Dall-E Mini, the AI-powered text-to-image generator has taken over the internet. With its ability to render nearly anything your meme-loving heart desires, anyone can make their dreams come true.
DALL-E 2, a portmanteau of Salvador Dali, the surrealist and Wall-E, the Pixar robot, was created by OpenAI and is not widely available; it creates far cleaner imagery and was recently used to launch Cosmpolitan’s first AI-generated cover. The art world has been one of the first industries to truly embrace AI.
The open-sourced miniature version is what’s responsible for the memes. Programmer Boris Dayma wants to make AI more accessible; he built the Dall-E Mini program as part of a competition held by Google and an AI community called Hugging Face.
And with great technology, comes great memes. Typing a short phrase into Dall-E Mini will manifest 9 different amalgamations, theoretically shaping into reality the strange images you’ve conjured. Its popularity leads to too much traffic, often resulting in an error that can be fixed by refreshing the page or trying again later.
If you want to be a part of the creation of AI-powered engines, it all starts with code. CodeAcademy explains that Dall-E Mini is a seq2seq model, “typically used in natural language processing (NLP) for things like translation and conversational modeling.” CodeAcademy’s Text Generation course will teach you how to utilize seq2seq, but they also offer opportunities to learn 14+ coding languages at your own pace.
You can choose the Machine Learning Specialist career path if you want to become a Data Scientist who develops these types of programs, but you can also choose courses by language, subject (what is cybersecurity?) or even skill - build a website with HTML, CSS, and more.
CodeAcademy offers many classes for free as well as a free trial; it’s an invaluable resource for giving people of all experience levels the fundamentals they need to build the world they want to see.
As for Dall-E Mini, while some have opted to create beauty, most have opted for memes. Here are some of the internet’s favorites:
pic.twitter.com/DbLoe1s00c
— Weird Dall-E Mini Generations (@weirddalle) June 8, 2022
pic.twitter.com/cxtliOrlHz
— Weird Dall-E Mini Generations (@weirddalle) June 12, 2022
no fuck every other dall-e image ive made this one is the best yet pic.twitter.com/iuFNm4UTUM
— bri (@takoyamas) June 10, 2022
pic.twitter.com/rEBHoWR7lH
— Weird Dall-E Mini Generations (@weirddalle) June 12, 2022
pic.twitter.com/RSZaCIDVV7
— Chairman George (@superbunnyhop) June 9, 2022
back at it again at the DALL•E mini pic.twitter.com/iPGsaMThBC
— beca. ⚢ (@dorysief) June 9, 2022
There’s no looking back now, not once you’ve seen Pugachu; artificial intelligence is here to stay.
Debate Night: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernie Sanders, and the Earth Vs. Space Question
On March 22nd, Senator Bernie Sanders and Elon Musk entered a debate over the fate of the world.
It began when Sanders published a very in-character tweet. "We are in a moment in American history where two guys — Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — own more wealth than the bottom 40% of people in this country," he wrote. "That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral. It is unsustainable."
Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who briefly surpassed Jeff Bezos in early 2021 to become the wealthiest man in the world, had a ready-made response. In a Tweet, he wrote, "I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars."
@cleantechnica I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars— Elon Musk (@Elon Musk) 1616304691.0
Sanders's reply remained laser-focused on his lifelong mission to fight income inequality on Earth. He wrote, "Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children don't go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare. The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy."
Musk's starry-eyed statement has since faded into the ether of Twitter, but the context of this debate raises larger questions about futuristic technologies, the present-day interests and needs of humans on Earth, and the ongoing battle between them.
Billionaires dream of flying machines
As the Earth speeds towards irreversible climate disaster, many people's minds have naturally turned towards the stars. The distant, spinning nebulae and gleaming planets above us have long been idealized as potential escape routes for the unhappily earthbound.
But as the climate crisis grows more dire on Earth and space travel ramps up, thanks to ambitious patrons, some (like Elon Musk) have proposed that space may be our best shot at collective survival.
Famously, Musk founded SpaceX because he believed that NASA was not working hard enough to bring humans to Mars, and he feared that humanity is approaching its last chance to escape Earth before our planet becomes an uninhabitable hellscape.
His fellow Bernie Sanders nemesis Jeff Bezos has expressed similarly apocalyptic concerns. Bezos, who founded a rocket and aerospace travel company called Blue Origin in 2000, recently stepped down from his position as CEO of Amazon, claiming he planned on investing more time in his work with Blue Origin and his efforts to fight climate change.
Like Musk, Bezos aims to colonize space by investing ambitiously in new technologies that could help people reach the stars. And also like Musk, he fears for the future of civilization — and sees space as the place where these problems might be solved.
"Hundreds of years into the future, we will move all the polluting industries to space and other planets, where we have infinite resources for all practical purposes and Earth will only be (used for) light industries and residential," Bezos stated in a conversation with Amazon India chief Amit Agarwal in New Delhi.
This plan, which Bezos calls the New Inversion, is a long-term vision that would effectively move all pollution to the cosmos. "I would think, kind of [a] time frame of hundreds of years," Bezos added, reiterating that "we have to preserve this planet and we can do that using the resources of space."
The "space escape" as an escape route for the super-rich
Bezos, Musk, and their future-focused peers may claim that their plans to reach the stars are efforts to ensure a future for humanity, but their own reputations and vast fortunes have raised many questions about who this interplanetary future would actually serve.
At the moment, the future of space travel appears to be reserved for the super-rich — the sort of people who are already least affected by earthly calamities like climate change, despite unleashing the vast majority of the world's carbon emissions. For example, private spaceflight companies such as Axiom reportedly charge up to $55 million to send travelers into specially designed rooms located in the International Space Station.
It is likely that even if space travel begins to evolve in step with Moore's law (the theory that computers' processing power tends to double every two years), whatever world we build in the cosmos will remain reserved for the 1% for quite a long time. In this light, the futures preached by techno-prophets like Bezos and Musk start to look like thin cloaks for a kind of moon-eyed eugenics that would leave billions of people in the literal dust.
