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Liz M

@lizziemulligan.bsky.social

🖕🏼🧊 Democracy fan It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it. -Lena Horne

1430 Posts2956 Follower967 Folgt
The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv)@theserfstv.bsky.social · last wk.

Finally a talisman for untouchable losers who want to spy on people and be monitored 24/7 by even worse ones

Mark Gurman@markgurman.bsky.social · last wk.

Exclusive: All the details on Meta's new Muse Charm, a dedicated AI hardware device that sits in the palm of your hand for Muse. It can be worn with a wrist strap, has an OLED screen, 5G and was developed by Apple's former top interface design executive. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Status Coup News@statuscoupnews.bsky.social · last wk.

This U.S. family was surrounded by Border Patrol agents after accidentally hitting a patrol car. Once free and proven innocent in court, they had the front door of their home blown off its hinges in retaliation. Border Patrol doesn't just target immigrants, it torments American citizens too.

Adam Becker@adambecker.bsky.social · 2w ago

@aoc.bsky.social just put out a great statement on AI. Refreshing to see a major politician on the left nail this. "Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves." 🎯

Charles, Last weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the largest Al companies in the world, publicly asked his industry to slow down Al development. Shortly after, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAl, followed suit. Then Elon Musk. This all came days after an Anthropic researcher quit, citing his belief that this technology could wipe out humanity and that Al companies are "gambling with our lives." For years, people have warned that generative Al could slip out of our direct control. Those safety concerns must be taken seriously. And this is why I have advocated for strict safety standards on how Al is built and deployed, public oversight over this technology, and using existing laws to hold these companies accountable when they cause harm. But I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the U.S. economy and our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable and pay off. And that bet isn't looking good. The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more money than you spend. But the biggest Al companies aren't doing that. They are spending hundreds of billions per year on data centers, chips, and other costs while their ability to make revenues that exceed their already-immense sunk costs are unclear. Experts estimate that these Al companies will require another $600 billion of debt just to financethemselves in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire budgets of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Transportation, & Education combined. Meanwhile, despite almost every single one of these companies not turning a profit & having sunk billions of investor dollars in development of data centers & other infrastructure, Al companies are also on a spending spree of hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying & dark money in our elections. It would be one thing if we were discussing a few private companies with a poor business model. But last year, virtually all stock market gains - 80% - rested entirely on just a handful of Al companies. That tells us two things: 1. Nearly the entire U.S. economy outside the Al industry is relatively stagnating and faring poorly & the gains from these few companies are disguising it; & 2. Millions of people's retirements - including their pensions, 401ks, & investments - are potentially exposed to this risk. That's why these Al companies' dubious financial positions matter to working people. These companies argue that debt is necessary. They'll tell you that building transformative technologies requires upfront capital, & that massive borrowing today will pay off in generating unprecedented prosperity tomorrow. But this is not the typical debt that startups take on while they build out a company. We are talking about billions going on trillions of dollars leveraged with no indication that these companies will be able to recoup these funds profitably. And they are increasingly looking to the government as their source of cash. In an effort to hide their debt, tech companies have been relying on "circular financing" where tech giants like Google, Amazon, & Microsoft give billions to Al startups like OpenAl & Anthropic, only for those startups to hand that money right back to buy Al processing power. In other words, these Al companies are luring in new investors by making it look like their financials are healthier than they really are.What's even worse is that retirement & pension funds are key to supporting this illusion. When the Al companies issue bonds to raise more money, your pension funds & retirement accounts are some of the biggest buyers. When Musk's Al business went public, it became part of index funds where millions of Americans invest our savings. Many Americans don't even know that their retirement investments are tied up in these companies at all. From Big Tech's perspective, that's a feature, not a bug. By tying our futures to their reckless gambling, Al billionaires are trying to make themselves too big to fail. They think they can take such dangerous risks because we will bail them out if things go wrong. Sound familiar? This scene is dangerously reminiscent of the rampant speculation, corruption, & broken incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis that plunged millions of working class Americans into financial chaos that we never fully recovered from. It is no accident that these warnings from Altman & Amodei come months-if not weeks-before these companies were meant to go public. When companies go public, they have to be more transparent about how they are doing financially. And after a waiting period, they typically have to let private investors-like their own employees-sell their shares. The New York Times recently confirmed that OpenAl has postponed going public for this very reason. They are in no rush for the truth about their finances to come out. But the moment these oligarchs began to seek our public tax dollars & public contracts while exposing their companies to public pension funds & investments, they opened themselves to public accountability & scrutiny. Silicon Valley billionaires have rigged the game & are attempting to shift their financial risk to working people: If they're right about Al's potential, they reap the profits. If they're wrong & the bubble bursts, they are setting up the American people to pick up the tab. Heads, they win; tails, we lose.We can stop this, and we shouldn't play their game. Together we can address both the economic and safety threats of unrestricted Al development and prevent financial chaos and stabilize market risk. We must make it clear now that should the Al bubble pop, Congress should not bail out Big Tech. And across our federal agencies, we have the authorities and tools to hold Al companies and their leaders accountable for releasing dangerous, unvetted, and defective products. We must not wait. Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves. It's time we hold them accountable. Thank you for reading. In solidarity, Alexandria
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is APPALLING. The Trump administration is detaining multiple random Somali immigrants with no criminal record at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly because the White House ordered ICE specifically to detain Somalis at Gitmo as part of its effort to punish an ethnic group Trump has attacked.

