Authored by Michael Thielen via RealClearPolitics.com,

Now that investigations into the autopen presidency are underway, left-leaning media and Democratic politicians are finally confronted with the truth that was right in front of our faces for years: Joe Biden was not running the country, and America was being led by an unelected, unaccountable polit-bureau.

Every week we learn more that makes the long national nightmare we endured even worse. Now, thanks to the New York Times, of all places, we learn that Joe Biden couldn’t even manage the task of signing his own name on pardons of violent and dangerous criminals, and at best, only knew of categories of those being pardoned.

President Biden was forced to bow out of his campaign after he embarrassed the political class and media elite during that fateful June 27 debate with Donald Trump – but he was NOT forced to resign from the most powerful office on Planet Earth.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced at the Republican National Lawyers Association policy conference in May that he was determined to conduct full investigations to get to the truth for the American people.

Thankfully, Comer is making good on his promise – but it’s not going to be easy.

On July 9, after the Trump administration released the Biden family doctor from the burden of executive privilege, Dr. Kevin O’Connor began the trend of refusing to answer the Oversight Committee’s questions and chose to plead the Fifth Amendment, presumably to protect himself from criminal self-incrimination.

Chairman Comer declares he will “continue to interview more Biden White House aides to get the answers Americans deserve,” and with former press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announcing her own forthcoming book on the heels of “Original Sin” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, it’s expected that more will come out that further confirms Biden’s mental and cognitive incapacity.

Some legal experts have agreed that an autopen signature could be legal, but we never seriously considered signing laws using the autopen until Barack Obama signed Patriot Act extensions while he was in France in 2011. Obama left congressional Republicans questioning the validity of such use when he again used an autopen to sign the 2013 “fiscal cliff” legislation during one of his Hawaii vacations.

Obama knew what was being signed. But in January 2025, Speaker Mike Johnson revealed to journalist Bari Weiss on her podcast, “Honestly”, that President Biden “has not been in charge for some time,” after confronting Biden about why he paused LNG exports to Europe, only to hear Biden say, “I didn’t do that.”

Biden didn’t know what he had signed into law. How many other times did he not know what he was signing? Was anything signed into law that he would not have authorized if he were “with it”? Are any remaining executive orders that Trump hasn’t overturned still valid?

Should we examine all legislation that wasn’t signed into law during a signing ceremony?

An even stronger case be made for the more personal decisions of  pardons or commutations. Biden did sign the pardon of his son Hunter, and clearly knew about that pardon from interviews. But if Biden was compos mentis, why did the staff hide other pardons, or at least the details, from him? It is an open legal question whether and how such pardons could be revoked.  

But Biden’s staff did not just keep the president in the dark, they pushed the limits of the pardon power itself. The Biden administration used the pardon to pre-emptively pardon someone who hadn’t yet been accused of a crime.

Sen. Rand Paul has been trying for years to get to the bottom of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s gain-of-function research and cover-up behavior before and during the COVID outbreak, but the Biden staff’s preemptive pardon stopped that referral. Now, Sen. Paul has re-referred Dr. Fauci for criminal investigation. The fact that Biden may not have known, in addition to the pre-emptive nature of the pardon, could lead to that referral going forward. Dr. Fauci could finally face the music, and the public get justice for his actions.

The autopen reveals the importance of the 25th Amendment and why it needed to be invoked last year. At a minimum, we need to have a serious conversation about the 25th Amendment and why it was not used when the whole world saw Joe Biden for the severely impaired patient he was on that debate stage. If the DNC did not trust Joe Biden to be up for campaigning for reelection, why did they trust him to remain in the White House?

When “experts” declare use of the autopen legal based on it being a symbolic act of approval, they assume Biden was aware of what he was signing, understood the implications, and agreed to the intended outcome.

This scandal is not merely about the legality of the autopen on documents that have the force of law.

We have a real predicament because we didn’t treat seriously the mental acuity of the man whose signature was hijacked for political ideology and personal gain.

No one believes Joe Biden was “all there” at the end of his presidency. If he was too senile for Democrats to let him run for president, it seems likely he was too senile for White House staff to let him run the country. 

Authored by James Lyons-Weiler via The Brownstone Institute,

At a press conference at Florida State University in Tampa, Florida, Florida Surgeon General Dr Joseph Ladapo made an urgent call for the NIH program funding to help Americans injured by Covid-19 vaccines and expressed support for the May federal changes in the HHS’s restrictive Covid-19 vaccine recommendations.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, M.D. Ph.D., Dr. Pierre Kory, M.D., (right) and Dr. Joel Wallskog, M.D. (left). Photo credit: Michael Pierce, D.O.

On the Ground in Tampa: What Ladapo Really Said

I was invited to Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s press conference in Tampa on July 17, 2025. In contrast to how some mainstream outlets later portrayed it, the event centered on a call to recognize and research Covid-19 vaccine injuries, rather than a mere anti-vaccine screed. Dr. Ladapo – a physician and Florida’s top health official since 2021 – emphasized the urgent need to support those suffering adverse effects from mRNA Covid-19 shots. He praised recent federal moves to scale back mRNA vaccine recommendations for certain groups, but went further by asserting that these products “should not be used in any human beings,” given their safety profile. From my front-row perspective, Dr. Ladapo’s tone was measured yet resolute. He recounted how unusual it is, in his experience, to encounter so many post-vaccination issues. “When was the last time that you had a vaccine that literally almost every single person knows someone who had a bad reaction from it?” Ladapo asked pointedly.

Before the Covid era, he noted, he never personally knew a patient who was clearly vaccine-injured. “Now,” he continued, “there are very few people that I run into who either themselves have not had a bad reaction from these mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, or who don’t know someone who’s had a bad reaction.” 

This was a striking report that hung in the air – one supported anecdotally by nods from some attendees sharing their own stories. Dr. Ladapo stressed that adverse reactions have become distressingly commonplace, and he even bluntly called the Covid shots “terrible vaccines” as a result.

Dr. Ladapo’s Call to Action: Fund Research and Care for the Vaccine-Injured

Rather than simply condemning the vaccines, Dr. Ladapo dedicated much of his speech to advocating for the victims of vaccine injury. He applauded Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s May announcement removing mRNA Covid-19 shots from recommended use in healthy kids and pregnant women – a policy Florida itself adopted earlier.

