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taylor swift
Don't Just Tax the Uber Rich, Reform the Corporate Structure That Creates Them
The real engine of inequality is structural: corporate and financial practices that concentrate wealth among shareholders while shortchanging other stakeholders who should be benefiting from corporate profits
Mar 13, 2026
Targeting billionaires with California’s proposed wealth tax is an eye-catching idea, but perhaps the real problem is how some of these people become billionaires in the first place.
California has long eyed taxing the ultra rich. In 2024, Assembly Bill 259, backed by progressive Democrats and unions like the California Federation of Teachers, sought annual wealth taxes but was blocked by centrist Democrats, business groups, and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Now, advocates are going for a one-time 5% levy on roughly 200 billionaires, covering everything they own—stocks, businesses, art, private islands, personal spacecraft, even intellectual property—basically the whole enchilada if they were state residents on January 1, 2026. Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West estimates the tax could raise $100 billion for health and social services.
Backers call it a fair share. Critics cite economic, legal, and retroactive risks.
A one-time California wealth tax might dent the personal fortunes of the Zuckerbergs and Cooks, but it does nothing to slow the corporate machinery that grinds on to produce still more of them.
To many, the logic seems straightforward: Billionaires have absurd, even toxic amounts of money. The richest 1% now own more than the bottom 90% combined. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman note that middle- and working-class Americans often pay higher effective tax rates than the super rich, whose California fortunes grew over $2 trillion in just a few years.
Why not tax them?
But Here’s the Twist
Economist William Lazonick, a long-time critic of the way many US corporations are run, argues that targeting individual fortunes treats the symptom, not the disease. The real engine of inequality is structural: corporate and financial practices that concentrate wealth among shareholders while shortchanging other stakeholders who should be benefiting from corporate profits—and too often creating little of real value to society.
Most billionaires don’t “earn” their fortunes through work. They build wealth by owning stock in corporations. Executives and boards pump up dividends and stock prices, often using stock buybacks, which rocket their own pay into the stratosphere. Managers and professionals with stock options or stock awards can cash in too—but only if they keep their jobs. Everyone else—most workers and the wider public that depends on taxing corporate profits to fund schools, roads, and healthcare—gets left behind.
This shareholder-first model (famously called “the dumbest idea in the world” by former GE CEO Jack Welch), encourages executives and investors to treat companies like giant ATMs, pulling money out rather than reinvesting profits to create lasting value.
Stock buybacks and ownership stakes that line the pockets of executives at the expense of employees, communities, or innovation are a modern form of illth.
Consider Mark Zuckerberg. Nearly all of his mind-boggling fortune—the kind that just bought him a record-smashing $170 million mansion in Miami-Dade County near Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and is funding a bombproof bunker-complex in Kauai that disturbs local wildlife—comes straight from owning stock in Meta Platforms. Meta has spent nearly $200 billion on stock buybacks in the past five years. Those buybacks have fattened the wallets of shareholders, including Meta’s top executives and professionals, while leaving the rest of society out of the gains (Meta is famous for its tax-dodging schemes). With Meta, there aren’t any hedge-fund activists forcing Zuckerberg to do buybacks—they’re happening by choice.
Lazonick points out that “with all the profits that they have, they could be creating stable, high-paid jobs for the workers whom they employ—and thereby put in place powerful social conditions for collective and cumulative learning.” He adds, “Instead they are using stock-based pay, which is always volatile and which results in unstable and inequitable employment, to compete for talent.”
Now, even some of Meta’s highest-paid employees are feeling the squeeze. With stock-based pay being cut back and the AI revolution changing work, some of the people who once seemed untouchable are discovering that their jobs aren’t as secure as they thought.
Then there’s Tim Cook. Much of his wealth comes from stock-based compensation tied to the stock-market performance of Apple Inc. Under his leadership as CEO, Apple’s so-called “Capital Return Program” has spent hundreds of billions on stock buybacks—north of half a trillion dollars when counting programs from the early 2010s on—which have helped push up the share price and richly rewarded executives and shareholders. Lazonick has criticized this trend, arguing that Apple’s huge buybacks reward shareholders who have never provided finance to the company, instead of investing in value-creating workers who are the source of innovation. This is the activity that has Cook extremely rich—though he still buys his underwear on sale at Nordstrom, so it’s not entirely clear why he needs all this money.
His workers could sure use a bigger cut. It is a fact that many of the workers who build, sell, or support Apple products have faced stingy pay and labor issues: Some retail employees have pushed for higher minimum wages and better benefits as recently as 2022, and labor-rights groups have documented low wages and complaints about conditions among Apple’s supply-chain workers.
A one-time California wealth tax might dent the personal fortunes of the Zuckerbergs and Cooks, but it does nothing to slow the corporate machinery that grinds on to produce still more of them.
Historically, reformers recognized this issue. For example, Thorstein Veblen critiqued the ways elites could extract wealth while contributing less to society than might be expected. And early 20th-century progressives championed higher corporate taxes and antitrust laws because they understood that inequality was more structural than individual.
