawsuit by Publishing His Emails (Daily Beast)

• AI singularity may come in 2027 with artificial 'super intelligence' sooner than we think, says top scientist (LiveScience)

• Producing more but understanding less: The risks of AI for scientific research (ArsTechnica)

• Adobe Finds AI Hype Is a Two-Edged Sword (WSJ)

• Microsoft asks to dismiss New York Times’s ‘doomsday’ copyright lawsuit (Guardian)

• Satanic Couple No Longer Has Shared Dark Vision For Future (The Onion)

CIR Founders Reunion

 

The Race

 I’m one of those people who used to take one of his kids with me to the polls on Election Day — in the old days.

I wanted them to understand our democratic system and to think about their future role in it.

So voting to me was a big enough deal to me that I did that, but I always knew plenty of people who didn’t vote and who clearly did not take it at all seriously.

The operative term back in those days was apathy. They just didn’t think that it mattered.

But those people were wrong. It matters. Last night, “Super Tuesday,” notwithstanding.

Once again, it will be Biden vs. Trump in November. Democracy vs. autocracy. Haley has dropped out. Our children and grandchildren will live with the consequences.

HEADLINES:

• 4 takeaways from Super Tuesday (NPR)

• Nikki Haley is dropping out of the US presidential race following the Super Tuesday primaries. (Reuters)

• Administration officials watered down Kamala Harris' Gaza speech before delivery (NBC)

• Earmark battle emerges as late threat to spending bill (The Hill)

• Georgia defense attorney subpoenaed to appear before state committee investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (CNN)

• Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona says she won’t seek reelection, avoiding 3-way race (AP)

• Supreme Court ballot ruling darkens critics’ hopes for a judicial curb on Trump (WP)

• The Supreme Court may have saved Trump, but is it dooming itself?  (The Hill)

• Newly Released Messages Detail Roots of the ‘Fake Electors’ Scheme (NYT)

• Trump again seeks to delay $83M judgment in E. Jean Carroll case (ABC)

• A top pipeline for local journalists is saying no to hedge funds (WP)

• Treasury sanctions Intellexa spyware consortium in unprecedented move (Axios)

• Netanyahu’s War Cabinet Is at War With Itself (WSJ)

• Only a Trickle of Aid Reaches Northern Gaza, as Hunger Worsens (NYT)

• Ukrainian sea drones damaged a Russian Black Sea Fleet patrol ship off occupied Crimea. (Reuters)

• Haiti gangs try to take over Port-au-Prince airport (BBC)

• France becomes the only country to guarantee abortion as a constitutional right (AP)

• James Crumbley's manslaughter trial begins weeks after wife found guilty in son's school shooting (ABC)

• The man who tricked Nazi Germany: lessons from the past on how to beat disinformation (Guardian)

• Facebook and Instagram outage: Widespread disruption affects services (CNN)

• Anthropic claims its new AI chatbot models beat OpenAI’s GPT-4 (TechCrunch)

• Hugging Face, the GitHub of AI, hosted code that backdoored user devices (ArsTechnica)

• Last-Minute Change To Super Tuesday Primary Rules Requires All 14 States To Vote At Same Polling Place (The Onion)

Enemy of the People

 It was not huge a surprise that the Supreme Court rejected Colorado’s move to kick Trump off the ballot, since he has not yet been convicted of a crime connected with the January 6th insurrection.

But the much more consequential case that the court faces is whether the former president deserves immunity for his role in causing that violent assault on the Capitol.

Lest we forget, he incited the mob to march to Congress and try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power that had characterized our democracy since its founding in the 18th century.

That they failed to overturn the election results is but small comfort since the extreme danger represented by Trump and his followers very much remains.

Until this would-be dictator is banished from holding public office forever, he will remain public enemy number one, whether the Supreme Court recognizes that or not.

HEADLiNES:

• Takeaways from Trump’s big win at the Supreme Court in the 14th Amendment case (CNN)

• Deaths of Gazan Children Likely to ‘Rapidly’ Rise Amid Aid Snarls, U.N. Warns (NYT)

• Haiti declares state of emergency after armed gangs storm two of the country’s largest prisons (CNBC)

• Indian farmers are planning to escalate their protests from Wednesday by entering the capital New Delhi by bus and train, and increasing their numbers at border points that are currently blocked by tractors. (Reuters)

• Ex-Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty to perjury in civil fraud trial (NBC)

• Trump poised to dominate ‘Super Tuesday’ as Haley makes last stand (WP)

• Nikki Haley supporters don't think she has a shot at GOP nomination. And they don't care (Reuters)