But crucially, Dr. Ladapo said this must be followed by concrete support for those already harmed. He called on federal agencies, especially the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to expand their research into vaccine injuries and long-term post-vaccine complications. “Today, I want to call on the federal government, [on] NIH, to expand the work that they are doing in long Covid to genuinely and wholly include vaccine-injured people – specifically, people who have been injured by mRNA Covid-19 vaccines,” Dr. Ladapo urged. In his view, resources devoted to “long Covid” should equally address post-vaccine syndromes, which many believe share overlapping symptoms and mechanisms. He outlined areas where federal leadership is needed: funding clinical care for vaccine injury patients and scientific studies to understand and mitigate these conditions.

“We need to study this better,” he insisted, “We need to fund physicians who are caring for these patients clinically and who are doing scientific work in this area.”

The Surgeon General’s message was clear: people suffering adverse effects – whether myocarditis, neurological issues, autoimmune reactions, or other chronic post-vaccine syndromes – deserve acknowledgment and a commitment of research dollars toward treatment and recovery. Florida’s stance, as presented by Dr. Ladapo, is that public health authorities have a responsibility to those individuals, just as much as to those affected by Covid-19 itself. It’s worth noting that Dr. Ladapo’s own background as a physician informed his plea. He remarked that since receiving his M.D. in 2008 and treating countless patients, he had never encountered the volume of serious vaccine-related injuries that he sees now.

Real-world observation aligns with reports from other doctors now specializing in Covid vaccine injury. This formed the basis of his argument that federal health agencies must take action: the scale of the issue appears unprecedented and thus demands urgent attention. Key points from Dr. Ladapo’s address:

mRNA Vaccine Guidance: He praised the revised federal guidance (announced by RFK, Jr. at HHS) that no longer recommends mRNA Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women, noting Florida led on this policy years prior.

Dr. Ladapo expressed hope that this would lead to even broader caution. “These products…should not be going into human beings,” he said bluntly.

Widespread Adverse Reactions: Dr. Ladapo reported that adverse reactions from the Covid shots are far more common than any previous vaccine, to the point that “almost everyone” knows someone who suffered a bad reaction.

He cited his own clinical experience to illustrate an alarming frequency of vaccine injuries ranging from cardiac events to autoimmune conditions.

NIH’s Role: A major call to action was directed at the NIH and federal research programs. Dr. Ladapo urged that ongoing Long Covid studies be expanded to fully include Covid vaccine injury cases – integrating those patients into research cohorts and data collection.

This would help determine mechanisms and potential remedies for post-vaccination syndromes.

Support for Patients and Doctors: Dr. Ladapo emphasized the need to fund physicians and clinics caring for vaccine-injured patients, as well as basic research. In practice, this could mean grant programs for studying treatments (for example, therapies to mitigate spike protein-related pathology) and establishing specialized centers of excellence for post-vaccine injury care.

Such support is currently lacking at the federal level.

Media Spin vs. What Was Actually Said

Despite the substance of Dr. Ladapo’s remarks focusing on research and patient welfare, coverage in many mainstream media outlets largely framed the press conference as Florida doubling down on an “anti-vaccine” stance. Initial headlines highlighted Dr. Ladapo “reiterating” his opposition to Covid vaccination and praising RFK, Jr., which is true, but they often omitted the nuanced context and his appeals on behalf of injured patients. For instance, local news reports noted Dr. Ladapo’s quote that “[t]hese products should not be used in any human beings” and that he claimed mRNA shots have caused “bad reactions and adverse health conditions for many people.”

However, some outlets swiftly countered his statements with commentary from other experts and cast them as dubious. In an NPR-affiliated report, a representative of the American Academy of Pediatrics condemned Ladapo’s message, saying “we are not going to just throw out decades of science and research…just because of one person or a group of people…spreading conspiracy theories about the danger [of vaccines].”

This kind of response, featured prominently in mainstream coverage, suggests that Dr. Ladapo’s concerns were portrayed as fringe or unfounded, rather than as legitimate calls for investigation. Such pieces tended to focus on the controversy of a Surgeon General questioning vaccine safety, while downplaying the specifics of his NIH research request. The press conference’s primary purpose – urging federal support for the vaccine-injured – was often lost in translation in MSM coverage.

It is important to clarify that Dr. Ladapo did not merely tell Floridians “don’t get vaccinated” and walk off. In fact, much of his briefing was forward-looking: he wants the federal government to acknowledge injuries and help devise solutions. By glossing over that aspect, some media coverage misrepresented the thrust of Dr. Ladapo’s message. Instead of grappling with his assertion that large numbers of people are suffering real medical issues post-vaccination – an assertion that could be either validated or refuted with data – headlines largely reinforced a pre-existing narrative of Dr. Ladapo as a vaccine skeptic. To be sure, his claims are denied in the broader medical community.

Many experts try to dispute Dr. Ladapo’s implications that the vaccinated are at higher risk of illness; he cited data showing that the most heavily boosted individuals may be at highest risk for Covid complications.

The debate over vaccine risk/benefit thus looms in the background. But regardless of where one stands on that issue, the Surgeon General’s appeal for research funding to study those who have been injured is a concrete policy ask – one that, notably, does not undermine vaccination campaigns, but rather seeks to help a minority of patients in need. This distinction was largely muddied by the way mainstream reports filtered his remarks.

Echoes from Dr. Pierre Kory and Frontline Physicians

Dr. Ladapo is not alone in raising these concerns. Other physicians known for treating Covid vaccine injuries have been making similar appeals for recognition and resources. One prominent voice is Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist. Dr. Kory was at the Tampa press conference, and his work directly intersects with Dr. Ladapo’s points. After early advocacy for Covid treatments, Dr. Kory in recent years has focused on patients suffering lingering complications after vaccination. He co-founded a practice in early 2022 dedicated to evaluating and treating vaccine injury syndrome and long Covid.

The volume of patients they’ve seen underscores the prevalence Ladapo alluded to. “Scott [Marsland] and I have now seen well over 900 patients who are chronically ill after receiving the Covid-19 mRNA injections or suffering with Long Haul Covid,” Dr. Kory reported in late 2023, noting roughly 70% of their cases are post-vaccine injury (“Long Vax”) versus 30% Long Covid.

