Generative AI (i.e., AI that can create text, video, etc.) has the potential to drive innovation across a wide swath of sectors.
In the next several years, generative AI will have huge impacts on the “pharmaceutical, manufacturing, media, architecture, interior design, engineering, automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, electronics, and energy industries,” according to UBS analyst Michael Briest, who cited a report from Gartner.
Briest said the Gartner report stated, “Generative AI will impact marketing, design, corporate communications, training, and software engineering by augmenting these supporting processes that span many organizations.”
He also said Gartner made five bold predictions about how AI will accelerate innovation at companies from now until 2027. Those predictions include the following:
By 2025, more than 30% of new drugs and materials will be systematically discovered using generative AI techniques;
By 2025, the use of synthetic data will reduce the volume of real data needed for machine learning by 70%;
By 2025, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be synthetically generated, up from less than 2% in 2022. We note that Salesforce recently announced the release of its Einstein PT to generate personalized emails to customers on behalf of salespeople, specific query responses on behalf of customer service professionals, and targeted content for marketers;
By 2027, nearly 15% of new applications will be automatically generated by AI without a human in the loop, up from 0% today; and
By 2026, over 100 million humans will engage robo-colleagues (synthetic virtual co-workers) to contribute to enterprise work.
Briest said in UBS’ view, “The breadth of effects that Gartner expects almost confers general purpose technology (GPT) status on generative AI, akin to printing, electricity or railroads. As with these earlier innovations, generative AI is likely to have a significant effect on the labor market.”
With all this innovation expected to unfold this decade, it requires fewer workers. Goldman told clients last month that hundreds of millions of jobs are expected to be displaced by AI across the US and Europe. Another advisory firm wrote in a separate note, “We think there is a more than 50/50 chance AI will wipe out all of humanity by the middle of the century.”
Briest has provided a peek into a future driven by AI. However, this accelerated innovation may bring about significant job loss and increasing dominance by machines.
More details in the full UBS note are available to pro subscribers in the usual place.
In the very early days of the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was open to negotiating a peace. A proposed peace could have ended the war before tens of thousands of Ukrainians died and Ukraine’s infrastructure was devastated, on terms that satisfied Kiev’s goals. But the United States pressured Ukraine to go on fighting in pursuit, not of Ukraine’s goals, but of larger American ones.
Putting an end to Ukraine’s negotiations with Russia, State Department spokesperson Ned Price remarkably said, “This is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s bigger than Ukraine,” and insisted that Ukrainians go on fighting and dying for “core principles.”
The United States got its way. Now a year later, with the war not going well for Ukraine and the country getting more and more desperate, Ukraine is forced to retreat to pursuing its own goals. Ironically, that is increasingly taking the form of escalating the war in a way that now endangers American goals.
Ukraine is now pursing its own security interests in a way that is extraordinarily dangerous to U.S. security interests. And they seem to be disregarding U.S. restrictions in pursuing them. Months of American permissiveness and failure to say no to Ukraine at each crossing of a red line has seemingly emboldened Ukraine to ignore U.S. limits and conditions on the use of American-supplied weapons.
One of the key goals of the Biden administration is to stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes to defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is Joe Biden’s promise to Ukraine. But a second key goal is to avoid being drawn into a direct war between NATO and Russia. That is Joe Biden’s promise to Americans. A recent wave of Ukrainian attacks on the territory of Russia—not Donbas or Crimea, but the internationally recognized territory of Russia—threatens that promise and threatens the security of Americans.
Ukraine has long promised “not to target Russian territory with weapons provided by the West.” They recently reiterated that promise, saying British supplied long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles “will be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia,” and when they provided the United States “flat assurances” that F-16 fighter-bombers won’t be used inside Russian territory.
But Ukraine did not keep those promises. In pursuit of their goals—understandably, since the U.S. insisted they postpone those goals and go on fighting the Russian military in pursuit of American goals—they have crossed the red line of U.S. limits and conditions on the use of American-supplied weapons and struck inside Russian territory. This defiantly independent military strategy is increasing the danger that the United States and NATO could get drawn into a war with Russia.