This is what 19th-century critic John Ruskin had in mind when he coined the term “illth.” For Ruskin, true wealth, or “weal,” promotes everyone’s health and prosperity. Illth, by contrast, amasses when money is extracted or hoarded without focusing on social value. Stock buybacks and ownership stakes that line the pockets of executives at the expense of employees, communities, or innovation are a modern form of illth.
We don’t want illth.
Taylor Swift Isn’t the Problem
Now let’s bring in someone we can all relate to—Taylor Swift. Her fortune comes from her creativity, work, and audience engagement. She writes songs, records albums, tours, sells merchandise, and negotiates brand deals. Yes, corporate structures like Ticketmaster’s oligopoly complicate matters—but Swift herself isn’t the CEO of a company extracting illth through financial engineering. Taxing her personal wealth dramatizes the issue without addressing its source.
Policies aimed at corporate engines of inequality, rather than individual fortunes, could reshape the system itself. Lazonick and others have recommended a variety of approaches:
- Ban stock buybacks and suppress predatory value extraction. This curbs wealth concentration at the top.
- Encourage employee ownership or provide employee representation on corporate boards. Gains should benefit a broader group of stakeholders—not just shareholders.
- Reimagine corporate governance. Move towards stakeholder models balancing shareholder yields with social and environmental responsibility.
And last, but not least:
- Strengthen progressive corporate taxation. Close loopholes that allow extreme wealth accumulation.
As Lazonick sees it, whether it happens at the federal, state, or local level, government policy should focus on curbing predatory value extraction and promoting what he calls “progressive value creation”—which means passing laws to stop corporations from being looted, a key source of the exploding wealth of the mega rich. “From this position of regulatory power,” he advises, “we should then decide how the top 0.1% should be taxed.”
The real work, from this perspective, is reforming the structures that concentrate wealth. If we want an economy that fosters health, innovation, and opportunity instead of illth, chasing Taylor Swift won’t cut it. We need to start regulating the corporate engines behind her peers’ billions
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Why Is Taylor Swift's Engagement Bigger News Than the Risk of AMOC Collapse?
Media’s obsession with one story—and its ignoring of the other—highlights the gaps that remain in treating the climate crisis like the cataclysm it has become.
Sep 12, 2025
Chances are you’ve heard that Taylor Swift is getting married. When she and Travis Kelce announced their engagement last month, it was all over the news, all over the world.
Chances are equally good that you did not hear some other, literally Earth-shaping news that broke two days later. On August 28, some of the world’s foremost climate scientists dramatically revised their estimate of how soon one of the foundations of Earth’s climate system could collapse.
Media’s obsession with one story—and its ignoring of the other—highlights the gaps that remain in treating the climate crisis like the cataclysm it has become. While progress has been made in many newsrooms, old journalism habits linger, including sidelining important climate news out of misguided fears that it’s depressing or too complicated. As Covering Climate Now’s 89% Project has shown, that’s not how most readers or viewers see it.
The collapse of what is commonly called the Gulf Stream—the vast Atlantic ocean current that scientists refer to as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, AMOC—would deal a crushing blow to civilization as we know it. Sometimes known as Europe’s “central heating unit,” the AMOC is why Britain, France, The Netherlands, and their northern neighbors enjoy relatively mild winters, even though they sit as far north as Canada and Russia.
AMOC originates in the Caribbean, where sun-warmed sea water flows northeast across the Atlantic toward Greenland. The amount of heat AMOC transports is staggering: 50 times more heat than the entire world uses in a year. Without AMOC, the history and present day of Europe would look very different. Winters would be much colder and longer. Food production would be much less, as would the human population and infrastructure the region could support.
The scientific study released on August 28 concluded that AMOC’s collapse “can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event,” to quote The Guardian, one of the very few outlets to report the news. Indeed, such a collapse is more likely than not if humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions remain on their current trajectory. If emissions continue to rise, there is a 7 out of 10 chance that AMOC will collapse, the scientists calculated. If emissions fall to a moderate level, the odds are 37%—roughly 1 in 3. Even if emissions decline in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 to 2°C, there is a 1 in 4 chance of collapse.
“It’s like the saying that every disaster movie starts with scientists warning and being ignored.”
Although the collapse might not occur in this century, the scientists warned that the system could pass a “tipping point” in the next decade or two that makes its eventual collapse inevitable. As 44 scientists explained in an open letter to the Nordic Council of Ministers, AMOC might well collapse in this century, but there is an “even greater likelihood a collapse is triggered this century but only fully plays out in the next.”
The only hope, the scientists added, is a “global effort to reduce emissions as quickly as possible, in order to stay close to the 1.5 [°C] target set by the Paris Agreement.”
By no means is northern Europe the only region in peril. A collapse, or even significant slowdown, of AMOC would devastate agriculture in Africa and other parts of the Global South by massively disrupting rainfall patterns.
All of which helps explain why Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who coauthored the new study, was frustrated by how little attention he and his colleagues’ warnings got. “What more can we do to get heard?” he asked. “It’s like the saying that every disaster movie starts with scientists warning and being ignored.”
