#scottpelley — Public Fediverse posts

Wednesday Reads: A Mixed Bag of News

Good Afternoon!!

There’s lots of news today, so this post will be a mixed bag with stories on the Iran war, Trump’s boat strikes, last night’s primaries, the CBS/60 Minutes controversy, and more.

Trump’s war on Iran is getting stupider by the day. For several weeks now, Trump has been saying that a deal to end the war was just days away. A short time ago, he told Netanyahu not to respond to strikes by Iran in Israel. Netanyahu quickly proceeded to bomb Iran anyway. Then a U.S. helicopter went down in the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump responded even though it’s not clear that the helicopter was deliberately shot down. It may have just collided with a Iranian drone.

BBC: US strikes Iran in response to downing of military helicopter.

The US says it has carried out a series of strikes on Iranian military and surveillance sites in response to the downing of an American helicopter in the Gulf.

Air defence systems, ground control stations and radar sites were targeted near the Strait of Hormuz, the US military Central Command (Centcom) said.

In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched strikes on 21 targets at US bases in the region, one in Bahrain and the other in Jordan, while Kuwait’s army said it was also intercepting an attack.

Boeing AH-64 Apache

The US has described its strikes as “a proportional response” for the Apache helicopter downing on Monday, while the IRGC described the attacks as “vicious”.

US President Donald Trump had earlier accused Iran of shooting down the helicopter and said the US “must, of necessity” respond. The two crew members survived and were rescued by an American sea drone.

According to US officials, Iran used a drone to launch the attack on the helicopter. But it is not clear whether the Iranian drone had deliberately attacked, an unnamed US official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. The semi-official Mehr News Agency reported that Iran had not claimed responsibility for the downed aircraft.

So now the war is back on, after months of Trump promising the end was near. This morning, Trump threatened Iran with more attacks.

BBC: Trump and Iran trade new threats after strikes exchanged.

US President Donald Trump and Iran’s senior officials have traded new threats of further action, after the two sides exchanged strikes.

Trump said Tehran had taken “too long to negotiate a deal” and would now “have to pay the price”, without giving specific details. He said Iran had been “completely defeated” and was “all talk and no action”.

It came after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi earlier warned his country would “leave no attack or threat unanswered”, saying that the US had suffered “defeats on the battlefield”.

The US said it struck Iranian sites on Tuesday in response to the downing of a US army helicopter in the Gulf. Iran then launched strikes at US bases in the region.

Iranian defence systems, ground control stations and radar sites were targeted near the Strait of Hormuz, the US military Central Command (Centcom) said.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched strikes on 21 targets at US bases in the region, one in Bahrain and the other in Jordan, while Kuwait’s army said it was also intercepting an attack.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said: “Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore – They have been completely defeated.”

He added: “They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”

Trump’s comments were in contrast to Tuesday, when he told journalists the US and Iran were “in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal”.

Also on Wednesday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqai accused the US of “damaging this diplomatic process through the contradictory messages it sends, its repeated shifts in positions and demands, and, worst of all, through repeated violations of the ceasefire”.

I have to agree with Iran here. Trump behaves like a 6-year old child–issuing threats while claiming an agreement is close–and using posts on Truth Social to communicate threats that he probably hasn’t discussed with any of his military advisers. And where are the negotiators anyway? Jared Kushner was a the New York Knicks game on Monday night. All this because Trump cancelled Obama’s Iran agreement.

More military news: remember the boat strikes that Trump and Hegseth were so proud of? Nick Turse has a shocking story on those at The Intercept: Top Pentagon Official Admits Boat Strike May Have Killed Victims of Human Trafficking.

Nine months into the Trump administration’s deadly campaign against so-called drug boats, there is a pattern to the strikes. And a glaring anomaly.

The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives. In only one strike did the death toll of a single boat reach double digits: the first attack on September 2, 2025.

Since then, experts, lawmakers, and even military officials behind the scenes have been asking a simple but haunting question: Why was that boat packed with 11 people?

“Why would 11 people be on board a boat carrying drugs?” said a government source who attended a classified briefing where the large crew on the first boat attacked was discussed. “It’s a high risk for the cartels. That always stood out.”

One top military officer provided a plausible explanation, behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, The Intercept has learned. His admission raises even more questions about a strike that a high-ranking Pentagon official called a criminal attack on civilians and resulted in a firestorm in Congress last year.

In the briefing, the high-ranking officer on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff stated that some of the people killed by the U.S. military may have been the victims of human trafficking.

