THE ATLANTIC – Politics | Politics & Government

Of all the titans of social media, Google CEO Sundar Pichai tried to keep the groveling to a minimum after Donald Trump won last year. He did not, like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, go on podcasts to praise the benefits of “masculine energy” or hire the new president’s close friend, the Ultimate Fighting Championship boss Dana White, to his board of directors. He did not, like the X owner Elon Musk, go to work in the White House or publicly declare his straight-man “love” for Trump. Unlike TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Pichai never pushed a notification to all app users (with an exclamation point!) thanking Trump for his efforts.There was instead a brief visit to Mar-a-Lago, the requisite $1 million Google donation to Trump’s inaugural fund, and the stoic appearance as a background prop during the ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. Even Pichai’s statement that day read dutiful… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

The so-called moderate Republicans promised they would not slash Medicaid. Conservatives vowed not to explode the national debt. Party leaders insisted that they would not lump a jumble of unrelated policies into a single enormous piece of legislation and rush that bill through Congress before any reasonable person had time to read it.But President Donald Trump wanted his “big, beautiful bill” enacted in time to sign it with a celebratory flourish on America’s birthday. And so nearly all GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate, setting aside these and many other pledges, principles, and policy demands, did what the president desired.The legislation that cleared the Senate and House this week is many things, and it does fulfill some core promises that Trump made as a candidate: The measure makes permanent his first-term tax cuts (and reduces some taxes even further), injects billions in new spending for immigration enforcement and national… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

Of all the elements of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, perhaps none is as obviously self-defeating as getting rid of tax credits for clean energy. That decision will not simply set back the fight against climate change. Congressional Republicans could also be setting America up for the worst energy-affordability crisis since the 1970s. Unlike then, this time we’ll have imposed it on ourselves.Electricity demand in the United States is rising faster than it has in at least two decades. AI data centers are using huge amounts of power to train new models. More Americans are plugging their electric cars and hybrids into the grid. Rising temperatures mean more air-conditioning use. Failure to meet this rising demand with adequate supply results in higher prices. From 2000 to 2022, U.S. electricity prices rose by an average of about 2.8 percent a year; since 2022, they have risen by 13 percent annually.Fortunately,… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

To hear Tucker Carlson tell it, an American attack on Iran wasn’t just likely to precipitate World War III. It would do something worse: destroy Donald Trump’s presidency. “A strike on the Iranian nuclear sites will almost certainly result in thousands of American deaths at bases throughout the Middle East, and cost the United States tens of billions of dollars,” the conservative commentator wrote on X on March 17. “Trump ran for president as a peace candidate,” Carlson added on June 4. “It’s why he won. A war with Iran would amount to a profound betrayal of his supporters. It would end his presidency.”“We can’t do this again, we’ll tear the country apart,” declared Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and 2016-campaign CEO, when asked on June 18 about potential war with Iran. “Worth noting how rare this crossover actually is,” observed Curt Mills, the anti-war executive director of The… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket CastsRead Jeffrey Goldberg’s related article about Ken Casey. There are more and less reckless ways for a musician to meddle in politics. The safer ways are to drop an endorsement in an interview (Taylor Swift for Joe Biden), make a supportive video (Beyoncé for Barack Obama), maybe even make a video with the candidate himself (Cardi B. and Bernie Sanders). Recently, Ken Casey, the front man for the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, chose a way that could have started a fist fight. The band has been around for three decades and has its working-class roots in Quincy, Massachusetts. In recent years, Casey has noticed the degree to which his largely white, male, working-class fan base has drifted to the MAGA right. Casey, meanwhile, did not. At concerts, the band often dedicates its song “First Class Loser”… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.