"The space barons are shrewdly — one might say cynically — tapping into our respect for astronauts and our idealism about what space represents," Ceridwen Dovey writes in The New Yorker. "They seem to be counting on us to be awestruck by whatever it is they do in space, and to overlook the fact that their motives are not exactly pure, nor are their methods of getting us there egalitarian."
Humans are drawn to mystery and beauty, and space is such a tantalizing frontier that it's difficult to completely write off billionaires' ambitious plans to penetrate it, even though we know their earthly work typically involves hoarding vast amounts of wealth while underpaying and mistreating masses of workers.
The ongoing battle between technological innovation and human-centered reform
Similar contradictions plague a multitude of existing plans to address climate change on Earth, and they are particularly endemic to plans broadcasted by corporate entities who have nothing to gain and everything to lose from substantial climate action.
For example, Jeff Bezos recently pledged $10 billion of his $188 billion net worth to the Bezos Earth Fund, yet his overall approach to climate and philanthropy has continuously come under fire.
First, there's the fact that despite all his talk of concern about climate change, Bezos's company continues to belch out carbon emissions, releasing around 51.17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2019 – up 15% from the previous year despite various green pledges. The company has also been slammed with reports about its poor treatment of workers, and prior to the Capitol riots, Bezos also reportedly donated thousands of dollars to conservative politicians such as progressive disruptor-in-chief Mitch McConnell.
Then there's the fact that Bezos failed to donate more than roughly 0.1% of his net worth prior to his 2020 donations — and the latter comprised less than 8% of his vast net worth, a sum that, along with Musk's wealth, is equivalent to the collective wealth of the United States's poorest 40% of people.
The $10 billion Bezos did donate via the Earth Fund was also met with criticism, particularly from groups invested in climate justice. The vast majority of Bezos's donations went to established environmental organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and World Wildlife Fund, most of which already possess endowments in the millions. Critics said that many of these contributions will never reach communities already subject to the worst effects of climate-caused floods, wildfires, pollution, and destruction, and many of their ultimate goals involve conserving an existing status quo rather than addressing interconnected crises like racism and economic inequality.
In a statement released in December, a group of community-focused NGOs called the Climate Justice Alliance released a statement in protest of Bezos's donations. It found that "less than a quarter of the first-round grants will go to intermediary funds that support thousands of grassroots communities cultivating solutions on the frontlines of the climate emergency. The inequities couldn't be more striking."
This could also be said of the work of many of the "Big Green" environmental groups, particularly those historically focused on conservation rather than human-focused social change. Conservation movements have historically been bound up with white supremacy, and a look at the bigger picture reveals that white supremacy created and perpetuates the conditions for climate change, itself is an inherently racist crisis.
Other billionaires and corporations' efforts have been subject to similar critiques. For example, Elon Musk recently launched a competition offering $50 million to whomever could invent the best carbon capture techniques. Carbon capture technology has long been an alluring yet elusive potential solution to climate change, and it has also been the recipient of generous funding.
Despite all this investment, no miracle technology with the ability to stop climate change has ever emerged, and waiting for one feels more and more like waiting for a doomsday savior who will never arrive.
False promises further threaten any chance of climate action
An April 2020 study from Lancaster University argues against promises that glorify miraculous technologies, because "overreliance on promises of new technology to solve climate change is enabling delay."
Hinging the solution of climate change on miraculous technological breakthroughs like ice-restoration, nuclear fusion power, massive carbon-eating machines, and extraterrestrial offshoring can "feed systemic 'moral corruption', in which current elites are enabled to pursue self-serving pathways, while passing off risk onto vulnerable people in the future and in the global South," say researchers Duncan McLaren and Nils Markusson, who encourage "cultural, social and political transformation" over placing hopes in instant solutions.
It seems that any genuine "cultural, social and political transformation" will not come directly from billionaires and massive corporations, who naturally often benefit most from current cultural, social, and political structures and hierarchies. Recent corporate efforts to combat climate change have been hollow and hypocritical; and many corporations are being accused of greenwashing as they release statements and pledges that appear to be commitments to fighting climate change but that are really efforts to deflect opposition.
A January 2021 report from the Sierra Club entitled "The Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges" graded utility companies on their plans to cut emissions and transition to clean energy solutions and issued many failing grades to companies that have released "carbon neutral" pledges and similar statements. "
The infuriating truth is that many utilities are not only protecting their coal plants from retirement, but are also actively planning to build out climate destabilizing gas plants," said Mary Anne Hitt, who is the Director of Campaigns at the Sierra Club. "The consequences of allowing utilities to continue to delay the transition to clean energy will be particularly disastrous for low-income communities and communities of color."
Learning from the people and the planet
So where will change come from, if not rockets to stars or carbon pledges or the latest addictive inventions of Silicon Valley coders? Perhaps the answer is not above us but rather below our feet. Perhaps we have everything we need already here on Earth.
"We already have a safe and natural technology for carbon capture and storage (CCS)," writes Francis Seymour in a report for the Center for Global Development. It's called 'tropical forests.'"
We already have everything we need to transition to clean energy, and we already have enough food to feed the world's population. What is needed is a redistribution of wealth and resources — something billionaires, conservative politicians, and oil companies have fought against since climate change was exposed as a dangerous reality in the '80s.
Slowly but surely, the idea of wealth redistribution as an investment in fighting climate change is seeping into reality in the form of modern politics. Joe Biden's infrastructure plan will be paid for, in part, by taxing the super-rich. Still, there's a long way to go.
As things grow more dire, environmentalists increasingly view a cross-racial, cross-class movement as the only feasible solution to climate change. This framework, long supported by environmental justice movements and knitted into intersectional plans like the Green New Deal, sees the solutions to climate change as bound up with ending capitalism, racial injustice, and other interconnected global plagues.
The new vanguard of the climate movement also acknowledges how important Indigenous knowledge of land stewardship and conservation, frontline communities' understanding of environmental racism and the stakes of the climate crisis, and ongoing working class and BIPOC struggles for justice are to any just transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy.
Clearly, billionaires' expensive efforts to colonize space would be low on the priority list of any intersectional response to climate change.
Is there any place for space in the climate fight?