This ratio, he says, has grown in favor of vaccine-injury cases over time as more people seek help. Such figures suggest that thousands of Americans may be experiencing serious post-vaccination health issues, even if exact incidence rates are still unknown. Dr. Kory has publicly echoed Dr. Ladapo’s sentiment that these patients are being overlooked. He has been outspoken about the lack of support from mainstream medical institutions. In one commentary, Dr. Kory shared a chilling report: a neurologist at a respected hospital privately admitted to a vaccine-injured patient that “our whole practice is full of vaccine injuries but we are not allowed to talk about it.”

This underscores a climate in which many doctors observe the phenomenon yet feel constrained from speaking out or coding these cases as vaccine-related. Dr. Kory and others in the medical community who do not deny vaccine injury argue that this culture of silence further harms patients, who are often dismissed or misdiagnosed (frequently written off with “functional” disorders) rather than given proper care. Indeed, Dr. Kory describes many of his patients being gaslighted by physicians before finding his clinic.

In the wake of HHS Secretary RFK, Jr.’s policy changes and Dr. Ladapo’s statements, Dr. Kory has applauded efforts to bring vaccine injuries to light. On social media, he recently praised Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for “killing Big Pharma’s grift” piece by piece – implying that exposing vaccine safety problems and adjusting policy accordingly is a blow to pharmaceutical interests. 

While a strongly worded take, it aligns with Dr. Ladapo’s implication that there has been a systematic downplaying of vaccine harms. Both Dr. Ladapo and Dr. Kory assert that acknowledging injuries is not only a matter of scientific honesty but also a step toward remedies. Dr. Kory has called the suffering of vaccine-injured patients “one of the most dispiriting aspects” of the pandemic era for clinicians, noting that many were previously healthy, high-functioning individuals now left disabled.

The resonance between their messages is significant. One, a state public health official, and the other, a private physician and Covid treatment pioneer, are both shining a light on the human toll of adverse vaccine reactions. They converge on a key point: officialdom must not ignore these medical conditions. Whether one views their stance as controversial or prescient, their calls raise questions about how health authorities like the NIH allocate attention and funds. Notably, in the same press conference, Ladapo mentioned, “long Covid” research has received substantial federal funding, and he argues vaccine injuries should be studied under a similar framework.

Dr. Kory and colleagues, for their part, have been compiling case series and publishing treatment guidance for post-vaccine syndrome, but much of this work is happening outside of mainstream research channels.

Greater NIH involvement could lend resources and credibility to understanding these phenomena.

The NIH’s Responsibility and Path Forward

A summary-level takeaway from the Tampa event is a pointed question: What is the responsibility of agencies like the NIH when it comes to vaccine injuries? Dr. Ladapo explicitly placed the onus on the federal health establishment to “genuinely and wholly include” the vaccine-injured in its research programs.

This is a call for inclusion – treating those patients as worthy of study, care, and compassion. For the NIH, this could mean funding dedicated studies on post-vaccination myocarditis, neurological complications, autoimmune reactions, and recovery strategies. It could mean creating registries for those with suspected vaccine injury and following their outcomes, just as long Covid cohorts are tracked. Essentially, Dr. Ladapo is urging the NIH not to leave this subset of patients behind, especially as the federal government has invested billions in vaccine deployment; a fraction of that investment, he argues, should now go toward mitigation and treatment of any unintended effects. From a medical ethics standpoint, many would agree that if even a small minority of people are hurt by a public health intervention, there is an ethical duty to understand and address that.

Vaccine injuries may be statistically rare (exact rates are debated), but they are no less real for those afflicted. Dr. Ladapo’s appeal, backed by voices like Dr. Kory’s, is that public health authorities must actively care for those individuals, not marginalize them. This doesn’t require abandoning vaccination programs for the majority; it requires a parallel effort to make whole those who drew the short straw on the risk curve. In practical terms, that could involve specialized treatment clinics, research into therapies (from immunosuppressants to novel drugs that might neutralize lingering spike protein, for example), and proper acknowledgement of vaccine injury syndromes in medical literature and education.

As of this writing, it remains to be seen how the NIH and federal government will respond. Will they expand long-Covid studies to explicitly incorporate vaccine-adverse events, as Florida’s Surgeon General demands? Early signs are mixed. The Health and Human Services leadership under RFK, Jr. has already signaled a more skeptical stance on mRNA vaccines for low-risk groups, suggesting some openness to evaluating safety signals anew.

However, institutional inertia and fear of fueling vaccine hesitancy have made agencies cautious about prominently investigating harms.

In Tampa, Dr. Joseph Ladapo delivered a message that the mainstream narratives largely sidelined: that caring for the vaccine-injured is now an urgent public health priority. Those of us who were present heard not just criticism of vaccines, but a compassionate plea to help people who “did the right thing” per societal guidance, yet ended up with lasting health issues. “We need to fund physicians…and do scientific work in this area,” he reported, effectively asking the country’s medical establishment to step up. Time will tell if that call is heeded. For now, Ladapo’s stance – controversial as it may be – shines a spotlight on patients who often suffer in the shadows. And as Dr. Pierre Kory and others affirm, shining that spotlight is the first step toward bringing those patients the understanding, treatments, and hopefully recovery that they desperately need. 

Republished from the author’s Substack

For all those basement-dwelling retail traders, whose one dream in life has been to reprise the infamous Roaring Kitty of Gamestop fame, and short squeeze their way to fame and riches (while crushing a hedge fund or two in the process), we have some great news: now’s your (second) chance.

After yesterday’s unprecedented, historic gamma squeeze in Opendoor Technologies (OPEN) stock (and Chamath SPAC), which saw a record surge in call option activity…

… concurrently with an explosion in the dollar volume of the traded stock which nearly touched Gamestop during the unforgettable January 2021 squeeze.

It’s not just us, who are reminiscing about the insanity of January 2021: so is Goldman, and as the bank’s trader Ryan Shakey wrote overnight, he is getting “2021 vibes … feels chasey out there:  calls are almost 70% of the total market volume  … hasn’t been this high since 2021 meme days.“

So to make a long story short, one can lament the idiocy of it all (and with the midterms in November of next year, one would have a long time to lament, especially since Trump has now decided to not only not cut spending but to be graded – as during Trump 1.0 – by the performance of the sto(n)k market), or one can join in the insanity and at least make some money in the process.