On May 3, two drones were disabled over the Kremlin in what Russia views as an attack on Russia and an attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine denied involvement, insisting, “Ukraine wages an exclusively defensive war and does not attack targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.” Zelensky said categorically, “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities.”
But Kiev’s insistence that it kept its promise not to strike inside “the territory of the Russian Federation” was disingenuous. The New York Times has reported that U.S. intelligence agencies now believe that the drone attack was carried out by “one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units.”
Russia has signed an agreement with Belarus to begin deploying tactical nuclear weapons there, and a group of pro-Ukrainian fighters from Russia has attacked sites in the Russian region of Belgorod using what appears to be U.S.-made armored vehicles.https://t.co/9CiDAI46yG
And that strike was only the boldest in a series of recent strikes inside Russia’s borders. In the same month, Ukraine has struck a military training ground and an oil refinery in Russian territory. In December, Ukraine carried out two attacks on Russia’s Engels air base.
On May 23, a raid was carried out from Ukrainian territory into the Russian region of Belgorod. For two days, the Russian military fought them back across the border. Pictures of the attack suggest that U.S. armored vehicles were used in the raid.
Ukraine has denied any involvement in the attack. Denis Nikitin, who also goes by the name Denis Kapustin, is the head of the group that claims responsibility for the raid. His group carried out an earlier excursion on two towns in the Bryansk region of Russia on the Ukrainian border on March 2. At that time, he said, despite similar Ukrainian denials of support or involvement, that the “cross-border raid he’d conducted from Ukraine into Russia had the endorsement of Kyiv.” He toldThe Financial Times that Ukrainian authorities signed off on the attack. “Yes, of course, this action was agreed,” he said, “otherwise it couldn’t have happened.” He went on to say, “If I did not co-ordinate it with anyone [in Ukraine’s military]…I think we would simply be destroyed.”
Despite the public disavowal, a Ukrainian military official has privately acknowledged “co-operating” with the attackers.
Washington seems to be expressing frustration with its apparent loss of control over Kiev. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said that while he “can’t say with definitive accuracy…whether that’s U.S. supplied equipment or not…I can say that we have asked the Ukrainians not to use U.S.-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia.” The State Department complained that “We have made very clear to the Ukrainians that we don’t enable or encourage attacks outside Ukrainians’ borders.” And U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby “hinted at frustration in Washington,” saying, “We’ve been pretty darn clear: We don’t support the use of U.S.-made equipment for attacks inside Russia…we’ve been clear about that with the Ukrainians.”
Nonetheless, the Associated Press reports that on May 27, despite the multiple very public reminders from Washington, Ukrainian attacks inside Russia’s went on. Several drones were reportedly shot down en route to the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. Two people were reportedly killed by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Almaznaya. And local officials said that, once again, Belgorad “came under attack from Ukrainian forces on Saturday.”
At the beginning of the war, the United States pushed aside Ukrainian interests and insisted that Ukrainians fight and die in pursuit of American goals. The ironic blowback from that is, fourteen months later, Ukraine is pursuing security concerns created by that insistence in a way that is in direct contradiction to U.S. security concerns. The United States seems to have lost control of Kiev, and Ukraine is now pursuing its own goals in a way that ignores American goals by increasing the danger that NATO could get drawn into a war with Russia.
Qatar Airways Plans To Cut World’s Fanciest Cabin Seats As ‘Economics Don’t Make Sense’
The economics of operating a first-class cabin on the next-generation long-haul aircraft no longer makes sense to Qatar Airways, according to Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker, who Bloomberg quoted during an interview in Istanbul on Saturday.
First-Class
Al Baker said there would be no first-class section in its future Boeing Co. 777X fleet. He said the future is business class:
“Why should you invest in a subclass of an aeroplane that already gives you all the amenities that first class gives you… I don’t see the necessity.”