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'Safeguards? What Safeguards?': Grok's New 'Spicy Mode' Makes Nude Taylor Swift Deepfakes
"Deepfakes are evolving faster than human sanity can keep up," said one critic. "We're three clicks away from a world where no one knows what's real."
Aug 05, 2025
Grok Imagine—a generative artificial intelligence tool developed by Elon Musk's xAI—has rolled out a "spicy mode" that is under fire for creating deepfake images on demand, including nudes of superstar Taylor Swift that's prompting calls for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology.
The Verge's Jess Weatherbed reported Tuesday that Grok's spicy mode—one of four presets on an updated Grok 4, including fun, normal, and custom—"didn't hesitate to spit out fully uncensored topless videos of Taylor Swift the very first time I used it, without me even specifically asking the bot to take her clothes off."
Weatherbed noted:
You would think a company that already has a complicated history with Taylor Swift deepfakes, in a regulatory landscape with rules like the Take It Down Act, would be a little more careful. The xAI acceptable use policy does ban "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner," but Grok Imagine simply seems to do nothing to stop people creating likenesses of celebrities like Swift, while offering a service designed specifically to make suggestive videos including partial nudity. The age check only appeared once and was laughably easy to bypass, requesting no proof that I was the age I claimed to be.
Weatherbed—whose article is subtitled "Safeguards? What Safeguards?"—asserted that the latest iteration of Grok "feels like a lawsuit ready to happen."
Grok is now creating AI video deepfakes of celebrities such as Taylor Swift that include nonconsensual nude depictions. Worse, the user doesn't even have to specifically ask for it, they can just click the "spicy" option and Grok will simply produce videos with nudity.Video from @theverge.com.
[image or embed]
— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) August 5, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Grok had already made headlines in recent weeks after going full "MechaHitler" following an update that the chatbot said prioritized "uncensored truth bombs over woke lobotomies."
Numerous observers have sounded the alarm on the dangers of unchained generative AI.
"Instead of heeding our call to remove its 'NSFW' AI chatbot, xAI appears to be doubling down on furthering sexual exploitation by enabling AI videos to create nudity," Haley McNamara, a senior vice president at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said last week.
"There's no confirmation it won't create pornographic content that resembles a recognizable person," McNamara added. "xAI should seek ways to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation."
Users of X, Musk's social platform, also weighed in on the Swift images.
"Deepfakes are evolving faster than human sanity can keep up," said one account. "We're three clicks away from a world where no one knows what's real.This isn't innovation—it's industrial scale gaslighting, and y'all [are] clapping like it's entertainment."
Another user wrote: "Not everything we can build deserves to exist. Grok Imagine's new 'spicy' mode can generate topless videos of anyone on this Earth. If this is the future, burn it down."
Musk is seemingly unfazed by the latest Grok controversy. On Tuesday, he boasted on X that "Grok Imagine usage is growing like wildfire," with "14 million images generated yesterday, now over 20 million today!"
According to a poll published in January by the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute, 84% of U.S. voters "supported legislation making nonconsensual deepfake porn illegal, while 86% supported legislation requiring companies to restrict models to prevent their use in creating deepfake porn."
During the 2024 presidential election, Swift weighed in on the subject of AI deepfakes after then-Republican nominee Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image suggesting she endorsed the felonious former Republican president. Swift ultimately endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
"It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation," Swift said at the time.
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Why the Typewriter Resurgence Matters for Democracy
From Taylor Swift to Tom Hanks, typewriters are cool again, signaling that we're all searching for ways to break free from the reactive and often toxic impulses of communication through our screens.
Jan 07, 2025
When Katharine Tito approached the vintage typewriter at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, skepticism was written across her face. Though she'd spotted typewriters in thrift stores, she'd never actually used one. As a graphic design student immersed in digital tools, the mechanical contraption before her seemed like a relic. But as she began typing people's messages to the President of the United States for my "I Wish to Say" project, something shifted. Her fingers found their rhythm on the keys, and her expression transformed.
"It's different from anything I've experienced," she told me. "Each keystroke feels weighty, permanent. You can't just delete and start over. You have to think about every word. Sometimes people would talk too fast, and I'd have to tell them, 'You've got to slow down because I can only go so quickly.'" As I watched students gather around her desk, drawn by the hypnotic clacking of keys, I witnessed a revelation I've seen countless times: the moment people discover the power of slowing down to truly engage with their thoughts and words.
This transformation isn't happening in isolation. On the eve of World Typing Day tomorrow, we're witnessing a typewriter renaissance. Taylor Swift captures the romance and allure of typewriters in her songs and videos. Retro typewriter fonts dominate Instagram. Tom Hanks is showcasing vintage typewriters from his personal collection at a New York exhibition, while customers flock to specialty shops like Philly Typewriter, craving something more real than pixels.
The 2024 presidential election laid bare what my typewriter has shown me all along—beneath the predictions of seismic political shifts, we remain a nation divided by the thinnest of margins.
