Genius Day at White House. The AI ‘Constitution.’ How Not to Get Deported to Uganda. Rape Accusations at Cornell. Elliot Page Bares ‘His’ Mastectomy Scars for Men’s Fashion Spread. More
Guess who got invited to lunch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday?
Just about everybody who’s anybody in the AI world. Real Clear Politics dubs the event “AI Day at the White House“:
It was AI Day in Washington on Tuesday, with the Trump administration hosting an all-day conference and the launch of a new AI landing page. Donald Trump lunched with executives before signing an executive order directing the government to start calling AI “super intelligence” instead. Between red tape updates, rebranding, and wrangling corporations, the president hopes to turn the tide of public opinion.
In a spontaneous gaggle with reporters at the White House, Trump declared that his lunch guests had all signed onto an accord to add guardrails on AI technology. He described it as a “constitution,” “a joint commitment,” a “statement of principles,” and “morally binding.”
Axios has a skeptical slant on the AI “constitution” but is still worth reading.
Hey, what about your soul? UnHerd has an article with the intriguing headline “AI Versus the Human Soul.”
There’s a foolproof way to avoid being stranded in some alien spot on the globe, say Uganda: Simply don’t come to the United States illegally. It’s that easy.
No doubt, however, the Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday that third-country deportations can continue for now will raise a hue and cry. Here’s the gist of what the Court said:
The Trump administration can resume deporting certain migrants to countries where they are not citizens for the time being, while the justices hear arguments and make a final ruling on the policy, a divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The ruling is a temporary victory for a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda and sets up a major Supreme Court argument in December over the controversial policy.
“Maryland Man Hardest Hit” is Powerline’s take on the ruling. “Maryland Man,” as you no doubt know, is a Salvadoran gangbanger, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the original bad penny of deportations. Meanwhile, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) writes about “Immigration Enforcement Without the Melodrama.” ICE, Krikorian argues, is getting the job done—but very quietly:
The intentionally provocative approach of ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her field commander, Border Patrol agent Greg Bovino, was thrilling for the more excitable elements on both the Right and the Left. One side wanted revenge for Biden’s and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s truly lawless and harmful border policies, while the anti-borders side was practically giddy with euphoria at having their fantasies of impending fascism seemingly confirmed.
Krikorian also has fascinating and encouraging data on the population. It may not be as big as we think.
“A Firestorm Over Rape Allegations Threatens to Engulf Cornell” is a Wall Street Journal report on the confusing situation at the Ivy League school:
In 2024, a Cornell University student went to campus police after being drugged and gang-raped by fraternity members, a lawsuit alleges. Local prosecutors decided not to press charges, believing she hadn’t alleged any criminal behavior.
Now, two years later, controversy over the handling of the case has erupted, throwing the Ivy League school into crisis. …
On Sunday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) denounced the school’s “culture of rape.”
If you are at all interested in this perplexing and important case, I urge you to read both CBS’s police transcript of the original 2024 interview with Jane Doe and the Free Press account by Kat Rosenfield headlined “The ‘Cornell 7’ Have Not Been Proven Guilty.” Here is the Free Press subhead:
A handful of former frat bros were accused of a horrific crime. The court of public opinion has already punished them.
More Legal News. “Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Makes Stunning U-Turn on Who Killed the Kids.” Huh? Shouldn’t he have mentioned this in the trial? Lawyer Kevin Reddington, you’ll recall, tried to get Ms. Clancy off by arguing insanity, not that she didn’t do it.
News Flash: “The Strait of Hormuz Is Open.” That’s a Free Press headline on an Aaron MacLean article. Here’s the subhead:
Oil is once again moving through the strait. Can the Trump administration turn a winning Iran strategy into lasting victory?
The security buildup comes as university students have returned to the streets in Tehran, protesting compulsory hijab rules, rising education costs and political repression, videos published on Iran International show.
Midterms. The Democrats are running on “affordability.” Say what? “The ‘Affordability’ Democrats? You Have to Be Kidding” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial. The editors point out ways in which Dem policies would lead to higher prices:
It costs on average about 2.8 times as much to build an apartment in California as in Texas, according to the RAND Corp. Some “affordable” housing projects in the Golden State cost more than $1 million per unit to build. One reason is state and local prevailing wage mandates, which Democrats want to require for all projects that benefit from federal funds.
Democrats also want to raise the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage to $15 or higher. Most Democratic-run states already impose minimum wages of at least $15 an hour, so this would mainly slam states with lower wage mandates, many of which have contested Senate races this year like Texas, Iowa and New Hampshire (all $7.25) and Ohio ($11). Businesses pass on higher wage costs to consumers to the extent they can.
So what are Democrats now proposing to improve affordability? More of the same policies—more spending on welfare and “affordable” housing, more green-energy subsidies, more healthcare regulation and higher minimum wages nationwide.
Democrats claimed the Affordable Care Act would reduce healthcare costs. But that law’s command-and-control regulations drove industry consolidation and pushed up prices instead. Premiums for employer plans have roughly doubled since 2010, rising at about twice the rate of inflation.
A new Wall Street Journal poll suggests that voters want contradictory things. “Americans Want Populist Policies That Defy Traditional Political Labels“:
Americans in both parties back government-imposed price caps and other market interventions to make life more affordable, suggesting new support for populist ideas that were once largely outside the political mainstream.
That’s the takeaway of a new Wall Street Journal survey that asked respondents what they want from their elected officials and the political system. Voters of all partisan stripes strongly support capping the cost of prescription drugs, child care and credit-card interest rates.
The survey suggests that a coalition reaching beyond the nation’s familiar party labels exists for a range of policies at a time when Americans view Republicans and Democrats negatively.
Large majorities, for example, support both strong border security and a pathway to citizenship for many people in the country illegally, the poll finds. A near-majority of Democrats agrees with Republicans and independent voters that people should show a photo ID when balloting to ensure that only citizens vote.
Elliot Page—formerly Ellen Page—made the cover of New York Magazine’s “Men’s Style” issue. It was supposed to be bold, but it was sad:
The issue featured multiple covers, including one with Page, and linked to an article headlined “The Boys in the Baths.” The magazine described the piece as “Shvitzing and kibitzing with some of New York’s most stylish men at the East Village’s Russian & Turkish Baths.”
Page was among numerous others featured largely unclothed and described the bathhouse experience.
“I went to a bathhouse recently. I’ve only in the past couple of years been like, ‘Yeah, that sounds nice, to like go somewhere and sit around in your body like that.’ I do sing in the shower sometimes,” Page said. “The same songs and lyrics will get stuck in my head, and I don’t know why. Like ‘Do you believe in life after love?’ That’s one I’ll belt out. Or ‘The Sound of Music’: I’ve never seen the movie, which seems crazy, but for some reason I find myself belting out that song in the shower. I can’t explain it.”
The scars from Page’s double mastectomy were prominently visible in the cover photo.
The BBC has decreed that getting a manicure but not having nail polish applied is white supremacy. The Wall Street Journal’s Meghan Gurdon writes:
That line about “perpetuating white supremacy” is tedious, but it is the faux profundity of “who gets to decide” that marks the whole piece as risible and about as on-trend as a polyester leisure suit. It’s so . . . six years ago.
