- Via Politico: Trump has sat for only 12 ‘daily’ intelligence briefings since taking office.
- Via NBC News: Ye song glorifying Hitler gets millions of views on X while other platforms struggle to remove it.
- Via The Daily Princetonian: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 ‘plagiarized’ small portions of his senior thesis, experts say. But how serious is it?. TBH, my initial read is that this was just him being sloppy and lazy, on balance.
- Via CNN: First on CNN: Dangerously high levels of arsenic and cadmium found in store-bought rice, report finds. I am sure the newly established federal approach to food safety will be right on fixing this.
- Via NBC News: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she won’t run for U.S. Senate. On the one hand, I am glad there is no chance she ends up in the Senate. On the other hand, there was a more than decent chance she would have lost, and we would have been rid of her in government for at least a moment.
- Via the AJC: Pentagon directs military to pull library books that address diversity, anti-racism, gender issues.
According to the memo, a temporary Academic Libraries Committee set up by the department will provide information on the review and decisions about the books. That panel provided a list of search terms to use in the initial identification of the books to be pulled and reviewed.
The search terms include: affirmative action, anti-racism, critical race theory, discrimination, diversity, gender dysphoria, gender identity and transition, transgender, transsexual and white privilege.
You know what good, well-thought-out policy looks like? Ctrl-F, that’s what.
The Naval Academy’s purge led to the removal of books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” based on the list of 381 books that have been taken out of its library.
In addition to Angelou’s award-winning book, the list includes “Memorializing the Holocaust,” which deals with Holocaust memorials; “Half American,” about African Americans in World War II; “A Respectable Woman,” about the public roles of African American women in 19th century New York; and “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” about the 2012 shooting of the Black 17-year-old boy in Florida that raised questions about racial profiling.
All about “merit,” indeed.
- Via NPR: Librarian of Congress firing is latest move in upheaval of U.S. cultural institutions. Funny how this administration just so happens to be finding a bunch of people of color to fire from positions of authority.
Hayden was the first woman and the first African American to hold the post. She was also the first person in the job to be term-limited. Her time was set to expire next year.
- Via CBS News: Trump fires director of U.S. Copyright Office, sources say. The fired director (a female) was appointed by the aforementioned Hayden. And Perlmutter issued a report that Elon Musk was unhappy about. A coincidence, I’m sure.
The firing of Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter came after Perlmutter and her office earlier this week issued part three of a lengthy report about artificial intelligence and expressed some concerns and questions about the usage of copyrighted materials by AI technology.
“It is an open question, however, how much data an AI developer needs, and the marginal effect of more data on a model’s capabilities,” the report read. “Not everyone agrees that further increases in data and test performance will necessarily lead to continued real world improvements in utility.”
- Via the AP: ‘Don’t get in my way,’ the new acting head of federal disaster agency warns in call with staff. Note the merit hire (emphasis mine).
Richardson has been the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction. He does not appear to have any experience in managing natural disasters, but in an early morning call with the entire agency staff he said that the agency would stick to its mission and said he’d be the one interpreting any guidance from President Donald Trump.
