Kent, a twice-failed House candidate and self-professed fan of the Proud Boys, last appeared here when he declared that he would be keeping a $8600 campaign donation from a Capitol rioter then-facing felony assault charges. We first heard from Kent in 2022 when he gave an interview to a white nationalist Nazi podcaster.
New from Julian Barnes, Maggie Haberman and me:Trump Appointee Pressed Analyst to Redo Intelligence on Venezuelan GangThe move followed a disclosure that intelligence agencies disagree with a key factual claim Trump made to invoke a wartime deportation law.www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/u…
Breaking news: The US has been stripped of its top-notch triple-a credit rating by Moody’s on concerns about rising levels of government debt http://www.ft.com/content/e456…
“And they’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Look, we’re doing it.’ But all the sodomites are still there and we’re not going to talk about that. And I need a guy there, I need a minister there who’s gonna say, ‘Oh, but we are. Obergefell is next, we’re coming for that,’ so that you calibrate the Christians in DC by the word of God and not by whatever the present administration can tolerate.
“We’re gonna come for feminism. We’re going to go after sodomy. Those are the sins in that town. Those are sins that are acceptable among both parties in that town. And we want to plant that flag and say the Bible has something to say about this.” – Christian nationalist pastor Joe Rigney.
Food rations that could supply 3.5 million people for a month are mouldering in warehouses around the world because of U.S. aid cuts and risk becoming unusable, according to five people familiar with the situation. The food stocks have been stuck inside four U.S. government warehouses since the Trump administration’s decision in January to cut global aid programmes.
Those who give to America250, a committee created to support what Trump envisions as a large national celebration next year for America’s 250th birthday, will be given special access to three events, according to a pitch shared with donors. Those include a military parade Trump is planning on his birthday, a “military readiness” event he is leading at Fort Bragg military base with thousands of troops and an Independence Day celebration in Washington, the people said.
He continued, “I mean, you look at these rallies, it’s like a bunch of women that no guy wants to sleep with and a bunch of dudes that want to sleep with each other.”
You’ll note that Watters did not ask Kid Rock about sending his undocumented kitchen staff home to evade arrest by ICE.
from the Center for American Progress (remember them?) This gives us the info by congressional district, including the congresscritter’s names so we know just who to call about our concerns. There are options for pagination or a table.
April 21, 1856 Stonemasons and other construction workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House. They advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for rest. Their direct action protest was a success, becoming the first organized workers in the world to achieve an eight-hour workday, inspiring the celebration of Labor Day and May Day.
April 21, 1989 Six days after the death of Hu Yaobang, the deposed reform-minded leader of the Chinese Communist Party, some 100,000 students from more than 40 universities gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to commemorate Hu prior to his funeral.They voiced their discontent with China’s authoritarian communist government, and called for greater democracy. Ignoring government warnings of violent suppression of any mass demonstration, the students were joined by workers, academics, and civil servants. Pro-democracy student protesters face-to-face with policemen outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square the day of Hu Yaobang’s funeral.
Alex Shultz Published April 13, 2025 | Comments (4)
Diablo Canyon, California’s sole remaining nuclear power plant, has been left for dead on more than a few occasions over the last decade or so, and is currently slated to begin a lengthy decommissioning process in 2029. Despite its tenuous existence, the San Luis Obispo power plant received some serious computing hardware at the end of last year: eight NVIDIA H100s, which are among the world’s mightiest graphical processors. Their purpose is to power a brand-new artificial intelligence tool designed for the nuclear energy industry.
Pacific Gas and Electric, which runs Diablo Canyon, announced a deal with artificial intelligence startup Atomic Canyon—a company also based in San Luis Obispo—around the same time, heralding it in a press release as “the first on-site generative AI deployment at a U.S. nuclear power plant.”
For now, the artificial intelligence tool named Neutron Enterprise is just meant to help workers at the plant navigate extensive technical reports and regulations — millions of pages of intricate documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that go back decades — while they operate and maintain the facility. But Neutron Enterprise’s very existence opens the door to further use of AI at Diablo Canyon or other facilities — a possibility that has some lawmakers and AI experts calling for more guardrails.
PG&E is deploying the document retrieval service in stages. The installation of the NVIDIA chips was one of the first phases of the partnership between PG&E and Atomic Canyon; PG&E is forecasting a “full deployment” at Diablo Canyon by the third quarter of this year, said Maureen Zawalick, the company’s vice president of business and technical services. At that point, Neutron Enterprise—which Zawalick likens to a data-mining “copilot,” though explicitly not a “decision-maker”—will be expanded to search for and summarize Diablo Canyon-specific instructions and reports too.