Qatar’s fleet of 777X with only business (branded as “Q-suite” product) and economy class is set to replace the airline’s Airbus SE A380s as it eventually retires all ten.
Q-suite
The move to phase out first class on long hauls comes counter to Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Qantas Airways Ltd, and Air France, who are beefing up high-end offerings.
What’s behind the downshift? Al Baker said the first-class section “doesn’t justify the returns.”
In a recent post at the Originalism Blog, legal scholar Rob Natelson criticizes me for relying on James Madison’s Report of 1800 to support the conclusion that the original meaning of the Constitution does not give the federal government a general power to restrict immigration. Natelson contends that the Report has little relevance to the original meaning of the Constitution, and that it doesn’t really address the issue of immigration restriction, in any event. In this post, I continue the discussion by respond to Natelson. I think he’s wrong on both points.
Natelson’s post is the latest contribution to an ongoing debate that began with my post critiquing conservative arguments claiming that illegal immigration qualifies as an “invasion” under under relevant provisions of the Constitution, and thereby empowers federal and state governments to use military force to prevent it. Andrew Hyman, one of those I criticized in that post, responded to me in a post I put up (with his permission) here at the VC blog. I posted a rejoinder in that same post. In both of my posts, I highlighted the passage in the Report of 1800 where Madison denies that immigration qualifies as “invasion” and therefore denies that the Alien Acts of 1798 (and federal immigration restrictions generally) were authorized by the invasion provisions of the Constitution.
While my exchange with Hyman was mostly focused on the “invasion” issue, Natelson broadens the focus by considering the more general relevance of the Report of 1800. He contends that the Report has little relevance for modern debates over federal power over immigration because “it was primarily directed at deportation, and a closer reading of this passage shows Madison was discussing only deportation, not immigration per se.” I already addressed this point in some detail in my rejoinder to Hyman, where I pointed out that the Alien Friends Act of 1798 (which Madison, in the Report, argued was unconstitutional in its entirety) actually went far beyond mere deportation authority.
Much the same response applies to Natelson’s claim that Madison’s argument applies only to aliens who entered the United States legally. The whole point of Madison’s position is that the federal government lacked the power to bar the entry of foreigners from countries not at war with the United States. Natelson may well be right to suggest that Madison’s position would still allow the US to bar individuals engaged in armed hostilities against the US, even if they were citizens of countries whose governments were not at war with the US government. But merely crossing a border in contravention of a US law does not constitute such—especially if that law were a federal law that Madison denied to be constitutional in the first place. I covered these issues in some detail in my earlier posts addressing the “invasion” issue and Hyman’s arguments.
Hyman also makes a more general argument against relying on the Report to shed light on the text and original meaning of the Constitution, based on the fact that it was written a decade after ratification:
There are all sorts of reasons why post-ratification statements are generally useless for showing ratification-era understanding. Here are some:
* Memories fade.
* Ratification-era participants who might have contradicted those statements often were not around to do so: When the 1800 Report was published, such leading participants in the constitutional debates as Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, George Mason, Roger Sherman, Melancton Smith, and George Washington were all dead. John Rutledge was still alive, but suffering from mental illness. Rufus King was abroad. And so forth.
* Incentives change. The same person who, when presenting the Constitution to the public in 1788, had an incentive to characterize the federal government’s powers one way, often had an incentive to characterize them differently later on. By way of illustration, the difference is great between Alexander Hamilton’s constitutional arguments in Federalist No. 16 (prior to ratification) and in his Report on Manufactures (after ratification).
* Alliances change. In particular, they changed dramatically after the first session of the First Federal Congress, as the case of Madison illustrates: Prior to that time, he was allied with Hamilton. After that time, he was allied with Thomas Jefferson.
* Context and language change.
Using Madison’s 1800 Report to show the understanding of the ratifiers a decade earlier is subject to all of those objections.