Read all the details at The Intercept.

Several states held primaries yesterday. The most watched ones were in Maine and California. In Maine, Graham Platner won the Democratic Senate primary and will face long-time Senator Susan Collins in November.

Sahil Kapur at NBC News: Maine voters set up a Senate showdown: Graham Platner versus Susan Collins.

It’s official: Republican Sen. Susan Collins will face Democrat Graham Platner this fall, NBC News projects, in what will be a marquee election in the fight for control of the Senate.

Collins and Platner both won their primaries Tuesday in a predictable result. Collins, first elected to the Senate in 1996, ran unopposed for renomination as she seeks a sixth six-year term.

And Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer running in his first political race, faced little Democratic competition as two-term Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign after she failed to gain traction. She still appeared on the primary ballot.

Graham Platner and Susan Collins

While the primary results were foreseeable, what happens next is anything but. The Senate election has already become a battleground over the future of the Democratic Party and what voters think is most important, as Platner faces numerous controversies about his past conduct.

And that’s before the real campaigning between the resilient incumbent and the brash outsider has even kicked off, though Platner started the general election with a series of stinging attacks on Collins at a victory speech in Blue Hill, Maine. The Democrat cast her as the “deciding vote” on Republican priorities including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation

“Susan Collins may have started her career decades ago in Washington with good intentions, but she has become just as spineless and corrupt as the establishment she now serves,” Platner said. “She got elected promising to protect Roe versus Wade, only to turn around and put on a justice, but a justice of Supreme Court who overturned it. She lied to us.”

In a statement, Collins’ campaign said, “Mainers aren’t looking for bitter campaigns, grand promises, or angry speeches riddled with lies. They’re looking for results. They want affordable health care, safe communities, good-paying jobs, strong schools, and someone who will show up and do the work.”

In California, the race for governor is now set. Laurel Rosenhall at The New York Times: Hilton Beats Steyer to Win Second Spot in California Governor Race.

Steve Hilton, a Republican former Fox News host who was endorsed by President Trump, has secured the second spot in the November general election for California governor, The Associated Press determined on Tuesday. He will face Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who served in the Biden administration.

The candidates survived an unprecedented barrage of spending for a California governor’s race. Tom Steyer, a billionaire who ran as a progressive Democrat, devoted more than $216 million of his personal fortune toward his primary campaign, finishing third.

Under California rules, the top two finishers in the primary election, regardless of party, advance to the general election. There had been a chance that Mr. Steyer would face Mr. Becerra in an intraparty battle in November, but Tuesday’s outcome instead sets up a lopsided contest in a state where a Republican has not won the governor’s office in two decades.

The winner will replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run again because of term limits and is considered a potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2028.

This sets up a likely win for Democrats, since California is one of the bluest states in the country.

Mr. Hilton’s top-two finish seems to run counter to Mr. Trump’s claims in recent days that California elections are “rigged” to benefit Democrats. Mr. Hilton said on Tuesday that he takes the concern seriously, but that he has had lawyers monitoring the voting process and they have not seen signs of fraud.

Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton

The November matchup is one that Mr. Becerra and many Democrats had hoped for, knowing that Mr. Hilton was not just a Republican, but one endorsed by Mr. Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in California.

Days before the election, Mr. Becerra released an ad that highlighted the differences between him and Mr. Hilton, whom the ad called “Trump’s favorite.” While the ad ostensibly bolstered Mr. Becerra’s anti-Trump credentials, it also seemed designed to encourage Republicans to coalesce behind Mr. Hilton and give him enough support to finish second and prevent Mr. Steyer from reaching the general election.

In South Carolina, Trump foe Nancy Mace lost in the primary for governor. Alec Hernandez at Politico: Nancy Mace loses GOP primary for South Carolina governor.

Republican firebrand Rep. Nancy Mace lost her GOP primary for South Carolina governor, potentially ending her rollercoaster political career.

Mace failed to advance to a runoff Tuesday. She was considered a top contender in the race until a series of scandals cut into her in-state support and she bucked President Donald Trump to help release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Trump’s preferred candidate, South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, and Attorney General Alan Wilson advanced to a runoff June 23.

The Palmetto State primary was for months defined by Trump’s absence from the race, despite the six Republicans candidates vying for his attention and support. Trump only endorsed Evette in the final two weeks, touting her closeness with his ally and early backer, outgoing GOP Gov. Henry McMaster.

In an interview ahead of the primary, Mace acknowledged that she likely forfeited her chance at the president’s support after her role in releasing the Epstein files late last year. She nevertheless pushed ahead, even in the face of several million dollars of negative ads from her opponents.

