Republicans have a plan to add trillions to the national debt
M UCH AS he may wish to, Donald Trump cannot govern through imperial decree alone. Congress is drafting legislation to remake the tax system and alter federal spending—something only it can do. On May 12th Republicans unveiled their new plan. Unfortunately it is a mess.
Republicans want to save billions through Medicaid work requirements. Millions could lose coverage
He is just making them harder to fix
What to listen for in oral arguments over birthright citizenship
Replacements, in Greensboro, is an encyclopaedia of tableware
The rise and fall of the 'disparate impact' doctrine
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
12 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump signs three executive orders targeting ‘woke' AI models
Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a trio of executive orders that he vowed would turn the United States into an 'AI export powerhouse', including a directive targeting what the White House described as 'woke' artificial intelligence models. The anti-woke order is part of the administration's broader anti-diversity campaign that has also targeted federal agencies, academic institutions and the military. 'The American people do not want woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models, and neither do other countries,' Trump said during remarks at an AI summit in Washington on Wednesday. Trump also signed orders aimed at expediting federal permitting for datacentre infrastructure and promoting the export of American AI models. The executive actions coincide with the Trump administration's release of a broader, 24-page 'AI action plan' that seeks to expand the use of AI in the federal government as well as position the US as the global leader in artificial intelligence. 'Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age,' Trump told an audience of AI industry leaders, adding: 'We need US technology companies to be all-in for America. We want you to put America first.' The metrics of what make an AI model politically biased are extremely contentious and open to interpretation, however, and therefore may allow the administration to use the order to target companies at its own discretion. The action plan, titled 'Winning the Race', is a long-promised document that was announced shortly after Trump took office and repealed a Biden administration order on AI that mandated some safeguards and standards on the technology. It outlines the White House's vision for governing artificial intelligence in the US, vowing to speed up the development of the fast-growing technology by removing 'red tape and onerous regulation'. During his remarks, Trump also proposed a more nominal change. 'I can't stand it,' he said, referring to the use of the word 'artificial'. 'I don't even like the name, you know? I don't like anything that's artificial. So could we straighten that out, please? We should change the name. I actually mean that.' 'It's not artificial. It's genius,' he added. A second order Trump signed on Wednesday calls for deregulating AI development, increasing the building of datacentres and removing environmental protections that could hamper their construction. Datacentres that house the servers for AI models require immense amounts of water and energy to function, as well as produce greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental groups have warned about harmful increases to air and noise pollution as tech companies build more facilities, while a number of local communities have pushed back against their construction. In addition to easing permitting laws and emphasizing the need for more energy infrastructure, both measures that tech companies have lobbied for, Trump's order also frames the AI race as a contest for geopolitical dominance. China has invested billions into the manufacturing of AI chips and datacentres to become a competitor in the industry, while Chinese companies such as Deepseek have released AI models that rival Silicon Valley's output. While Trump's plan seeks to address fears of China as an AI superpower, the Trump administration's move against 'woke' AI echoes longstanding conservative grievances against tech companies, which Republicans have accused of possessing liberal biases and suppressing rightwing ideology. As generative AI has become more prominent in recent years, that criticism has shifted from concerns over internet search results or anti-misinformation policies into anger against AI chatbots and image generators. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion One of the biggest critics of perceived liberal bias in AI is Elon Musk, who has vowed to make his xAI company and its Grok chatbot 'anti-woke'. Although Musk and Donald Trump are still locked in a feud after their public falling out last month, Musk may stand to benefit from Trump's order given his emphasis on controlling AI's political outputs. Musk has consistently criticized AI models, including his own, for failing to generate what he sees as sufficiently conservative views. He has claimed that xAI has reworked Grok to eliminate liberal bias, and the chatbot has occasionally posted white supremacist and antisemitic content. In May, Grok affirmed white supremacist conspiracies that a 'white genocide' was taking place in South Africa and said it was 'instructed by my creators' to do so. Earlier this month, Grok also posted pro-Nazi ideology and rape fantasies while identifying itself as 'MechaHitler' until the company was forced to intervene. Despite Grok's promotion of Nazism, xAI was among several AI companies that the Department of Defense awarded with up to $200m contracts this month to develop tools for the government. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, all of which have their own proprietary AI models, were the other recipients. Conservatives have singled out incidents such as Google's Gemini image generator inaccurately producing racially diverse depictions of historical figures such as German second world war soldiers as proof of liberal bias. AI experts have meanwhile long warned about problems of racial and gender bias in the creation of artificial intelligence models, which are trained on content such as social media posts, news articles and other forms of media that may contain stereotypes or discriminatory material that gets incorporated into these tools. Researchers have found that these biases have persisted despite advancements in AI, with models often replicating existing social prejudices in their outputs. Conflict over biases in AI have also led to turmoil in the industry. In 2020, the co-lead of Google's 'ethical AI' team Timnit Gebru said she was fired after she expressed concerns of biases being built into the company's AI models and a broader lack of diversity efforts at the company. Google said she resigned.