If this is correct, it invalidates not only the use of the Report of 1800 to shed light on constitutional meaning, but the use of any post-ratification material. Thus, judges, historians, legal scholars, and others are wrong to rely on 1790s debates over the Bank of the United States, the assumption of state debts, the use of foreign affairs powers in US relations with Britain, and France, and much else. The same goes for extensive judicial and scholarly reliance on Reconstruction-era evidence to shed light on the meaning of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment. A high percentage of what we know (or at least think we know) about the original meaning of the Constitution would have to be rejected.
Some of Natelson’s concerns here are reasonable. For example, it is true that memories fade and that politicians might opportunistically shift positions in response to new political circumstances and alliances. But I don’t think this counsels total or near-total rejection of post-ratification material. The latter is simply too valuable to reject entirely. In many situations—including this one—it gives extensive evidence of understanding of constitutional meaning by the very people who drafted and ratified the provisions in question, often even addressing issues similar to those that led the Constitution (or a given amendment) to be enacted in the first place.
James Madison’s views on federal power over immigration are a dramatic example. He was clearly one of the most important drafters of the Constitution, as well as a key participant in the ratification process. And, while it is true that some framers and ratifiers had died by 1800, the audience he wrote the Report of 1800 for included large numbers of people who well remembered the framing and ratification and could be expected to object if they thought Madison got it wrong.
Instead of wholesale rejection, we should—on a case-by-case basis consider whether a given post-ratification statement, whether by Madison or anyone else, is likely to be a product of later political shifts or not. In this case, the answer is probably not. Madison’s denial that the federal government had power to exclude “alien friends” is entirely consistent with positions he took during the ratification debates, such as his rejection, in Federalist 42, of claims that the the Migration or Importation Clause of the Constitution (which prevented Congress from barring the “migration or importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” until 1808) implied that Congress otherwise had a general power to “prevent voluntary and beneficial emigrations” (as opposed to restricting the slave trade and the migration of indentured servants). Madison’s position here would make little sense if, in fact, he believed that Congress had a general power to exclude migrants anytime it wanted, subject to limitations that would expire in 1808.
Natelson argues that Madison had shifted alliances from Hamilton to Jefferson between ratification and 1800. But, while Madison and Hamilton were allied in seeking ratification of the Constitution, Madison and Jefferson were also close political allies in the 1780s, and always had far more in common on both constitutional and political issues than either had with Hamilton. At any rate, Madison never endorsed the constitutionality of federal restrictions on the migration of “alien friends” and his position on this issue is a natural outgrowth of his generally narrow interpretation of federal power from the ratification debates onwards.
Much more can be said about these issues. Among other things, the “invasion” rationale for immigration restrictions is just one of several that has been advanced to justify federal power over immigration. I discussed many of the others here, and am in the process of working on a much more in-depth academic treatment of these issues. In the present exchange with Hyman and Natelson, I hope only to explain why the invasion theory is flawed, and why Madison’s Report both supports that position, and is a relevant and valuable source of evidence.
I thank both Natelson and Hyman for their thoughtful contributions to this debate, and for pushing me to elaborate further on some of the issues involved.
A pledge by the Biden administration in December 2022 to take “more than 100 actions” to impose significantly tighter environmental standards on consumer goods is now becoming reality, and consumer groups are predicting a future in which Americans pay more for products that do less, while manufacturers warn of shortages and supply chain breakdowns.
“You’re seeing, just in the last few months, new rules from the Biden administration about clothes washers, dishwashers, and other kinds of kitchen appliances, and in every case, you’re talking about a tightening of already very, very tight standards,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, told The Epoch Times.
“That will make it so that nearly the majority of the current products on the market don’t meet the standards and have to be redesigned or removed from the market,” Skinner said. “Everyday things that people actually want are going to get more expensive or disappear, and the products that will be available will be more expensive but not better. People are going to wonder why life is worse.”
These new regulations (pdf) from the Department of Energy (DOE) come on top of new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emissions regulations on cars and electric utilities, and efforts to ban gas stoves, which critics say will have similar consequences in those industries. Many of these new regulations will be finalized by next year and would give manufacturers several years to comply.