It’s the latest victory for Trump on the heels of his success ousting Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Mace’s ally on the Epstein files, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), among other GOP defectors.

There’s more bad news on the economy. Steve Kopack and Allie Canal at NBC News: Inflation jumps to 4.2%, the highest since early 2023.

Inflation surged in May to the highest level since early 2023, as Iran war-related fuel costs worked their way through the broader economy.

Overall, the yearly inflation rate rose to 4.2% in May from a year ago, up 0.5% from April.

“Inflation remains the major economic pain point regardless of who has to absorb it,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at One Point BFG Wealth.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union said, “the frustration for many Americans is that so many of the basics are up in price right now — gas, food, electricity, and medical care are all clear pain points that are above 3% inflation.”

“This isn’t just ‘bad vibes’ about the economy,” she added.

Rising inflation comes as wage growth is falling.

For the second month in a row, inflation surpassed wage growth, which was tracking at 3.4% in the most recent jobs report. That pace has slowed since late last year, when average hourly earnings were growing consistently at nearly 4%.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced separately that real average weekly earnings decreased 0.2 % during May and 0.7% from a year ago.

That’s the biggest year-over-year decline in real earnings since February 2023, according to federal data.

“The index for energy rose 3.9 percent in May, after rising 3.8 percent in April and 10.9 percent in March,” BLS said. “The energy index accounted for over sixty percent” of the overall number’s rise, it added.

Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 2.9%, as expected. From the month before, it rose just 0.2%.

The disparity between the core inflation figure and the overall 4.2% rate was due largely to the impact of energy costs. According to BLS, energy accounted for more than 60% of the total increase in prices over the month.

And what does Trump think about this?

Q: Are you concerned about the latest inflation numbers that came out this morning?TRUMP: No, I love it. I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over — do you know we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil? You know who doesn't know? Iran until right now.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-10T16:08:03.927Z

And on gas prices:

Trump on gas prices: "If you notice, the price is not very high relatively speaking"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-09T12:27:29.354Z

Here’s the latest on the war on press freedom. Very soon, CNN will join CBS under the control of billionaire David Ellison, and now we learn that Bari Weiss will be the new CNN boss. Raw Story: Bari Weiss on verge of major promotion for ‘fantastic job’ bosses think she’s doing at CBS.

Bari Weiss could be taking over the editorial leadership of another news network.

Paramount has begun preliminary conversations with several top media executives about a business-side counterpart to Weiss, the CBS News editor-in-chief, as the company awaits regulatory approval of its proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, two sources familiar with the matter told Axios.

“The search implies that if Paramount Skydance’s deal with Warner Bros. Discovery goes through, Weiss would oversee all news editorial across both CBS News and CNN,” Axios reported. “Her potential counterpart would manage business operations across both companies.”

Bari Weiss

Among the candidates under consideration are NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde, CNN Worldwide CEO Mark Thompson and former NBC News president Noah Oppenheim. Paramount had also weighed Ben Sherwood, CEO of the Daily Beast and former ABC News president, and David Rhodes, former CBS News president and current Sky News executive chairman, according to a source familiar with the search.

One candidate faces a procedural hurdle. Because Paramount is still awaiting regulatory clearance to acquire WBD, company executives are barred from holding conversations with any WBD personnel — which would include Thompson.

Currently, CBS News president Tom Cibrowski serves alongside Weiss, reporting to George Cheeks, chair of TV media at Paramount. Weiss reports directly to Paramount chairman and CEO David Ellison….

“The Paramount brass loves Bari Weiss,” the source said. “She has the full confidence of David Ellison, who believes Bari has done a fantastic job as editor-in-chief.”

On the 60 Minutes front, Ellison is promising “independence,” after the firing of most of the people who used to work there. Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum at The New York Times: Paramount C.E.O. Promises Editorial Independence for ‘60 Minutes,’ Lesley Stahl Says.

David Ellison, the chief executive of Paramount, promised to respect the editorial independence of “60 Minutes” in a call with Lesley Stahl, one of the show’s correspondents, she told The New York Times on Tuesday.

The call to Ms. Stahl, made on Sunday, was one of the first signs that Mr. Ellison was personally taking steps to calm the turmoil at the news network after the firing of the show’s leadership and several of its star correspondents. The overhaul, overseen by Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, was met with a rebuke from Scott Pelley, a star correspondent at “60 Minutes” who has since been fired.