The Guardian
12 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Labor lifts ban on US beef, saying new measures ‘effectively' manage biosecurity risks
Labor will lift restrictions on imports of US beef, easing tensions with the Trump administration as the federal government seeks relief from punishing US tariffs on steel and aluminium. The government confirmed on Thursday morning that the Department of Agriculture would allow the imports into Australia, saying the US now 'effectively' manages biosecurity risks in beef production. A ban on beef from cows raised and slaughtered in the US was lifted in 2019 but restrictions remained on beef from cattle raised in Canada and Mexico but slaughtered in the US. Changes to make protections more robust introduced in late 2024 and early 2025 allow for meat from those countries to be traced through supply chains to their source farm. The concession is expected to help pave the way for the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to argue the case to Donald Trump that Australia should be given exemptions from the US's 50% tariff on steel and aluminium, and a looming 200% tariff planned for pharmaceuticals. Sign up: AU Breaking News email The US president specifically cited Australia's restrictions on beef imports when he announced his 'Liberation Day' tariff regime. Australia faces a 10% baseline tariff on all products exported to the US. During the federal election campaign, Albanese said Australia would not change or compromise any biosecurity rules, 'full stop, exclamation mark'. Despite the comments, a concession on beef had been expected from Australia. The agriculture, fisheries and forestry minister, Julie Collins, said the government wanted fair and open trade, which significantly benefited the cattle industry. 'The US beef imports review has undergone a rigorous science and risk-based assessment over the past decade,' she said. 'The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the US effectively manage biosecurity risks. 'Australia stands for open and fair trade – our cattle industry has significantly benefited from this.' The new arrangements are due to come into place from 28 July, with Australian importers able to apply for permits to handle fresh beef products from the US, the largest buyer of Australian beef, ahead of China, in a $14bn market. The shadow finance minister, James Paterson, called for Albanese to explain the new arrangements. He said farmers needed reassurance there would be no risk to their businesses. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'The prime minister himself has said that we couldn't relax the restrictions on the importation of US beef because of serious biosecurity concerns,' Paterson told Sky News. 'So if the government has found some way of dealing with that issue, protecting our domestic agricultural industry from the introduction of foreign diseases and pests, then they should say so.' The Nationals frontbencher Bridget McKenzie warned against sacrificing farmers for 'deficiencies' in the government's handling of the US alliance. 'We need a biosecurity arrangement that's based on science,' she told Channel Nine. 'We would be concerned around, particularly the protocols on the slaughtering of beef out of Canada and Mexico, because we do not want to bring those diseases into our country and our farmers and our industry shouldn't be sacrificed because the PM can't get his act together on this relationship.' McKenzie said Nationals MPs 'will be very concerned if our $11bn beef export industry is sacrificed to actually make up for the deficiencies in the Anthony Albanese-United States diplomatic relationship.'