All this being said, it's unlikely that humans will ever totally abandon our desire to explore distant galaxies. Our desire to know the cosmos is as innate as our childhood desires to explore the deep green mysteries of the nearby woods. Fortunately, we don't have to write space exploration out completely in the fight for Earth.
Actually, Jeff Bezos wasn't wrong when he said space could be key to helping us fight climate change. NASA, the UN, and other organizations have consistently reported that some solutions to the climate crisis might be found through space-based technology capable of deepening our understanding of the climate crisis and providing key evidence of its effects.
For example, satellites can detect changing temperature levels, rising sea levels, and other factors that could be vital in the current global effort to halt warming at 1.5°C. On a more theoretical level, thinking about how alien civilizations may have responded to climate change could help us address our own situation.
It seems that for now, space travel's greatest contribution is its ability to help humans look back at Earth — either to measure its changes or to feel awed by what Carl Sagan called our "pale blue dot," as many astronauts have been when they viewed Earth from space and experienced the famous "Overview Effect." (Upon seeing the Earth from space, astronauts report a newfound sense of compassion for and responsibility to the planet and for the interconnected webs of life that live upon it).
Plus, the sheer ambition of the space race provides an excellent blueprint for the kind of effort it will take to actually address the climate crisis. All in all, there is room for space travel within a just transition to an ethical future.
But for now, it seems that the "light of consciousness," as Elon Musk put it, would be best directed towards Earth's living, breathing beings rather than towards a few billionaires and their efforts to further puncture the edges of our already damaged, airless, eternally silent atmosphere.
6 of the Best Comedy Bits Spawned from Donald Trump's Insanity
A tribute to the people who have made the last 500 years a little more bearable.
With the election behind us, and the Trump team's spurious legal cases being thrown out of court left and right, it's beginning to look like America will finally be able to leave the Trump era behind.
As many problems as we are still going to face after January 20th, it's a relief to know that we will no longer have to think, "Oh, god, he's the president..." every time Donald Trump says or tweets something offensive, dangerous, or moronic.
If he wants to spend the next four years sharing his thoughts on raking hurricanes or nuking wildfires, he will be able to do so from outside the White House, just like any other inmate citizen. But with two more months of Trump administration to go, the world is still bracing to see what kind of stunts he'll pull in his final days.
As such, there has never been a better time to acknowledge the people who have been so helpful at relieving some of the ever-present tension that has dominated each century week since 2016. These are the comedic bits that have helped to make the intense chaos energy of Donald Trump a little easier to process.
So, as Donald Trump fights his inevitable removal from office, we can at least thank him for gifting us some comedy gold—while doing everything in his power to destroy our country.
Joe Biden Won the Election by Fewer than 50,000 Votes
Our broken electoral system makes the endless stress and confusion of razor-thin margins inevitable. But we can fix it.
The panic that enveloped the world on November 3, 2020 already feels like a bad dream.
Despite the best efforts of Bernie Sanders and others to prepare us for the inevitable chaos, the partisan divide between mail-in and in-person voting had the predictable effect last Tuesday.
As the in-person votes accumulated in several key states where mail-in totals were always going to be delayed, the sense that Donald Trump was outperforming expectations—and was likely to secure reelection—was pervasive.
Sen. Bernie Sanders Predicts How Trump Will React On Election Night www.youtube.com
The president's rhetoric—deriding mail-in voting and downplaying the threat of the deadly coronavirus pandemic—meant that his supporters were much more likely to turn out to polling places. Democratic voters, on the other hand, were more inclined to avoid the crowded public spaces of election day voting.
Considering the ongoing, unprecedented spike in COVID-19 cases in the US, that caution was well-placed. Nonetheless, it gave President Trump leeway to pretend that his apparent victory had somehow been tampered with.
That strategy may turn out to work, and Donald Trump could snatch a "legal" coup from the jaws of a clear electoral defeat. But if the election had been closer, this game would have been much easier for him to play. The uncertainty and the potential for a court case to disrupt the results—as happened in Florida in the 2000 election—could have taken over the country for weeks without any projected winner.
Instead, victory was declared for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and we got to experience the pristine beauty of Donald Trump's desperate legal team scrambling to give a press conference outside Philadelphia's Four Seasons…Total Landscaping.
The image of Rudy Giuliani spreading lies about fraudulent votes in front of a garage door in a random, grungy parking lot was priceless. The only thing better is the way he and his team unconvincingly pretended to have booked that spot—rather than the similarly-named luxury hotel—on purpose.
I could write jokes for 800 years and I'd never think of something funnier than Trump booking the Four Seasons for… https://t.co/HoNzSpDrlt— Zack Bornstein (@Zack Bornstein) 1604804994.0
And that absurd, hilarious fumbling is all thanks to the fact that Joe Biden earned a resounding and unambiguous victory. Except… Did he?
The Election Results
At current count Joe Biden has received around 5 million more votes than Donald Trump, and that margin is likely to grow as millions of remaining votes are tallied.
His popular vote lead puts him roughly in line with Barack Obama's unequivocal defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012. Biden is also projected to win as many as 306 electoral college votes—the same number Donald Trump won in 2016, and well in excess of the 270 needed to secure the presidency.
While these figures fall short of most of the polling in the lead-up to the election—which predicted Biden securing closer to an 8% lead—it still sounds like a decisive result. Sadly that shortfall hurt down-ballot Democrats, who failed to take control of the Senate or strengthen their caucus in the House. That points to at least two years of divided, ineffectual governance while Americans face down multiple generation-defining crises.
Still, the fears of a Trump victory that loomed large as the first results came in now seem a little silly. Trump didn't really stand a chance, right?
I woke up this morning with a sense of dread that I can't shake. So I'm gonna put my doom spiral out there in hopes… https://t.co/nTkVxyJVbt— Natalie Wynn (@Natalie Wynn) 1604988024.0
Sadly, no. While the number of Americans who turned out to reject Trump's hateful politics and failures of leadership outnumber their pro-Trump counterparts by a respectable margin, the growing sense that Biden's victory was inevitable and comfortable does not hold up to scrutiny.
As 2016 taught us, "millions more votes" is a meaningless achievement in our bizarre, antiquated system. In that presidential race Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, but the way electoral votes are apportioned to favor rural states resulted in Donald Trump winning 306 electoral votes and the presidency (later finalized as 304 due to faithless electors).