We are choosing the later, and to celebrate the lunacy we have run a Bloomberg screen of all micro and small-cap companies (market cap $10MM – $1500MM), that have a short interest as a % of float above 25%, which we believe have the highest chance of getting swept up in the next mega squeeze meltup.

The top 40 names are shown below…

… and the full list can be accessed by professional subs in the usual place.

General Motors reported second-quarter earnings that surpassed analyst expectations, even as the automaker absorbed a $1.1 billion hit from tariffs – but it also warned about a coming steeper impact from tariffs moving into the second half of the year. 

Strong U.S. demand for gasoline-powered trucks and SUVs helped bolster results, but the company warned tariff headwinds will intensify in the third quarter, according to Reuters and the company earnings report. GM maintained its estimate that tariffs could cost between $4 billion and $5 billion this year.

The company said it aims to mitigate at least 30% of that impact through cost-cutting and strategic adjustments. Despite the earnings beat, shares were down more than 7% heading into the end of Tuesday’s trading day. 

Revenue for the quarter ending June 30 dropped nearly 2% from a year earlier to about $47 billion. Adjusted earnings per share declined to $2.53 from $3.06 but still exceeded analyst forecasts of $2.44, according to LSEG. Adjusted EBIT fell 32% to $3 billion.

In her letter to shareholders, CEO Mary Barra emphasized GM’s resilience, stating:

“We are positioning the business for a profitable, long-term future as we adapt to new trade and tax policies, and a rapidly evolving tech landscape.”

Despite the drag from tariffs, GM’s core business remained strong. U.S. vehicle sales — its main profit center — rose 7%, driven by high demand for pickups and SUVs. The company also swung to a small profit in China, after losses a year earlier, supported by growing sales of new energy vehicles.

“In China, the performance of our new energy vehicles has been especially strong,” Barra noted. “We gained the most share among foreign OEMs, and we reported positive equity income.”

Barra also highlighted the strength of GM’s crossover lineup and full-size models:

“In the United States, we continue to lead the industry in full-size trucks and SUVs… resulting in record demand and revenue growth.”

The automaker reaffirmed its full-year forecast of adjusted core profit between $10 billion and $12.5 billion, unchanged from earlier guidance despite escalating trade pressure.

To strengthen its domestic manufacturing base and reduce import exposure, GM announced $4 billion in new U.S. factory investments in June. The plan will expand capacity by 300,000 units across key high-margin models — pickups, SUVs, and crossovers — at plants in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee.

“This will help us satisfy unmet customer demand, greatly reduce our tariff exposure, and capture upside opportunities as we launch new models,” Barra wrote.

Currently, GM imports about half the vehicles it sells in the U.S., primarily from Mexico and South Korea. In contrast, rival Ford produces about 80% of its U.S. vehicles domestically. Ford is expected to report second-quarter earnings next week.

Meanwhile, Stellantis, which owns Jeep, said tariffs cost it €300 million in the first half of the year and warned that results in the second half of 2025 will be significantly affected. Shares in Stellantis and Ford both fell about 1% on Tuesday morning.

Amid growing uncertainty in the EV market, GM is recalibrating its approach without backing off its long-term electrification goals. EV sales growth has slowed, and the phase-out of U.S. government tax credits — including a $7,500 incentive for new EVs and $4,000 for used models, ending in September — is expected to further dampen demand.

Nonetheless, Barra remains committed to GM’s electric future:

“Despite slower EV industry growth, we believe the long-term future is profitable electric vehicle production, and this continues to be our north star.”

She added that GM will continue leveraging its flexible manufacturing strategy and domestic battery investments to navigate the shifting landscape:

“We will prioritize our customers, brands, and a flexible manufacturing footprint… GM is well positioned to succeed in an ICE market that now has a longer runway.”

Looking forward, GM says it will focus on strengthening profitability across both its traditional and EV businesses while driving American innovation in software, batteries, and autonomous technologies.

“I believe everything we’re doing strategically and proactively… will further differentiate us from our competitors, increase our resilience, and help us emerge from this transition period even stronger and more profitable than before,” Barra concluded.

The Overton Window of what is socially acceptable in America has shifted sharply back to the center-right—after spending over a decade artificially anchored to the far-left. Progressive causes like drag queen story hour for children, body positivity, and other woke-Marxist trends that arguably degraded society and, on a long enough timeline, are seen as nation-killing, are now being rejected. Thanks in part to cultural disruptors like Elon Musk’s X and the MAGA movement of President Trump, the collapse of DEI and the woke agenda has paved the way for a new era of pro-family values, national pride, increased national security, and a revival of Americana. 

What has the internet buzzing on Monday is that, following pro-golfer Scottie Scheffler’s win at the 2025 British Open at Royal Portrush on Sunday, Nike’s marketing department released a highly unusual ad — not the usual left-wing politics or ‘body positivity’ nonsense, but a pro-family sports ad celebrating fatherhood and family.

Priorities unchanged. Another major secured.

The wins keep coming on and off the course for Scottie Scheffler pic.twitter.com/S5QoVUzevk

— Nike (@Nike) July 20, 2025

For context, we must understand Nike’s previous woke marketing efforts…  

In April 2023, Nike partnered with TikToker Dylan Mulvaney, a biological male who identifies as a woman and was also featured in a Bud Light ad that has since damaged the brand’s reputation (see more here). 

Nike’s ads in the 1990s focused on fitness and athleticism. Then came the woke era of the past decade, promoting obesity and the whole ‘body positivity.’ However, by 2025, Nike’s marketing team abruptly abandoned the woke agenda, recognizing that the Overton Window of what is socially acceptable to Zoomers and Millennials had shifted back toward wholesome, family-oriented messaging.

Here’s what X users are saying:

Refreshing to see uplifting content in sports ads from Nike.

— C.Jay Engel 🌲 (@contramordor) July 20, 2025

More of this and less of the woke BS.

— GunsnGolf (@gunsngolf) July 20, 2025

Finally, a good Nike ad. Thank you.