This resurgence reflects a more profound cultural shift. In an era of rapid-fire texts and tweets, hot takes on social media, and barking demands at Siri and Alexa, people are yearning for more deliberate forms of communication and connection. I've seen this hunger grow over two decades of "I Wish to Say," as I set up my pop-up desk in libraries, schools, and town squares across America. From the presidency of George W. Bush through Joe Biden's term, I've invited people to dictate their hopes and fears, their dreams and demands. The experience transforms both me and the speaker. As words are deliberately pressed into paper, I watch people pause, reconsider their phrasing, and weigh the permanence of their message. The steady rhythm of metal striking paper—that distinctive clack-clack-ding—seems to create a space for reflection that our digital devices rarely allow.
This practice of what I call "radical listening"—deeply engaging with another person's words as you type them—offers a powerful antidote to our current political polarization. When someone participates in "I Wish to Say," I absorb everything: their words, their body language, the way they prepare themselves before beginning to dictate. The typewriter creates a unique space of trust—as they watch and hear their words being struck into paper, one letter at a time, they know they're truly being heard. Some have likened it to therapy, this experience of having someone listen with such complete attention.
I've seen its particular relevance on college campuses. One week after the 2024 election, I set up my typewriter at Scripps College in Southern California. The campus was tense, emotions raw. Student after student approached my desk, their concerns for the future were palpable. But something transformed as they watched their words appear on paper. One student reflected on the catharsis of the experience."I feel something," she said. "I can't quite tell you what it is, but I feel good."
What I've learned through thousands of these exchanges is acute: You never really know what someone thinks until you sit down and truly listen. In our era of instant reactions and digital silos, this kind of deep listening has become increasingly rare—and increasingly vital.
The typewriter renaissance isn't an isolated phenomenon—it's part of a broader return to real-world connections. Across the country, young people are seeking alternatives to the exhausting cycle of social media discourse and genuine bonding. Running groups are replacing swipe-right romance. Reading parties in public spaces are drawing crowds. Gen Z players are flocking to old-school chess, mahjong, and backgammon clubs, drawn to the thrill of face-to-face competition. Screen-free cafes are becoming sanctuaries of uninterrupted conversation and deep thought. These shifts speak to something we all know deep down: IRL moments beat scrolling every time.
Two decades of typing other people's words have revealed a fundamental truth about communication—and democracy. The 2024 presidential election laid bare what my typewriter has shown me all along—beneath the predictions of seismic political shifts, we remain a nation divided by the thinnest of margins. The historically narrow House majority and razor-thin popular vote aren't just statistics. They reflect a nation that desperately needs new ways to bridge its differences. The typewriter, with its demanding presence and unforgiving permanence, shows us a new way forward: Slow down before you speak, choose your words with care, and embrace the transformative power of truly listening to another person's perspective.
These lessons extend far beyond the typewriter itself. In our civic discourse, our professional lives, and our personal relationships, we're all searching for ways to break free from the reactive and often toxic impulses of communication through our screens. Sometimes the most radical act is simply to pause, to consider our words carefully, and to create space for genuine dialogue—one metaphorical keystroke at a time.
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Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, Antony Blinken, China, and the Idiocy of Tom Friedman
What the venerated NYT columnist saw in Beijing and what he didn't learn.
Jan 01, 2025
Thomas Friedman probably thought he was being clever when he titled his most recent article How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Can Resolve U.S.-China Relations. It’s a headline meant to catch your attention– appealing to the Swifties, who think Taylor can save the world, the Musketeers, who are certain Elon can save the world, and, of course, their anti-fans who follow their every move with just as much zeal, and perhaps even more. It was the New York Times version of clickbait, because why bother with solid journalism when you can piggyback off the success of billionaires?
It was clickable, but it was hardly readable.
Friedman starts his piece off with a kernel of truth, just enough to shock the regular NYT’s readers who are very rarely fed a positive bit of news about China:
“I just spent a week in Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with Chinese officials, economists and entrepreneurs, and let me get right to the point: While we were sleeping China took a great leap forward in high-tech manufacturing of everything.”
Nobody that knows anything about China can argue with that, though a majority of Americans certainly still view the far-away country through the lens of Soviet communism and rural backwardness. The correlation is that the majority of Americans know nothing about China, have never been, and will never go.
He then goes on to express how Donald Trump’s tariffs and anti-China rhetoric jump-started China’s manufacturing prowess, mentioning how Trump’s name on Chinese social media is “Chuan Jiaguo” meaning “Nation Builder.”
Friedman’s general lack of understanding about China was a let down. But mostly I was disappointed because the title had me anticipating a much different read—something with a bit of creativity, and maybe even an original thought.
No. It was not Donald Trump that ushered in China’s “Sputnik moment,” as quoted by business consultant Jim McGregor. Trump is merely an amusement to China’s general public—a strange American enigma whose hard lines are overshadowed by unexpected candor and comical behavior. For China, the last 40 years has been a continuous Sputnik moment—from the elimination of extreme poverty to unprecedented shift to renewable energy, China has been on the rise, and Donald Trump has never been the yeast making that happen.
