Joshua Benton

NTSB is the last exemplar of independent professionalism in federal government, because we used to think stopping plane crashes was a goal beyond partisanship

Bellingcat is one of the absolute best news organizations at conducting forensic investigations of this type.

Senator mocked ‘green energy crap.’ His house runs on it. Montana Republican Tim Sheehy voted to scrap solar tax credits after installing panels and battery storage at his Bozeman home.

“Montana Republican Tim Sheehy voted to scrap solar tax credits after installing panels and battery storage at his Bozeman home.” www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Alabama set to execute man who did not kill anyone Unless Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey intervenes, Charles “Sonny” Burton, 75, will be executed Thursday. He is among thousands in America convicted under a controversial felony murder law.

This fact is not in dispute: Charles “Sonny” Burton, 75, has never killed anyone.

But on Thursday, Alabama is set to execute him.

Hard to shock me at this point. But this is shocking.

One of my favorite lessons from Jewish tradition is the idea that every life is a universe.

I can't imagine a state which claims to operate on behalf of the Jewish people thinking it's legitimate to kill dozens of innocent people just to find the remains of others. A shanda beyond comprehension.

Asked to explain his understanding of "DEI," DOGE boy repeatedly declines, saying it is a "big bucket."

Asked what's in the bucket, he finally and grudgingly says something specifically: "gender fluidity.... Promoting subsets of LGBTQ plus that might alienate another part of a community."

As evidence, the filing notes a list Mr. Fox compiled of what he called the “craziest” and “other bad” grants, which he planned to highlight on DOGE’s X account. He used three dozen keywords, including “L.G.B.T.Q.,” “BIPOC,” “tribal,” “ethnicity,” “gender,” “equality,” “immigration,” “citizenship” and “melting pot.” (A majority of the two dozen grants deemed “craziest” related to L.G.B.T.Q. subjects.)

In identifying grants to eliminate, DOGE employees also searched for terms like “BIPOC,” “tribal,” “ethnicity,” “gender,” “equality,” “immigration,” “citizenship” and “melting pot.”

"A majority of the two dozen grants deemed “craziest” related to L.G.B.T.Q. subjects."

The prompt was simple: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’” The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre. Building improvements at an Indigenous languages archive in Alaska risked “promoting inclusion and diverse perspectives.” Renewal of a longstanding grant to digitize Black newspapers and add them to a historical database was “D.E.I.” So was work on a 40-volume scholarly series on the history of American music.

"The DOGE employees did not appear to question ChatGPT’s judgments, and continued hunting for unacceptable projects."

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

It was wrong and harmful - and quite possibly unlawful - to cut already approved NEH grants because Donald Trump hates "DEI."

But the way DOGE went about doing it was even dumber than you probably imagined.

They fed abstracts into ChatGPT and demanded an answer in fewer than 120 characters.

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

Research funding decisions madness:

“Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”

The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

Most unforced error in an interview I've seen since Prince Andrew

NYT: The video “shows a Tomahawk cruise missile striking a naval base beside the school in the town of Minab on Feb. 28. The U.S. military is the only force involved in the conflict that uses Tomahawk missiles.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/w...

I think this deserves at least as much sustained attention from US media as Claudine Gay's dissertation

💿Veridis Quo//Daft Punk🤖 This melody is so nostalgic🥹🎶. And it's great fun to filter the sound of my Sewing-Gurdy with my mini Theremin! (Talk-Wha Filter this time 👌😎) #hurdygurdy #sewinggurdy #bardco... TikTok video by Gabriel / SingerSoundSystem

There's a chap on TikTok who has built a custom instrument out of a hurdy-gurdy and a Singer sewing machine (plus an attached theremin) which he uses for Daft Punk covers and they are genuine bangers www.tiktok.com/@singersound...

Last night I discussed the lack of a cohesive reason for the war, little knowing about this “reason.”

I’d say “holy crap,” but I’ll avoid “holy” for now.

U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

EXCLUSIVE: At more than 30 installations, U.S. commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been “inundated” with more than 110 complaints.

One NCO said they were told the U.S. war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus…

This has been the default mode for most NY Times columnists over last decade, even (perhaps especially) those who have lucrative campus teaching/speaking gigs

Anthropic and Alignment Anthropic is in a standoff with the Department of War; while the company’s concerns are legitimate, it position is intolerable and misaligned with reality.

the contortions here are very funny if you're familiar with (a) ben's stance on other tech cos and (b) his objections to antitrust action. do we think he's aware that he's describing and endorsing fascism? stratechery.com/2026/anthrop...

