Monday, May 12, 2025

Reading archive 2025-05-12 pt 2

Elon Musk’s Most Alarming Power Grab: Can anyone stop his space-based internet?

Trump Finally Drops the Anti-Semitism Pretext: The latest letter to Harvard makes clear that the administration’s goal is to punish liberal institutions for the crime of being liberal.

Europeans Have Realized Their Error: The urge to say I told you so is strong these days throughout the Baltics.

The Impossible Plight of the Pro-Tariff Liberals: They finally got the Democratic Party to listen to them. Then came Trump’s second term. - "Last May, the Biden administration announced tariffs on a handful of Chinese goods in 'strategic sectors,' including 25 to 50 percent tariffs on batteries, solar panels, medical supplies, semiconductors, and certain steel and aluminum products, and 100 percent tariffs on electric vehicles. The restrictions represented what is sometimes called a 'targeted tariffs' approach, rooted in the belief that a select few industries are important enough to be protected from foreign competition, even at the cost of higher prices. If China were allowed to totally dominate solar panels, semiconductors, and cars, then the U.S. would end up reliant on a geopolitical adversary for its energy, military, and transportation infrastructure. And if the government stood by while industry after industry experienced a second China shock, the economic and political consequences would be severe."

The Godfather of the Woke Right: A 2011 book by Pat Buchanan shows the deep roots of today’s right-wing illiberalism.

Musk’s fury over a Tesla investigation foreshadowed his war on Washington: The book “Hubris Maximus” details Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s contempt for regulators charged with overseeing his companies. - "It wasn’t just being hung up on; Musk’s demeanor and attitude and his unconvincing argument — a repetition-filled script — had left Sumwalt thoroughly unimpressed. There simply wasn’t enough evidence to demonstrate that Autopilot, a suite of driver-assistance features with a catchy name, was the transformative and revolutionary system with the lifesaving capabilities Musk touted; in this particular instance, it was at the center of a fatal crash, a high-tech calamity that safety investigators could examine to uncover new findings about the intersection of technology, driver distraction, and speed."

No comments:

Post a Comment