The Atlantic
u/theatlantic
Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others, David Frum writes: https://theatln.tc/3kZcjthY
A shooting at a Trump rally on Saturday killed a person nearby, injured Donald Trump, and critically injured others. “It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence ‘has no place’ in American society,” Frum writes. “Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016, and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election.”
“To date, Trump has led only a minority of U.S. voters, but that minority’s passion and audacity have offset what it lacks in numbers,” Frum continues. “After the shooting, Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and call to ‘Fight!’ to summon waverers to their cause of installing Trump as an anti-constitutional ruler, exempted from ordinary law by his allies on the Supreme Court … The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy.”
But, Frum argues at the link in our bio, Trump should have forfeited his legitimate place in American life beyond redemption on January 6, 2021. “All decent people welcome the sparing of his life. Trump’s reckoning should be with the orderly process of law, not with the bloodshed he rejoiced in when it befell others. He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones. Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.”
Read more: https://theatln.tc/3kZcjthY
🎨: The Atlantic. Sources: Anna Moneymaker / Getty; Rebecca Droke / AFP / Getty.
/r/inthenews is the subreddit for opinion, analysis, and discussion of recent events.
/r/inthenews is the subreddit for opinion, analysis, and discussion of recent events.
Five Questions for the Secret Service
President Joe Biden has promised a full accounting of how a 20-year-old man was nearly able to assassinate former President Donald Trump. “This will be an ‘independent review’—as it must be, because the United States Secret Service cannot possibly judge itself. Congressional hearings will also occur. Both forms of inquiry will require a serious account of all that transpired, or didn’t. The agency had one job—to protect a major political figure from physical harm—and failed,” writes Juliette Kayyem, the faculty chair of the homeland-security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Five questions must guide these reviews, including why the gunman’s position was outside the security perimeter, how the sniper threat was understood and addressed, and more.
“The Secret Service was created in 1865 to combat widespread counterfeiting,” Kayyem writes. “Presently, its mission is divided into protective services and financial investigations, in many cases involving cyber and banking crimes. The latter role is a legacy of its original position in the Treasury Department, but the entire agency has since moved to the Department of Homeland Security. Trump, when president, toyed with the idea of moving the Secret Service back; the real issue, though, is not what department it belongs to but its split mission. Perhaps the Secret Service should indeed spin off its financial-investigation duties to another law-enforcement agency and focus solely on defending presidents, former presidents, and other important protectees from attackers who would try to alter the course of our politics by force.“
Read more: https://theatln.tc/ZTycZBJH
President Joe Biden has promised a full accounting of how a 20-year-old man was nearly able to assassinate former President Donald Trump. “This will be an ‘independent review’—as it must be, because the United States Secret Service cannot possibly judge itself. Congressional hearings will also occur. Both forms of inquiry will require a serious account of all that transpired, or didn’t. The agency had one job—to protect a major political figure from physical harm—and failed,” writes Juliette Kayyem, the faculty chair of the homeland-security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Five questions must guide these reviews, including why the gunman’s position was outside the security perimeter, how the sniper threat was understood and addressed, and more.
“The Secret Service was created in 1865 to combat widespread counterfeiting,” Kayyem writes. “Presently, its mission is divided into protective services and financial investigations, in many cases involving cyber and banking crimes. The latter role is a legacy of its original position in the Treasury Department, but the entire agency has since moved to the Department of Homeland Security. Trump, when president, toyed with the idea of moving the Secret Service back; the real issue, though, is not what department it belongs to but its split mission. Perhaps the Secret Service should indeed spin off its financial-investigation duties to another law-enforcement agency and focus solely on defending presidents, former presidents, and other important protectees from attackers who would try to alter the course of our politics by force.“
Read more: https://theatln.tc/ZTycZBJH
/r/inthenews is the subreddit for opinion, analysis, and discussion of recent events.
Donald Trump was bloody but “safe” after a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania, his campaign said; few other details are clear at the moment. https://theatln.tc/CHMZ2dC8
“Trump’s campaign rallies have frequently witnessed violence or the threat of it, though not in the past directed at the candidate. Protesters demonstrating against Trump have been assaulted, and Trump himself has encouraged attacks against them,” David A. Graham writes. “The most serious incident of political violence in recent American history occurred on January 6, 2021, following a Trump rally in Washington, D.C., when a crowd incited by Trump attacked and sacked the U.S. Capitol, bloodying police officers and disrupting Congress.”