And then comes the meat of Friedman’s theory, what he calls the “Elon Musk-Taylor Swift paradigm.” Instead of suddenly raising US tariffs against China, which will lead us into a kind of supply-chain warfare that benefits nobody, Friedman suggest a gradual rise in tariffs, that would allow the US to “buy time to lift up more Elon Musks” which he describes as “more homegrown manufacturers who can make big stuff so we can export more to the world and import less,” as well as give China more time to “let in more Taylor Swifts” which are “more opportunities for its youth to spend money on entertainment and consumer goods made abroad.”
Friedman isn’t wrong about the idiocy of a US-China trade war, but his prognosis is tone-deaf, and very clearly the result of a Western capitalist tormented by the concept of zero-sum competition:
“It’s important to the world that China continues to be able to give its 1.4 billion people a better life — but it cannot be at the expense of everyone else.”
He does, unsurprisingly, make the Soviet comparison:
But if we don’t use this time to respond to China the way we did to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, with our own comprehensive scientific, innovative and industrial push, we will be toast.”
Toast! Don’t we all collectively like toast?
He talks of the dangers of China’s rising economic dominance. How China “owns the future” because it is the main producer of Electric Vehicles. How China is domestically self-sufficient. How China will soon account for nearly half of all global manufacturing. How all of China’s gains will be everyone else’s loss. How China is going to export robot-run factories to other countries, and thereby steal labor opportunities— as if the West hasn’t exported their own factories and exploited impoverished communities for cheap labor over decades.
“But here’s what’s scary: We no longer make that many things China wants to buy. It can do almost everything at least cheaper and often better.”
That must be incredibly scary to the average American who would rather pay a few bucks for a Temu version of an item rather than shell out tens of dollars for anything made by local businesses. It’s not their fault. The U.S. is incredibly unaffordable and the government does not seem to care.
At the same time, Friedman criticizes the lack of consumption within China:
“If I were drawing a picture of China’s economy today as a person, it would have an awesome manufacturing upper body — like Popeye, still eating spinach — with consuming legs resembling thin little sticks.”
It is the fate of a capitalist to view nonconsumption as a societal malady rather than a sign of good health. The truth is those that consume less have other more nourishing and sustainable ways to fill their souls. At a time when consumerism and overspending are contributing to the destruction of the planet, this is a rather thoughtless point to make. Imagine if society applauded community-building rather than the pointless expenditure of money to temporarily fill a gaping emptiness left by a lack of community and an overemphasis on hyperindividualism? It is very American to look for quick solutions rather than address the root cause.
To his credit, Friedman does state the importance of China providing for its 1.4 billion population, but it is a mere drop of humility that does little to balance the western self-righteousness. He does not comment on the fact that China’s population is greater than the US and Europe combined. Neither does he comment on the West’s own role in exporting labor for cheaper prices— because a capitalist system is run on greed, and wherever a buck can be saved, you bet it will be. Even at the expense of the people.
Friedman suggests that China should “let their people have more of the supply.” Apparently, they want to buy more stuff from us. Stuff that Friedman claims they are being starved of under the rule of the Communist Party of China. Things like art and entertainment. Majors in gender studies and sociology.
“Its youth need more outlets for creative expression — without having to worry that a song lyric they write could land them in prison.”
I have doubts that Friedman ever ventured out to a concert in Shanghai, let alone listened to some of China’s latest indie music. Culture is something that China definitely does not lack, and to make that claim is so wildly misguided that I question whether he has any understanding of China at all. One merely has to take a walk along the riverside in literally any city, and they will be bombarded by musicians, performers, and an impressive amount of outdoor public karaoke. There are as many artists as there are consumers of art, and indeed, a fair share of students pursuing the humanities.
He concludes:
“In sum, America needs to tighten up, but China needs to loosen up. Which is why my hat is off to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for showing China the way forward.”
What did Antony Blinken do that was so impressive? He stopped at a record store in China and bought a Taylor Swift album.
Maybe, just maybe, Friedman is just one giant Swiftie. But more likely, he threw the article together with a preschool level understanding of the WTO, and an opinion that almost sounds like an opinion, but doesn’t really say much of anything when you give it a thought.
I would have been more impressed if Friedman suggested sticking Elon Musk and his federal spending chopping block DOGE on the over-bloated Department of Defense, and booking Taylor Swift a highly-publicized multi-city tour around China.
The only difference between sudden tariffs and gradual tariffs is time—and what will time do? In our 4-year system, time is as fickle as our word. Either way, China will still be pioneering the green energy revolution, selling affordable EVs and renewable energy equipment around the globe while the United States, as the NYT Beijing bureau chief Keith Bradsher says, will “become the new Cuba—the place where you visit to see old gas-guzzling cars that you drive yourself.”
And if the US continues its threatened posture around anything coming from China—including green energy tech—the world will continue to heat up, and we will all face the consequences.
Friedman’s general lack of understanding about China was a let down. But mostly I was disappointed because the title had me anticipating a much different read—something with a bit of creativity, and maybe even an original thought.
I would have been more impressed if Friedman suggested sticking Elon Musk and his federal spending chopping block DOGE on the over-bloated Department of Defense, and booking Taylor Swift a highly-publicized multi-city tour around China. Send Blinken along with her, if he’s such a big fan, and have him venture outside of his strict China perimeter to meet, talk with locals, and experience a version of China that he never would in his fancy hotel rooms and secure government buildings. Maybe then he would form an opinion based on his own experiences rather than the lines he memorized over the course of his typical Ivy League education, and the subsequent falling-in-place that one must do to become the Secretary of State of the United States. A selling out of the soul, if you will.