“We probably spend about 15,000 hours a year searching through our multiple databases and records and procedures,” Zawalick said. “And that’s going to shrink that time way down.”(Emphasis mine- A. I worked at the nuke plant in my state in my 20s. I did Records Management. I’m not going to explain it all from back then the way I trained people, but it involves reading and interpreting what one has read in application to the function, part, area, etc. a document records, which is learned by reading the document, then coding it so it is efficiently retrieved later. So far, I don’t know that AI does that. Others who are more knowledgeable about records management and retrieval in this era and context may see better things than I see. The best worst I see is really angry and impatient engineers and inspectors in all the disciplines still at the plant. That’s no fun, anyway.)
Trey Lauderdale, the chief executive and co-founder of Atomic Canyon, told CalMatters his aim for Neutron Enterprise is simple and low-stakes: he wants Diablo Canyon employees to be able to look up pertinent information more efficiently. “You can put this on the record: the AI guy in nuclear says there is no way in hell I want AI running my nuclear power plant right now,” Lauderdale said.
That “right now” qualifier is key, though. PG&E and Atomic Canyon are on the same page about sticking to limited AI uses for the foreseeable future, but they aren’t foreclosing the possibility of eventually increasing AI’s presence at the plant in yet-to-be-determined ways. According to Lauderdale, his company is also in talks with other nuclear facilities, as well as groups who are interested in building out small modular reactor facilities, about how to integrate his startup’s technology. And he’s not the only entrepreneur eyeing ways to introduce artificial intelligence into the nuclear energy field.
In the meantime, questions remain about whether sufficient safeguards exist to regulate the combination of two technologies that each have potential for harm. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was exploring the issue of AI in nuclear plants for a few years, but it’s unclear if that will remain a priority under the Trump administration. Days into his current term, Trump revoked a Biden administration executive order that set out AI regulatory goals, writing that they acted “as barriers to American AI innovation.” For now, Atomic Canyon is voluntarily keeping the Nuclear Regulatory Commission abreast of its plans.
Tamara Kneese, the director of tech policy nonprofit Data & Society’s Climate, Technology, and Justice program, conceded that for a narrowly designed document retrieval service, “AI can be helpful in terms of efficiency.” But she cautioned, “The idea that you could just use generative AI for one specific kind of task at the nuclear power plant and then call it a day, I don’t really trust that it would stop there. And trusting PG&E to safely use generative AI in a nuclear setting is something that is deserving of more scrutiny.”
For those reasons, Democratic Assemblymember Dawn Addis—who represents San Luis Obispo—isn’t enthused about the latest developments at Diablo Canyon. “I have many unanswered questions of the safety, oversight, and job implications for using AI at Diablo,” Addis said. “Previously, I have supported measures to regulate AI and prevent the replacement and automation of jobs. We need those guardrails in place, especially if we are to use them at highly sensitive sites like Diablo Canyon.” (snip-MORE; not tl;dr, though.)
April 11, 1916 Annie Besant, founder of the India Home Rule League and publisher of New India. Annie Besant, a Briton and active suffragist who moved to India, established the Home Rule League with autonomy for India from British colonial rule as its goal. Head of the Theosophical Society of India, she was also the publisher of the newspaper, New India, and CommonWeal. More on Annie Besant
April 11, 1961 The trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann began in Israel. The man accused of leading Hitler’s effort to exterminate the Jewish people and others faced 15 charges, including crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and war crimes, all of which took more than an hour to enumerate. Adolf Eichmann The charges against Eichmann
April 11, 1968 The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson just one week after the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Known as the Fair Housing Act, it first outlawed discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing and now bans it for reasons of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or handicap. The struggle for Fair Housing
Hi everyone. I did this video around 11:50 AM this morning. It took about as long as it is to record, give or take the sudden breaking of the video by the program. I do have to change that setting. Then I had to merge the two videos something I have become really good at, and because I am not adding stuff at that point I can save and “export it” Ok if I was willing to give Cyberlink access to all my YouTube channel then the video would automatically upload to my YouTube to my channel. Instead because I don’t agree to give Cyberlink the rights to everything I post and watch, I prefer to make my own video of the original file. That took more time. About 40 minutes maybe less.
What took almost another 40 minutes is the settings I used to put my HD filmed videos to YouTube in HD on YouTube had now disappeared. Now my program only allowed me to load it up as either 400 something P or 2K. WTF!
What took all the time was I started uploading it and after it was nearly 17% I had to change VPN spots, and the entire upload stopped. I waited an hour and it did not restart. I then closed everything, restarted, reset the VPN and came pack up. But each place I tried with or without the VPN. The speeds were dirt slow. So I again closed everything, this time I shut the modem and the router down. Then I restarted it all again.