In December 2022, the White House announced that “the Biden-Harris Administration has surpassed its goal to take 100 actions in 2022 to strengthen energy efficiency standards for a range of appliances and equipment to lower costs for American families.” The announcement touted 110 new regulations enacted by federal agencies on “everything from air conditioners and furnaces, to clothes washers and dryers, to kitchen appliances and water heaters—as well as commercial and industrial equipment.”
According to the Biden administration: “Once finalized, these standards will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 2.4 billion metric tons, equivalent to the carbon emissions from 10 million homes, 17 million gas cars, or 21 coal-fired power plants over 30 years. The projected consumer savings from these standards would be $570 billion cumulatively, and for an average household this will mean at least $100 in annual savings.”
These actions follow a familiar pattern: rumors of new directives, followed by official denials, followed by draconian diktats. For example, reports that the Consumer Product Safety Commission would ban gas stoves over alleged safety concerns sparked a public outcry in January, which was met with denials by the Commission, together with media ridicule, that any such thing was being contemplated. This was then followed by new environmental standards from the DOE that would ban the manufacturing of 50 percent of the gas stoves available on the market today.
The DOE rules elicited criticism from House Republicans, who in a March 21 letter to Granholm called the regulations “a blatant back door attempt to ban gas appliances enjoyed by millions of Americans.
“Your attempt to ban gas appliances has no basis in law or within your jurisdiction,” GOP representatives charged. “The Department of Energy has enjoyed bipartisan support, your actions to appease the Biden Administration’s radical climate agenda does not reflect well upon the Department.”
While consumer advocates doubt that these new measures will save Americans money, appliance makers say consumers will not be happy with the products that are left to buy.
New Appliances Will Be ‘Closer to 1950s’ Than to 2020
Instead of allowing appliance manufacturers to innovate products for features that consumers want, “they are literally going to have to redesign products that will look closer to the 1950s than they do to 2020,” Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers spokesperson Jill Notini said.
Manufacturers say they have been trying to work with the DOE to moderate the new rules, citing a tradition of cooperation between agencies and industry when developing new standards, but they say they are hitting a wall with the Biden administration.
Among what one industry executive called “an avalanche” of new rules are regulations that force dishwasher and washing machine manufacturers to cut water use and energy consumption by one-third. In addition, new DOE rules would effectively eliminate 98 percent of all top-loading washing machines on the market today, would mandate that the machines be larger, and remove the central agitator that increases cleaning performance.
Manufacturers say these rules would add $200 to the cost of a washing machine, and would also halt the production of less expensive clothes dryers that don’t meet strict federal Energy Star efficiency standards. Microwave ovens are also on the list of targeted appliances.
Led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, 21 state attorneys general wrote to DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm on May 2 to “register their concern with the Department of Energy’s new attempt to control what appliances Americans can buy.”
“The administration’s plan to micromanage people’s choices of everyday kitchen appliances will result in fewer choices, less functionality, and higher costs for consumers,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told The Epoch Times.
“The regulations are legally faulty because they rest on poor reasoning and shaky facts,” Skrmetti said. “This kind of bureaucratic overreach lies far outside the scope of the federal government envisioned by the Constitution.”
The AGs’ letter criticizes, among other things, the DOE’s “blind reliance” on estimates by the Interagency Working Group on the Social Costs of Greenhouse Gasses that are “fundamentally flawed and are an unreliable metric on which to base administrative action.” In addition, the AGs charge that the DOE orders violate Constitutional principles of federalism, “ignores consumers’ reactions and preferences,” and “dismisses the costs manufacturers will incur to comply with the proposed standards.”
Liberal States Join in Pushing Green Agenda
Regulations are not only coming down from federal agencies; left-leaning states are also instituting bans on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, gas stoves, gas heating, and other fossil-fuel-powered products. In response to state auto emissions mandates, Stellantis, which owns the Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep brands, said it will reduce shipments of gas-powered cars to states including California, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania Connecticut, Rhode Island, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Maryland, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, Virginia, and New Mexico in order to comply with new emissions rules in those states that seek to force consumers to switch to EVs over the next decade.