The Decisive States
At the time, a great deal of attention was paid to the fact that three states—Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—had narrowly handed Trump his win. Worth a total of 46 electoral votes (enough to flip the whole election), Trump's margin of victory in those states was less than 1%.
From a cohort of 138 million, 79,316 voters in those three states ended up making the decision for the entire country. It seemed like a slap in the face to the notion of Democratic elections. But it turns out that things were even more narrow in 2020.
While there are still votes being counted—and the specific figures could change as the final tallies come in—it looks likely that four states will go to Biden with a margin of less than 1%. And in the three states where counts are currently closest—Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin—Biden is ahead by a total of fewer than 50,000 votes.
If those three states had gone the other way—Arizona could still flip—Donald Trump would have secured their 37 electoral votes and been handed a second term as president. And that's exactly what would have happened if 0.03% of the 160 million Americans who voted had decided to stay home—or if half that number flipped to voting for Trump instead of Biden.
Projected final Electoral College Tally, with current vote counts in the four closest states.AP
And Donald Trump only needs to assemble enough flimsy evidence to cast substantial doubt on that tiny fraction of votes in order to conduct a coup.
To put things in perspective, the voters who ensured Joe Biden's victory are outnumbered by the average daily visitors to Disneyland (pre-COVID). Back in the '90s, all the voters who were decisive in expelling Trump from the White House could have fit inside Donald Trump's Atlantic City casinos—before those were all either shuttered or rebranded.
The number of voters who determined our leader during a pandemic are dwarfed by the number of people who have been killed by that pandemic in New York and Texas alone...
Even if you add Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes to the mix, around 95,000 voters could have delivered Donald Trump a comfortable victory—with 292 electoral votes—just by staying home. Then they all could have gone to a game at Penn State's Beaver Stadium, with 10,000 seats left to spare.
The Problem With the Electoral College
Why is it possible—let alone familiar and expected—for the most powerful position on Earth, leading a nation of 330 million, to be assigned according to the will of a number of people who couldn't fill the seats at a college football game?
Our system, as it currently exists, makes these razor-thin margins unavoidable.
If the decision were between two disappointing moderates, that might not be such a terrifying prospect, but political polarization has made each election an inevitable battle between a far-right zealot and… a disappointing moderate.
States with more rural populations lean strongly Republican, while more urban states lean strongly Democratic. With the already swift rate of cultural progress in cities being amplified by the Internet's tendency to intensify everything, the backlash in rural areas that are more resistant to change is stark, and the divide is only growing.
Of course the populous in Democratic states significantly outnumber Republican states. In a democratic system that would mean that Republicans would have to shift their policies and their rhetoric to appeal to more people. But the electoral college cancels out the population difference—giving smaller states proportionally more sway.
As a result, Republicans can play more and more to their relatively small base of support, while Democrats attempt to build broad enough support to overcome their disadvantage. And this struggle ends up playing out in just a handful of "swing states" where opinions are fairly mixed.
That's where candidates spend hundreds of millions of dollars, bombarding residents with attack ads, trying to sway the slim percentage of voters who aren't devoted to one side or the other. And the effect is to leave an increasing number of people disgusted with the whole political process.
This makes it exceedingly easy for misinformation or voter suppression efforts to become decisive. What if Trump donor Louis DeJoy had been even better at slowing down the mail in the lead up to the election? What if a "satirical" deepfake video of Hunter Biden had spread on Facebook, bolstering false claims of pedophilia? Would it have been enough to shift the vote by 1% in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin?
In either case, as awful and as stressful as this election was, we shouldn't take the less-than-horrifying result as a sign that things are okay, or that the next election will be any better. As a nation we walk on a political knife's edge that's controlled by a fraction of the population of a few states.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: A Possible Solution
If you don't live in one of those battleground states, you will never be in that tiny group of voters whose decision to vote or stay home determines the next four years for the rest of America. As long as we continue to allow the confusing, undemocratic, and unpopular Electoral College system to determine the outcome of presidential elections, candidates will ignore the needs of your state, because your vote won't count.
The good news is: There is a way out that doesn't avoids the nearly impossible process of passing a constitutional amendment.
The Electoral College and the National Popular Vote | One Detroit Clip www.youtube.com
States have the power to determine how their electoral votes are awarded. If a few more state legislatures in places like Texas—where each vote has roughly ⅓ the power of a vote in Vermont—signed onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, we could render the Electoral college moot.
A winning number of electoral votes would go to whoever won the popular vote. Our next president would be determined by millions of Americans, rather than a few thousand people in Wisconsin.
Until then, we will keep walking the razor's edge.
Yes, Joe Biden Is Old: 9 Amazing Achievements by People Older Than 77
Because age is just a number... that tells us how incredibly old you are.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20th, 1942.
His teeth and hair were born quite a bit later and are likely immortal, but the point is: our President-elect is old. He's so old that "Robinette" probably seemed like a reasonable thing to put in the middle of your kid's name when he was born.
He's so old, in fact, that he's technically slightly older than the guy who is still president until January 20, and actively proving that old white guys are the milk-on-a-hot-day of politicians: a bad choice (also, they look and smell like spoiled dairy).
Joe Biden is so old that he's almost as old as the runner up in the Democratic primary. He's so old that, once inaugurated, he will be the oldest American president in history. Once Joe Biden is inaugurated, the second-oldest American president in history will be...Donald Trump.
The fact that our two options in the 2020 election to lead us are men who are both more than 35 years older—and about 40% whiter—than the average American, is a damning indictment of our political system. But with both men widely accused by their critics of losing a step and declining into senility, should age be a defining issue in this election? Is Joe Biden, 77, so much older than Donald Trump, 74, that he should be disqualified?
Shouldn't all your major life achievements be behind you at 77? Shouldn't people that old just be sitting on their porches, grumbling about young people? If that's what you think, you might want to ask...
So, clearly, being 74 or 77 does not mean you're done doing amazing things. If history is anything to go by, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden should have a lot of good years left. That said, there is such a thing as "biological age." If a person were to work out five times a week—as opposed to living off Big Macs and (allegedly) amphetamines and only working up a sweat by ranting on Twitter—that person could be much "younger" than someone born a few years after them.