— Ole Dad (@TheOleDad) July 20, 2025

We suspect Nike’s marketing team took note when Jaguar’s woke marketing imploded sales earlier this year—and perhaps they wanted to keep their jobs. In short, Nike seems to have learned that body positivity and all things woke failed to drive sales. Now, they’re abruptly pivoting back to family values—because that’s what consumers actually care about. The broader trend here is that the Overton Window has shifted and is likely to remain center-right through the end of the decade.

Authored by Adrian Zmudzinski via CoinTelegraph.com,

Western Union is exploring ways to integrate stablecoins into its services as the firm seeks to modernize cross-border payments.

During a Monday interview with Bloomberg, Western Union CEO Devin McGranahan said that the company views stablecoins as an opportunity. He also said it is exploring partnerships with major crypto industry players to offer stablecoin on-ramp and off-ramp services, as well as a digital wallet.

“We see stablecoin really as an opportunity, not as a threat. […] We’re 175 years old, and we’ve been innovative across [those] 175 years. And stablecoin is just yet one more opportunity to innovate,” McGranahan said.

McGranahan highlighted three areas where the company may leverage stablecoins: faster cross-border transfers, conversion between fiat and stablecoins and serving as a store of value in unstable economies.

Devin McGranahan talking to Bloomberg. Source: Bloomberg

Western Union is not new to crypto

Western Union is reportedly testing new settlement processes involving stablecoins in Africa and South America. However, this is not the firm’s first foray into crypto.

Western Union filed for three trademarks for crypto-related products as far back as late October 2022. The firm also partnered with Ripple to settle payments of remittances in 2015.

Still, Western Union’s partnership with Ripple remains in the test phase. The company expressed interest in crypto, but announced that it would not be adding crypto transfers to its services in 2018.

GENIUS Act spurs US stablecoin adoption

The renewed interest comes as the United States brings regulatory clarity to the stablecoin sector. The Government Evaluation of New Innovations in the US Act, or GENIUS Act, was signed into law on Friday. The new law creates a national licensing framework for stablecoin issuers.

The GENIUS Act also mandates one-to-one reserves, prohibits unbacked algorithmic stablecoins and subjects issuers to Anti-Money Laundering rules. Stablecoin holders are now also considered senior creditors in case of issuer insolvency.

Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer at major stablecoin issuer Circle, recently said that the GENIUS Act will also prevent technology giants and Wall Street behemoths from dominating the stablecoin market.

He said that any non-bank that wants to mint a dollar-pegged token must spin up “a standalone entity that looks more like Circle and less like a bank.” This is particularly relevant considering that legacy financial institutions are already laying the groundwork for their entry into the stablecoin industry.

Late-night propagandist Stephen Colbert slammed his own network and parent company and told President Trump to ‘go fuck yourself’ in a Monday night rant, after CBS canceled “The Late Show” – which was losing upward of $40 million a year. 

$40 million “is a big number,” Colbert quipped. “I could see us losing $24 million,” he continued, adding “But where could Paramount possibly have spent the other $16 million … oh wait” – referring to a $16 million payout from the network to President Trump earlier this month over a deceptively edited “60 Minutes” interview with former VP Kamala Harris last year designed to make her look less retarded.

Trump celebrated Colbert’s cancellation, writing in a Monday Truth Social post that he “loves” it, and that Colbert has no talent. 

Colbert replied “Go fuck yourself.”

After making jokes about how his show loses $50 million a year, Colbert responds to President Trump mocking his show being cancelled by telling him “go fuck yourself.” pic.twitter.com/0rgKrCBRn4

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 22, 2025

Colbert took over David Letterman’s “Late Show” in 2015 and immediately turned it into a far-left ideological bullhorn.  The show is a perfect representation of the inevitable evolution of progressive comedy – Abandoning all humor in the pursuit of political hegemony.

While CBS claims that the decision was purely financial, multiple staffers told The Independent they think it was part of the “Trump shakedown” that began with the $16 million settlement. Colbert’s firing comes days after he suggested on his show that the settlement was a “big, fat bribe.” 

Colbert will remain on the air for 10 more months, saying “Over the weekend, it sunk in that they’re killing off our show, but they made one mistake: They left me alive. And now, for the next 10 months, the gloves are off.”

Let’s not forget how ‘funny’ he is… like the time he shilled for that experimental mRNA vaccine: 

Remember when Stephen Colbert did that cringe “vax-scene” dance on TV?

When he made fun of people for making their own health decisions?

When he used “comedy” to guilt people into compliance?

Yeah… that shouldn’t be forgotten. pic.twitter.com/TRH2LYYbMM

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) April 2, 2025

Or Mark Cuban’s attempt at… whatever this is: 

The Stephen Colbert Show had a lot of pathetic moments. This one with Mark Cuban may take the cake.pic.twitter.com/C4i2mp2uzc

— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 21, 2025

Meanwhile Jon Stewart has his brother in propaganda’s back: 

Jon Stewart’s rebuttal to CBS canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is every bit as cringey and terrible as you would expect it to be. pic.twitter.com/vyuAjHgjIR

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) July 22, 2025

Trump also wrote “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next,” adding “Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.” One can hope. 

Via SchiffGold.com,

If Donald Trump has his way and recent reports are accurate, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is considering stepping down from his position. While extremely rare, Fed Chairs resigning before the end of their term isn’t entirely unheard of. Powell’s obligations would ordinarily extend to May 2026.

But if he abdicates, Trump would replace him with an ultra-dove who is committed to aggressively cutting short-term interest rates, delivering the cheap money he craves. This new dove will crush the dollar, eviscerate savers, and send long-term interest rates soaring much higher. 

Markets are watching Powell closely, and pundits are speculating on who might replace him in the extraordinary event that he decides to leave the Fed. But even if he doesn’t resign, the end result of central bankers tinkering with the economy is always net inflationary. Whether you’re talking about the Fed or the Bank of Japan, the end result on a long enough timeline is always an expanded money supply, a currency crisis, and a reset driven by economic catastrophe.

The Fed Funds rate is 4.25%–4.5%. Trump said it should be 1.25%–1.5%. Rumors are that Powell may resign by Monday, so his replacement can slash rates to that level. This would put the nail in the dollar’s coffin, sending long-term interest rates, consumer prices, & gold soaring.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 12, 2025

Central Bankers are why the dollar has dropped off a cliff in slow motion, losing over 96% of its value since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created. Some commenters claim that this doesn’t matter, because standards of living are so much higher today. But that claim ignores the fact that inflation always rewards speculators, bankers, and insiders while punishing savers.