“The incidents fit into a broad pattern in notable incidents of political violence in the United States,” Graham writes. They include a domestic terrorist opening fire on members of Congress practicing for an annual baseball game in 2017, gravely wounding a member of House Republican leadership; a man who mailed pipe bombs to several perceived opponents of Trump in 2018; and an unsuccessful plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “Many of these incidents have an apparent connection to political events,” Graham writes. “Others, including the 2022 killing of a retired judge in Wisconsin, appear to reflect interpersonal animosity, and some perpetrators have shown signs of mental disturbance. The number of Americans who say that political violence is sometimes justified has also risen.”
“What happens in the aftermath of the incident today will depend a great deal on what details emerge about this shooting and how Trump recovers,” Graham continues. “But it will also depend on the way the nation’s leaders react. Many national politicians immediately responded with condemnations of violence and prayers for Trump. Political scientists have found that even voters who hold antidemocratic attitudes are influenced strongly by top political figures. In this fragile moment, the nation desperately needs prudent and wise leadership.”
Read our continuing coverage: https://theatln.tc/CHMZ2dC8
Donald Trump was bloody but “safe” after a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania, his campaign said; few other details are clear at the moment. https://theatln.tc/CHMZ2dC8
“Trump’s campaign rallies have frequently witnessed violence or the threat of it, though not in the past directed at the candidate. Protesters demonstrating against Trump have been assaulted, and Trump himself has encouraged attacks against them,” David A. Graham writes. “The most serious incident of political violence in recent American history occurred on January 6, 2021, following a Trump rally in Washington, D.C., when a crowd incited by Trump attacked and sacked the U.S. Capitol, bloodying police officers and disrupting Congress.”
“The incidents fit into a broad pattern in notable incidents of political violence in the United States,” Graham writes. They include a domestic terrorist opening fire on members of Congress practicing for an annual baseball game in 2017, gravely wounding a member of House Republican leadership; a man who mailed pipe bombs to several perceived opponents of Trump in 2018; and an unsuccessful plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “Many of these incidents have an apparent connection to political events,” Graham writes. “Others, including the 2022 killing of a retired judge in Wisconsin, appear to reflect interpersonal animosity, and some perpetrators have shown signs of mental disturbance. The number of Americans who say that political violence is sometimes justified has also risen.”
“What happens in the aftermath of the incident today will depend a great deal on what details emerge about this shooting and how Trump recovers,” Graham continues. “But it will also depend on the way the nation’s leaders react. Many national politicians immediately responded with condemnations of violence and prayers for Trump. Political scientists have found that even voters who hold antidemocratic attitudes are influenced strongly by top political figures. In this fragile moment, the nation desperately needs prudent and wise leadership.”
Read our continuing coverage: https://theatln.tc/CHMZ2dC8
/r/inthenews is the subreddit for opinion, analysis, and discussion of recent events.
/r/inthenews is the subreddit for opinion, analysis, and discussion of recent events.
A Terrible New Era of Political Violence in America
Donald Trump was bloody but “safe” after a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania, his campaign said; few other details are clear at the moment. https://theatln.tc/CHMZ2dC8
“Trump’s campaign rallies have frequently witnessed violence or the threat of it, though not in the past directed at the candidate. Protesters demonstrating against Trump have been assaulted, and Trump himself has encouraged attacks against them,” David A. Graham writes. “The most serious incident of political violence in recent American history occurred on January 6, 2021, following a Trump rally in Washington, D.C., when a crowd incited by Trump attacked and sacked the U.S. Capitol, bloodying police officers and disrupting Congress.”
“The incidents fit into a broad pattern in notable incidents of political violence in the United States,” Graham writes. They include a domestic terrorist opening fire on members of Congress practicing for an annual baseball game in 2017, gravely wounding a member of House Republican leadership; a man who mailed pipe bombs to several perceived opponents of Trump in 2018; and an unsuccessful plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “Many of these incidents have an apparent connection to political events,” Graham writes. “Others, including the 2022 killing of a retired judge in Wisconsin, appear to reflect interpersonal animosity, and some perpetrators have shown signs of mental disturbance. The number of Americans who say that political violence is sometimes justified has also risen.”