So, while age itself should not necessarily be disqualifying for the job of president, certain habits—like inciting violence, opening concentration camps, and "joking" about running for a third term—definitely should be.
Killer Mike Was Right to Meet With Brian Kemp
How are activists supposed to "speak truth to power" if they're not allowed to be in the rooms where power lives?
Killer Mike is widely considered to be one of the best political voices in hip-hop.
One half of the duo Run the Jewels, the Atlanta-based rapper is known for his outspoken support of progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders and policies like Medicare for All, legalization of cannabis, and demilitarizing the police. He has advocated for voters not to let their support be taken for granted—to ask for something in return for their votes. But now he's coming under fire from Twitter for meeting with Georgia governor Brian Kemp.
The meeting took place on Wednesday in the Governor's office in the state capitol building, and images were of the two men talking and shaking hands were promptly shared through the governor's official Twitter account. This prompted a predictable backlash that quickly led "Killer Mike" to be a trending topic on the site.
Various tweets attacked the meeting as just a "photo op" or as "legitimizing" the sitting governor of one of the largest states in the US. Others accused Killer Mike of angling for a media position as the political Black man who will sit down with conservatives.
Killer Mike attempting to brand himself as the Reasonable Negro™ by meeting with a white man who stole an election… https://t.co/PDJ6XRVYLG— Abolish the Police, NOTHING LESS! (@Abolish the Police, NOTHING LESS!) 1599742094.0
Maybe there's some truth to one or both of those complaints. After all, this isn't the first time Killer Mike has come under fire for meeting with the other side. Back in 2018 the "Ooh La La" rapper filmed a segment with NRATV advocating for black gun ownership as a defense against racist violence.
Killer Mike later apologized and noted that his comments had been deceptively edited and deliberately posted to coincide with the March for Our Lives demonstration (despite having been filmed the week before). But what about this meeting with Brian Kemp? Does Killer Mike owe another apology to his political allies for meeting with "the enemy?"
Killer Mike And Joy Reid Go One-On-One | AM Joy | MSNBC youtu.be
First of all, it's important to note that Brian Kemp is, indeed, a bad guy. In 2018, while serving as Georgia's secretary of state, Kemp oversaw the gubernatorial election in which he was competing against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Is it fair to attribute the improper purging of hundreds of thousands of Georgians from the states voter rolls ahead of the election to his desire to win? Absolutely.
Kemp chose not to recuse himself in order to avoid the appearance of corruption and deliberate voter suppression. As a result, he must take ownership for the misconduct that likely led to his narrow victory over Abrams. Everyone saying that he stole that election is right to call him out—whatever his claims of innocence. It's very possible that Stacey Abrams should be the governor right now. But she's not.
In addition, Kemp has badly mishandled Georgia's pandemic response and has done his best to undermine abortion rights in his state. But does any of that mean he's not in power?
When Kemp's victory was certified by Georgia's top election official, that "legitimized" him in a way that no photo op ever could. That legitimized his power over Killer Mike's community—the power to hurt and also the power to listen to activists like Killer Mike and actually help.
If we believe in speaking truth to power, doesn't that mean getting into the rooms where power lives? Doesn't progress require more than having some good ideas?
Well my 86 yr old Aunt who actually risked her life in B Ham and Selma was proud and called me courageous. Umma le… https://t.co/EnGoPjttmy— Killer Mike (@Killer Mike) 1599745100.0
As Killer Mike himself has said, "only time will tell" whether Governor Kemp will take on board any of what they discussed about how to improve the lives of Georgia's Black citizens with improved access to education and government contracts. But Killer Mike did what he could to push in that direction, and did not go out of his way to make Brian Kemp look good in the process.
Yes, he posed for some pictures, but he kept an appropriate amount of social distance, wore a shirt laying out the steps of political activism ("Plot, Plan, Strategize, Organize, Mobilize"), and his familiar smile was missing from his face. In its place was a look of stoic conviction. He wants to believe that Governor Kemp might take these issues seriously—even if hope is hard to come by.
Some of my issues: “Blacks In Ga” having more than 2% of state contracts while making up 35% of the state. Black m… https://t.co/D10ZP1y12Y— Killer Mike (@Killer Mike) 1599744240.0
As is often the case in this country, a figure from the political left can never do anything right. When they stand firm on policy issues, they are said to be impractical and uncompromising and kept away from the Democratic establishment that makes deals with the other side. Then, when a leftist figure sits down with the other side, they're treated as a traitor to the Democratic establishment.
There is no winning in this system for someone with Killer Mike's politics. That's why he has to keep fighting.
Ed Markey Is Making Boomers Cool Again
Ed Marky is a real one.
Massachusetts senator Ed Markey might look like your average outdated boomer, but make no mistake—Markey is a legend.
Markey may be 74 years old, but he's been fighting the good fight for a long time, serving as one of the most progressive members of Congress for over four decades. He co-sponsored the Green New Deal alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernies Sanders, strongly advocates for single-payer healthcare, and believes in preserving an open Internet. In short, this dude is the real deal.
But let's face it: Leftists generally skew younger; and as such, we tend to gravitate towards other younger people who share the same progressive ideals and sensibilities that we do. You know: Eat the rich, save the world.
Enter Markey's primary challenger in the battle for Senate: 39-year-old Joe Kennedy, the grandnephew of President John F. Kennedy, with a net worth upwards of 43 million dollars. Wait, what? When we said we wanted younger progressives in congress, we weren't really talking about privileged failsons.
In fairness to Kennedy, his stated policies are actually pretty progressive and he also supports the Green New Deal. At the same time, it's baffling why he would choose to run against Markey when Markey is already one of the most respected, proven progressive voices in the Senate. As such, Markey has picked up endorsements from fellow big-name progressives like AOC, more moderate progressives like Elizabeth Warren, and major progressive organizations like Sunrise Movement.
Let’s GO! Massachusetts, we need to turn this into VOTES. Reasons to vote for Ed Markey: 1. He is one of the stro… https://t.co/w0GxPJ8vwz— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1597269824.0
But age is a big deal for a lot of voters, and in a race between a 39-year-old Kennedy heir and a 74-year-old incumbent, it didn't come as a huge surprise that Kennedy boasted an early double-digit lead.
