April 6, 2026
Democracy; Corruption; Leadership; A way with words; Artificial intelligence; Potpourri
Democracy
Corruption
Leadership
A way with words
Artificial intelligence
Potpourri
Democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XARI9NdPyPQ
Election Risks 2026
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-orders-war-crimes-then-what-iran
The last decade has been a learning experience for American citizens. We have learned that:
. Some meaningful percentage of our neighbors want fascism.
. Our Constitution and the rule of law are approximately run on the honor system.
Corruption
https://x.com/a_newsman/status/2038429236575211695
It’s crazy you can tell by the way he speaks about each subject that the president has clearly studied every detail of the architectural drawings for his ballroom and is getting information on his war from Fox News
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas-trump-total.html
Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms
This reminds me of … broccoli. President George HW Bush hated broccoli as much as Trump hates wind power. Bush did not spend a billion dollars of taxpayer money on destroying broccoli fields.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/04/trump-why-pam-bondi-fired-worst-attorney-general.html
Bondi’s legacy was atrocious. It is always welcome to see someone so profoundly malicious leave the government, even if she got booted because she wasn’t evil enough.
Leadership
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R483uZ70CI
What happened the last time Trump faced a dangerous global crisis.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/opinion/trump-death-mueller.html
It’s as if [Trump] needs desperately to feel superior to those soldiers, to cast their strength as weakness, their courage as folly, lest his own cowardice be exposed. And so he disparaged McCain, Powell and Mueller, talking smack about them even (especially?) when they could no longer talk back. …
He wants to degrade us — he wants to degrade everything — because he’s a more fitting ruler with freer rein if his kingdom has been leeched of all decency.
He’s a hypocrite, of course, as are the lickspittles around him. After Charlie Kirk’s death, they freaked out about any stray whisper of the uglier parts of Kirk’s legacy — it was untimely, unseemly, cruel — but they shrug at Trump’s sadism. They ignore his souring of Kirk’s memorial itself, where Trump said flippantly that he hates his enemies. All of that they recast as boldness. Or they claim that it’s harmless: It’s just Trump being Trump. It’s a presidential perk, like winged swag from Qatar, a tacky ballroom and incompetent underlings.
No. It’s more than that, and it’s worse than that. It’s a retreat from empathy, generosity, kindness. And it’s telling. The way we respond to death says everything about who we are. If we can’t extend the dead a bit of grace, it’s because we’re graceless. …
War turns gardens into graveyards. It stamps out nature’s gifts. Here’s a prayer that peace — whenever and however it comes — brings fresh growth and a kaleidoscope of beauty.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/03/19/does-donald-trump-even-care-about-the-midterms
The most plausible scenario is that Mr Trump does not know what he will do this autumn. This is a president who was willing to commit America to war like a jazz musician settling down at a piano, confident he would find the right keys at the right moments.
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-04-01/which-european-countries-are-moving-away-from-trump
Macron: If you want to be serious, you can’t say each day the opposite of what you said the day before.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/zelensky-kickass-two-weeks
Zelensky may be a long shot for the Nobel Peace Prize for which he has been nominated (along with the Ukrainian people). But someday, there should be a Winston Churchill Defender of the Free World award, and Zelensky should be its first winner—with an extra bonus for incredible grace under pressure.
A way with words
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/opinion/trump-iran-war-memes.html
The justifications for the war have been stunningly incoherent. …
Maybe it’s not a war at all. Maybe it’s an “excursion that will keep us out of a war” or an incursion or maybe it’s only a “little excursion.” In President Trump’s America, there may be only two genders, but our military adventures can identify however they please. …
[A]s I watched a video posted by the White House in which a group of angry, rifle-wielding bowling pins labeled “Iranian Regime Officials” are struck by a Stars and Stripes bowling ball that turns into an airplane, followed by actual combat footage of U.S. airstrikes, I realized how one rationale for this war has remained clear and consistent: the administration’s delight in displays of violence and domination. …
Without a clear moral or political purpose, we’re left with what the military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady calls the “strike-as-strategy” paradox, in which we substitute tactical prowess for comprehensive strategic design. This tendency, he writes, “is reinforced by a political culture that demands televised displays of military prowess.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/opinion/trump-speech-language-verb.html
“Let me tell you,” Mr. Trump insisted, “we’ve won.”
What did he mean? Mr. Trump’s use of the past participle of “win” expresses a completed action. “Win” can’t mean victory when ongoing fighting continues to throw the world economy into chaos. This instance is one of many in which Mr. Trump uses crisp, straightforward verbs to obfuscate.
As a critic and writing teacher, I’m fascinated by the tremendous power of verbs — language’s little fireballs — to shape how we understand the world. Verbs rule communication. Many linguists go so far as to see sentences as extensions of verbs with other accouterments. …
There is a morality to verbs, especially in political speech. They can reveal the truth and show us when someone is shouldering responsibility, or they can evade all of that and draw the curtain.
Artificial intelligence
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2026/04/01/professors-design-ai-apps/
ChatGPT fed his students easy answers, so he built an [A.I.] app to argue with them
Potpourri
https://www.chrismurphyct.com/p/prediction-markets-are-the-latest
Prediction Markets Are the Latest Sign of Our Spiritual Disintegration
https://www.salon.com/2026/04/03/bondis-firing-wont-quell-trumps-discontent/
It feels like 1969 all over again. The United States is mired in a war few want, there is a criminal squatting in the White House and we’re on the verge of going back to the moon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/04/04/money-saving-hacks-tips/
Extreme saving hacks that are clever, unorthodox — and maybe a bit unethical
Readers share their most outrageous tips for saving money.
Although rotating a bedsheet or recycling used foil might not save much money, even over time, there is a deeper value to these habits. Being a penny pincher puts you in a powerful position. By dogmatically monitoring your spending, you create a mindset of constant, creative awareness, which is exactly what it takes to fund a retirement account or build an emergency fund.