And maybe the well being of the people—of all people—would be considered for once, rather than the flimsy monetary aspirations of the already-wealthy.
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Taylor Swift Gets It, Says Watchdog: AI Deepfakes Are a Danger to Democracy
"The need for federal regulations to address this type of misinformation and prevent AI deepfakes from upending our elections and undermining our democracy has never been more urgent," said one advocate.
Sep 11, 2024
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen on Wednesday applauded pop star Taylor Swift for using her platform and her endorsement of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race to go beyond simply expressing support for the Democratic candidate—choosing instead to also call attention to artificial intelligence and how it's been used to spread misinformation.
"Recently I was made aware that AI of 'me' falsely endorsing Donald Trump's presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation," wrote Swift in an Instagram post announcing her endorsement of Harris.
Swift was referring to a false AI-generated image, known as a deepfake, that showed the singer-songwriter's likeness dressed as Uncle Sam with the caption, "Taylor Wants You to Vote for Donald Trump." Trump shared the image on his Truth Social account in August, along with fake images of people appearing to wear shirts that read, "Swifties for Trump."
The images were shared days after the Federal Election Commission's Republican chair, Sean Cooksey, had announced the agency would not establish new rules to prohibit political candidates or groups from misrepresenting opponents or issues with deceptive images.
Cooksey had said the FEC wanted to wait and see "how AI is actually used on the ground before considering any new rules"—a decision Public Citizen denounced as "shameful."
On Wednesday, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert noted that the way AI and deepfakes can and will be used has already been made clear, partially by Swift's experience.
"Taylor Swift—who has been a victim of both AI-generated election misinformation and AI-generated non-consensual intimate deepfakes—is correct in identifying the immensely damaging harms that could result from the spread of AI misinformation, including abuses of our elections."
In addition to the images shared by Trump, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a Trump supporter, posted on social media a deepfake video that showed a manipulated image of Harris.
"The need for federal regulations to address this type of misinformation and prevent AI deepfakes from upending our elections and undermining our democracy," said Gilbert, "has never been more urgent."
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Fresh Warnings of Election Deepfakes After Trump's Taylor Swift Stunt
"The potential harms to our society that could result from such misinformation, including abuses of our elections, are wide-reaching and immensely damaging."
Aug 20, 2024
U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's posting of artificial intelligence-generated images suggesting pop star Taylor Swift had endorsed him earned him the ridicule of Swift's fans and journalists this week, but at least one pro-democracy watchdog warned that the incident served as a reminder that regulators must act with much more urgency to stop such behavior.
On Sunday, Trump used his Truth Social account to share the AI-generated images, known as "deepfakes," one of which showed Swift dressed up as Uncle Sam with the caption, "Taylor Wants You to Vote for Donald Trump." Others showed people wearing shirts that read, "Swifties for Trump."
Trump wrote, "I accept," in his post sharing the images, suggesting he was accepting a formal endorsement.
"The AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift are yet another example of AI's power to create misinformation that deceives and defrauds voters," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. "The potential harms to our society that could result from such misinformation, including abuses of our elections, are wide-reaching and immensely damaging."
The images represent the latest escalation in Trump's fixation with Swift, who has made headlines over the last year with her record-breaking Eras Tour and who publicly supported President Joe Biden in 2020.
Far-right commentators melted down earlier this year as misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories spread about Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, being part of a "deep state" plan to secure a Democratic victory in November.
Swift has made her liberal political views well-known in recent years but has yet to announce an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race. She condemned Trump's violent rhetoric during nationwide racial justice protests in 2020, and accused him of "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism."
"The AI-generated deepfakes of Taylor Swift are yet another example of AI's power to create misinformation that deceives and defrauds voters."
Her criticism appears to have irritated Trump for years, with the former president complaining earlier this year that a failure by Swift to endorse him would be "disloyal" because he signed legislation making it easier for musical artists to collect royalties from streaming platforms.
Political observers have speculated that this year, repeated criticism of so-called "childless cat ladies" by Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as well as the Republicans' support for forced pregnancy laws, will not help the GOP ticket win over Swift's large fan base.
Trump's use of deepfake images comes after Public Citizen has spearheaded calls for the Federal Elections Commission to regulate AI-generated images; earlier this month, the FEC's Republican chair, Sean Cooksey, announced the agency would not establish rules prohibiting political candidates or groups from misrepresenting opponents or issues with deceptive images.
Prior to Trump sharing the fake images of Swift and her fans on Sunday, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk had posted a deepfake video featuring a manipulated image of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman said earlier this month that political deepfakes "are rushing at us, threatening to disrupt electoral integrity."
"Requiring that political deepfakes be labeled doesn't favor any political party or candidate," he said. "It simply protects voters from fraud and chaos."