Ukraine Officials Openly Taunting Russia As Zelensky Says ‘Ready’ For Counteroffensive
Ukrainian leadership continues touting that it will “get back what’s ours” – in the recent words of the country’s chief military officer, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi. President Volodymyr Zelensky is additionally telling Western press and officials that “we strongly believe that we will succeed.”
Zelensky recently spoke to The Wall Street Journal about the much anticipated counter-offensive, but which comes after the significant loss of Bakhmut last month. “I don’t know how long it will take,” Zelensky told the newspaper. “To be honest, it can go a variety of ways, completely different. But we are going to do it, and we are ready.”
But the longer and greater delay before it is actually launched, which will be sure to feature ample Western weaponry, the more doubt is likely to build. Kiev and its allies have been touting it with much bravado, and yet nothing has materialized in terms of a major advance or gains. Zelensky cautioned in the interview that “the time will soon come when we will move to active offensive actions.”
He also stressed that “we can’t wait for months” on further much-needed advanced weapons from the West, which has recently included approval of Abrams tanks and F-16 jets from European partners, but for which Ukrainian operators must undergo extensive training. Zelensky’s impatience has been on continual display despite the West having already spent tens of billions in defense funding and weaponry for Kiev.
Admitting the persistent difficulty of superior Russian airpower, Zelensky conceded that “a large number of soldiers will die” in the counteroffensive but still emphasized that his troops are “stronger and more motivated” than Russia’s.
As of three weeks ago, Zelensky was still saying his country “needs more time” to prepare for the counteroffensive. It begs some questions: is he waiting on approval or coordination from the West? Is the Ukrainian side desperate at this point to maintain morale simply by touting a future offensive? Is Kiev indeed waiting for heavier weaponry to come through from the West?
Meanwhile, Ukrainian government official accounts are openly taunting Moscow…
Ukraine’s intel operators appear to be taunting Russia here that the counteroffensive won’t be announced but could begin at any time…Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US @OMarkarova joins @FaceTheNation this morning. https://t.co/ftA0XL4Ra9
Currently, the Ukrainian president is applying the pressure more than ever for his Western backers to see Ukraine enter NATO, or at least to provide immediate and firm security guarantees.
“Our future is in the European Union. Ukraine is also ready to be part of NATO. We are waiting for NATO to be ready to accept Ukraine,” he said Thursday to journalists just ahead of a summit of the European Political Community in Chisinau, Moldova. He additionally demanded that Ukraine receive security guarantees “now” and emphasized the best way to ensure this is acceptance into NATO.
Professor Hansford objected that white lawyers and politicians have been allowed to control this debate in the United States for too long:
But so far we have left it to the scholars of the past, the lawyers of the past, the white scholars, white lawyers, to determine the bounds of our legal imagination, to determine the narrow structures that we will use to determine what justice looks like for our own people.
So I come to you today with a novel proposal, that we begin to think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
It is not clear what Professor Hansford meant when he suggested that a United Nations program for reparations should not only be crafted but “implemented” by people of color.
Professor Hansford notes in his address that the United Nations previously recognized the need for reparations for victims of racism and cultural genocide.
The speech to the United Nations is part of growing calls for action on reparations after years of study and proposals. As task forces in states like California have issued recommendations for payments, the demands are presenting a challenge for Democratic politicians who have long campaigned on such payments as a moral imperative. That bill has now come due but politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom have sought to pivot away from demands from his own Reparations Task Force for massive payments.
It may be too late for this effort as activists demand actual payments, including up to $5 million for each eligible citizen in cities like San Francisco.
Now Professor Hansford is calling on the United Nations to order such payments by the United States. It is an interesting pitch to countries that were directly involved in the slave trade or enslaved other people in their own histories. Reparations would appear to apply to many of the same countries and might be looked at with some skepticism and concern in their own capitals.