Ms. Stahl told the news program’s staff about Mr. Ellison’s call during a champagne toast she held at the “60 Minutes” offices in Midtown Manhattan on Monday in an attempt to shore up morale at the program.

She, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, the remaining stars of the program, had agonized about whether to stay in the aftermath of the staff changes and Mr. Pelley’s firing. But in a letter to the show’s staff Friday, they concluded that they had to remain at the show because they didn’t “want to see ‘60 Minutes’ die.”

“My toast was, ‘to us,’ meaning the survivors,” Ms. Stahl said in a text message on Tuesday. “Maybe ‘us’ with a twinge of survivor’s guilt.”

Mr. Ellison’s takeover of Paramount last year raised questions about the kind of steward he would be for CBS News. Mr. Ellison has been friendly with President Trump as his company, Paramount, seeks federal sign-off on a $111 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. He has said he wants CBS News to appeal to what he describes as the 70 percent of Americans who consider themselves center-right or center-left.

In an interview with The Times, Mr. Pelley also said that Ms. Weiss had put her “thumb on the scale” for Mr. Trump during the last season of “60 Minutes,” a charge the network has denied. That assertion echoed a complaint from Sharyn Alfonsi, another correspondent, who said Ms. Weiss’s editorial guidance on one of her stories was “political.”

Last week, scores of prominent journalists, including well-known veterans of CBS News, signed an open letter to Mr. Ellison, who took over Paramount’s CBS last year, asking him to commit to the show’s independence. He has not yet weighed in publicly.

I’ll believe it when I see it, especially if Bari Weiss is still running CBS.

Scott Pelley warns CBS News is “on fire”youtu.be/Az8KobdJ84g?…

— Scott MacFarlane (@macfarlanenews.bsky.social) 2026-06-08T21:03:12.469Z

Epstein is back in the news. The New York Times has a bit story by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan (gift article): Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files.

On July 17, 2025, at around 6 o’clock in the evening, President Trump’s top officials filed into the White House Situation Room — the secure bunker where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided. This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the president’s national security team, watched the raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Now, however, Trump’s most senior advisers had gathered — without him — to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency: the Epstein files.

Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review had found no “client list” of powerful men for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls and young women. Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end the pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the department’s possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base.

And it was about to get worse: The Wall Street Journal was preparing a damaging article about Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The president’s desperate attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now had to get everyone onto the same page about how to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but also a way to convey the message that the president was sympathetic to his supporters’ concerns. Which itself was a problem, because he clearly wasn’t.

Vice President JD Vance took a seat at the head of the table in the John F. Kennedy Conference Room of the Situation Room complex. “This is a huge problem,” he told the group. Arrayed around him were the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles; the White House counsel, David Warrington; the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt; the deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich; the communications director, Steven Cheung; the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche; the associate attorney general, Stanley Woodward Jr.; and the deputy chief of staff James Blair. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, joined on speakerphone.

The vice president appeared panicked to others in the room about the way the subject of Epstein was already dividing the MAGA coalition. Some senior officials had the impression that Vance had bought into the darkest theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators hidden within the country’s ruling class. Wiles would tell others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist. Another top official said later that Vance had been pounding on the Epstein issue since the release of the memo. He was privately pressing for the administration to release all the Epstein files, everything in the Justice Department’s possession, even encouraging a congressional investigation.

Vance had also floated to colleagues an extraordinary P.R. gambit — that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison. It might help the president if Maxwell was willing to state that Trump had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein.

Vance told the group he believed all the files should be released as soon as possible. He argued that Congress was going to force the release of the files eventually. It was already clear that a bipartisan coalition in favor of such action was forming on Capitol Hill, and the momentum was going in one direction. If the administration got out ahead of this and released everything voluntarily — including whatever material existed about the president — it would at least get credit for transparency. The alternative was to let the story drag on for months as information dripped out, each new revelation renewing the cycle of suspicion and fury. Better to rip the bandage off and move on.

That’s a taste of it. You can use the gift link to read the rest.

Those are the stories that caught my attention today. What’s on your mind?

Finally Friday Reads: TACO Tales

“The most transparent administration ever..” John Buss @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’m hoping we’re entering a Golden Age of Journalism because the number of stories floating around out there today indicates that we need more investigative journalists than ever before. Because of that, I cannot seem to play the Wake Forest Commencement by Sixty Minutes‘ Scott Pelley enough.  His first statement rang true throughout the world.  “Our sacred Rule of Law is under attack.” The Speech was entitled “The Meaning of You.” 