Except here's the thing: Markey isn't just some boomer. He's an old Boston dad-style boomer, and oh man, this guy can dish it out.
See, Joe Kennedy, in spite of all of his supposedly progressive values, has a good deal of Super PAC money in his corner. That money is largely being used to air a constant stream of attack ads against Markey, and as it turns out, the Super PAC also happens to be run by Joe Kennedy's twin brother, Matthew Kennedy, and potentially funded by his father, Joseph P. Kennedy II.
Markey uses this connection to—there's really no better way to put this—spank the sh!t out of Joe Kennedy in the middle of a debate.
Ed Markey is dad shaming, and I'm here for it https://t.co/KuSQzbTk6k— David Sirota (@David Sirota) 1597366179.0
"My question is this: Is your father funding that Super PAC that is attacking me right now?" asks Markey.
"No clue. No idea," replies Kennedy.
"I'm sure your father's watching right now," says Markey. "Tell your father right now that you don't want money to go into a Super PAC that runs negative ads. Just tell your twin brother and tell your father you don't want any money to be spent on negative ads in Massachusetts in 2020 in the era of Donald Trump."
"I've said that multiple times," stammers Kennedy. Markey just keeps going.
"Have you told your father that? Have you said it to your father?" he asks again and again.
Each utterance of "father" might as well be a dagger in Joe Kennedy's heart, as we watch Markey eviscerate his campaign in real-time.
Markey comes off looking like a warrior, and Kennedy a little boy.
And then, shortly after, Markey delivered a death-blow in the form of, quite possibly, one of the best campaign videos ever made.
When the government abandons its people, it’s up to us to rise up and make a revolution. We’re fighting for dignity… https://t.co/xI4EGmAScs— Ed Markey (@Ed Markey) 1597345307.0
Ed Markey, playing a slowed down version of the same Nine Inch Nails "34 Ghosts" sample used in "Old Town Road," drums up John F. Kennedy's most famous words: "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country."
Markey re-contextualizes this sentiment within the era of Trump's administration: "We asked what we could do for our country, they looked for what they could take. But there's a truth written in every history book. If you break the sacred contract, the people make a revolution." Cut to mass protests for Black Lives Matter and the American people demanding a "new deal."
Next, Markey plays old footage of his younger Congressional campaigns—pro-unions, freezing the arms race, and recently, backing the Green New Deal. He's indisputably a man of the people in opposition to the ruling class.
Then comes the clincher: "We asked what we could do for our country. We went out. We did it. With all due respect, it's time to start asking what your country can do for you."
Yes, in a race against a privileged, multi-millionaire Kennedy heir, Markey used JFK's legacy to empower the working class against jingoistic imperialism. Bravo.
Well, Gen Z took notice. Ed Markey is a true, bona fide cool boomer.
Markey's Senate re-election prospects have shifted dramatically since the start of the race. He now boasts a double-digit lead over Kennedy, with vast majority support amongst younger voters and an entire meme campaign behind him. One Esquire article said that he was "Closing the Massachusetts Senate Race Like F*cking Secretariat."
Ed Markey has sneaker game.
can we all take a moment to appreciate Ed Markey's sneaker game? https://t.co/Rv3ijnbIpH— keyvan (کیوان) (@keyvan (کیوان)) 1597350541.0
Ed Markey has girls Tik Tok dancing for him.
learned a new tik tok dance anyway if you’re in massachusetts vote for ed markey september 1st https://t.co/BD794jxz17— ed markey reply girl (@ed markey reply girl) 1597356401.0
Ed Markey has hot girl energy.
me arriving to vote for ed markey with my different identities, hot girls vote for ed markey https://t.co/6JCBIUCSTE— Yéné (@Yéné) 1597177456.0
Ed Markey even has some moms certified simping for him.
My mom, certified simp for Ed Markey https://t.co/9YofKikMLn— Sam (@Sam) 1597374993.0
So, yeah, you could say that Ed Markey is proving that even boomers can be pretty cool. Don't let his efforts go to waste. If you're a boomer in Massachusetts, you can be cool, too.
Why Was New York's Presidential Primary Really Canceled?
The coronavirus pandemic provides cover for crass political maneuvering.
April 28th was the original date for New York State's primary election.
Last month Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that it would be postponed until June 23rd, but on Monday the state's Board of Elections removed Bernie Sanders from the ballot, effectively cancelling the presidential primary for New York voters.
Sanders had previously suspended his campaign but was staying on the ballot in remaining elections in order to increase his delegate count and his leverage in shaping the party's platform at the Democratic National Convention this summer. A similar strategy in 2016 helped Sanders to reduce the sway of unelected superdelegates on the party's nominating process. Unfortunately for voters who wanted to support that strategy, a state law signed earlier this year allowed the board to remove Sanders from the ballot.
The official reasoning is that the election process would undermine the state's efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit New York City harder than anywhere else in the country. Given the new infections that resulted from Wisconsin's primary election on April 7th, no one can blame officials for being concerned, but many had assumed that the state would simply shift to an exclusively mail-in ballot process.
Both of these rallies happened in New York City and now none of these people will get to vote in the primary, mysel… https://t.co/SIf3p8Kv82— Carlo (@Carlo) 1588011358.0
A charitable interpretation would say that there wasn't enough time to coordinate such a large-scale task, but that's not the whole picture. Whatever the logistical challenges of providing safe voting access to the all of New York's voters, state officials have made it clear that this move also served to prevent an embarrassing result for their preferred candidate and to defend the party orthodoxy against the demands of the country's young progressive movement.
"What the Sanders campaign wanted is essentially a beauty contest that, given the situation with the public health emergency, seems to be unnecessary and, indeed, frivolous."