“What happens in the aftermath of the incident today will depend a great deal on what details emerge about this shooting and how Trump recovers,” Graham continues. “But it will also depend on the way the nation’s leaders react. Many national politicians immediately responded with condemnations of violence and prayers for Trump. Political scientists have found that even voters who hold antidemocratic attitudes are influenced strongly by top political figures. In this fragile moment, the nation desperately needs prudent and wise leadership.”
Read our continuing coverage: https://theatln.tc/CHMZ2dC8
/r/inthenews is the subreddit for opinion, analysis, and discussion of recent events.
Lora Kelley: “Summer is in full swing, and everywhere I go, I hear Sabrina Carpenter’s catchy, somewhat nonsensical ‘Espresso.’ But does that mean it’s the song of the summer? There’s also Charli XCX’s new album, ‘Brat,’ whose high-concept club tracks have led fans to embrace ‘brat summer’; meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ and Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ have been dominating the charts. To understand what makes tracks eligible for ‘song of the summer’ status—and why people love to anoint them—I spoke with my colleague Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic’s music critic.”
Read more: ~https://theatln.tc/kgSZ0e4T~
Geopolitics is focused on the relationship between politics and territory. Through geopolitics we attempt to analyze and predict the actions and decisions of nations, or other forms of political power, by means of their geographical characteristics and location in the world. In a broader sense, geopolitics studies the general relations between countries on a global scale. Here we analyze local events in terms of the bigger, global picture.
Geopolitics is focused on the relationship between politics and territory. Through geopolitics we attempt to analyze and predict the actions and decisions of nations, or other forms of political power, by means of their geographical characteristics and location in the world. In a broader sense, geopolitics studies the general relations between countries on a global scale. Here we analyze local events in terms of the bigger, global picture.
The Final Six Months of U.S. Aid for Ukraine
Phillips Payson O’Brien: “The Ukrainian people may be six months away from losing military aid from the United States—again. President Joe Biden, however, seems not to recognize any urgency. When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked him how he’d feel if Donald Trump defeated him in November, Biden responded, ‘I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.’ Biden’s personal feelings will be small consolation to the Ukrainian people, for whom Trump’s return could prove deadly. ~https://theatln.tc/ZLjV334J~
“Last year, the former president helped engineer what turned out to be an approximately four-month interruption in U.S. assistance to Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022. Trump has vowed to end the war quickly, which would likely mean letting Russia keep territory it seized in 2022 and giving Russian President Vladimir Putin an advantageous position for future invasions. Trump is leading in the polls. Biden’s administration—which has supported Ukraine steadfastly, albeit overcautiously in many respects—should be taking aggressive steps now to bolster that beleaguered country’s self-defense while it still can.
“The administration could try to Trump-proof Ukraine specifically, and help Europe in general, in three different ways.”
Read more: ~https://theatln.tc/ZLjV334J~
Geopolitics is focused on the relationship between politics and territory. Through geopolitics we attempt to analyze and predict the actions and decisions of nations, or other forms of political power, by means of their geographical characteristics and location in the world. In a broader sense, geopolitics studies the general relations between countries on a global scale. Here we analyze local events in terms of the bigger, global picture.
Phillips Payson O’Brien: “The Ukrainian people may be six months away from losing military aid from the United States—again. President Joe Biden, however, seems not to recognize any urgency. When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked him how he’d feel if Donald Trump defeated him in November, Biden responded, ‘I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.’ Biden’s personal feelings will be small consolation to the Ukrainian people, for whom Trump’s return could prove deadly. ~https://theatln.tc/ZLjV334J~
“Last year, the former president helped engineer what turned out to be an approximately four-month interruption in U.S. assistance to Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022. Trump has vowed to end the war quickly, which would likely mean letting Russia keep territory it seized in 2022 and giving Russian President Vladimir Putin an advantageous position for future invasions. Trump is leading in the polls. Biden’s administration—which has supported Ukraine steadfastly, albeit overcautiously in many respects—should be taking aggressive steps now to bolster that beleaguered country’s self-defense while it still can.
“The administration could try to Trump-proof Ukraine specifically, and help Europe in general, in three different ways.”
Read more: ~https://theatln.tc/ZLjV334J~
The goal of the r/ArtificialIntelligence is to provide a gateway to the many different facets of the Artificial Intelligence community, and to promote discussion relating to the ideas and concepts that we know of as AI. These could include philosophical and social questions, art and design, technical papers, machine learning, where to find resources and tools, how to develop AI/ML projects, AI in business, how AI is affecting our lives, what the future may hold, and many other topics. Welcome.