In today’s low rate-addicted economy, 5% and up is considered being on the “high” end. In a self-correcting free market, they would be drastically higher. Forcing low interest rates on the economy is like trying to keep a greased beach ball underwater, pushing it deeper and deeper as it continues inflating with even more air.

You’re not in control, and you never were. When you finally lose your grip, it rockets out of the surface of the pool even harder and faster.

US Consumer Price Index, 1913 to Present

SOURCE: FRED®/US Bureau of Labor Statistics

What makes the dollar different is its exorbitant privilege as the world reserve currency, and our ability to force that reality economically and geopolitically. But that privilege has been ending for many years in slow motion, and now, economic policies like capricious tariffs and “Big, Beautiful Bills” are accelerating its demise. Touted as a form of economic stimulus, Trump’s economic policies mean higher deficits.

Debt skyrockets, interest rates remain too low, deficits remain sky-high, growth remains low, and the cycle receives more and more fuel until something inevitably finally breaks the market’s trust. That’s when it all falls apart. Both Trump’s fiscal policy and Federal Reserve monetary policy, with or without Powell, are partners in crime for an economic crash.

As Peter Schiff said on The Peter Schiff Show:

“We are not changing course, we are headed on a course to a fiscal disaster. And we’re not veering from that course…we’re just stepping on the gas.”

Claims that the BBB’s spending will be magically funded by tariff revenues are nonsense. Tariffs will reduce demand for those goods, meaning the real revenue collected is always drastically lower than what hopeful projections like to pretend. Companies aren’t all going to pack up and move their manufacturing to the US, they’ll just stop selling to Americans. At absolute best, any companies that do move their manufacturing will take years, compromising Trump’s political dependence on instant results.

Despite a surprisingly good fiscal quarter for the US Government, the BBB makes it unlikely to last. We can rely on both Republican and Democrat administrations to be much better spenders than savers. When the government spends, it’s always with someone else’s money, and over 14% of that spending is just interest on the debt.

The Big, Beautiful Bill contains 1,116 pages, yet not a single page reduces future deficits. In fact, they make them larger. Only two House Republicans had the courage to vote against this monstrosity, @RepThomasMassie and @Rep_Davidson. The bill is a total fraud and a betrayal.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) May 22, 2025

With or without the fiscal policies, inflation is all central bankers really know how to do. Sometimes they inflate slowly, at what they claim is the ideal 2% level, and sometimes they inflate a lot all at once, like in response to the 2008 financial crisis and COVID. The impact of monetary policy on ordinary Americans isn’t apparent right away. But eventually, the devastating effects of inflation are felt in the form of higher prices for everything people need to survive.

In the meantime we’re left with a boom and bust cycle where central bankers decide the “right time” to engineer a recession to try and stave off an all-out collapse. They always return to low interest rates and money printing because without them, the easy money-addicted system would collapse.

If Powell remains the Fed Chair, rate cuts will still come. It’s a matter of If, not When. But if he resigns, and is replaced with a dove hand-picked by Trump, inflation won’t just start to boil over —it will rocket into the stratosphere.

Back in January, when the AI trade got its latest kick higher thanks to an announcement by the newly-created “Stargate” project between OpenAI and Japan’s cartoonish momo-chasing titan Masa Son and his conglomerate SoftBank, that the initiative would spend $500 billion over 4 years to build new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the US and would deploy $100 billion “immediately”, we said that this was one giant pipe dream as the initiative was “spending $100BN in money which does not exist to generate IRR which are not positive.” In other words, just another SoftBank special: pretending to throw crazy amounts of money which Masa Son simply does not have. 

Stargate: spending $100BN in money which does not exist to generate IRR which are not positive

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 22, 2025

Elon Musk, whose feud with OpenAI Sam Altman is one of the defining billionaire rivalries of our time, was even more forthright, and echoed our sentiment when he said that “they don’t actually have the money.”

Not surprisingly we, and Elon, were right. 

As the WSJ reported overnight, the $500 billion “effort” unveiled at the White House to supercharge the U.S.’s artificial-intelligence ambitions has struggled to get off the ground and has sharply scaled back its near-term plans.

Six months after Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son stood shoulder to shoulder with Sam Altman and President Trump to announce the Stargate project, the newly formed company charged with making it happen has yet to complete a single deal for a data center.

But it’s not just the lack of any actual capital that’s a problem: it turns out that putting two narcissistic egomaniacs in the same room is not conducive to smoothly flowing consensus; instead the two have been “at odds over crucial terms of the partnership, including where to build the sites, according to people familiar with the matter.“

While the companies pledged at the January announcement to invest $100 billion “immediately,” the project is now setting the more modest goal of building a small data center by the end of this year, likely in Ohio, the people said.

Stargate’s lethargic launch is a setback to the vast ambitions of Son, who despite spending billions of dollars over the years, has been playing catch-up in the fast-evolving AI sector. 

Earlier this year, SoftBank committed $30 billion to OpenAI… money, which it does not have. Which is hardly a surprise to anyone familiar with the company best known for its catastrophic investment in WeWork and countless other failures. Hoping to make everyone forget what a horrible investor it actually is, SoftBank upped the ante to ridiculous proportions making its AI bet by far the largest-ever startup investment — an enormous wager that has led SoftBank to take on new debt and sell assets. The investment was made alongside the plans for Stargate, giving SoftBank a role in the physical infrastructure needed for AI. 

Meanwhile Altman, who actually does have some money, has been eager to secure the computing power to support the next generations of his company’s signature product, ChatGPT, has plowed ahead without SoftBank, signing deals for data centers with other operators.

Naturally, the leaders of both companies are lying that all is well in their joint effort. Last week they appeared on video at a SoftBank event, and Altman said they have an initial goal of building 10 gigawatts of data centers together. It is a “wonderful partnership,” he said… and the handful of people who watched couldn’t help but laugh. 

In a joint statement, the two companies used even more laughable jargon, claiming they were advancing projects in multiple states and were “moving at hyperscale and speed to deliver the AI infrastructure that will power the future and serve humanity.”

Yet despite Stargate’s rocky start, it hasn’t slowed the data-center development spree that Trump has said is a national priority. AI enthusiasts say the world will require a gargantuan effort to build the warehouse-like structures filled with computer servers, and the electricity needed to supply them, on par with the construction of railroads in the 19th century.