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A Super Bowl Note to Taylor Swift: Love the Music, Park the Private Jet
Congrats, Taylor, for your talent and decades of consistently great songwriting. You deserve all the accolades and rewards. But I have one request...
Feb 09, 2024
I spent a decade, like many parents, chauffeuring pre-teen and teenage girls around to a Taylor Swift soundtrack. I learned every Swift song as it was released and sang along to the chorus in the car. I even went to one of her first stadium concerts with my young Swifties. It was an extraordinary show.
Congrats, Taylor, for your talent and decades of consistently great songwriting. You deserve all the accolades and rewards. Here’s my one request: Give up your private jet.
Those young fans of yours that I used to shuttle around are now campaigning against climate change. They’re organizing to stop new oil, gas, and coal infrastructure from being built. They understand this is the critical decade to shift our trajectory away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy sources.
Like so many challenges in our country, private jet pollution is increasing alongside inequality.
And they need you, once again, to sing a new song.
I know you’re dealing with a lot of crazy conspiracy theories in right-wing media. In their zeal to denounce you, you even succeeded in getting Fox News to admit that private jet travel contributes to climate change, which is no small feat!
But it’s true. Private jets emit 10 to 20 times more pollutants per passenger than commercial jets. You know it’s wrong — that’s why you cover your face [with an umbrella] when you’re disembarking.
As thousands of private jets — including yours — head to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, we should focus our attention on the considerable harms of this most ecologically damaging form of transportation. Apparently, billionaires are having a hard time finding a parking spot for their jets for the big event. (But the NFL has reportedly reserved you a spot since your interest in football, or at least Travis Kelce, is the biggest audience boost they’ve had in decades.)
We all have that experience of wishing we could be two places at once. I’ve been on a work trip and wished I could zip home for my daughter’s soccer game. But if you really do fly from Tokyo to Las Vegas and then to Melbourne within a few days, you’ll burn an estimated 8,800 gallons of jet fuel and create about 90 tons of carbon emissions. That’s the equivalent of the entire carbon burn of six average U.S. households for an entire year.
Like so many challenges in our country, private jet pollution is increasing alongside inequality. As wealth has concentrated in fewer hands over the last several decades, the demand for private jets has soared. According to a report I co-authored for the Institute for Policy Studies, High Flyers 2023, the number of private jets has grown 133 percent over the last two decades. And just 1 percent of flyers now contribute half of all carbon emissions from aviation.
At a time when our country should be investing bigger in renewable infrastructure, this demand is driving a push to expand private jet infrastructure instead.
Outside Boston, a private developer wants to triple the private jet hangar capacity at Hanscom Field, the region’s largest private jet airport. Our research found that at least half the flights in and out of Hanscom Field are to luxury and recreation destinations, such as Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Aspen, and West Palm Beach.
More and more Americans are asking: Should we set off a carbon bomb of emissions so the ultra-rich can fly to their vacation destinations? And more and more are answering no. In Massachusetts, a grassroots coalition called Stop Private Jet Expansion at Hanscom and Everywhere is calling on the governor to reject the Hanscom project for environmental reasons.
The private jet lobby has answered these concerns with greenwashing spin about “sustainable aviation fuels.” They’d like us all to believe we’ll be jetting around on food waste in a decade. But scientific bodies, such as the UK Royal Society, have pointed out that achieving “jet zero” would require shifting millions of acres of agricultural land out of food production and into fuel. It’s just not realistic.
More and more Americans are asking: Should we set off a carbon bomb of emissions so the ultra-rich can fly to their vacation destinations?
Unfortunately, “carbon offsets” don’t meaningfully address the problem either. Research shows these incentives, where polluting industries or their customers pay a little extra to “offset” their emissions with conservation efforts, don’t reduce deforestation or other climate change drivers.
Banning or restricting private jet travel would be one of the easiest paths to reducing emissions if it weren’t a luxury consumed by the most wealthy and powerful people on the planet. But climate advocates are still working to find a way. Here in the U.S., we’re trying to make sure private jet users pay the real financial and ecological costs of their luxury travel. In Congress, Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Nydia Velazquez have proposed hiking the tax on private jet fuel.
Banning or restricting private jet travel would be one of the easiest paths to reducing emissions if it weren’t a luxury consumed by the most wealthy and powerful people on the planet.
But there’s good news, Taylor: If you ground your jet, you won’t be alone. Lots of people are rethinking jet travel. The Premier League UK soccer teams are considering a ban on short-hop flights. And after learning about the climate costs of private jet travel, millionaire Stephen Prince publicly decided to sell his jet.
What’s more, a generation of music stars toured without jets, taking the proverbial tour bus. And it sparked a lot of great songs about this amazing land. Taylor, if you want to be green, stay on the ground. Your fans will love you and the future generations will thank you.
I believe there’s a song there.
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'Wildest Dreams': MAGA Movement Melts Down Over Taylor Swift and Joe Biden
From Charlie Kirk to Vivek Ramaswamy, right-wingers are publicly panicking that the pop star may endorse the Democratic president.