So now before I tried to upload the video to YouTube I checked speeds … not for downloads but upload speeds. I found one that was 10 MPS and stayed with it. It was the highest I had. I clicked upload on the video again. Nearly 3 hours. Oh I could do that it as midday but I had the time … except I did not.
Ron and I had taken out a couple bags that were to be wings and drumsticks to fry for supper. Yet the one bag had one drumstick and the other bag had two and all the rest were wings. Ok, but the instructions were only to bake, not fry. So we had to find our own way. I tried a batch at 3:30 minutes and Ron said they were cooked. I tried a batch at 3 minutes but he did not like the skin on them. He wanted the skins crispy. So I did the rest at 3:30 and cooked the fries while he ate his fill. Then he noticed I had not eaten yet, so said he would take over as I had already cooked the wings and there was only one more hopper of fries to do. I had a few wings too tired to really eat, and then he told me he tried a few back in the fryer longer but it did not crisp the skin any. I could have told him that. But OK. So then I went back and finished my video at well after 7 pm. I am so tired having gotten up at 3 am, and trying to nap during the day but only laying there resting. So here is the video, I hope you enjoy. I will be going to bed. At this rate of uploading I will need to make the videos two days before they get posted. Hugs
I talk about a recent event with Ron’s memory. I also talk a lot about doogie (my name for Musk’s actions in the US government) Where is the money they claim to have saved as it has already been put in those agencies budgets. Hugs
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Corbin Hiar reports at the Scientific American that the big banks are now banking on a 5.4º F. (3º Celsius) rise in global temperatures above the pre-industrial average.
Morgan Stanley let the conclusion slip in a report on air conditioner sales, which it expects to double, what with the extra heat. Hiar says that especially after the election of Trump, the banks accept that that is just the way it is going to be.
Air conditioners run on electricity, and reliable electricity may be a problem if the average temperature of the earth’s surface skyrockets 5.4º F.
Remember, that is an average increase. In some places it may be 10º or 15º F. That’s not going to be a pretty picture in Phoenix, Az., Miami, Fl. or for that matter Orlando, Fresno, Ca. and a bunch of other cities that are already sweltering in the summer
I’ve lived a lot of my life in hot places. I was in Cairo once in the summer and there was an article in the Arabic newspaper al-Ahram [The Pyramids] about the heat in Aswan in Upper Egypt, where it was about 115º F. The article said that there was a big electricity outage because the insulation of the electrical wires melted.
There are lots of ways ambient heat can interfere with the transmission wires. It can melt the insulation, or it can overheat components, it can cause oxidation. And here’s the thing. Hot wire shows more electrical resistance, which reduces its efficiency.
Moreover, overheated wires or components can cause fires. California is a big tinderbox at certain times of year, with dry forests, which overheated electrical wires can set off. The smart thing to do will be to bury all the electrical wires, but that is an expense the power companies do not want to bear. Another possibility is that people will put up solar panels and use home batteries, and disconnect from the grid.
Hot river water causes nuclear plants to go offline because they can’t cool the rods. Heat and droughts reduce hydro-electric production. Just generating electricity for the air conditioners can be a challenge. Your best bet will be solar panels, an industry Trump is trying to crush, and the banks are happy to help because of their fossil fuel investments and their willingness to kowtow to Trump’s diktats.
Then there is the air conditioner itself. It isn’t magic. AC’s don’t function well at over 100º F. They may break down. They may not be able to displace the heat outside. Cooling down things by more than 26º F. is a challenge. So if it is 120º F. out, don’t count an getting lower than the 90s inside.
In fact, it has recently been discovered that a combination of 122º F. and 80 percent humidity will just kill you dead right there.
All this is not to mention the massive hurricanes that will repeatedly knock down the electricity poles. Already, Duke Energy filed with the state of Florida for $1.1 billion in compensation for all the grid repair work it had to do after the 2024 hurricane season. What if the costs rise so much that the state can’t bear them, and Duke Energy goes bankrupt? I mean, these are little dinky storms compared to the ones we’ll be having if temperatures rise another couple degrees Fahrenheit. Some scientists argue that the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which only goes up to 5, is increasingly inadequate, and that we are already seeing sixes. Can force 7 hurricanes be far off?
Duke’s press release says, “Given the severity of these three storms, the filing covers a range of costs, such as deploying hundreds of Duke Energy crews from the entire span of the company’s service territories and acquiring significant mutual assistance from across the country and even Canada; standing up staging sites, basecamps and temporary lodging, while also providing meals for thousands of lineworkers and field personnel; and repairing, rebuilding and replacing critical infrastructure, including poles, wires and transformers, that were damaged and/or destroyed by catastrophic storm surge and wind.”