Altman’s OpenAI recently struck a data-center deal with Oracle that calls for OpenAI to pay more than $30 billion a year to the software and cloud-computing company starting within three years. The deal, which may or may not go live in about 4-5 years, has already helped send ORCL stock to record highs, more than doubling where it was just back in April. 

That deal, which doesn’t involve SoftBank, totals 4.5 gigawatts of capacity, and would consume the equivalent power of more than two Hoover Dams, enough to power about four million homes. The data centers are spread among locations around the U.S. Of course, just like Stargate, that deal too will end up being nothing but lots of hot air.

According to the WSJ, taken with a smaller deal OpenAI struck with CoreWeave, OpenAI has now completed data-center deals for nearly as much capacity as Stargate promised for this year in January. (OpenAI has said $100 billion roughly equates to 5 gigawatts of data centers.)

Meanwhile, amid the catastrophic rollout of Stargate, Son has told associates he is bullish on OpenAI and would like to invest even more in the company. Yes, invest even more money he doesn’t have.

Masa Son, who has long been viewed as something of an anti-Buffett one-hit wonder in the investing world (his only actual success was Alibaba), has long craved a prominent seat at the AI table. And yet, despite devoting the two largest startup funds ever raised – more than $140 billion – to finding the AI companies of the future, Son missed out on OpenAI and all of its competitors before the launch of ChatGPT, while being tarred by high-profile flops such as WeWork and construction startup Katerra.

In the fall of 2024, at long last he zeroed in on OpenAI. But Altman had ambitions on a scale without precedent: He has said trillions of dollars will be needed to fund the next stages of AI.

In November, Son and Altman met in Tokyo to hash out an agreement. They next brought their plans to Trump aides with the offer of announcing a giant U.S. investment. On the second day of Trump’s new administration, they stood smiling in the White House beside Trump, vowing to spend $500 billion by 2029. 

“This is the beginning of our golden age,” Son said at the White House, hoping that the bulk of the funding needs would be borne by US taxpayers. He was wrong. 

At the start, OpenAI and SoftBank each pledged $18 billion to the venture to get started, which they expected would develop data centers and then lease them to OpenAI. The two companies said they would jointly control the entity, with Son as its chairman. SoftBank would focus on the financial details and OpenAI on the operations, the companies added. 

That’s when the chaos really started: they named Oracle and U.A.E. firm MGX as partners in the initial announcement, but their role was unclear. No agreement setting out their investment levels had been reached at the time.

“Stargate is not formed yet,” Oracle Chief Executive Safra Katz said on an investor call last month. 

One recent complication between OpenAI and SoftBank has been over how extensively to build data centers on sites tied to SB Energy, a SoftBank-backed energy developer, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Meanwhile, Altman has used the Stargate name, shared with a B-grade 1994 Kurt Russell film about aliens who teleport to ancient Egypt, on projects that aren’t being financed by the partnership between OpenAI and SoftBank. The trademark to Stargate is held by SoftBank, according to public filings. For instance, OpenAI refers to a data center in Abilene, Texas, and another it agreed in March to use in Denton, Texas, as part of Stargate even though they are being done without SoftBank.

Which begs the question: where will all the money come from?

To be sure, as the WSJ notes, “building data centers isn’t easy. Companies need to find sites, develop the physical structures—or pay another company to do that—buy expensive AI chips, source vast loads of electricity and find lenders to cover much of the cost, among other details. Stargate is hoping to use a new, lower-cost design for its first project in Ohio.“

Training new, better AI models requires evermore data processing and constant sources of new capital, which means companies including OpenAI are committing to larger and larger spending well before the business models of AI companies have proved profitable. Indeed, so far most analyses suggest that the IRR of AI remains solidly negative. 

Which again brings up the matter of money: OpenAI’s $30-billion-a-year deal with Oracle is roughly three times as much as what Altman’s company has recently projected in annual revenue. The company, which is losing billions of dollars a year, is betting its revenue will multiply thanks to the growing ranks of paying customers and advertising, allowing it to pay for its hefty commitments.

One – rather unpleasant – answer putting this all in context, comes from Morgan Stanley, which this weekend published some shocking new math: there is simply no way to pay for all the funding needs out of equity or cash flow, and “Paying For AI Capex Will Require Over $1 Trillion In New Debt By 2028“

Good luck with that, and good luck with those 50x forward AI valuations once the Koolaid finally wears off.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

AI fails at tasks where accuracy must be absolute to create value.

In reviewing the on-going discussions about how many people will be replaced by AI, I find a severe lack of real-world examples. I’m remedying this deficiency with an example of AI’s failure in the kind of high-value work that many anticipate will soon be performed by AI.

Few things in life are more pervasively screechy than hype, which brings us to the current feeding-frenzy of AI hype. Since we all read the same breathless claims and have seen the videos of robots dancing, I’ll cut to the chase: Nobody posts videos of their robot falling off a ladder and crushing the roses because, well, the optics aren’t very warm and fuzzy.

For the same reason, nobody’s sharing the AI tool’s error that forfeited the lawsuit. The only way to really grasp the limits of these tools is to deploy them in the kinds of high-level, high-value work that they’re supposed to be able to do with ease, speed and accuracy, because nobody’s paying real money to watch robots dance or read a copycat AI-generated essay on Yeats that’s tossed moments after being submitted to the professor.

In the real world of value creation, optics don’t count, accuracy counts. Nobody cares if the AI chatbot that churned out the Yeats homework hallucinated mid-stream because nobody’s paying for AI output that has zero scarcity value: an AI-generated class paper, song or video joins 10 million similar copycat papers / songs / videos that nobody pays attention to because they can create their own in 30 seconds.

So let’s examine an actual example of AI being deployed to do the sort of high-level, high-value work that it’s going to need to nail perfectly to replace us all at work. My friend Ian Lind, whom I’ve known for 50 years, is an investigative reporter with an enviably lengthy record of the kind of journalism few have the experience or resources to do. (His blog is www.iLind.net, ian@ilind.net)

The judge’s letter recommending Ian for the award he received from the American Judges Association for distinguished reporting about the Judiciary ran for 18 pages, and that was just a summary of his work.