The path to self-discovery starts with finding what kind of person you are when times get dark.  As I’ve said before, these times are very dark. Do you shy away from speaking out?  Do you take fighting action on whatever level you can?  Do you melt away?  Do you just go along or cheer it? I’ve come back to this speech this week because the headlines today show how important the press can be in exposing the dark times and the dark ones and their actions to light.  It is then up to us to do something about it and to get our elected officials on it.

The New Republic’s Parker Molloy briefly discusses the importance of the Pelley Speech and the evil MAGA’s response.  “Scott Pelley Warns Graduates About the Threats to American Democracy. The “60 Minutes” correspondent never mentioned Trump by name, but his call to defend democratic institutions was apparently too much for the MAGA crowd to handle.”

Earlier this month, journalist Scott Pelley delivered what should have been a fairly standard commencement address at Wake Forest University. The 60 Minutes correspondent spoke about seeking truth, defending democracy, and the importance of courage in difficult times—the kind of boilerplate inspiration you’d expect from a veteran journalist addressing graduates.

But because we live in very normal times, the speech went viral over Memorial Day weekend and triggered a conservative meltdown that’s been fascinating to watch unfold.

The fury started when a pro-MAGA account clipped portions of Pelley’s speech and shared them on X, writing “Scott Pelley raged at Trump in angry, unhinged commencement address at Wake Forest.”

What did Pelley say that sent the right into such a tizzy? Well, he had the audacity to suggest that “our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.” He warned of “insidious fear … reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America.”

And perhaps most provocatively, Pelley criticized the administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, saying, “Diversity is now described as ‘illegal.’ Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends.” He also referenced “masked agents” who “abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing.”

Pelley’s speech comes as Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over alleged “election interference” and CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon abruptly resigned, citing disagreements with the company amid the legal pressure.

What’s remarkable is how a fairly conventional call for civic engagement and democratic values could generate such hysteria. But then again, when you’re running an administration built on exactly the kind of authoritarian playbook Pelley described, I suppose any critique—no matter how measured—feels like an existential threat.

Reading the speech in full, it’s hard to see what’s so “unhinged” about urging graduates to be engaged citizens and defend democratic institutions. Unless, of course, you’re deeply invested in attacking those very institutions.

A complete transcript of the speech follows.  Also, you may listen to and watch Paley’s address here.  The headlines today may be bleak, but the important thing is that reporters and the people supporting the work investigate and can find unbelievable corruption, stark depravity, and many examples of bad human conduct, demeanor, and actions. Then expose it!

When I was born, and as I grew up and my family moved into the middle class, I was instilled with the importance of reading magazines and watching the news.  My Grandfather on my mother’s side always sent me books for my birthday and Christmas. My Nana on my mother’s side sent my sister and me subscriptions to National Geographic and The Christian Science Monitor.  We read the local newspapers and the Des Moines Register every morning and evening.  When I asked my Dad while I was in high school if I could get a subscription to The Manchester Guardian and to Paris Match, he didn’t even hesitate. I can tell you my show and tell performance, as well as my reports from newspapers, were altogether different from my Council Bluffs and Omaha friends.

When I hit university, all the foreign students whom I continually sought out for all dorm meals originally thought I was from Canada.  When my family travelled to Europe, I tried to blend in as much as possible and just observe.  It is perhaps this that makes me blog today, even though the only journalism classes I took were in high school. I wrote for the school newspaper, an underground newspaper, and the junior high newspaper.  I always assumed everyone was as news-hungry as I was growing up in some of the most boring and inane places on the planet. I couldn’t live with oatmeal after reading about Belgian waffles.  Can you imagine what happened when I got my first bite of one?

Knowledge of news is important for good citizenship, it’s important for making decisions that impact your household, and it’s important just because things are moving faster than ever.  So let me get down to my first suggested reads today.

One of the things I find most threatening these days is seeing my students, my university, and many places leave their brains behind and try to make things easy using AI. It may have a future, but presently, any good professor worth their salt can tell when someone uses it.  You should get good at spotting it on the internet, and you will be annoyed when you’re making an important call about something or chatting with some company, and even when it’s given a name, you can tell by the idiosyncrasies and the lack of niceties of American English, this thing ain’t human. 

I’ve noticed that the grammar check my University uses completely breaks down when dealing with nuances and colloquialisms.  It seems to excel mostly at filling my writing with commas and catching typos.  That’s okay by me and easy, but believe me, I can tell when a student overuses AI.  We’re being trained at spotting it as well as teaching students how to use it correctly.  However, someone who knows what they are doing from years of doing it can make a better decision about its use than those still on the learning curve. 