News
Charlie Warzel: “An important thing to realize about the grandest conversations surrounding AI is that, most of the time, everyone is making things up. This isn’t to say that people have no idea what they’re talking about or that leaders are lying. But the bulk of the conversation about AI’s greatest capabilities is premised on a vision of a theoretical future. It is a sales pitch, one in which the problems of today are brushed aside or softened as issues of now, which surely, leaders in the field insist, will be solved as the technology gets better. What we see today is merely a shadow of what is coming. We just have to trust them.
“I had this in mind when I spoke with Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington recently. Through an op-ed in Time, Altman and Huffington had just announced the launch of a new company called Thrive AI Health. That organization promises to bring OpenAI’s technology into the most intimate part of our lives, assessing our health data and making relevant recommendations. Thrive AI Health will join an existing field of medical and therapy chatbots, but its ambitions are immense: to improve health outcomes for people, reduce health-care costs, and significantly reduce the effects of chronic disease worldwide. In their op-ed, Altman and Huffington explicitly (and grandiosely) compare their efforts to the New Deal, describing their company as ‘critical infrastructure’ in a remade health-care system.
“They also say that some future chatbot offered by the company may encourage you to ‘swap your third afternoon soda with water and lemon.’ That chatbot, referred to in the article as ‘a hyper-personalized AI health coach,’ is the centerpiece of Thrive AI Health’s pitch. What form it will take, or how it will be completed at all, is unclear, but here’s the idea: The bot will generate ‘personalized AI-driven insights’ based on a user’s biometric and health data, doling out information and reminders to help them improve their behavior. Altman and Huffington give the example of a busy diabetic who might use an AI coach for medication reminders and healthy recipes. You can’t actually download the app yet. Altman and Huffington did not provide a launch date.”
“Normally, I don’t write about vaporware—a term for products that are merely conceptual—but I was curious about how Altman and Huffington would explain these grand ambitions. Their very proposition struck me as the most difficult of sells: two rich, well-known entrepreneurs asking regular human beings, who may be skeptical or unfamiliar with generative AI, to hand over their most personal and consequential health data to a nagging robot? Health apps are popular, and people (myself included) allow tech tools to collect all kinds of intensely personal data, such as sleep, heart-rate, and sexual-health information, every day. If Thrive succeeds, the market for a truly intelligent health coach could be massive. But AI offers another complication to this privacy equation, opening the door for companies to train their models on hyper-personal, confidential information. Altman and Huffington are asking the world to believe that generative AI—a technology that cannot currently reliably cite its own sources—will one day be able to transform our relationships with our own bodies. I wanted to hear their pitch for myself.”
Read more:
The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions.
Article
Shirley Li: “In the new film ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ the sun also rises on cue over a soundstage built to delude viewers. The movie follows a secret government mission to fake the moon landing and, like The Truman Show, explores the power of televised images while hitting theaters at a pivotal moment in human technological progress. But if the 1998 film was a prescient tragedy scrutinizing the rise of reality TV and social media, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ turns our brewing anxiety around fake videos and AI-driven content into, of all things, a breezy screwball romance. The film doesn’t offer much wisdom about how we should deal with our growing unreality, but it is a charming diversion. In a way, its very shallowness is the point: Sometimes, the film posits, what we want to see matters more than what we actually do.
“At least, that’s what Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson), a chipper marketing maven hired to turn NASA’s public image around, believes when she first arrives in Florida. Striding around Cape Canaveral, she immediately catches the attention of—and then clashes with—Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), the buttoned-up, tightly wound launch director of the Apollo 11 mission. She’s all spunk; he’s all nerves. She’s convinced that the project could be just the thing Americans need to keep their minds off the Vietnam War. He thinks his work should remain behind closed doors. Before long, she’s turned the campus into a set, using ethically questionable methods. The astronauts leave their posts to pose for photo shoots. Actors are hired to play gawky scientists during interviews. And the president’s shadowy lackey, Moe (Woody Harrelson, having a blast), lets Kelly place a camera on board the shuttle. ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ casts the space race as nothing more than a multimillion-dollar ad campaign for America—one that would succeed if only the two absurdly good-looking people at the story’s center got along.”
Read more:
The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions.
The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions.
