Rafael M Batista

A screenshot of a headline from the official White House website dated June 26, 2025. The page features "The White House Washington" logo at the top with a navigation menu including links like "Save America" and "WH Wire". The main headline, set against a dark blue background, reads: “Experts Agree: Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated”.

A screenshot of a text quote attributed to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The text reads: “Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission.”

A screenshot of a text quote attributed to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The text reads: “New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do. The propaganda media has deployed their usual tactic: selectively release portions of illegally leaked classified intelligence assessments (intentionally leaving out the fact that the assessment was written with ‘low confidence’) to try to undermine President Trump’s decisive leadership and the brave servicemen and women who flawlessly executed a truly historic mission to keep the American people safe and secure.”

A screenshot of a text quote attributed to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir. The text reads: “I can say here that the assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, and I can also say that we set it back by years, I repeat, years.”

Unfortunately, these folks have no idea what they're doing or they're lying to the American people and the world.

Here are quotes–posted on The White House website 8 months ago–from senior intelligence and defense officials.

web.archive.org/web/20260302...

I wonder if this has to do with her relationship with Elon Musk

I know it is a small thing, but, in these dying days of the open web, it is lovely that such a large proportion of famous poetry is online, mostly due to a $100M gift from Ruth Lily, who loved poetry (even though she never got any of her own published) poetryfoundation.org/poems/guides

Strike on Iranian primary school kills 108, authorities say Girls’ education facility hit as US and Israel launch joint military operation

Damn. www.ft.com/content/055d...

Maybe there’s some 3D chess going on, but I really question politicians’ reasoning & leadership abilities when they’re willing to publicly endorse decisions by Trump without any coherent justification. The guy is erratic and makes no sense, politicians should insist on more than “Trump said so”

Reading trickling statements by Congresspeople supporting the attacks on Iran.

That’s all fine… if they had come *before* the attacks. If Congress wants to declare war, let them face the American people. But we should be clear- it’s Congress’s job not POTUS’s. Also, the man is senile.

Wars of choice kill those who have no choice. "Mistakes" like the reported strike on a girls' school that killed forty civilians are the predictable result of poor planning and execution.

For more on "Mistakes" in War, read this by me and @azmatzahra.bsky.social
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Whatever is in those Epstein files about Trump must be pretty bad for him to be starting a war

Today will be a day of motivated reasoning

Trump takes America to war on a week where the Dept of Homeland Security is shut down and his so-called “Dept of War” can’t even get their Claude subscription working.

This should tell you everything you need to know about Trump as Commander in Chief 🍼

Senseless war started by a senseless man

theonion.com/this-war-wil...

It’s possible to hope the ayatollahs regime will fall one day and Iranians be free and be dismayed by our country bombing Iran with no probable cause , with no public debate , and no congressional authorization.

Trump and Netanyahu’s approval ratings are low and they both face tough elections in a few months so they are like- let’s bomb Iran and get credit of it works great and move on to other things if it doesn’t.

Good on Anthropic for standing up to the Pentagon.

I certainly don’t *feel* like all the AI companies are run the same and believe it would be a mistake to lump in Anthropic’s leadership in with the others.

Silicon Valley Rallies Behind Anthropic in A.I. Clash With Trump

Our story on how the Pentagon misread the situation with Anthropic. They thought they would fold under the strong-arm tactic. Instead, Anthropic is seeing a boom of support from other AI companies and their own employees.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/t...

If one's job or brand is tied to *opposing* something (a tech, an industry, a practice), is it fair you say they too profit off that thing? Often, I think it does!

W/ #AI especially, lots of commentary from people profiting off it AND from those whose identity is shaped by being against it

A key difference here is that while either can be incorrect, the structure of Wikipedia *creates context* and the structure of LLMs *destroys context*

Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when

An LLM just generates text

Trump’s Push for Election Power Raises Fears He Will ‘Subvert’ Midterms

NEW: An emboldened President Trump has shown an increased eagerness to leverage the full investigative, prosecutorial and legislative powers of the federal government to bend election mechanics to his will.

On rising fears of subversion w/ Nick C: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...

A rule-of-thumb to do with eating healthy that I learned from a friend: Avoid any foods where the "Added Sugars" is >5g per serving.

Easy to scan a label for. Doesnt exclude naturally sweet things like dates. And hasnt altered my diet fundamentally. Added Sugars are no good so this has felt useful.

AI Economy Institute​ - Microsoft Research The AI Economy Institute (AIEI) is Microsoft’s flagship think tank dedicated to shaping an inclusive, trustworthy AI economy. We building a network of scholars and convening that network with our subj...

Opportunities for funding and more from Microsoft's AI Economy Institute

www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

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We’re hiring! CDT is growing our team with four exciting high-impact policy roles across our teams in Washington, DC.

• AI Governance Fellow
• Research Director
• Senior Policy Analyst/Counsel, Privacy & Data Program
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Within a week I was convinced it was time to purchase a new tablet, an e-ink reader, so I did.

It wasn’t a reMarkable though. I bought a #Supernote instead.

Very happy w/ my purchase. And it was really prompted by a serendipitous encounter (+ a missed sale by Best Buy)

A few weeks ago I went to Best Buy to return something I bought online. On that trip, I browsed a bit, got interested in a #reMarkable on display. Hadn’t seriously thought of it before this.

The staff member was on his phone, had he talked to me I likely would’ve made a purchase.

A Guide to Which AI to Use in the Agentic Era It's not just chatbots anymore

I like these overviews that @emollick.bsky.social write. They’re often more basic than others out there but also more accessible to wider audience

I’d like to see one on security and the “lethal trifecta”

open.substack.com/pub/oneusefu...

call for experimental economics conference 15-19 June 2026 for PhD students in economics

NEW Summer School in Theory-based Experimental Economics + follow-on conference @Caltech 15-19 June 2026
Please spread the word.

New Deep Dive from @anilananth.bsky.social on our blog:

@msalganik.bsky.social & colleagues developed a way to create and analyze an individual’s "Book of Life." The eventual goal? Train language models on data from millions of Books of Life to predict an individual's life outcome: bit.ly/473NmIy

This is a wonderful story pulling together our research on predicting life trajectories. Thank you @anilananth.bsky.social

Trump is playing a dangerous war game. Just yesterday, he claimed he can “destroy” a country in an unhinged tirade. These are the impulses of a madman.

Congress must exercise its authority to prevent a war that will take innocent lives.

No war with Iran.

Traditionally the GOP was the anti-tax, free-trade party, the is the first GOP President to be anti-competition, pro-tax, at least on consumers and small businesses.