I say this because I watched a news program where the new AI installed at the Social Security phone line repeatedly ignored the question they asked, then kept squawking “Can I help you with something else?” endlessly.  This is the point where I hear my Nana’s voice telling little me, “Well, you can, but may you?”  AI does not grok manners and polite conversations.  It could be because human mutants like Elon Musk and his Dodge cluster have never quite figured that out either.  Garbage in, garbage out.  But, then maybe that’s what they want.  Cease being polite and just be technically acceptable.  Okay, it’s long but I’m getting there, I promise.

This phenomenon played out yesterday as one of RFK Jr.’s prodigal research adventures turned into something I wouldn’t even expect from an undergrad or, actually, even someone sitting in my high school or university composition class. He was, of course, a legacy student there because of his father. We also know he was the dorm’s drug dealer from my fellow Westside High School journalism classmate, Kurt Anderson.  One thing Westside always turned out was students who knew how to write. That skill got me through all the rest of my degrees because, damn I could write a good paper. Evidently, RFK Jr. did not get that skill.

It’s rather interesting given the difficult times Harvard is facing in protecting its foreign students.  Now granted, I helped many a colleague from distant lands to get their excellent research into prime American English form.  Everyone always sent them to me before they were sent to a journal for publishing, which bought me a cheap pub. But, every one of them took me farther down the path of being a numbers and stats guru.  Did you know kids in India start their calculus classes in like 5th grade? It was also easier for me to actually come up with a sweet hypothesis to test because I was taught to be both analytical and creative. That’s what a good public school can do for you.  A good university exposes you to what’s possible and exposes you to all kinds of interesting thinkers. But, again, I guess RFK Jr. was too busy with drugs to take advantage of anything like that. That’s why he’s likely never going to be part of a blog community, a book club, or a group that goes to the Saturday Night Midnight movies.

Okay, I really am getting to the read now.  At his advanced age, with his unlimited educational opportunities and his money, he cannot write a research paper.  And yet, it showed up in the public sphere because he was trying to prove his very wrong hypotheses at any cost.  He didn’t prove anything. He turned to all manner of things to argue his hypothesis. None of his antics were academically sound.   At first, the White House’s dumbest Press Secretary announced there were “formatting” errors. But, how could that be when, after investigating sources, reporters found them either made up or seriously in error?  The Make America Healthy Again report was just embarrassing.

MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki derided White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s defense of a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report filled with errors and broken links.

NOTUS reported the paper, released under the administration of President Donald Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cited at least seven sources that do not appear to exist. The news publication contacted epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who the MAHA report lists as the first author of a study it cited on adolescent anxiety, and discovered Keyes didn’t write the paper.

“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”

NOTUS also reported two other studies pertaining to direct-to-consumer drug advertisements for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids appear nowhere “to be found.” Reporters also could not validate another section claiming 25% to 40% of mild cases of asthma are overprescribed. Additionally, the author of a corticosteroids study’s the MAHA report cited to support its arguments denied writing the study.

NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright was in the White House briefing room Thursday and asked Leavitt: “does the White House have confidence that the information coming from HHS can be trusted?”

“Yes, we have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed.”

Psaki, a former White House press secretary herself, did not contain her scorn.

Well, the nation’s biggest and most disappointing media of record investigated and found some interesting things in the MAHA report.  Let’s start with the Washington Post. “White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say. The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.”  Well, that’s typical of a lot of students.  If they can’t do it, they pay someone who can.  You can always tell this, though, because if you’ve seen any previous work, you recognize their voice and you know when something is different. AI is the most recent example of buying a paper online, but with a lower cost and perhaps a lower chance of getting caught because you won’t find a cheat paper by searching it verbatim with your student’s work. Believe me, the discussion on this in teacher lounges and faculty clubs is de rigueur these days. Evidently, RFK Jr. didn’t even know the most tell-tale of the signs.

Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.

Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.

Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company.

A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate — as well as the tendency to “hallucinate” studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.

So, our Secretary of Health and Human Services is so bereft of research skills that he can’t even avoid the number one Rookie mistake.  Does he have anyone around him who knew better and could catch this?  I can tell you that a team of peers that checks every research paper headed to publication in an academically sound journal would never let this go through to print.  If you’re the main author, you try to avoid any humiliating mistakes for serious journals.

AI technology can be used legitimately to quickly survey the research in a field. But Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington who studies AI, said he was shocked by the sloppiness in the MAHA Report.