Yes, 'Longlegs' Is That Scary
David Sims: “To learn about someone’s taste in horror movies, I pose a simple question: Do you seek rules, or vibes? When Freddy Krueger is attacking teenagers in their dreams, are you interested in knowing the specifics of how he’s doing that—or do you want to give yourself over to unknowable terror? Italian ‘giallo’ movies tend to joyfully—and sometimes incoherently—dispense with plot detail, whereas many American slasher films are often laser-focused on the motivations and methods of their deadly protagonists.
“I’m painting with a broad brush here, but I was especially struck by the rules-versus-vibes dichotomy when watching ‘Longlegs,’ a freaky new piece of horror from the director Osgood Perkins. Perkins, a son of the legendary actor Anthony Perkins (best known for playing Norman Bates in ‘Psycho’), has made a chain of interesting small-budget efforts over the past decade, including the boarding-school thriller ‘The Blackcoat’s Daughter’ and the fantasy film ‘Gretel & Hansel.’ But ‘Longlegs’ is being positioned as a breakthrough by its distributor, Neon, which has rolled out a slick marketing campaign centered on the film’s abstract, frightening imagery—an approach that helped past art-house-horror hits like ‘The Babadook’ and ‘The Witch.’
“Though ‘Longlegs’ has plenty of atmospheric scares, it never descends into total surreality, instead charting a path right between vibes and rules. It’s ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ meets ‘Hereditary,’ a tale of a serial killer who is being tracked by the FBI that weaves in some satanic panic and inexplicable psychic power. Its lead character, Agent Lee Harker (played by Maika Monroe), is a steely and sensible young fed, formed in the Clarice Starling mold. Yet what intrigues the bureau most about Lee is not her competency, but the fact that she seems to inherently know where to look for terrible things.”
Read more here: ~https://theatln.tc/vz9GxkUL~
The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions.
Subreddit covering the Supreme Court of the United States, its past, present and future cases, its members, and its impact on the nation.
Subreddit covering the Supreme Court of the United States, its past, present and future cases, its members, and its impact on the nation.
An Attempt to Check the Supreme Court’s Power
Lora Kelley: “Democrats have been bristling about the Supreme Court for a while now, but yesterday, progressive House members introduced a new, and more official, mark of disapproval. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put forth articles of impeachment against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, saying that they failed to properly disclose gifts and recuse themselves from certain cases—Alito from matters where he had a ‘personal bias,’ and Thomas from matters involving the legal or financial interests of Ginni Thomas, his wife.
“The tenor of criticism of the Court has shifted significantly in recent years, especially after its conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Revelations about Justice Thomas’s spouse’s involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, followed by reporting on his prolific acceptance of gifts from wealthy conservatives, heightened public scrutiny. (A lawyer representing Thomas issued a statement in 2023 denying any ‘willful ethics transgression’ and stating ‘any prior reporting errors were strictly inadvertent.’) And the flags flying outside of Alito’s homes in the years after January 6, both associated with the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement—he blamed his wife for flying them, and claimed they weren’t aware of one flag’s ‘Stop the Steal’ connotation—did little to boost Americans’ confidence that judges are putting impartiality over ideology. Several decisions in the Court’s latest term were split across partisan lines—notably the presidential-immunity ruling that held that former presidents, including Donald Trump, are immune from federal prosecution for official actions taken while in office, but also decisions on criminalizing homelessness and kneecapping the regulatory state.
“House Democrats have begun to take public action to reform the Court, and to shore up their response in preparation for a possible future Trump presidency: Late last month, Ocasio-Cortez and Representative Jamie Raskin wrote a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts expressing alarm at what they said is the ‘full-blown legitimacy crisis’ on the Court. And Democrats have promised ‘aggressive’ oversight and legislative measures in response to the immunity ruling. (The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
“There is virtually no chance that the new impeachment articles will pass the Republican-controlled House, so they’re likely to end up a symbolic gesture. But the symbolism matters. These articles could help chip away at the perception that Supreme Court justices can do whatever they want. That perception is based in reality: The policies governing justices’ behavior have always been loose and informal, and the new code of conduct adopted late last year lacks a clear enforcement mechanism (other federal judges are subject to a more stringent system).”
Read more here: ~https://theatln.tc/kzfYpbu2~
Subreddit covering the Supreme Court of the United States, its past, present and future cases, its members, and its impact on the nation.
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