Jan 30, 2024
Perhaps to distract from former U.S. President Donald Trump's 91 felony charges or the unpopularity of GOP policies, or simply fearful of Taylor Swift's deeply dedicated fanbase, right-wing public figures are ramping up attacks on the music industry giant amid speculation that she may endorse Democratic President Joe Biden for reelection.
Reporting Monday on the president's "anti-Trump battle plan," The New York Times detailed that "Biden aides are drafting wish lists of potential surrogates, including elected officials, social media influencers, and the endorsement of their wildest dreams: the global superstar."
A day earlier, Swift attended the game in which her pro-Bud Light and Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine boyfriend, Travis Kelce, helped the Kansas City Chiefs advance to Super Bowl LVIII—after which, as Rolling Stone noted Monday, "long-standing conspiracy theories around the NFL's 'scriptwriting' for football seasons clashed with right-wing conspiracy theorists claiming Swift's involvement with Kelce is part of a deep state plot to gin up support" for Biden, whom the pop star endorsed in 2020.
Because of Swift and Kelce, some Republicans prepping for the professional football season's finale next month are "now rooting for a team from the city they portray as a modern Sodom and Gomorrah: San Francisco," Politico pointed out Tuesday.
As Rolling Stone reported:
Far-right influencer Rogan O'Handley went so far as to suggest that if the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, Swift and Kelce would trigger an apocalyptic chain of events that would kill millions. "You MUST defeat the Chiefs," O'Handley wrote in an X post addressed to the San Francisco 49ers. "If you don't, Mr. Pfizer and his girlfriend are going to tour the country as 'world champions' helping elect Joe Biden WW3 will likely follow in a 2nd Biden term and millions will die. The fate of the free world rests upon your shoulders."
Former Republican Illinois congressional candidate Jack Lombardi II similarly said in a series of social media posts following the Chiefs and 49ers games that "I have never been more convinced that the Super Bowl is rigged" and "Taylor Swift is nothing more than a controlled influencer who has been put to work by those who seek to destroy America."
Responding on Monday to a social media post from far-right commentator Jack Posobiec, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy—who earlier this month dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump—also suggested that the Super Bowl will be rigged for the Chiefs and predicted a forthcoming Biden endorsement from the power couple.
Semafor's David Weigel shared on social media multiple examples of right-wingers melting down over the pop star and the president during Turning Point Action's Restoring National Confidence Summit in Las Vegas on Monday and Tuesday.
According to Weigel, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk warned of Swift's possible Biden endorsement, saying: "That will be a tsunami that will be very difficult to thwart... We better be prepared. It seems as though things are aligning for that."
A Tuesday video shows Posobiec highlighting Swift's history of boosting voter registrations. On National Voting Day last September, Swift took to Instagram, encouraging Americans to "raise your voices" and register through the nonprofit Vote.org, which said her post was followed by over 35,000 registrations.
Posobiec also directed conference attendees to Swift's 2020 support for Biden and her first overtly political comments in 2018, when she posted on Instagram that she would be voting for Democratic congressional candidates in Tennessee and condemned Marsha Blackburn, a Republican who was ultimately elected to the U.S. Senate.
A 2020 documentary about Swift, Miss Americana, features a discussion preceding that post. In the film, Swift makes her opposition to Trump clear and expresses regret that she didn't speak out against the ex-president during the 2016 cycle.
Trump's campaign on Tuesday dismissed the anticipated impact of Swift weighing in on November's election, with senior adviser Jason Miller telling Rolling Stone that "Joe Biden might be counting on Taylor Swift to save him, but voters are looking at these sky-high inflation rates and saying, 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.'" However, Swift's star power has reportedly frustrated the former president.
Along with pointing to "members of MAGAland's upper crust... plotting to declare—as one source close to Donald Trump calls it—a 'holy war' on the pop megastar," the outlet cites unnamed sources who said the GOP front-runner has "privately claimed that he is 'more popular' than Swift is and that he has more committed fans than she does" as well as "commented to some confidants that it 'obviously' made no sense that he was not named Time magazine's 2023 Person of the Year."
Meanwhile, "the Biden crew and its alumni network have watched it all with eye rolls and a touch of mockery," and worked with celebrities regularly involved in Democratic politics, like Sophia Bush and Kerry Washington, according to Politico's "West Wing Playbook."
The newsletter added that "as much as the Swift-Kelce drama says about our politics, it may say more about our culture—in particular, the reaction to a powerful woman finding her way into the spotlight reserved for the ultimate male sport."
As Media Matters for America laid out in a roundup late last year, "right-wing media spent 2023 lobbing sexist attacks" at Swift, painting her as "a fake Christian, a Democratic agent, and possibly a witch" who is "ruining football by dating an NFL player."
Continuing the trend in the new year, Fox News' Jesse Watters claimed earlier this month that "around four years ago, the Pentagon's psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset."
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh responded with a reference to one of her songs, saying that "as for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off."
Despite that statement and even some conservatives pleading for their ideological allies to "STOP BEING NUTS," right-wing commentator Benny Johnson shared a nearly 42-minute video on social media Monday, writing: "It's All FAKE. Taylor Swift EXPOSED as a FED OP To RIG 2024 Election for Biden | Pentagon ADMITS It."
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