“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” he said. “We deserve better.”

“The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again,” which addressed the root causes of America’s lagging health outcomes, was written by a commission of Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders. It was led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of misstating science, and written in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump.

The New York Times published the first media review pointing out made-up sources. “White House Health Report Included Fake Citations, ‘A report on children’s health released by the Make America Healthy Again Commission referred to scientific papers that did not exist.”  Now, I’m not a scientist, but I lived with a Yale-educated Doctorate in Microbiology who published a lot of things on RNA transcription, ran a lab at a public university, and wound up with the NSF.  I have no idea if he’s retired or if he went with the current purge of scientists.  I read many of his works pre-publication, and he got published in all the big ones.  I think the science journals are more nerve-wracking to write for than the Economics and Finance.  Usually, it’s based on lab data rather than the Federal Reserve Beige Book or World Book data, which gets a pass even though the methodology and the model itself get the eagle eye. This report was a hot mess on all accounts.

The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues.

But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.

“It makes me concerned about the rigor of the report, if these really basic citation practices aren’t being followed,” said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who was listed as the author of a paper on mental health and substance use among adolescents. Dr. Keyes has not written any paper by the title the report cited, nor does one seem to exist by any author.

The news outlet NOTUS first reported the presence of false citations, and The New York Times identified additional faulty references. By midafternoon on Thursday, the White House had uploaded a new copy of the report with corrections.

Dr. Ivan Oransky — who teaches medical journalism at New York University and is a co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that tracks retractions of scientific research — said the errors in the report were characteristic of the use of generative artificial intelligence, which has led to similar issues in legal filings and more.

Dr. Oransky said that while he did not know whether the government had used A.I. in producing the report or the citations, “we’ve seen this particular movie before, and it’s unfortunately much more common in scientific literature than people would like or than really it should be.”

Asked at a news conference on Thursday whether the report had relied on A.I., the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, deferred to the Department of Health and Human Services. Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, did not answer a question about the source of the fabricated references and downplayed them as “minor citation and formatting errors.” She said that “the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic-disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children.”

The false references do not necessarily mean the underlying facts in the report are incorrect. But they indicate a lack of rigorous review and verification of the report and its bibliography before it was released, Dr. Oransky said.

“Scientific publishing is supposed to be about verification,” he said, adding: “There’s supposed to be a set of eyes, actually several sets of eyes. And so what that tells us is that there was no good set of eyes on this

So, after finding out about all of that, this should make you feel really at ease.

The Trump administration has quietly spread Palantir’s technology through U.S. agencies, paving the way to easily compile data on Americans. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since President Trump took office. nyti.ms/4dJfR0o

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-05-30T16:16:57.733Z

I think we can start making the Big Brother is watching you references now.  This is the subheading, which is startling IMHO.  “The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work with the government, spreading the company’s technology — which could easily merge data on Americans — throughout agencies.”   Getting your passport ready yet?

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)

Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.

The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.

Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream. The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status.

Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said. Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have filed lawsuits to block data access, questioning whether the government could weaponize people’s personal information.

So, while all this is going on, we’re beginning to hear some interesting information on Elon Musk as he exists stage right.   This is from Forbes Magazine.  “Lucky” Susan Dorn got this assignment. “Musk Used Heavy Drugs Including Ketamine And Ecstasy While He Became Close To Trump, Report Says. Elon Musk used a copious amount of drugs—and travelled with a pill box that appeared to contain Adderall—last year as he ramped up his donations to President Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report that comes on his last official day at the White House.”  He’s the Wolf of Austin, I guess.

Key Facts

• Musk told confidants he was taking so much ketamine it affected his bladder, according to The Times, citing unnamed sources who said he also took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.
• The Times also reported it obtained a photo that showed a medication box Musk travelled with containing about 20 pills, including Adderall.
• The alleged drug use overlapped with his campaign activity last year on behalf of  Trump—with an endorsement in July followed by $250 million to help elect him.
• The report comes as Musk is set to exit the White House Friday after announcing Wednesday his time leading the Department of Government Efficiency had come to an end.
• Neither Musk nor his lawyer responded to The Times’ request for comment, but Musk has said previously he was prescribed ketamine for depression.

The New York Times has more details. “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama. As Mr. Musk entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous, and his drug use was more intense than previously known.”  Of course, they sent two women after this story, too.  Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey were the assigned reporters.

As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according topeople familiar with his activities.

Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.

At the same time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.