• A new poll released this weekend showed 47% of those surveyed said they “strongly disapprove” of President Joe Biden’s handling of his job, while Trump has garnered relatively high support ahead of November's election. [HuffPost]

• Why Tech Job Interviews Became Such a Nightmare (Wired)

• Texas wildfire updates: One million acres of Panhandle incinerated as blazes spill into Oklahoma (Independent)

• OpenAI is about to give robots a brain to enhance 'robotic perception, reasoning and interaction' (Tom’s)

• Sergey Brin says Google 'definitely messed up' after its Gemini chatbot caused a firestorm. He has a lot riding on its success — or failure. (Business Insider)

• Elon Musk’s legal case against OpenAI is hilariously bad (Verge)

• Google’s Artificial Intelligence (WSJ)

• Trump supporters target black voters with faked AI images (BBC)

• Tree Outside Window Upset Man Just Changed Channel (The Onion)

Origin AI

Most people think a Trump-Biden matchup is inevitable, but the presidential race could still turn on a dime. We’re getting a hint this morning with V-P Kamala Harris coming out with a strong criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza.

This represents a potential change in the administration’s Middle East policy but also more.

This is occurring just as the latest polls indicate Biden continues to trail Trump and is failing to ignite the Democratic base, including black voters and youth voters.

Some Democrats believe Harris would do much better with those demographics. Biden could withdraw his candidacy; if so, Democrats may be floating an alternative scenario with Harris. 

Stay tuned.

***

Since AI in the form of chatbots has finally emerged to widespread human consciousness, it’s a good time to revisit the 2014 film called “The Imitation Game,” based on the life of English mathematician and cryptologist Alan Turing.

Turing is widely considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.

The film is an entertaining and mostly accurate interpretation of his life during World War II, when he worked for the British government to crack German codes.

It is also a highly relevant reminder of the terrible toll homophobia has taken on so many lives, including Turing’s, at a time certain politicians attempt to role back the advances we have made toward fair and equal treatment of all people regardless of gender or sexual preference.

After his wartime service, Turing was convicted of “gross indecency” (i.e., homosexuality) and sentenced to chemical castration, which led to his death, probably by suicide but perhaps by accident, in 1954 at the age of 41. 

In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous Royal Pardon, honoring his work leading to the creation of the modern computer.

(First published in March last year.)

HEADLINES:

• Nikki Haley beats Donald Trump in Washington DC for first primary victory (BBC)

• Kamala Harris issues sharp rebuke of Israel over ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ in Gaza (Guardian)

• Kamala Harris says there must be an ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza (Independent)

• Majority of Biden 2020 voters say Biden is too old serve effectively: poll (The Hill)

• GOP senators caution Trump about getting involved in McConnell succession race (Axios)

• Blizzard in California's Sierra Nevada brings nonstop snow, dangerous conditions (NBC)

• As Gaza crisis intensifies, U.S. conducts first airdrop of aid (WP)

• U.S. Begins Airdrops of Humanitarian Aid in Gaza (NYT)

• The World Is in for Another China Shock (WSJ)

• Can Mexico move past its authoritarian streak with a new president? (WP)

• Trump warns of 'languages coming into our country' that 'nobody' has heard of (NBC)

• Journalism is in freefall. These writers aren’t giving up: ‘We can go out swinging’ (Guardian)

• Surprisingly Weak Ukrainian Defenses Help Russian Advance (NYT)

• Russians Keep Turning Up Dead All Over the World (WSJ)

• Inside Ukraine’s last stand in Avdiivka and its ‘road of death’ (WP)

• Meta AI creates ahistorical images, like Google Gemini (Axios)

• Humanoid robots with ChatGPT as their brain: what could go wrong? (Softonic)

• China is making robotic dogs that can shoot. Here's what it means in a warring world (WION)

• AI is taking water from the desert (Atlantic)

• AI Bots Parrot Dominant Opinions and Biases (Econlib)

• I met the most advanced robots in the world. They surprised me. (WP)

• Tapas Arriving Too Fast (The Onion)

 

Get Over It

 Sometimes I think we metabolize the news much like a meal. We consume as much of it as we can stand, digest it as well as we’re able, and then move on.

But when it comes to certain issues in the news such as the current president’s age, the metabolization process seems to be taking much longer than necessary.

Let’s face it; he’s an old guy. And with age comes concern for his health, including his mental acuity.

But I for one would vastly prefer to have an old president who is competent, which Biden is, over a younger guy who is incompetent.

And there are plenty of those hanging around.

So it’s time to discount the issue of Biden’s age, sort of like how market forecasters build in various factors when considering the likely trend, say, of pork futures. And also just because old guys are, well, cool.

In other words, get over it. Metabolize!

(No headlines today.)