According to Mohamed, guards at Guantanamo have said they are being held there because that's what officials in Washington, DC, want. "There's no other nation, only Somali people in Guantanamo Bay, in the prison," he told me. "And when we ask them why we are here, they tell us... Washington...ordered to keep Somali people in the Guantanamo Bay."
amanda moore 🐢@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 2w ago

“The worst place ever I’ve been in my life," Sakariye Abdi Mohamed, a Somali asylum seeker, told me over the phone from Guantanamo Bay last week. Sakariye is one of 7 or 8 Somalis who are being held at Gitmo. They say guards tell them the order to keep Somalis at the facility comes from DC.

ProPublica@propublica.org · 2w ago

Look at this photo we found from Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish Bahamas wedding. Can you spot the Russian oligarch close to Putin who bankrolled the event? 🧵

A group photo shows about 35 people, including Donald Trump Jr.; his wife, Bettina Anderson; Ivanka Trump; Jared Kushner; Tiffany Trump; and Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev. Little Pipe Cay/Lux Hospitality Bahamas; Laura Gordon Photography via Instagram; Laura Gordon Photography
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3w ago

I resigned from ExxonMobil today. I spent the last three years doing fossil fuel extraction research at both BP and ExxonMobil. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing to maximize extraction while the window to act closes, and gambling with our lives. More below.

Raw Story@rawstory.com · 3w ago

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, a victims' advocate stood before four living former presidents and called out every administration — including Trump's — for protecting Saudi Arabia over the families of the dead.

Determined 9/11 widow puts Trump on the spot over ‘betrayal’ of victims’ families

A prominent advocate for 9/11 victims issued a brutal condemnation of successive U.S. administrations for their “betrayal” of victims’ families, and suggested the Trump administration to be no exception.“My husband, Tom Strada, you are missed more with each year that passes, but how can it be 25 yea...

bit.ly

Keir Giles@keirgiles.bsky.social · 4w ago

𝗨𝗻𝗽𝗮𝘆𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 (𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳𝗹𝘆) - it's not just America's partners and allies that should be alarmed at how the Trump group is facilitating Russia's objectives globally. At home too, the administration is mimicking Russia in more ways than even many Americans realise. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Why we need to start treating Trump’s America like Russia

Expansionist desires, aggressive military actions, and the consolidation of power in its internal affairs used to attack political enemies, Keir Giles explains how, while writing his new book, he came...

independent.co.uk

Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · last mo.

PabloReports: What do you make of Trump saying Americans who oppose data centers are backwards and poor? AOC: I mean, how about we put one in Mar-a-Lago? I love that. Let’s put a data center at Mar-a-Lago, and we’ll see how backwards and poor he is in response to that.

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · last mo.

Trump during the 2024 campaign on Venezuelan oil: “We’re buying tar from Venezuela and we’re refining it in Houston. It’s the dirtiest, worst oil anywhere in the world. And we’re refining it - so you can imagine what’s going up in the air.”

David Dayen@ddayen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

It's gone almost entirely under the radar but the Trump administration is readying a bailout of landlords. They want to settle a challenge to the 2020 eviction moratorium by handing over billions of dollars, disproportionately to real estate investment groups. Zachary Groz reports.

Trump’s Planned Landlord Bailout Would Funnel Billions to Private Equity - The American Prospect

A Justice Department settlement for the COVID eviction moratorium won’t just go to mom-and-pop owners.

prospect.org

Gary Whitta@garywhitta.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I resent AI for the time it now costs me having to check virtually everything I see online to know if it’s real or not. I’m fairly savvy about this stuff and have been fooled plenty of times. This is what destroys us, not Skynet but the slow death of objective reality. It’s only going to get worse.

Jared Holt@jaredlholt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The "centrist" think tank Third Way is looking to pay someone between $140,000 and $150,000 to spend their days trying to dig up dirt on DSA members. They're trying to sell this gig as "anti-extremism" work, which I find completely disgusting.

from job listing: As the Director of Anti-Extremism, a typical day might include… Assembling and updating a database of the DSA’s most extreme ideas and statements and a repository of voting records, affiliations, and issue positions to make available to allies and partners; Leading public opinion research to identify and test the contrasts that move base voters away from these extreme candidates; Overseeing the development of memos, talking points, rapid response materials, and other products that make the case against these extreme forces in American politics; Promoting and marketing our research and materials to ensure they reach decisionmakers quickly, repeatedly, and at scale through a coordinated distribution infrastructure; Recruiting and arming a group of young, diverse spokespeople to fight the DSA from a center-left perspective and assembling a broad coalition of organizational partners to make the case against extremism; Running an earned media program to create a drumbeat of our message in op-eds, television appearances, podcasts, and traditional and digital media engagement.