Spectator
18 minutes ago
- Spectator
Lefties on a Plane: my real-life horror movie
Trapped in the middle seat next to a Dublin businessman in the window seat, I was subjected to a monologue on the 'far right'. 'It's not Islamic extremism we need to be worried about,' he said. I wanted very badly to say it absolutely is Islamic extremism we need to be worried about, but I kept my mouth shut. If it had kicked off between us, the pilot might have decided to turn around and do an emergency landing. Snakes on a Plane was a silly movie, completely unrealistic. I have an idea for a much more convincing sequel about being trapped on an aircraft with a terrifying menace, and it's called Lefties on a Plane. This has happened to me twice, both times on budget airlines where the narrowness of the seat made it all the more horrifying. The Dublin businessman was a know-it-all who wanted to showcase his political knowledge. He leaned in and told me conspiratorially that the reason he knew so much was that he worked for the government. His firm did secret contracts to do with intelligence and security, he claimed. He ordered a drink and glugged it down. I let him blurt out everything he wanted to blurt, in case he turned out to be someone important, which I'm pretty sure he wasn't. I was so offended by what he was saying about ordinary working-class people that I wanted to ask the stewardess to change my seat, but the plane was packed. There was no threat from al Qaeda or Isis, he said. The threat was all from the far right, by which sweeping definition it turned out he simply meant people who were poor and ignored. 'We've had our eye on this for a long time. We saw it coming. After Brexit it all took off…' Here we go, I thought. It was a struggle for the next hour not to spark an incident and force the plane into an emergency landing. Ever since being trapped next to him, I've paid extra to book the window seat on Ryanair on the basis that I can slump against the window and pretend to go to sleep. The other day, flying from Gatwick to Cork, I was in this window seat when an Irish lady took the middle seat and began to read her book, indicating she would be no trouble. But then an English lady arrived in a flutter of fuss to take the aisle seat. She got settled in the way an upper-middle-class English person does on Ryanair, by making derisory comments about the unspeediness of the boarding and the lack of leg room, as though she had paid £500 for the ticket, not £50. The plane had not even begun taxiing when she started. She introduced herself to the Irish lady, the Irish lady politely asked if she was going on holiday, clutching the open book she was hoping to read, and the English lady said she had a second home in Ireland. Oh, this will be good, I thought. The Irish lady said that was nice, whereupon the English lady decided to talk at the poor Irish woman all the way to Cork. Donald Trump was awful, very volatile, always changing his mind. Who can the Democrats get in? The governor of Philadelphia, perhaps. People were destitute, living in tented communities. (Whether she meant in LA or Worthing was hard to tell.) She was appalled by the lack of action on debt and spending. Also, why didn't the M25 work? I heard myself muttering: 'Oh for goodness sake.' I'd have taken a python making its way down the aisle any day over this. As the trolley approached, I tried to order a drink by offering the refreshment credit I had been sent on my Ryanair app as we had been delayed. The stewardess apologised and said she didn't know how to do that and I said fine, don't worry. The stewardess went to move off, but the lady intervened. Speaking very loudly and slowly at me, she said: 'You need to present that to a shop or restaurant in the terminal!' Then she sat back and recommenced her monologue. 'I do a lot of birding,' she said. Please, I thought, can someone tell me what is wrong with the phrase 'bird-watching'? Did I miss that memo? Is 'watching' too invasive an upset of a word to the dignity of the bird? Does it impinge on the tweetie's civil rights? Birding. Oh please. If ever a word was invented by lefties in denial about reality, it's birding. She had plans all the way to Christmas and beyond. By the time she was detailing her social schedule for January I wanted to wrestle the emergency door off and jump out. I watched the Isle of Wight go past beneath me as she listed her opinions about every news item that day. Everything in the world was puzzling her. 'What I don't understand,' she said, 'is why does Trump look so good?' The Irish woman could not enlighten her. So she moved on. 'What I don't understand is, don't all these royals with cancer have the best private healthcare screening?' She was puzzled about everything, I decided, because no conspiracy theory was getting through to her. She was so far from having a risqué Google of a wacky blog that she had no ideas, not even wacky ones, to explain all the crazy stuff that's been happening. Once the obvious had been eliminated, she was stumped. The plane was wobbling down to land, but she didn't draw breath as it thumped on to the tarmac. As passengers filled the aisles to get off, she harrumphed: 'Nothing very speedy about this is there?' No, there's not meant to be. Speedy disembarkation isn't a thing, not unless you count being told to climb out on to the wing in an emergency which, on Ryanair, can be arranged, but that was the sort of recent news story that would have left her confused. 'What I don't understand,' she would have said, 'is why Ryanair is allowed to evacuate planes like that…' 'Well, we've sorted out the world,' she said, as she took up her bag and bid her new friend farewell. 'We could run things better than them. They should be asking us!' It could have been worse, I decided. It could have been me in the middle seat.