"The shared ownership of CBS and CNN could also raise concerns over consolidation in news media, but that might be less relevant to federal regulators given the Ellisons’ alignment with Mr. Trump, Mr. Baer said. The Ellisons won out last week in a heated battle to acquire Warner Bros. over Netflix, which had reached a deal to buy the company in December. The father and son started a hostile bidding war, eventually winning over Warner Bros. with a “superior” bid. Larry Ellison personally lobbied Mr. Trump in favor of his son’s bid. David Ellison, who hired an antitrust official from Mr. Trump’s first term as his top lawyer, has become a presence in Washington. At the State of the Union on Tuesday night, he attended as a guest of Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina."

you're describing corruption, you've just softened the language to the point where you've...helped them hide or downplay corruption from your readership

Paramount Won Over Warner Bros. Now for the Regulators.

here too, the reader walks away with no impression that the deal is about cementing right wing information control, or that federal regulators no longer function (literally whatsoever!) due to corruption

Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch Expects Regulators to Put Conditions on Paramount-WBD Merger Lachlan Murdoch added that he anticipates CNN under David Ellison will remain a "strong competitor" to Fox News

I'd like you to observe the press pantomime that this is a normal media deal in a country with functioning regulators

Headline: 6 Conservative Voters React to Attacks on Iran Ahead of the Texas Primaries Dek: President Trump said the attacks were necessary for U.S. security and to free the Iranian people from oppression. Do people who support him agree?

1/2
No snark: Congrats and respect to whoever at @nytimes.com has changed hed/dek on this story.

(Story is about 6 voters, none of whom has ever voted for a Democrat, w views on Iran war. See next item for original presentation, implying they were just some sample panel of "voters.")

In fact, Amodei already answered the question: if nuclear weapons were developed by a private company, and that private company sought to dictate terms to the U.S. military, the U.S. would absolutely be incentivized to destroy that company. The reason goes back to the question of international law, North Korea, and the rest: International law is ultimately a function of power; might makes right. There are some categories of capabilities — like nuclear weapons — that are sufficiently powerful to fundamentally affect the U.S.’s freedom of action; we can bomb Iran, but we can’t North Korea. To the extent that AI is on the level of nuclear weapons — or beyond — is the extent that Amodei and Anthropic are building a power base that potentially rivals the U.S. military. Anthropic talks a lot about alignment; this insistence on controlling the U.S. military, however, is fundamentally misaligned with reality. Current AI models are obviously not yet so powerful that they rival the U.S. military; if that is the trajectory, however — and no one has been more vocal in arguing for that trajectory than Amodei — then it seems to me the choice facing the U.S. is actually quite binary: Option 1 is that Anthropic accepts a subservient position relative to the U.S. government, and does not seek to retain ultimate decision-making power about how its models are used, instead leaving that to Congress and the President. Option 2 is that the U.S. government either destroys Anthropic or removes Amodei.

Ben Thompson making a full-throated case for fascism here stratechery.com/2026/anthrop...

Trump campaign peace promises loom large over wartime presidency The "anti-war" candidate has bombed seven countries and launched a new regime-change war in Iran.

💥 No president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump.

He's attacked 7 nations, three of which had never been targeted by U.S. military strikes. He authorized more individual air strikes in 2025 than Biden did in four years.

I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.

As often happens the more aggressive Times home-page headline conflicts with the article headline --and neither represents the article.

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

“John, the old conferences did not care about diversity. I suggest you not either,” Jeffrey Epstein wrote in response to an email about the programming. “The women are all weak, and a distraction sorry.”
19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

In 2018, an elite group of academics and scientists planned an exclusive retreat. The guests were picked by prominent New York literary agent John Brockman.

The problem? Brockman added two women to the list, and his biggest funder — Jeffrey Epstein — wanted them out.

@jkutzie.bsky.social reports

I hope every editor, publisher and owner of a news outlet that’s bent the knee at the first sign of trouble from these clowns feels the full force of the shame history will heap upon them. All they had to do was say “nah, we good” and keep it moving but they sold their sacred duty for nothing