I don’t think they’re going to be getting that help from Canada anymore. And this is just the beginning.
Hurricanes are caused by warm ocean water. The oceans off Florida are already getting up to 100º F. in the summer. That kind of temperature whips up a lot of wind. It is now clear in the data that the intensity of hurricanes is increasing because we are burning so much coal, fossil gas and petroleum.
Not only will the hurricanes be fiercer, damaging homes and businesses and knocking down those made of wood, but they will dump more and more water, causing massive flooding.
Stefan Rahmstorf writes, “our planet’s current coastlines are home to more than 130 cities larger than a million inhabitants, plus other infrastructure such as ports, airports, and some 200 nuclear power plants with seawater cooling (such as Sizewell B on the British North Sea coast). Even 1 m [3 feet] of sea rise would be a disaster.”
Those banks that see a 5.4º F. temperature increase as an opportunity to sell more consumer goods such as air conditioners are not reckoning with the likelihood of climate chaos and climate breakdown at that level, of a sort that will make maintaining current levels of civilization challenging. We’ll survive it. We’re unlikely to survive it in style.
And the billionaires who think that they can sell us gasoline and coal and gas for another century and just protect their families with big mansions in the mountains or on islands are fooling themselves. The mansions will slide down the side of the mountain in a massive downpour, and the seas will swallow up the ones on islands with storm surges.
Booker began the all-night speech by making his intentions clear:
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.
“In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety; financial stability; the core foundations of our democracy. These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
While we were writing this piece, Booker was every bit as impassioned as he condemned the Republican budget plan that would slash Medicaid and the social safety net so billionaires and corporations could have (more) huge tax cuts, adding trillions to the US debt, asking, “If you’re a Christian conservative, how can you hurt the weak to benefit the rich and powerful? The people of the United States have to stand up and say ‘NO!’”
This man does not look like he’s been speaking for more than 14 hours. Here’s the AP’s live feed. Watching this, we’re even feeling some hope — especially if other senators follow up with marathon speeches of their own.
(And it’s still running! -A)
Also too, we’re going to go ahead and call this a filibuster anyway, if only because the Washington Postwent out of its way to explain in its subhead (archive link) that it’s not actually a filibuster because Booker isn’t delaying a vote on legislation. Just seems like the sort of nitpick best saved for the body of the article, which is where all the other outlets have placed it. So why did we mention it in our subhed? Because fuck WaPo is why.
Booker received help throughout the night — and still, this morning — from other senators, because he is allowed to take questions, which tend to come in the form of brief speeches ending with a question mark. But it’s not just a tactic to help him preserve his voice; it’s also a chance for fellow Democrats to show their unity, with multiple voices pointing out how completely not normal the last two months have been. Booker and other senators called out Trump and co-president Elon Musk for multiple assaults on democracy, like their attempts to shut down federal agencies created by Congress, to cancel spending authorized by Congress, to withhold grants to nonprofits that were already awarded, to fire large segments of the federal workforce without regard to worker protections, and to effectively dissolve America’s alliances by siding with Russia against Ukraine and our European allies. And much more.
We should also note that, unlike the longest talking filibuster on record, old racist Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond’s 25-hour filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights bill, Mr. Booker doesn’t have the opportunity to take restroom breaks. Now that’s impressive.
“Senator McCain, I know you wouldn’t sanction this, I know you would be screaming, I’ve seen how angry you can get, John McCain. I’ve seen you tear people apart on this floor, Democrat and Republican, for doing the same stupid thing over and over again. Listen to John McCain explain why he voted ‘no’ the last time the Republican Party tried to unite and tear down health care with no idea how to fix it, threatening to put millions of Americans in financial crisis and health care crisis. I can’t believe we are here again.”
Booker returned again and again to that theme: Why on earth are we allowing this madness to happen? How on earth are we in a situation where a US president is threatening to invade our allies and help our adversaries?
As we wrap up here, Booker’s voice is beginning to get a little raspy, but his overall energy isn’t flagging so far. At the moment, he’s having a colloquy with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) about the importance of US foreign assistance, which Trump and musk have unconstitutionally slashed. Coons called attention to how those cuts have left us unable to provide help to the victims of the earthquake in Myanmar — and Booker immediately pointed out that by wrecking America’s soft power, Trump has handed all that influence to China.
We hope Booker keeps going a couple more hours. And that as many of his Democratic colleagues follow his example with filibusters of their own. (snip)
