Tom Philpott

this is what they said it would be like under socialism

The pileup of blatantly unlawful conduct by the government in this case is astonishing, as is the fact that the Supreme Court allowed the govt to go forward with this program in a shadow docket ruling

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They cost too much to train.

Einstein - AI Homework Agent Einstein logs into Canvas and does your homework automatically. He has his own computer — he can watch lectures, read essays, write papers, and participate in discussions.

Is this bad

An Insurance Expert Appraises the Safety Record of Self-Driving Cars Are autonomous vehicles operated by companies like Waymo and Tesla making the streets safer? The insurance industry’s research arm is watching closely.

How safe are autonomous vehicles, really?

In @bloomberg.com, I got into the weeds with David Kidd of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (@iihs-hldi.bsky.social)

His conclusion: “It’s still too early to say with any kind of confidence that they are safer than human drivers overall.”

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Loved her bck in the day.

Remembering University of Texas professor who championed diversity Remembering Mercedes de Uriarte, a Latina trailblazer, University of Texas professor, whose work reshaped journalism, education and racial equity in Austin.

Ugh. I hadn't realized Mercedes de Uriarte had passed. She fielded a Latino-themed student publication called "Tejas" the same semester @tomphilpott.bsky.social and I launched "Polemicist" at UT Austin, and loved zines, journalism, and the youth she mentored. What a well-lived life.

👀The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics.

"It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

if trump wants to raise tariffs, why doesn't he just go through the republican-controlled congress?

@edzitron.com I adore your stuff. I implore you to spend more time on the hard fork bros. They are very influential—and very AI-brained.

Community meme: I CAN EXCUSE FASCISM. BUTI DRAW THE LINE AT MERCANTILISM.

The Supreme Court:

“Several Trump administration officials had privately said in the weeks leading up to the ruling that they expected the high court to rule against the president’s “emergency” tariff regime. However, the Trump officials stressed, they have already briefed the president on Plan B options, which…

Palantir is powering ICE's immigration crackdown. But they've also recently said the immigration crackdown is hurting their hiring. In today's ironic #404DeepDive... @evystadium.bsky.social gets into this mess.

Full story by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/palantir-whi...

Howard Lutnick’s Sons Running His Old Firm Are Betting Against Trump Tariffs | the deep dive Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is selling the tariffs he defends. His old firm, Cantor Fitzgerald—now run by his sons Kyle and Brandon—has built a market for refund rights on duties imposed under P...

The failsons are getting paid... in the funniest way possible. Joke's on us. thedeepdive.ca/howard-lutni...

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Hegseth has made clear that he thinks he’s on a modern day crusade.

That last sentence? That's the strategy. They've been pretty open about it.

What Marco Rubio conveniently left out of his "ode to empire" at Munich over the weekend.

I brought some receipts about the human costs of Western imperialism in my latest Guardian column:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thread.

In case you, like me, are having trouble keeping track of the atrocities, some background:

news4sanantonio.com/news/local/c...

This looks like Hillary Clinton’s decision to rake in a bunch of bucks from Wall Street speeches ahead of her ‘16 run. Newsome thinks this will play better in ‘28?

As Bernie Sanders Comes to California, Wealth Tax Opponents Intensify Efforts

Read this sentence slowly:

“Gov. Gavin Newsom, crypto executives and business leaders are ramping up efforts this week to stop the proposed wealth tax...”

gift link:

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

amazing speech. from Jesse Jackson presidential campaign built a coalition to fight back during era of Reagan's brutal class war.

Is this an actually useful Free Press article?

[popularism voice] when I hit on a wedge issue that splits my coalition, I know what to do: constantly and loudly bring it up

Jesse Jackson donned a farmers cap Monday, climbed aboard... - UPI Archives Jesse Jackson donned a farmers cap Monday, climbed aboard a tractor and joined farmers facing the worst agriculture crisis since the Depression in protesting...

Here's the link to the UPI(!) piece screenacapped above. It's from 1985—capturing Jackson doing what movement-minded politicians do, which is build support and momentum between elections. www.upi.com/Archives/198...

If only the Democratic Party had embraced that message—instead of deliberately crushing it —we might not have Trump's jack-booted thugs stomping around today.

...in solidarity with urban Black people who had been similarly left behind by relentless capital flight that had been going on for decades (the pop. of Detroit, for example, had peaked in the '50s, as the auto industry abandoned the city, first for the 'burbs and later for the non-union South).

In more recent years, I've come to see Jesse's '80s campaigns as even more important and momentous. Both campaigns took place during a brutal farm crisis, and Jackson worked hard to rally struggling rural whites behind an agenda of left rural populism...

The next time around, the '88 primary, I was a columnist at UT-Austin's Daily Texan daily newspaper and wrote frequently in support of him and against the technocrat Dukakis, angering many friends who thought I was aiding the Republican cause.