“Well, yes, when I think of police abolition, I think that it’s the right word. I think about the abolitionists that we saw in the 19th century — Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass — and their work, which was our destiny as a people, to be free. And I think that’s part of the same tradition. I think that it’s the same work. I think that the systems that we’re facing today are continuations of the systems that the abolitionists in the 19th century worked against. So, yes, I support that. I think that has to be the ultimate goal.”
I have serious objections to these views, but value the debate. Indeed, part of the effort to combat the intolerance for opposing viewpoints at schools like Howard University is to allow a more robust debate on these issues.
Reparations is a debate that we should have as a nation, including in Congress. Recently, Democrats introduced a bill demanding $14 trillion in reparations.
I have major misgivings over the legal and policy basis for such payments, but welcome any forum for a free and civil debate. The United Nations did not offer an opposing view on this question, which is often the case on our campuses.
Professor Hansford called on the United Nations to stop “cultural genocide” and to end the “continuation of slavery” through means like “mass incarceration” in the United States.
The Biden Administration nominated Professor Hansford to work with the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) for the 2022-2024 term. Hansford is the only American representative.
Trove Of Nearly 10K Hunter Biden Laptop Photos, Docs Appear On Organized Website
Nearly 10,000 photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop were uploaded to a new website – BidenLaptopMedia.com, which has been intermittently unavailable since launch due to overwhelming traffic.
The site, which took months to complete, is the brainchild of former Trump White House aide, Garrett Ziegler, who worked as an aide to economic adviser Peter Navarro.
“It’s taken us a couple of months to, one, go through the photos, about 10,000 of them, and redact the genitalia on the photos,” said Ziegler, adding “The number one thing we’re about… is truth and transparency.”
“If the American people want to know what their first family is like, they’re going to get it. And we’re not going to be taking out photos that paint the Bidens in a good light.”
According to Ziegler, several photos including private data were redacted, including those containing Social Security numbers, banking information and credit card numbers – as well as multiple nude photos of Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden.
Of the many photos found on the laptop, Ziegler provided Fox News Digital with two never-before-seen photos from the laptop. One photo showed Hunter Biden cozied up to his then-lover Zoe Kestan in 2018. The other image — featuring an array of drugs and a condom wrapper sitting on a table — was from a text message conversation Hunter had with Hallie Biden — the widow of Beau Biden and former lover of Hunter Biden — the same year.
Providing further insight on the type of content viewers can expect on the website, Ziegler said some content that does not carry “news value” will not be featured. –Fox News
“There are, for example, screenshots of Candy Crush games where we are fairly confident in saying there’s absolutely no news value to those,” he said. “So it’s going to be, I would say, 98% of the photos on the device, around 10,000 in total, although it’ll be slightly less than that.”
“It’s going to be a completely authentic recounting of the photos on the device,” he continued.
Our servers for https://t.co/zQirhFz1PJ are under heavy stress and we are working to get it fully functional and secured. Incredible engagement already in the first couple hours. https://t.co/70HD65aFyL
French L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers continues to top the list of the world’s richest women after having taken the lead in 2021 from Walmart heiress Alice Walton.
With the Bezos divorce finalized in 2019, MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, appeared among the world’s richest woman – currently in rank 6. The same year, Julia Koch entered the list after the death of her husband, David Koch – one of the four sons of Koch Industry founder Fred C. Koch. With a net worth of $55 billion, she is currently the third richest women in the world. A newcomer to the list of the world’s richest women in 2021 was Miriam Adelson, who inherited a fortune of almost $35 billion from her late husband, Las Vegas Sands CEO and chairman Sheldon Adelson.
Self-made billionaire Rafaela Aponte-Diamant of Switzerland founded shipping company MSC with her husband in 1970 and they both own a 50 percent stake in it. Their expanding business endeavors saw her climb in rank 7 of the world’s richest women this year, ahead of Australian mining heiress and executive chairwoman, Gina Rinehadt, who took over the company of her father in 1992 and has also seen its wealth increase.