That was what Co-Chair Doug Kellner said during a live stream announcing the board's decision. It's unclear what he might have meant by the "beauty contest" comparison, though perhaps it was a reference to the fact that the candidate he prefers looks really bad right now. With an increasingly credible accusation of sexual assault leading the trending hashtags #DropOutBiden and #BidenDropOut on Twitter in recent days, establishment insiders who favor Joe Biden's candidacy have a vested interest in treating the nomination like it's already decided. Kellner voiced that sentiment bluntly, saying, "I think it's time for us to recognize that the presidential contest is over,"
Breaking: @CNN covers Tara Reade’s accusations against @JoeBiden His campaign is over. What is the response from… https://t.co/ZHMFjjuJ8M— Habiba Choudhury (@Habiba Choudhury) 1587842002.0
But it's not over. It's very rare for a candidate to have clinched the nomination this early in the process. Joe Biden could easily make up a face-saving excuse to drop out and make way for a candidate without his baggage. He is currently several hundred pledged delegates short of a majority, with nearly half the states still waiting to vote—Ohio's mail-in primary is taking place today. But even assuming that he stays in the race, the final delegate count remains a key way to shape the policy conversation at the convention. While Biden has a distinct lead over Sanders—to the point where even a major scandal like the Tara Reade allegations is unlikely to change the outcome—holding the election in some form would have allowed for New York's voter's to be heard.
As senior Sanders campaign advisor Jeff Weaver put it, "While we understood that we did not have the votes to win the Democratic nomination our campaign was suspended, not ended, because people in every state should have the right to express their preference. What the Board of Elections is ignoring is that the primary process not only leads to a nominee but also the selection of delegates which helps determine the platform and rules of the Democratic Party,"
New York, with its young, left-leaning electorate, represented Bernie Sanders' best remaining chance of adding to his delegate count. Now the Board of Election has undermined that chance and ensured that New Yorkers won't get a say at all. With a critical election coming up in November, and the future of our nation resting on our ability to oust Donald Trump, they found a surefire way to reinforce young voters' sense of distrust and dissatisfaction with the Democratic party establishment.
Why Is Bernie Sanders Endorsing Joe Biden—While Staying on the Ballot?
The senator from Vermont is fully behind Joe Biden's candidacy, but that doesn't mean he's abandoned his own agenda.
Joe Biden is a deeply flawed candidate—it would be pointless to deny it.
His unwillingness to embrace increasingly popular progressive policies has made him an unappealing option for younger voters who have more or less shunned him in every primary so far, while his legislative and personal history have the potential to put him in a defensive position as we enter the general election.
He is perhaps correctly viewed as the candidate that the Democratic party defaulted to after a contentious primary season failed to produce the centrist frontrunner that party insiders and donors were hoping for. He is the concept of "anyone-but-Trump" embodied in a hollow, flavorless candidacy who is nonetheless plagued by exactly the kind of scandals that would otherwise make Trump vulnerable to criticism.
While he has secured the Democratic nomination for himself on the basis of an argument for his "electability," many critics have called into question whether he actually meets that standard. But one thing is certain: If Joe Biden is going to beat Donald Trump in November, it won't be without a lot of help from the young progressive movement in this country. That's where Bernie Sanders comes into the play.
Watch Bernie Sanders endorse Joe Biden www.youtube.com
On Monday the senator from Vermont and former front runner for the Democratic nomination began the long arduous process of convincing progressive voters and activists to rally around a candidate that they find fundamentally dissatisfying. After suspending his campaign last Wednesday, Sanders came out with a statement calling on his supporters to back Biden in order to "defeat somebody who I believe ... is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country."
It would be disingenuous for Sanders' endorsement to focus on Biden himself—whose approach to politics Sanders has thoroughly criticized both specifically and in the abstract—but it's far a more important message than claiming, once again, that Biden is his good friend. Sanders is addressing the significant and terrifying threat that our country faces in the form of Donald Trump. He's a man who called a pandemic a hoax when swift action could have saved lives, then used it as an opportunity to reward his loyalists at the expense of the public health, all while promoting dubious cures, undermining important regulation, forcing states into expensive bidding wars, and inciting dangerous xenophobia. He is, in short, a reckless, self-aggrandizing, would-be fascist.
In the three years that Donald Trump has held power, he has made tremendous strides in consolidating power for his party, America's economic elites, and himself. If he manages to get reelected, the problem is going to get worse. Whatever you think of Joe Biden, it's important to acknowledge how much better he would be for this country. It's important for the progressive movement in America to (however grudgingly) put their full force behind Joe Biden and get out the Democratic vote—particularly in swing states. While Biden's VP pick (promising rumors suggest Elizabeth Warren) has a lot of potential to help in that process, Bernie Sanders' endorsement is an important first step. So why is Bernie Sanders staying on the ballot in upcoming races?
The answer is that Bernie Sanders still represents a huge coalition of Democratic voters, and he wants to be able to represent their interests at this year's democratic convention. If he is able to secure a large number of delegates for himself, that will hopefully give him the sway he needs to push the party platform to the left on important issues like Medicare for All and student debt relief.
So while Bernie's endorsement is crucial for inspiring unity in November, voters in states like New York, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania will still have the opportunity to voice their preference for Sanders' policies.
Our Vermont Savior: Bernie Sanders Ended His Presidential Bid, but His Impact Will Persist
Bernie Sanders is no longer running for president, but he had an indelible impact on American politics.
Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday, April 8th. The news broke at around 11AM ET, and Sanders addressed his supporters in a live-streamed press conference starting at 11:45.
Standing inside his home, flanked by framed photos of bucolic houses, the Brooklyn-born Vermont senator thanked his supporters—specifically mentioning his campaign staff, all the people who called and texted for him, and all the artists and writers who did their best to promote his unprecedented campaign for president.
"The greatest obstacle to social change is the corporate and political establishment," he told the audience as comments flickered down the side of the screen—a Trump 2020 troll, then a Biden supporter, then a disappointed fan calling for him to re-enter.
Sanders, broadcasting from Burlington, Vermont seemed calm, yet focused. He referenced the Nelson Mandela quote, "It always seems impossible until it's done." He reminded his followers that while Medicare for All was a fringe idea in 2016, now multiple democratic candidates supported it in the presidential race, and now progressive ideals have pervaded mainstream American consciousness.