I’m not about to go to the Gossip Rag road, but there are rumors about Mush and Steven Miller’s wife if you’re interested.  This is from the Independent. “Stephen Miller’s wife leaves the White House to work for Elon Musk ‘full time’, Kate Miller was working as an adviser for Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency.”  I should eat some lunch, and I really will not ruin it by going any deeper into these. BLECH.

So, we lose a clown and gain one. Seriously, none of these Trump men are strangers to make-up. This is from ABC News. “Trump taps former right-wing podcast host Paul Ingrassia for key watchdog post. Ingrassia would replace Hampton Dellinger, who opposed Trump’s mass firings.”

President Trump announced Thursday night that he was tapping Paul Ingrassia, a former far-right podcast host, to lead the Office of Special Counsel — an independent watchdog agency empowered to investigate federal employees and oversee complaints from whistleblowers.

The Trump administration has previously taken aim at the Office of Special Counsel, firing the head of the agency, Hampton Dellinger (a Biden appointee) in February. Dellinger expressed opposition to the Trump administration’s firing of federal employees under DOGE-led cuts, noting that many had been fired or laid off without notice or justification.

Dellinger challenged his firing in court and was briefly reinstated to the post until a federal appeals court allowed for his dismissal. Dellinger decided to drop the challenge.

ABC News exclusively reported in February about how Ingrassia, in his role as White House liaison to the Department of Justice, was pushing to hire candidates at the DOJ who exhibited what he called “exceptional loyalty” to Trump. His efforts at DOJ sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aide, Chad Mizelle, leading Ingrassia to complain directly to President Trump, sources told ABC News.

Ingrassia was pushed out of DOJ and reassigned as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, where he was serving prior to Trump announcing his new role, according to a White House official familiar with the matter.

In a post on X, Ingrassia wrote in response to his nomination: “It’s the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump! As Special Counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch — with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce and revitalize the Rule of Law and Fairness in Hatch Act enforcement.”

For the Senate-confirmed five-year term, Ingrassia will likely face tough questions over his lengthy history of media appearances and posts on social media promoting Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election as well as his ties to far-right media figures.

He was previously spotted at a 2024 rally hosted by white nationalist Nick Fuentes and has publicly praised figures like Andrew Tate — who has faced criminal charges for alleged sexual assault (Tate denies all wrongdoing).

All the best people, folks, all the best.  So, I know you just want to know the latest information on the American Soap Opera “As the Tarrifs and the TACO Turns.”  This is from CNBC. “Trump accuses China of violating preliminary trade deal.”  Dan Managan gets all the serious stories, you know.

President Donald Trump on Friday said that China has “totally violated its” preliminary trade agreement with the United States, and suggested he would take action in response.

“So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump wrote in a social media post that said China had reneged on a deal that paused retaliatory tariffs between that country and the U.S.

Stock futures fell Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s statement.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a CNBC interview Friday morning, echoed Trump’s allegation, saying “we’re very concerned with” China’s purported non-compliance with the temporary trade deal.

The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” said Greer.

He called that “completely unacceptable and has to be addressed.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a Fox News interview on Thursday, said that trade talks with China “are a bit stalled.”

CNBC has requested comment from China’s embassy in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. and China on May 12 agreed to a 90-day suspension on most tariffs imposed on each other’s imports.

The agreement was reached after Trump slapped sky-high tariffs on imports from China into the U.S., and China retaliated in kind.

“Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger!” Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social on Friday.

“The very high Tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE into the United States marketplace which is, by far, number one in the World,” Trump wrote. “We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, “civil unrest.” I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”

“Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!” the president wrote.

“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

Trump posted his screed two days after he lashed out at CNBC reporter Megan Cassella at the White House when she asked about the term “TACO trade,” which refers to the phrase “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

The term, coined by a Financial Times columnist, suggests that stock pickers can make money by buying shares after markets fall on news of new tariffs imposed by Trump, knowing that he invariably will pause or reduce the tariffs, sending markets higher.

You had to know he had to have a bully story to cover up all the Court sha-la-la about his on-again, off-again tariffs.  Wow, my Grammarly got really dash happy there! Actually, I did it but wondered if it would notice anything and it did.  One missing comma.  I evidently have a thing against commas.

So, at least it’s the weekend!  Hope y’all have a great one!  I say TACO, they say TACO!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#FartusDeportUs #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #DrugAddict #ElonMuskNAZI #kakistocracy #PalantirDataTheftSpecialists #ScottPelley #TACO #WhoAreYOU_ #WifeStealer