Ian’s reporting/blogging in the early 2000s inspired me to try my hand at it in 2005.

Ian has spent the last few years helping the public understand the most complex federal prosecution case in Hawaii’s recent history, and so the number of documents that have piled up is enormous. He’s been experimenting with AI tools (NotebookLM, Gemini, ChatGPT) for months on various projects, and he recently shared this account with me:

“My experience has definitely been mixed. On the one hand, sort of high level requests like ‘identify the major issues raised in the documents and sort by importance’ produced interesting and suggestive results. But attempts to find and pull together details on a person or topic almost always had noticeable errors or hallucinations. I would never be able to trust responses to even what I consider straightforward instructions. Too many errors. Looking for mentions of ‘drew’ in 150 warrants said he wasn’t mentioned. But he was, I’ve gone back and found those mentions. I think the bots read enough to give an answer and don’t keep incorporating data to the end. The shoot from the hip and, in my experience, have often produced mistakes. Sometimes it’s 25 answers and one glaring mistake, sometimes more basic.”

Let’s start with the context. This is similar to the kind of work performed by legal services. Ours is a rule-of-law advocacy system, so legal proceedings are consequential. They aren’t a ditty or a class paper, and Ian’s experience is mirrored by many other professionals.

Let’s summarize AI’s fundamental weaknesses:

1. AI doesn’t actually “read” the entire collection of texts. In human terms, it gets “bored” and stops once it has enough to generate a credible response.

2. AI has digital dementia. It doesn’t necessarily remember what you asked for in the past nor does it necessarily remember its previous responses to the same queries.

3. AI is fundamentally, irrevocably untrustworthy. It makes errors that it doesn’t detect (because it didn’t actually “read” the entire trove of text) and it generates responses that are “good enough,” meaning they’re not 100% accurate, but they have the superficial appearance of being comprehensive and therefore acceptable. This is the “shoot from the hip” response Ian described.

In other words, 90% is good enough, as who cares about the other 10% in a college paper, copycat song or cutesy video.

But in real work, the 10% of errors and hallucinations actually matter, because the entire value creation of the work depends on that 10% being right, not half-assed.

In the realm of LLM AI, getting Yeats’ date of birth wrong–an error without consequence–is the same as missing the defendant’s name in 150 warrants. These programs are text / content prediction engines; they don’t actually “know” or “understand” anything. They can’t tell the difference between a consequential error and a “who cares” error.

This goes back to the classic AI thought experiment The Chinese Room, which posits a person who doesn’t know the Chinese language in a sealed room shuffling symbols around that translate English words to Chinese characters.

From the outside, it appears that the black box (the sealed room) “knows Chinese” because it’s translating English to Chinese. But the person–or AI agent–doesn’t actually “know Chinese”, or understand any of what’s been translated. It has no awareness of languages, meanings or knowledge.

This describes AI agents in a nutshell.

4. AI agents will claim their response is accurate when it is obviously lacking, they will lie to cover their failure, and then lie about lying. If pressed, they will apologize and then lie again. Read this account to the end: Diabolus Ex Machina.

In summary: AI fails at tasks where accuracy must be absolute to create value. lacking this, it’s not just worthless, it’s counter-productive and even harmful, creating liabilities far more consequential than the initial errors.

“But they’re getting better.” No, they’re not–not in what matters. AI agents are probabilistic text / content prediction machines; they’re trained parrots in the Chinese Room. They don’t actually “know” anything or “understand” anything, and adding another gazillion pages to their “training” won’t change this.

The Responsible Lie: How AI Sells Conviction Without Truth:

“The widespread excitement around generative AI, particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and DeepSeek, is built on a fundamental misunderstanding. While these systems impress users with articulate responses and seemingly reasoned arguments, the truth is that what appears to be ‘reasoning’ is nothing more than a sophisticated form of mimicry.

These models aren’t searching for truth through facts and logical arguments–they’re predicting text based on patterns in the vast datasets they’re ‘trained’ on. That’s not intelligence–and it isn’t reasoning. And if their ‘training’ data is itself biased, then we’ve got real problems.

I’m sure it will surprise eager AI users to learn that the architecture at the core of LLMs is fuzzy–and incompatible with structured logic or causality. The thinking isn’t real, it’s simulated, and is not even sequential. What people mistake for understanding is actually statistical association.”

AI Has a Critical Flaw — And it’s Unfixable

“AI isn’t intelligent in the way we think it is. It’s a probability machine. It doesn’t think. It predicts. It doesn’t reason. It associates patterns. It doesn’t create. It remixes. Large Language Models (LLMs) don’t understand meaning — they predict the next word in a sentence based on training data.”

Let’s return now to the larger context of AI replacing human workers en masse. This post by Michael Spencer of AI Supremacy and Jing Hu of 2nd Order Thinkers offers a highly informed and highly skeptical critique of the hype that AI will unleash a tsunami of layoffs that will soon reach the tens of millions. Will AI Agents really Automate Jobs at Scale?

Jing Hu explains the fundamental weaknesses in all these agents: it’s well worth reading her explanations and real-world examples in the link above. Here is an excerpt:

“Today’s agents have minimal true agency.

Their ‘initiative’ is largely an illusion; behind the scenes, they follow (or are trying to) tightly choreographed steps that a developer or prompt writer set up.

If you ask an agent to do Task X, it will do X, then stop. Ask for Y, and it does Y. But if halfway through X something unexpected happens, say a form has a new field, or an API call returns an error, the agent breaks down.

Because it has zero understanding of the task.

Change the environment slightly (e.g., update an interface or move a button), and the poor thing can’t adapt on the fly.

AI agents today lack a genuine concept of overarching goals or the common-sense context that humans use.

They’re essentially text prediction engines.”

I’ve shared my own abysmal experiences with “customer service” AI bots:

Digital Service Dumpster Fires and Shadow Work

Here’s my exploration of the kinds of experiential real-world skills AI won’t master with total capital and operational costs that are lower than the cost of human labor: oops, that hallucination just sawed through a 220V electrical line that wasn’t visible but the human knew was there:

What AI Can’t Do Faster, Better, or Cheaper Than Humans (June 2, 2025)

And here is a selection of my essays on AI, which I have been following since the early 1980s:

Essays on AI

Wait, what did you just say? The AI agent heard something else:

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