What Bernie Sanders created was a clearing, an opening for ideas that had fallen out of fashion, and for expanding… https://t.co/jJii3DfYo5— Charles P. Pierce (@Charles P. Pierce) 1586376367.0
"Few would deny...our movement has won the ideological struggle," he said. "A majority of the American people now understand that we must raise the minimum wage...that we must guarantee healthcare as a right...that we must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels...and that higher education must be available to all, regardless of income."
Bernie was always a policy candidate, fixated on the issues at hand, clearly tormented by the idea that people are still sleeping on the streets in the richest nation in the world. The rest of the image surrounding him—the toxic masculinity, the Internet trolls—may have been true in part, and perhaps that played a role in his campaign's demise, but the truth is that Bernie's campaign failed for the same reason it won the support of millions of young people and working class people across the country: It was always about supporting and uplifting the working class.
"A member of Congress for nearly 30 years, Mr. Sanders has been bitingly frank about the way that money strangles American democracy," wrote Elizabeth Bruenig in a rare pro-Bernie New York Times op-ed, published conveniently after Sanders dropped out. "Rich individuals with a vested interest in defanging egalitarian politics donate to campaigns, PACs, universities and think tanks in hopes of purchasing lawmakers' loyalties and rigging the legislative process in their favor. These oligarchs — the Koch brothers, the Mercers and Michael Bloomberg, among others — exert control over our politics that far exceeds the one vote accorded to each citizen."
In a nation that worships wealth above all else, and that's truly led by massive corporations, perhaps this was a doomed endeavor. Sanders certainly invoked ire across political parties; and sometimes, Bernie supporters did exhibit somewhat cult-like behavior—though from personal experience, this cult mostly consisted people who were deeply inspired and committed to healing American society.
For some, that Sanders dropped out in the midst of the coronavirus crisis only adds insult to injury. As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote in the brilliant New Yorker article "Reality Has Endorsed Bernie Sanders"—published a week before he dropped out—coronavirus is starkly illuminating the validity of points that Bernie has been making all along. "The class-driven hierarchy of our society will encourage the spread of this virus unless dramatic and previously unthinkable solutions are immediately put on the table," Taylor writes. "As Sanders has counseled, we must think in unprecedented ways… The Sanders campaign...has shown public appetite, even desire, for vast spending and new programs. These desires did not translate into votes because they seemed like a risky endeavor when the consequence was four more years of Trump. But the mushrooming crisis of COVID-19 is changing the calculus. As federal officials announce new trillion-dollar aid packages daily, we can never go back to banal discussions of 'How will we pay for it?' How can we not?"
Though Bernie's acquiescence to Joe Biden is a devastating loss for many of his supporters, particularly those who were never able to even cast a vote for him, in many ways Sanders' decision to drop out was a logical and even ethical choice. As Sanders himself stated in the broadcast, there was no clear path to his election—a crushing Biden victory on Super Tuesday made that clear—and in addition, holding primary elections during the coronavirus crisis poses its own unique health dangers and inevitably would distort the results.
Now, for all intents and purposes, Biden is the Democratic nominee. Though he fell short of actually endorsing Biden, Bernie called the former vice president a "very decent man" and promised to do his best to promote his progressive ideals in the forthcoming campaign.
The road ahead will be long and difficult, regardless of who wins this November. But our Vermont savior, who symbolized such a potent and promising new world, at the very least laid down some seeds. We may not see them this season, but maybe in future years, the ideas Bernie Sanders planted will be able to grow.
"Now is a moment to remake our society anew," Taylor writes. To say Bernie made an indelible impact on American politics is an understatement. In a critical and volatile moment, he inspired a new wave of young progressives to organize, and made millions of voters question the status quo. He prioritized morality in his campaign in an era that seems entirely devoid of it—not morality in terms of tolerance that disguises inaction, but morality defined by what we truly owe to each other.
These ideas will not die out after Sanders exits the primary. If anything, they'll become more local, more grassroots, more rooted in people power. After all, mainstream political parties in America have never been at the forefront of radical people-focused action. That kind of change will always have to come from the actions of everyday folks, organizing and fighting tirelessly for people they don't know.
Joe Biden Has Officially Been Accused of Sexual Assault
Time's Up, one of the largest organizations fighting against sexual assault, says they can't help the alleged victim.
Content warning: the following article contains a brief depiction of sexual assault.
For the entirety of his run in the 2020 presidential race (and much of his decades-long career), Joe Biden hasn't had the best track record regarding his treatment of women.
The former vice president, who's earned a shocking lead in the Democratic primaries thus far, has racked up multiple accusations from women who say he was inappropriate towards them. Many of these recounts involve a disregard for personal space, improper comments about appearance, and even some condescending finger-wagging, but none of them explicitly depicted a sexual assault. Until now.
Tara Reade didn't initially go public with her sexual assault story about Joe Biden when it allegedly occurred in 1993. A staff assistant of Biden's at the time, Reade told her brother and close friend but otherwise kept her story silent. But, in an episode recently aired of Katie Halper's podcast, Reade has finally let her story out in the world.
Reade says that she was called to bring a gym bag to Biden, who was Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, near the Capitol. Nobody else was around. "We were alone, and it was the strangest thing," Reade said. "There was no exchange, really. He just had me up against the wall." In what seemed like one swift motion, she added, Biden had his hands under her clothes and then began penetrating her digitally. "I pulled back, and he said, 'Come on, man, I heard you liked me'...It's like he implied that I had done this."
Reade tried to come forward with her story in April 2019, but she was halted after her claims of sexual harassment got her doxxed and smeared as a Russian agent. In January of this year, Reade tried again telling her story to Time's Up, the organization that rose as Hollywood's initial #MeToo movement unfolded. However, as Ryan Grim reports in The Intercept, Time's Up couldn't provide assistance "because Biden was a candidate for federal office, and assisting a case against him, Time's Up said, could jeopardize the organization's nonprofit status."
Reade told Grim she was conflicted about coming forward with her sexual assault allegation as the 2020 election carried on because she feared she'd be "help[ing] Trump" win over Biden. But, if our two presidential front-runners are both men accused of sexual assault, and one of the largest organizations intended to help survivors can't help at all, there's a much larger issue than simply defeating Trump: It's how we handle assault at the hands of the world's most powerful men.