Elizabeth Warren reportedly took advice from Wall Street short-seller Marc Cohodes, who cashed in on the collapse of Silvergate and Signature banks…
What do progressive Democrats, Republican national security hawks and Wall Street traders have in common?
They are all apparently enlisting in United States Senator Elizabeth Warren’s “anti-crypto army.”
The progressive senator’s reported alliance with Marc Cohodes, a Wall Street short-seller who profited from the recent carnage at crypto banks, is the latest example.
Crypto natives likely see the unusual pairing as further proof that entrenched interests are conspiring to kill Web3 in the United States. They aren’t entirely wrong, but America’s polarized factions are uniting against crypto for a reason. The industry has consistently failed to address valid concerns about financial crime and national security. That needs to change, or Warren’s anti-crypto army will continue attracting recruits.
Publicly traded crime scene?
In late 2022, Cohodes circulated a memo on Capitol Hill flagging “existential” regulatory risks at Silvergate, a crypto-friendly bank. The short-seller dubbed the bank a “publicly traded crime scene” and claimed, among other things, that Silvergate had “huge” Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) liabilities. These rules require U.S. financial institutions to carefully due-diligence their customers, and they are rigorously enforced.
Cohodes had reason to be concerned. Problems with KYC/AML compliance are rampant in crypto, and Silvergate appears to have been a striking example. According to New York magazine, Silvergate was “the go-to bank for more than a dozen crypto companies that ended up under investigation, shut down, fined, or in bankruptcy,” including FTX, the defunct crypto exchange. Cohodes claimed the bank went so far as to help FTX siphon user deposits into its sister fund, Alameda.
Silvergate shut down after FTX’s flameout in March, but its collapse may be symptomatic of serious industry-wide problems. The crypto bank, Cahodes claimed, was “a worldwide money laundering story… with a crypto wrapper.”claimed, was “a worldwide money-laundering story […] with a crypto wrapper.”
Anti-crypto army
Cohodes’ Silvergate memo reportedly found a receptive audience in Warren, who has become one of crypto’s most caustic critics. Unlike her calls for a wealth tax of up to 6% or a “just and equitable cannabis industry,” Warren’s crypto critiques are resonating far beyond progressive circles. Her message is simple: Crypto, Warren says, enables bad actors — from drug traffickers to rogue states — and is a threat to national security.
Her anti-crypto crusade is gaining traction. In January, three U.S. financial regulators published a joint statement on crypto banking. It heavily echoed Warren’s proposals, effectively laying the groundwork for a regulatory crackdown. The senator is working with Republicans on a bill that would impose strict industrywide KYC requirements. She is even attracting cautious support from banking lobbyists.
The problem isn’t with Warren’s overarching concerns. Web3 should be accountable for filtering out bad actors. It’s that clumsy policy implementation risks damaging the nascent industry irreparably. For example, Warren’s proposed KYC/AML legislation appears to indiscriminately target almost every touchpoint in crypto, including validators. It could severely undermine network decentralization, arguably Web3’s most essential feature.
Crypto should embrace KYC/AML to undermine Warren
Silvergate may have collapsed, but KYC/AML liabilities still permeate Web3. It’s no accident. Anyone familiar with crypto’s cypherpunk origins knows that, for many users, anonymity is a feature, not a bug. Indeed, privacy and self-custody are Web3’s raison d’etre.
It’s a mistake to dismiss crypto as a tool for money laundering. Blockchain’s unique attributes have transformative applications in industries ranging from asset management to media. Unfortunately, they are also setting up the industry for a head-on collision with U.S. regulators.
Web3 isn’t out of options. Emerging technologies are creating new ways to address policy concerns without compromising crypto’s core values. For example, zero-knowledge identity proofs promise seamless on-chain KYC/AML checks that respect users’ privacy. Meanwhile, blockchain intelligence platforms, such as Chainalys have been a boon for financial crime enforcement agencies.
The industry should stop burning political capital on resisting KYC/AML requirements altogether. Instead, we need to start attacking these challenges ourselves — or Warren’s army will.
